Why does this game seem so lacking in content?
1. Underground Access? What is this? I could find no way to get points so could never buy unless you cheat and does it have a purpose?
2. What the hell is the shovel for?
3. Stats what the heck are they even for? Again seem to do nothing
4. Why put post it note that you have to click > chair > post it note > back > back (why? just to continue?)
5. Too much redundant clicking for absolutely nothing
6. Phone is lacking you never really use it your in school and your own girlfriend barely text you
7. Every time I tried to go out (you can't do that so I gave up on even trying after first half a dozen tries or so so why does the option show when you can't go out?)
8. Chess games are impossible every one of them is flagged hard level
The store has all sorts of content that seems to do nothing. I don't even get why this game is a sandbox it's purely a VN with some choices but way too many damn clicks to do anything.
Okay, lets do one by one
7) You can go outside after talking to Horikita in the rain. At that point, there are two active locations: the mall and the beach.
2) On the beach, if you bring a shovel, you can dig up various types of junk to sell for yen at the store. There, you can also convert yen into points, with varying exchange rates. The more staff you sell, the better exchange, so its faster to buy all sleep upgrades and just making money until converting for 20 or 25%. 10% is twice is less, so almost a scam.
You might dig up regular trash worth 500 yen, old coins for 750, various necklaces for 1000, an energy drink for 1500. The energy drink cuts your fatigue in half, so it’s always worth drinking one to keep digging longer. There are also a lockpick for 2500 (which goes for 8.5k if you buy them on the black market, with a limit of 2). At first, I didn't sell them, but after digging up more than 6, I realized they’re a renewable resource, so I just kept 3 as backup in my inventory. Very rarely, you can dig up a Steins;Gate lab member pin worth 100,000 yen.
On average, I’d make around 3,000 yen per 10 digs (excluding the rare 100k find), sometimes more, sometimes less. You can rack up 30-50k yen in about 5 minutes, depending on how many sleep upgrades you’ve taken and how lucky you get. Quite easy, but tedious as hell.
Sleep upgrades:
The first one lets you instantly fall asleep by just interacting with the bed, whether it’s light or dark. Each pill you take raises your fatigue cap by 25%, so you can dig 20, 30, or 40 times a day. Maybe that'll matter later when you’ve got a packed in game schedule - no idea yet.
So far, I haven’t hit any time limit. So if you’re totally bored and don’t value your time (like me, writing this post and checking it without cheats), you can farm yen into points, and buy out the whole store in the same story day. I set it as a little “challenge” for myself and finished it in about an hour.
Hell no I'm doing that a second time for the other route though.
1) "Underground Access" is the top-left button in the computer menu. There, you can buy lockpicks (in case you cheated yourself some points instead of digging them up) and student reports. Not sure what those do yet, but the game said they improved some relationship parameters.
Everything else checks out. I honestly can’t tell the real difference between easy and hard chess difficulty. Maybe he plays about 15–20% smarter on hard and avoids obvious blunders, but that’s about it. I was expecting a total beginner on easy, a decent opponent on normal, and an actual challenge on hard, but they all
feel like the same moderately tough opponent. I’m not great at chess, but I can play, and it all just feels… mid.
Honestly, as a fan of the light novel, I really like the game and its overall tone, but for now all that clicking feels totally pointless. I bought out the entire shop and still have no idea if it actually affects anything. There's a line in the changelog that says
"Added a new line when you already have the documents Ayanokouji gave you," so I’m really hoping it ends up mattering in the future as story element. Just one line of text is nothing, lets be real. Otherwise, what was even the point?
