I *loved* the Steins;Gate series, and liked the movie almost as well, so I was really excited to hear of a sequel. And even though the show didn't grab me right away, I kept watching, waiting for the magic to reappear. And then over halfway through the season, I gave up on the magic.
Before watching this I had to find a recap of the first season, since it's been years, and found someone who had written such a recap specifically for people coming to Steins;Gate 0, which was extremely helpful. Armed with that knowledge I was *reasonably* caught up.
The first notable difference between this and previous incarnations is the manic, eccentric Rintaro Okabe is now the sadder but wiser Rintaro. This makes sense - he went through some tough stuff in the series - but he's far less interesting. It took a while for the story in the original series to fully kick in, and it was the nutty humor that kept me watching at first, and there's little of that this time around.
There's also little of time travel. Most of the story is about Rintaro's experience testing an A.I. based on a friend of his, leading to the confusion of, is this her or just a set of algorithms. It's a good premise - I love it in Westworld - but not much is done with it (at least as far as I got.
Watching the series I just felt restless. There were usually good cliffhangers that made me curious what would happen in the next episode, but once the episode started and the cliffhanger was resolved I would get bored.
Maybe the story pays off by the end, but it just felt like a waste of time.
Before watching this I had to find a recap of the first season, since it's been years, and found someone who had written such a recap specifically for people coming to Steins;Gate 0, which was extremely helpful. Armed with that knowledge I was *reasonably* caught up.
The first notable difference between this and previous incarnations is the manic, eccentric Rintaro Okabe is now the sadder but wiser Rintaro. This makes sense - he went through some tough stuff in the series - but he's far less interesting. It took a while for the story in the original series to fully kick in, and it was the nutty humor that kept me watching at first, and there's little of that this time around.
There's also little of time travel. Most of the story is about Rintaro's experience testing an A.I. based on a friend of his, leading to the confusion of, is this her or just a set of algorithms. It's a good premise - I love it in Westworld - but not much is done with it (at least as far as I got.
Watching the series I just felt restless. There were usually good cliffhangers that made me curious what would happen in the next episode, but once the episode started and the cliffhanger was resolved I would get bored.
Maybe the story pays off by the end, but it just felt like a waste of time.