It's definitely clear that this title is a predecessor of Steins;Gate both in terms of shared presentational qualities and also in that it feels rougher and less matured. I'm coming from the perspective of someone whose start into the Science Adventure series was S;G and also I played on the Switch.
I'll start with the strong points: this Switch release has the level of presentation quality I remember from S;G on the PC. The menus work well; the core reading features you'd expect from a VN are present and polished; the tips menu is just as useful and sometimes entertaining (though I've noticed that my need to use it is down dramatically since I played S;G all those years ago). The art style is a little more typical than S;G's, but there's a similar level of effort put into the CGs and animations, some of which are quite pretty and smooth despite their technical simplicity.
Aside from one glitch that keeps the credit sequence from being able to start in the "True End" it was a fairly polished release. Assuming they get that fixed in a timely manner (it released fairly recently as of this writing), that won't be a big issue anyway. Still feels a bit bad to have that little trip-up right at the end though for those of us who did get it early.
When it comes to the actual story itself, I'm a bit more mixed. The overall concept is quite fun: a magic highschooler harem romp, except the protagonist actually has debillitating social anxiety and everyone else is equally screwed up, twisting events into a psychological thriller. A bit more novel back in 2008, but I would say is probably one of the better examples of the concept...
With that said, the main protagonist drove me nuts at a personal level. If it didn't stick to his perspective as much as it does, that might not have been a problem, as his decisions usually make sense in the context of the story trying to be told, but my lord I wanna slap the guy. So that kinda sours my experience with it. More objectively it can also tend to indulge in its chuunibyou elements a bit too hard, to the point where I'm pretty sure now that half of Okabe's chuuni talk in S;G was a self-critical jab at this story.
Structurally, its mixed as well. On one front, most the time the "Delusion" mechanic presented is really neat and adds a cool way to flavor scenes according to player decisions without having to hard branch and necessitate a bunch of replays.... but then they did include real branches for each of the heroines that are triggered near the start of story after the first completion and require you to fast forward through 6 or 7 chapters of 95% identical content again before you actually get to the new ending. Thankfully there is the smart "skip" to speed that up but it's still just a fast-forward and takes like 30-50min to get through all the stuff you've already seen.
In any case, I am overall positive on the experience but a bit exasperated. If the themes and previews tickle your fancy or are just curious about the earlier games in the series, give it a shot. Just don't expect a masterpiece like S;G.
I'll start with the strong points: this Switch release has the level of presentation quality I remember from S;G on the PC. The menus work well; the core reading features you'd expect from a VN are present and polished; the tips menu is just as useful and sometimes entertaining (though I've noticed that my need to use it is down dramatically since I played S;G all those years ago). The art style is a little more typical than S;G's, but there's a similar level of effort put into the CGs and animations, some of which are quite pretty and smooth despite their technical simplicity.
Aside from one glitch that keeps the credit sequence from being able to start in the "True End" it was a fairly polished release. Assuming they get that fixed in a timely manner (it released fairly recently as of this writing), that won't be a big issue anyway. Still feels a bit bad to have that little trip-up right at the end though for those of us who did get it early.
When it comes to the actual story itself, I'm a bit more mixed. The overall concept is quite fun: a magic highschooler harem romp, except the protagonist actually has debillitating social anxiety and everyone else is equally screwed up, twisting events into a psychological thriller. A bit more novel back in 2008, but I would say is probably one of the better examples of the concept...
With that said, the main protagonist drove me nuts at a personal level. If it didn't stick to his perspective as much as it does, that might not have been a problem, as his decisions usually make sense in the context of the story trying to be told, but my lord I wanna slap the guy. So that kinda sours my experience with it. More objectively it can also tend to indulge in its chuunibyou elements a bit too hard, to the point where I'm pretty sure now that half of Okabe's chuuni talk in S;G was a self-critical jab at this story.
Structurally, its mixed as well. On one front, most the time the "Delusion" mechanic presented is really neat and adds a cool way to flavor scenes according to player decisions without having to hard branch and necessitate a bunch of replays.... but then they did include real branches for each of the heroines that are triggered near the start of story after the first completion and require you to fast forward through 6 or 7 chapters of 95% identical content again before you actually get to the new ending. Thankfully there is the smart "skip" to speed that up but it's still just a fast-forward and takes like 30-50min to get through all the stuff you've already seen.
In any case, I am overall positive on the experience but a bit exasperated. If the themes and previews tickle your fancy or are just curious about the earlier games in the series, give it a shot. Just don't expect a masterpiece like S;G.