Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram Review (PS4)

Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram is a spin-off to the original Steins;Gate visual novel and tells 11 side stories of different characters featured in the story.

Linear Bounded Phenogram was conceived out of an idea by Chiyomaru Shikura, creator of the Science Adventure series which includes Steins;Gate, since the game’s original plot and the idea, is already completed, new writers were given a chance to bring new ideas to the series. These writers included Science Adventures series veterans like Naotaka Hayashi as well as Kotaro Uchikoshi who is, of course, the director of Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma among others.

Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram plays like your average novel, you read the text and advance through the story. The gameplay parts come in where the game prompts you to make choices using the “phone trigger” system, which in turn allows players to influence the plot similar to choosing routes. Players will be able to play through 11 different side stories, two featuring Steins; Gate protagonist Rintaro Okabe, and nine others following different characters which help expand the universe and tell the story from different perspectives.

I played through Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram and Steins;Gate: Elite during the same time and feel that although a solid effort it clearly shows not much work was put into this game that was put into Elite. However, Linear Bounded Phenogram is a solid story that series fans will really enjoy.