Imagine this: you want to play Steins;Gate on the go. You don’t have a Nintendo Switch to play the Elite version, or maybe you do, but you just want to play the original version of the game. What options do you have?
You might be surprised to learn that Steins;Gate is available on the Google Play and Apple App stores. But how good is the mobile experience, really? Is it worth your time and money?
Let’s take a look. Check out the video or read the article below.
First impressions
I started out by looking at the Android version of the game, as my main phone is a Samsung S25. The game is free to download, but you can see a notice on the store page that there are “in-app purchases.”
When you launch the game, you’re asked to log in with a Crunchyroll account. Since I didn’t have one, I ended up needing to create one. This was not the smoothest experience in the app, though, because the screen was locked in landscape mode, and the keyboard covered most of the screen.
Once registered, you’re prompted to get a Crunchyroll “Mega Fan” subscription to access the game. This costs six euros a month and includes access to their entire library of anime and games. Not a bad deal, but I would prefer the option to choose to buy the game outright, without the subscription.
After creating my account and logging in, the game asked for microphone access. Why a visual novel needs microphone access is beyond me, but that didn’t really leave a good impression.
I denied access to the microphone, and then the game finally booted to the main menu, running at about 5 frames per second and a low resolution. Not exactly a strong start.
Game overview
Once you get past the bad first impression, things actually do improve. I was a bit worried when I first saw the laggy menu, but thankfully, the in-game cutscenes, opening, and other animations play smoothly.
The core game is intact and generally enjoyable, but there are some quirks. Surprisingly, each platform has its own.
Apart from my Samsung phone, I also have an iPhone 16e, so I was able to test Steins;Gate on both Android and iOS and compare these versions.
- The Android version remembered my Crunchyroll login, but iOS did not, and I had to log in every time I started the game.
- The iOS version crashed occasionally, requiring a full relaunch and login. I experienced no crashes on Android.
- The achievements did not work on iOS, while on Android, they worked perfectly. Not even the achievement for starting the game for the first time popped up on iOS.
- The iOS version did not ask for microphone access; only Android did.
These were just the minor issues. Where the game got really frustrating was the controls. Opening the menu requires swiping from the left edge of the screen, but this gesture rarely worked for me. Most of time, it just accidentally engaged skip mode instead, blazing through text I hadn’t read yet. There is another gesture to open the menu: tapping two fingers on the screen, which worked better, but still not with 100% accuracy.
On the other hand, the act of opening the in-game phone is done in a clever way. You turn your phone vertically, and the in-game phone pops up. Browsing Okabe’s messages on the phone this way is surprisingly satisfying and responsive. That said, some scenes in the game force the phone interface to open in landscape mode, which can make reading the text on Okabe’s phone a bit difficult.
IS IT WORTH IT?
If you’re just looking for a way to play the original Steins;Gate on the go, the mobile version does get the job done. But it’s far from ideal. It is an average visual novel experience on a phone, with technical issues that could be deal-breaking for some readers. I imagine that the setup itself could turn some people away. But if you already have a paid Crunchyroll account and don’t mind the difficult controls, it’s a decent experience.
