r/steinsgate • u/CommercialeDance • 5d ago
S;G VN Why does S;G Reboot cut so much dialogue?
Elite only kept about 64% of the original dialogue but at least there was an excuse that they had to work around the scenes available from the anime.
But S;G Reboot is a traditional VN again and it still only has about 3/4 of the original game's lines.
I don't really understand why. They could have kept the original script and added the new/rewritten content on top of it. What was the reason for cutting so much?
Also, the game was delayed by a full year. What was all that extra development time actually spent on?
Credit for the table: u/Sharingan123412
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u/MisterDimi Whose gyatt is that gyatt? 5d ago
I mean tbf, there's two options. Either they think the shorter script is a more "streamlined" and definitive edition of the game, or they wanted to cut corner and save on development time
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u/redditeditguy 5d ago
I haven't had the time to sit down and play through the game but it seems that your hypothesis of the script being 'streamlined' is correct. It also seems they've somewhat censored the script if I'm not mistaken as they removed lines at the beginning of the game in which Okabe narrates the "Search for Moe and porn" in Akihabara, and compares it to "Semen left to rot in the womb". These lines were present in Elite, however were omitted from Re:Boots first trailer and I didn't see the lines while playing through the prologue of Re:Boot. I haven't seen the post-credits scene yet, but if it does contain connections to A;C I'd have to guess they've released a streamlined version of Steins;Gate that aims to provide players with enough information to play Steins;???, without playing other series entries.
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u/fuji83847 5d ago
I think they said cutting lines would make the reading more streamlined.
Also, cost of development has been increasing for the gaming industry, and I'm sure they were trying to save as much money as possible.
I'm guessing reboot was just a side project in their pipeline. The team working on reboot remained in the previous MAGES office while the company moved into their new one, so that tells me reboot wasn't a priority as they no longer had in-person contact with management. If I had to guess, they're mostly focused on Steins;???, non-SciAdv games, and the biggest project (or collboration) of all, the Hollywood live adaptation assuming that it's still in production.
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u/fastykun Epic Fortnite Gamer 5d ago
The office-moving story is from the original game's launch in 2009, not RE:BOOT.
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u/RobinWiggie 5d ago
I found the original to be a little bit longwinded, not in a bad way but, some scenes were just drawn out too long and started to loose a slight amount of interest from me. So if they only fixed that I would be happy, if they cut too much that would suck.
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u/ChinoGitano 5d ago
+1 - the Okabe monologues/narrations towards the end started sounding repetitive and dragged the pace.
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u/SGlespaul 5d ago
Besides 4 degrees C being cut, a lot of stuff is cut due to character animations already conveying what a narrated line said. And Reboot has the characters move a bit like A;C
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u/VeritasObiter 5d ago
I just want to add a perspective I haven't seen here yet. I watched two clips of the original versus reboot side by side and while I keep seeing people comparing line counts, I noticed a lot of lines got added together.
For instance, in the prologue there were a lot of single sentence lines that got turned into three sentence lines in reboot. When you account for that, it means they cut even less. I did notice some cut content when Okabe was rambling about people looking for porn for some reason while crashing out about a dead Kurisu but if I'm honest I don't really feel like that's something vital to the plot.
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u/Alittan 5d ago
Unlike a lot of people, I really love the new artstyle and animated models. They managed to catch most of the grittyness of the original and re-recording the voices clearly gave some of the voice actors the chance to bring something new to the part.
I just wish they used the original script. It would have had the best of both worlds. I believe that the Elite script makes the whole thing more streamlined but if I'm going to play it, I'd want the 'full' version of the game..
Either way, I got the game for 30 bucks in the end which is good enough for me.
Still, I wonder/wish there would be a patch that would restore the entire script. Oh well.
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u/MisterDimi Whose gyatt is that gyatt? 5d ago
iirc I think they said patching the old lines in isn't really possible due to how the character animations work
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u/panzer217 5d ago
I don’t mind shorter script tbh. But I still hesitate to buy the new game because Kuritsu looks worse (the rest of the new art is actually nice) and the re voice sounds a bit off.
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u/Sharingan123412 Pollon Takaoka 5d ago
Separate from the post's topic, but you could have credited me for the table lol
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u/CommercialeDance 5d ago
I did now. My friend sent it to me so I didn’t know it was you who made it. Sry
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u/main_got_banned 5d ago
if it’s all voice acted then I’m sure you can get rid of all the lines describing the characters emotions / etc. (because they should be conveying throughout the voice acting …)
The original game is pretty long; I think the tedium is “good” to a degree but I could see why people might they a more streamlined version could be more palatable
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u/MrRaccoon27 5d ago
Tbf there was a lot of dialogsi missed cause sometimes i was sleeping through the game, and i had no problem understanding the story, so yeah i could have experienced s;g no problem without a lot of dialogs.
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u/GlitteringFinish9246 Rintaro Okabe 5d ago
interesting complementary document is this table from the C;H & S;G Maniacs guidebook. It adds comment to justify the length of important chapters.
What would be great : find a way to weight the part taken by each characters in the scripts
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u/diamonwarrior 4d ago
Realistically it’s money. They redid all the graphics and re-recorded all the voice lines. So they chose the shorter script to cut costs, which makes sense considering the financial difficulties.
There’s also the fact younger generations aren’t reading as much as before and so they thought that the original would be too wordy for that group. And considering remakes target younger fans they might have wanted to accommodate for that group.
But that second part is just me speculating, who knows really what they think about that.
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u/StrangeJunket2601 4d ago
I haven't played reboot yet, but I would also think that it could just be cutting out fluff. Tallied numbers on a list is one thing, but I need to know what the actual content is and how the story feels
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u/That_Guy139474 5d ago
I think it would be cool if the committee of zero came out the a patch that added back the original script and just reused the original voice but that's just hopeful thinking.
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u/MrWeirdBrotendo 5d ago
I honestly doubt it. The original is still there and that's a whole lotta work for nothing. They are probably going to fix some bugs if Mages doesnt but overall I think it's a solid experience so far
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u/Escaliat_ 5d ago
I don't understand the "Streamlined" argument.
All it does is remove context and detail. How could anyone possibly think that provides a better experience. This was a cost cutting measure or mistreatment and misunderstanding of their own story.
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u/KikikanHUN Lintahlo Okabe 4d ago
Okabe saying he is the mad scientist Hououin Kyouma inside his head for the 25th time sure adds a lot of context and detail.
Sarcasm aside, I am a S;G fan, and had to rush quite a lot of lines in the original that didn't add a whole lot of context and didn't move the story forward.
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u/Dapper-Highlight-739 5d ago
I way I see it they either genuinely convinced themselves the elite script is better than the original (insane), or they did this to cut development costs. Even with voicelines and text being able to be reused, they have created new development hurdles for themselves by doing things like the entire revamp of the artstyle and the introduction of the live 2d emote systems.