Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace Review

The following review contains spoilers for the original Steins;Gate visual novel.

Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace, commonly known as “Darling of Loving Vows” before its official release, is a fan-disc for the original Steins;Gate visual novel, and was initially released for Japanese markets in 2011. It was intended as a more light-hearted entry into the Steins;Gate series, akin to what Chaos;Head Love Chu☆Chu! achieved for its respective mainline entry Chaos;Head. Like the original Steins;Gate, the story is told solely through the eyes of Okabe Rintaro. As with Linear Bounded Phenogram, all of the stories vary in tone—however, they are all more or less based in the genre of romantic comedy.

My Darling’s Embrace received its first English localization on December 10, 2019, and was released on Steam for Windows PCs, the Nintendo eShop for the Nintendo Switch, and the PlayStation Store for the PlayStation 4. The game’s publisher, Spike Chunsoft, was gracious enough to provide us with a copy of the game on Steam to review. Please note, however, that this has not influenced our opinions on the game in any capacity.

STORY

The game starts the player off in the Future Gadget Laboratory. The first thing Okabe hears is Mayuri’s voice, the lines mirroring Mayuri’s first lines of the original game. This story seemingly takes place immediately after Luka’s D-Mail has been sent. Something’s different this time, though. It seems the D-Mail didn’t have the intended effect, and has apparently thrown them into a different Attractor Field altogether. Structurally, the game is quite similar to Chaos;Head Love Chu☆Chu!. It’s laid out into seven different routes—one common route, and six character routes.

Generally speaking, the game’s translation reads quite well and retains the humor that the original Japanese lines conveyed. At times, I have to admit I found myself laughing like a madman at the way the translation team handled some lines in the game. They even went as far as to edit the opening videos to translate the Japanese text in them in the form of subtitles at the bottom of the screen. Props to them.

Unfortunately, not every aspect of the translation seems to have been done well. It seems as though the chapter titles were effectively untranslated, going under the same names as the pseudo-English on the title cards. A prime example of this is “Fugue of Ruin End,” one of the chapters in Suzuha’s routes—contrary to how it might seem, this isn’t actually the final chapter of the route.

The game’s script also has typos here and there, and occasionally, some Japanese-specific text such as “ktkr” or “otsu” are left unlocalized. To make up for this, however, the meaning of these terms are explained in the Tips List. If I were to compare this translation to the other games’, I’d say the that it’s better than Linear Bounded Phenogram’s, but below the original Steins;Gate’s.

Given the nature of how the game diverges from the original, it’s quite hard to consider this game canon. That being said, it does introduce the fact that Okabe’s family are greengrocers, which was later used in canon titles, so certain details do make it over. Like Phenogram, these details help build the world of Steins;Gate in small ways. The routes are generally good, although some are clearly better written than others. My personal highlights were the Faris and Mayuri routes, and to my surprise, Luka’s route as well. I never quite liked Luka’s characterization in the original visual novel, but My Darling’s Embrace has greatly improved my outlook on his character.

The routes generally follow a formula of one gag or plot point becoming the focus the entire route. A good example of this is the recurring gag that Moeka is bad at cleaning, or Luka’s training with Okabe. There was one route that had me annoyed at how full of themselves the character was, as it felt completely out of character for said character, but the other routes completely sucked me in and immersed me like any good fiction should do. My Darling’s Embrace is by no means a standalone entry, though. Having read Steins;Gate or Steins;Gate Elite is a must, and due to some heavy referencing in one of the routes, previous experience with the Chaos;Head visual novel is also ideal.

