Review of Steins;Gate 0

A decent ride that ultimately falls well short of its esteemed predecessor. Story: 5 As you may already know, Steins;Gate Zero takes place in a world where Okabe ultimately fails to rescue Kurisu. By no means a horrible foundation for a sequel. The problem is the way in which the story unfolds, or oftentimes, does not. For a relatively short series, there are times where the story goes nowhere and meanders down pointless routes. The bulk of the main story does not get going until the last ~5 episodes and leaves you wondering about the point of the first ~18 episodes were, as large chunks had littleto no impact on the way the final ~5 episodes played out. The story just seemed to be all over the place and the pacing was very inconsistent.

Art: 7
The character models are all fine to above average and fairly expressive. It's basically what you'd expect if you have seen the original. Outside of that, I was rarely wowed by the animation. In fact, some fairly pivotal scenes were pretty underwhelming for such a big-budget production. Overall, I'd rate the art pretty good, but nothing special.

Sound: 10
Definitely the strength of the show. I absolutely love the OPs and EDs and the voice acting is still fantastic, even if it took a little getting used to the new, less colorful Okabe. Certain piano OST tracks, specifically the one you'll hear at the very end of the series, I found hauntingly beautiful. They nailed it in the sound department.

Character: 8
The characters are mostly all back from the original, with the obvious exception of Kurisu, and I honestly don't have a ton to say about most of them. Although it was nice to seeing Mayuri step up and play a bigger role in the story. The largest addition is probably Maho, the loli scientist and senpai of one Makise Kurisu. I found her an interesting character, in that while she was Kurisu's senpai, she always felt overshadowed by Kurisu's brilliance. The show often drew the parallel to Mozart and Salieri, with Kurisu playing the role of the prodigal Mozart and Maho as Salieri, the one constantly running, but ultimately failing, to get out of Mozart's shadow. In a way, she had to step in and take Mozart's, I mean Makise's, place as the person in the group as the "actual" scientist. She was a good addition, despite the fact there were stretches she disappeared from the show. Kagari, another newcomer, was frustratingly underdeveloped and too often came off as a human plot-device.

Now onto the main character. While I did say most of the main cast besides Kurisu came back, I think you could also say the titular "Hououin Kyouma" is long gone as well. He is replaced with a more somber, serious Okabe Rintarou. The events of this particular timeline have clearly left him a broken man. His delusions of grandeur have made way for a more pragmatic and stilted outlook on the world around him. So we know the main character has changed, but is it change for the better or for the worse? I don't know if there's a right answer to that. One might be more drawn to the entertainment the old Okabe provided, and another might be able to empathize better with the more grounded, realistic version. Personally, I fall into the former. While I appreciate why Okabe is why he is, I can't help but wonder what makes the current Okabe stand out anymore. He came off as very vanilla most of the series, with only a few hints of his old self popping back up near the end. Overall, I liked the cast, but did not love them.

Enjoyment: 6
Steins;Gate Zero had neither the fun moments of levity nor the tension and despair that the original had. The action sequences were not as well-executed as they could have been to boot. Throw in an uneven story, and it can be a bit rocky. Honestly, a large portion of my enjoyment came from seeing characters that I fell in love with onscreen again. There were brief moments of brilliance, but they didn't come often enough. Overall, I had a good time watching, but certainly not a great time.

Overall: 7
I'm assuming you'll see some reviewers give this is a comically low score out of frustration or an attempt to make some sort of statement, but this is NOT a bad anime. It's just not a GREAT anime either. And nowhere close to the original.