Steins;Gate 0 Review

STEINS;GATE 0 REVIEW

Overall, my verdict is that it's not quite up to the original Steins;Gate level in pretty much every way. Visuals are a little worse, same with the OST.

The story was solid, but a little disjointed at times, it's not linear like the original Steins;Gate, there's a lot more branching paths. Also, there were some plot points that I guess were supposed to be red herrings, but in the end felt more like they were just dropped  / unresolved (like the future Kagari "voice of God" thing and the Reading Steiner research plot point). Though, the worst complaint I have about the story is that the final ending after the penultimate one of sending the D-RINE felt really unfinished. Apparently, there's an audio drama thing that expands on it, but I shouldn't have to go outside of the VN itself to feel satisfied.

Ultimately, the reason to read it is for a return to the characters from Steins;Gate, and it does fully deliver on that front. It's interesting to see an Okabe who's pained by sacrificing Kurisu and wanting nothing to do with the time travel plots / worldline changes that just keep happening to him. The side characters all get a fair amount of spotlight as well, especially Daru, Mayuri, and WW3 Suzuha. They're all pretty well written and handled well, no one's acting way out of character or anything.

I also wanted to say that it's a LOT EASIER to get all the endings without a guide this time around, so you can just kinda experiment and the route changing points will be pretty obvious.

If you do use a flowchart, the ending order I would recommend is:
Gehenna's Stigma -> Twin Automata -> Recursive Mother Goose -> Promised Rinascimento -> Vega And Altair -> Milky Way Crossing

I'd give Steins;Gate 0 four worldlines out of five.

I have a lot of hope that the anime will fix the true end weirdness and might even make it better than the source material. We'll see, though!