Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace

The Good
I am a fan of the Steins;Gate series despite its numerous flaws. The main reason are the characters: while they are exaggerated stereotypes, they still act like believable teenagers. After spending many hours with them in the previous games, I am always up for more.

Like Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram, this game tells stories which are set in alternative timelines to the original storyline. The difference: all of them are about a romance between Rintaro (the protagonist) and one of his friends. Since this is a Japanese visual novel, this is a recipe for disaster, but thankfully the game chooses the comedy option for most paths and the creep factor is pretty low. Yes, all the romances are very awkward, but Rintaro is a 19-year old who still acts like a mad scientist and has never kissed a girl - something else than awkward wouldn't work.

The Bad
My Darling's Embrace inherits the biggest flaw of the original Steins;Gate: it is way too long. There are not as many completely useless scenes, but the included ones should have been edited down considerably. Unfortunately the translators also used the same unfavorable approach to editing - otherwise there wouldn't be as many translation errors, typos and bad grammar.

I disliked two of six routes: Kurisu already had a much better romance in the original game and the Luka route starts off with a questionable approach to gay romance and is boring. What I hated the most about the original game was Rintaro's mad scientist shtick. It is supposed to be funny and it has a good justification, but it still almost ruined the game for me. My Darling's Embrace features this aspect prominently in the beginning and it is downsized in most routes, but still way too much for my taste.

Even for visual novel standards, Steins;Gate has very little interactivity. There is one intersection where you choose which route to follow, but otherwise the only options are replying to mails which were sent to Rintaro's cell phone. This has no impact on the game whatsoever (except for unlocking the final route which is practically impossible without following a guide) which means 99% of the time spent with this game is spent reading.

The Bottom Line
I have mixed feelings about this game. While it is fun for all fans of Steins;Gate, there is absolutely no reason for playing it otherwise. Without experiencing the plot of the original game, you will only find mundane stories with characters you don't know and don't care about.