PRESENTATION

The presentation of the game is nearly identical to the original Steins;Gate. Since My Darling’s Embrace is a fan-disc, it reuses many assets from the original visual novel. Just like with previous entries in the series, Takeshi Abo returned to compose the soundtrack for My Darling’s Embrace. The number of new tracks introduced in My Darling’s Embrace is smaller than Linear Bounded Phenogram’s, but they share the same quality regardless. “Popping Steiner,” the game’s main menu theme, sets the tone of the visual novel perfectly. The reader instantly knows that the game isn’t going to be a dark thriller entry into the franchise, but instead a light-hearted slice of life entry. The main menu’s visuals encapsulate this as well. The cutesy logo, designed using the original Japanese logo as inspiration, is a great indication of the cheery nature of the game as a whole. The logo’s design itself was done very creatively, as is shown by the heart used in place of an apostrophe in “Darling’s,” or the inclusion of the Mars and Venus symbols.

The opening themes, “Forbidden Unrivaled Darling” and “La*La*La Labolution,” both of which have translated visuals in the form of subtitles at the bottom of the screen, were performed by Afilia Saga East. They later changed their name to “Afilia Saga,” and would go on to perform Chaos;Child Love Chu☆Chu!!’s opening song. My Darling’s Embrace also features the return of Phantasm, with “EUPHORIA -Requiem of Atonement-” used for half of the game’s ending songs. Kanako Ito’s “Eternal Vector” was used for the remaining half.

At a glance, the port itself is a decent one. Occasionally, a character will continue to move their lips even after their voice clip has ended. As with Linear Bounded Phenogram and Steins;Gate on Steam and consoles, the word-wrapping issue for the phone’s mail system is still present. This can occasionally make Okabe’s e-mails difficult to read, and I hope this issue will eventually be fixed. Another issue with the game is that the intro movie, which plays as soon as the player starts the game, has no sound in the English release. It does have sound in the Japanese version, and even the Japanese Steam version.

With that being said, this game marks the first time that the “Mail List,” which was later seen in Linear Bounded Phenogram, was implemented. As with Phenogram, this is a neat addition for completionists. CG-wise, the game is hit and miss. Most of them are translated, but they’ve got varying degrees of editing on them. Some go as far as to redraw the background, while others just put the English text on top of the Japanese text—this seems to only be an issue with the actual images themselves, and not the thumbnails in the CG library. They read coherently though, and odds are they aren’t machine translated unlike some of Chaos;Child’s CGs.

GAMEPLAY

There isn’t much to say here. The gameplay is identical to that of the original Steins;Gate. It uses the same user interface as the original, although some of the menus might have a different colour tint. Fans coming from the original Steins;Gate visual novel will feel right at home going into this title.

In terms of reaching the different routes in the game, the game follows a similar model to Chaos;Head Love Chu☆Chu!. You choose your route at the end of the common route by choosing to send or not send a D-Mail. Whose route you’ll end up on after sending a D-Mail isn’t immediately obvious though, so we would recommend using this guide, made possible by community member Enorovan and published on Steam by us.

FINAL THOUGHTS

My Darling’s Embrace is a solid entry into the world of Steins;Gate, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the original story. As with all entries into the Science Adventure series, reading the stories that came before it will greatly improve one’s experience with the visual novel. This is by no means an essential entry into the series, but it’s an enjoyable one nonetheless. While some routes were better than others, all of them at least meet a decent baseline, although one in particular served mostly as comedic relief.

After Linear Bounded Phenogram’s localization, and the announcement of the Divergencies Assort bundle, it seemed to be more of a question of “when” we would get My Darling’s Embrace, rather than “if” we would get it. Had you asked me three years ago if we would get it, however, I wouldn’t have imagined it ever happening. This release, however, also marks the final entry in the Steins;Gate subseries to be localized. This makes me excited to see where we’re going next. Hopefully, this sky that we share will stay as blue as it currently is.

Final Score:

7/10

My Darling’s Embrace is a good addition to Steins;Gate’s story. Like Phenogram, it does a good job of expanding and developing side characters. The gameplay retains the same feeling we know and love from the original, and the presentation is great for the most part. The story, given you go in with the right genre expectations, is quite the doozy to read through, even if some routes shine brighter than others. Despite a few issues with the port, and the odd typo here and there, the release is definitely worth the read, especially for fans of the original game.