Review: Steins;Gate Re:Boot (Switch 2) - The Timeless Visual Novel Gets A Fresh Lick Of Paint
El Psy Kongroo
by Ethan Zack · Nintendo LifeWant to know why life in a world without time travel is such a bummer? No matter when you decide to take the plunge or how many other games you play, you can only ever experience Steins;Gate for the first time once.
Even more than 15 years on from its debut, it is no exaggeration to call 5pb and Nitroplus’ quirky little character drama on the intricacies of time travel a touchstone of visual novels as a medium, and the bar by which many of its ilk continue to be measured. It is conceptually fascinating, hilarious, tragic, existentially horrifying, heartwarming, thrilling, and everything in between. It is a story where an anime catgirl at a maid café ponders whether it’s God or us who observe the flow of time, and it has my endless gratitude for that.
Suffice to say, Steins;Gate has never really needed a remake. Yet, by some odd stroke of fate, it now has two. Following up on 2018’s Steins;Gate Elite, which drew heavily from the visual novel’s anime adaptation, developer Mages’ fresh title Steins;Gate Re:Boot returns to the classic structure and presentation of the 2009 release while completely rebuilding it from the ground up.
With overhauled graphics, re-recorded vocals, a revised script, refreshed UI, and a few other select bells and whistles, the result is arguably the slickest presentation of Steins;Gate to date. It’s an excellent way to play this legendary visual novel, yet one that stops short of becoming the definitive experience that may have further justified its existence vis-à-vis the original.
Just like previous iterations of the game, Re:Boot places you in the shoes of Rintaro Okabe, an Akihabara college student and self-proclaimed mad scientist. Together with his band of colourful peers, Okabe accidentally discovers that one of their junk inventions — a machine that can send emails to the past — may just be the key to making time travel a reality.
The group subsequently embarks on a race to create humanity’s first functional time machine, only to learn that the forces they’re messing with have greater consequences than they could have ever thought possible.
Re:Boot’s narrative plays out in mostly identical fashion to its prior iterations, retaining all of its twists, turns, and memorable narrative beats. New to this release is the Observer feature, which charts the story’s scene-by-scene progression on a referenceable visual timeline. Observer comes in handy for keeping track of what happened and when, especially as the chronology of events gets more…flexible, shall we say, as the story progresses.
That said, the lack of any zoom-in/out functionality is a disappointing oversight that makes it cumbersome to navigate, and not being able to jump back to various story junctions via this timeline feels like a missed opportunity.
While the new remake adapts the classic Steins;Gate story faithfully, it inherits an updated version of Elite’s modified script. This means that a significant amount of the game’s narrative text has been pared down and a number of sequences, such as the RaiNet tournament arc, have been streamlined and shortened.
As someone who fell in love with Steins;Gate through the original, I’m conflicted on Re:Boot’s revised script. At its core, it’s still the same deliciously mind-bending sci-fi tale it always has been — just paced more tightly and thoughtfully thanks to some cuts. It still feels like a complete story that takes the time it needs, to the extent that newcomers probably won’t notice anything is 'missing.'
On the other hand, I quite liked some of the classic scenes that Re:Boot opts to strip down. The story is very intentionally a slow burn, and for a game that is perfectly content to spend hours of runtime breaking down the mechanics of black holes and particle accelerators, I have to wonder why the line was drawn here. As it stands, it’s a great retelling in its own right, but one that can’t really be called definitive.
It’s not all cutbacks, though. There are several new unique scenes sprinkled throughout certain branching story paths as well as an entirely new late-game route and ending that loosely adapts a classic Steins;Gate audio drama spin-off.
It’s near-impossible to talk about this new scenario without getting into major spoilers, but it’s an intense ride that left me feeling surprisingly unsettled by the time credits rolled. At the same time, it feels a tad underbaked, opening up several intriguing plot threads that are ultimately glossed over.
Unfortunately, the remake fails to change one of the most glaring flaws with the original game’s progression: the method to unlock the true ending remains as opaque as ever. Just like before, you must select a very specific yet completely arbitrary sequence of email replies throughout the story to reach the actual conclusion. Good luck figuring out how to do this without a guide on hand.
Graphically, the game is also a bit of a fence-sitter. Everything from the CG images and backgrounds (there are quite a few more of them now) to the revamped character models are very nice to look at in a vacuum, but it’s hard to outright classify them as an improvement. There is a satisfyingly clean look to the new visuals, though they can feel a bit cold and sterile compared to the original, which sported more of a stylised grittiness thanks to that game’s distinctive speckled texture art style.
One major point in favour of Re:Boot’s updated graphics is the implementation of Live2D-esque animation rigging for each of the new character models. Carrying over the E-mote tech used in Anonymous;Code, characters now move, react, and seamlessly emote (hah) during gameplay.
It’s not perfect, and certain motions can occasionally look stiff or unnatural, but the results are largely stellar and keep the on-screen visuals dynamic. Combined with the excellent performances of the re-recorded Japanese dub, the cast feels more expressive than ever.
For all of the comparisons I’ve made between this fresh remake and the classic Steins;Gate, perhaps this discussion is a moot point. At the time of this review, Elite and Re:Boot are the only two ways to experience Steins;Gate in Nintendo’s ecosystem, and the latter is a much more faithful modernisation of the original release.
Perhaps, then, some of its value lies in accessibility. Re:Boot may not be a one-to-one match of the original title, but it nevertheless does an admirable job in reviving it and making it easier than ever to dive into on current-gen hardware.
If you’ve already experienced Steins;Gate and all of its ins-and-outs, you may find yourself underwhelmed, especially at full asking price. But if you’re new to the game or just looking for a convenient way to re-experience a bona fide classic in a fresh, new light with some modern flourishes, I can’t recommend this release enough.
Don’t play it just because it’s Steins;Gate Re:Boot. Play it because it’s Steins;Gate.
Conclusion
Did Steins;Gate Re:Boot need to exist? Probably not — and, yet, I’m glad it does. As a remake, it doesn’t take many big swings and its adjusted pacing and visuals are largely a matter of taste. However, it crucially preserves all the core elements of what made the original Steins;Gate so special and presents them in its own richly enjoyable, refined style with a few exclusive perks in tow.
Like two distinct worldlines in the same attractor field, Re:Boot and the original Steins;Gate co-exist. Neither is necessarily the definitive experience, and both hold merit for different reasons. Still, they ultimately converge on the same result: an enthralling, beautiful visual novel that continues to stand tall as one of the greatest time-travel stories of the modern day.
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