The Normanic Vault: Unboxing [UK]: Steins;Gate 0 - Limited Edition (PS4 + Visual Novel)

A sequel that came out of nowhere, and also out of nowhere gets localised for English release!

EL PSY CONGROO

Note: There will be spoilers for both the Steins;Gate visual novel game and anime adaptation, so be warned.

Steins;Gate 0 is the sequel to the critically acclaimed visual novel game Steins;Gate that was released back in 2009. 0 was released in 2015 and is an interesting one because this actually takes place in one of the timelines that the True Ending route encounters. In the end of Steins;Gate, Okabe realised he could go back in time to the moment where he encounters Kurisu's murder and prevent it, but in this case he failed and as a result goes down into depression. 0 takes places after that event and concludes with the simple twist Okabe receives in the original story (the Steins;Gate timeline). In other words, this is a mid-quel story that fills the gap on how he was able to do that.

I was pretty skeptical about the idea of a sequel because the original was honestly good enough to stand on its own, and yes the anime does have its own continuation but I've heard mixed reactions with the Deja Vu movie. I was surprised to hear that Steins;Gate 0 has been well-received overall so I'm curious to see how the story follows through despite all of us knowing the outcome.

This release was handled by UK publisher PQube who also distributed Steins;Gate for PlayStation 3 and Vita. Steins;Gate 0 was released in Japan for both PlayStation 4 and Vita which PQube have brought over for the west. There is a PC version but the English localisation at the time of this post only applies to the consoles. The edition that I have is the GAME exclusive limited edition which basically comes with an artbook. I also did the same thing with the original PS3 game, which I have also unboxed here on my blog.

I'm glad that PQube have been localising some of the riskier titles (visual novels, while popular in the community, are still niche when it comes to sales) and there's rumours of the publisher also have a couple more visual novels planned for 2017 so I suspect we may also see Chaos;Child (or Head) and Occultic;Nine at some point.

In terms of trophies, you'll be pleased to hear that it's easier to acquire the Platinum Trophy compared to the first game. You simply need to reach all of the endings with some choices to be made compared to the first game (which were also simple but the True route had some tedious instructions while there were certain messages that you had to respond in a specific order to get a certain CG image).

Visual Novel Specs:

Format: PlayStation 4 (also available on PlayStation Vita and PC [Japan only, for now])

Language: English text, Japanese voices

Exclusive: No

DRM: Region Free on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita

Eroge Content: No

PlayStation 4 Specs:

Version: UK/Europe

Local Players: 1

Online Players: None

Video Output: 720p, 1080i, 1080p

HDD Space: 6.82GB Minimum

Vita Remote Play: Yes

Trophies: Yes

Like Steins;Gate, this packaging also suffers from being too tough to get the contents out of the cardboard box.

The limited edition version for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita are also available on Amazon UK after initially made exclusive to GAME retailers. The standard edition version for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita are available on Amazon UK.