Steins Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram, (which is not a sequel, more like a fandisc), released on the X360 and PS3 on April 25th. So far there’s been 60 reviews on Amazon.co.jp posted. The breakdown as follows:
 |
x 18 |
 |
x 14 |
 |
x 20 |
 |
x 4 |
 |
x 4 |
^ Except that is inaccurate because I rounded up both regular and limited editions because the limited editions comes with plastic mobile merchandise. The regular edition had 10x five stars, 8x four stars, 17x three stars, 2x two, 1x one. So lots of three stars.
I’ll select just a few reviews and roughly summarize them:
By 名無し "名無し"
31/37 people found this review helpful.
There’s ten short stories, each last 2 hours, some of them good, some of them bad. So overall a 20 hours to beat the full game. If Hiyoku Renri no Darling was the lovey-dovey fan-service fandisc, then Phenogram is the serious mode fandisc. It felt as if this game was a forced attachment to the original. Character stories that you would assume would focus on reinforcing the main story, instead became completely unrelated stories.Not really any branching stories within the stories. It reads like a sound novel (i.e. no choices). I believe that fans of the original could enjoy this, but the asking price is full price which is too much. It’s sort of in between 5pb wanting to cash in more on S;G, but it’s not completely an excuse of a work, it’s somewhere in the middle. In the end the fun-factor I give 3 stars, but overall I give 2 stars because it was too expensive for this.
By 干耶 "干耶"
32/48 people found this review useful.
Including the secret story, I have played all 11. Compared to the original game, this is vastly shorter in volume. This game is supposed to be as reinforcement for things in the main game that were left out or not completely clear, so this didn’t have the same excitement or emotions I felt while playing the main game. Not to mention some of the stories didn’t even do this (especially Okarin’s, but seeing Okarin through the eyes of the other characters might have been worth it).Of course, I still enjoyed the ‘what-if’ scenarios a great deal, like how Feiris’ papa makes lots of appearances, and Daru’s wife appears. But in the end, I still feel splitting it up into 11 stories meant it lacked substance. The stories themselves are good, they’re really fun to play through, but as soon as you’re done, you’re left with this feeling of, What? Already over?
In conclusion I recommend for fans only, If you keep in mind that it is only a supplement to the main story you can enjoy it.
By 低温
17/21 people found this review helpful.
I’ll only write about the bad points.
1) regarding story
Some stories are ‘What-if’ stories while others are complementary to the main story. The complementary stories themselves lacked the surprise element, leaving you with a “why now”? {skipped spoilers} The Okarin in the last story was too stupid to be him. Almost like fan fiction level. The last story is the most important so please use a competent writer! I feel that if they only let one writer take on two or three stories so that the stories are linked, that way it would have been much better.
2) the CG art
The CGs were drawn by a different person from the original and are a bit odd. They leave you with a, who the crap is that?
3) the system
Almost no phone triggers and some stories there was hardly any email messages so I couldn’t say this part was well-used. Volume difference between different speakers can’t be adjusted (which was annoying enough to have to mention).
4) price
7,140 yen is way too high for this. The three drama CDs are much better quality and value than this game. That is why overall the failures were too great so I gave it a 3 star.
