I got to a part where only Sigma, Quark (unconscious), K, and Phi are alive. The game was letting me advance because I knew about the cure to the poison, but I stopped because it felt like the true ending path and I wanted that last

Also, I'm pretty much convinced Luna is Zero or is at least the one killing everyone. She feels very pointless to the game's plot so far (don't tell me/hint if I'm right or not on this)

I also can't decide if Quark is an annoying little shit or like, the cutest kid ever. I think it depends on whether or not he wears his hat

Young K was also the cutest thing ever

Don't worry about accidentally running across the true ending in VLR. IIRC, you can't actually get to the true ending without completing all of the other endings (aside from game over endings).

I mentioned this before, but Digital Roots>>>>>>>>>>>>>>The Color Scheme Thing/BP. I thought the writing to 999 was amazing before it got into some of its mindblowing science talk and philosophy, just because of the digital roots. I could just imagine the writers assigning bracelet numbers to each character, deciding the order of the doors, realizing that something wouldn't work, rewriting, rewriting, and rewriting. It was really clever and it felt like a lot of the mystery of the game was built around it. In VLR, I wasn't ever concerned that much with who was going to leave through the door (and it could've been very easy for everyone to do so, like in the Phi end). In 999, I was constantly thinking about who would go through the number 9 door with me. I was thinking either four people would be left behind, or if two groups could go through, someone like Seven would have to stay behind anyway. There were other elements like "Who killed Snake?" and "Who killed Lotus?" where you had to think really hard about digital roots. The AB games were fine and it was interesting to see how you couldn't really trust anyone (I chose ally and got screwed on a lot of them) but it never came into play in a significant way. Someone raises the possibility of it being a motive for murder at one point but it never is

I will say that the game did surprise me in some areas. Luna's ending made me genuinely upset and I was afraid the game would make her the killer/Zero. This game didn't have many suspects after all (I immediately eliminated Sigma, Phi, Alice, Clover, Quark, and K from the suspect pool for obvious reasons. This left Tenmyioji, Dio, and Luna, and I didn't really think it was Tenmyioji). Yeah, Sigma was Zero so I was wrong, but the game broke one of Knox's Commandments so I didn't expect it

Also, I loved the bittersweet ending to 999; how Junpei would chase after Akane his entire life and never find her. I didn't like how VLR changed it, but it doesn't bother me that much

Also, some questions

-In K's ending, who smashed Dio's bracelet? K killed Dio, but he had no reason to smash Dio's bracelet

-Ace was a member of Free the Soul.................okay

-In one of the paths, Tenmyouji tells Clover something that gets her to trust him. Did Tenmyouji tell Clover he was Junpei or that he knew Akane?

-Not really a plot hole, but I thought the tubocurine antidote could effectively be used in the ending where Sigma had five minutes to live. Instead, it had something to do with his arms? Like I said, not a plothole, but it is something I raised an eyebrow at

-Where's Santa?

-Why do Alice and Tenmyouji always choose the opposite of me for the first AB game? It was brought up but never really explained. Phi just said that it was like Schrodinger's Cat

-I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to know this but I'll ask anyway. Who's mind was in Kyle's body at the end?

-Ok, I know 999 had a plothole (Snake's bracelet not coming off with the prosthetic arm) but that wasn't a huge focal point of the plot. The big twist in the game makes absolutely no sense to me. At first, I thought it was kind of clever. We never see Sigma's face when results are displayed, people make comments about him looking old and being pervy, he doesn't have a VA, etc. The more I think about it, the less it makes sense, though. One, why didn't the mind of young Sigma realize his voice was significantly different? I realize he was infected with Radical-6 and his whole body felt weird, but he should've at least commented on it. Two, why did he never see his reflection? Zero could've made sure the facility had no reflective surfaces, but c'mon. There was a dirty mirror in the infirmary. Sigma could've decided it was necessary to clean it at one point for a puzzle. Scratch that cause it doesn't matter. EVERY SINGLE ROOM HAD A DARK COMPUTER MONITOR. Three, Sigma never touched his face? Really? The average person does it about three thousand times a day. If he felt tired, I'd say Sigma should've rubbed his eyes at one point and realized his eye was robotic. Four, at one point Sigma tells Phi he's twenty-two. This should've provoked a stronger reaction from her. Five, Clover, Phi, Alice, and Dio are very crass. Clover and Phi never call Sigma, "An eighty year old perv", Alice never comments about Sigma's appearance, and Dio doesn't ever call Sigma a "one-eyed fucker" in an argument or something. Nobody ever brings up Sigma's eye. Plus, Zero couldn't have planned a lot of variables that would've made Sigma realize. Like, what if Sigma rode the bunny ride instead of K and got his picture taken? I call bullshit on this entire twist

A good example is comparing the Clover ending to the submarine ending. In the submarine ending, you feel like there's a killer on the loose and you're doing everything you can to get away from him/her. Then, June dies in your arms. Then, Seven and Lotus die. Then, you die, and you just wonder who could've done it. The Clover end was clearly going for immense shock value and heartbreak, but it didn't quite hit (though, the bodycount during the K and Luna endings did get a bit closer to that feeling)

Plus, I felt more danger the entire time. A ship sinking in nine hours seemed more pressing than staying in the facility forever. After my fifth game over of being trapped in the facility, I actually started to think it wouldn't be so bad to live in there considering we had years' worths of food and water.

And I agree about the story. When Junpei said, "I will save Akane Kurashiki", I felt determined and I got really nervous during the sudoku puzzle. When Sigma said, "I will change history", I just didn't care

A lot of the twists didn't work for me, either. I don't know. I thought Santa and June's bracelets having different number values was a better twist than being on the moon. Same with the twist that Akane was the girl who died nine years ago. The moon one just made think, "What?....um....alright."

Plus, I feel like I could explain the plot of 999 to somebody in 30-45 minutes, going through each ending and hitting all the essential details. With VLR, I wouldn't even know where to start

Though, these games have hit me with "expected unexpected plot twists" that I was surprisingly forgiving of. The thought that June was Zero crossed my mind in 999, but I thought it was dumb twist to make the person you trust most be Zero. The way it played it out in the game made it really clever, though, so I didn't care. Same with making Sigma Zero. It neve crossed my mind cause that's the first rule of detective fiction, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be (though, I still call BS on the fact that he didn't realize he wasn't young)

After the release of 999 we did marketing research in Japan for those who didn’t buy the game. Of the surveys that were taken there were people who stated that they refrained from purchasing because they felt like it would be too scary or gory.


As a result, the higher ups had given me orders to make the next installment more light. So with that I made the penalty of the Nonary Game “death with poison injection” as opposed to being blown up. And overall I tried to make the vibe less gloomy.


The Japanese version’s title is also made to be a bit of a pun. I also tried to make the conversation during the escape parts more light and witty.


And just between you and me…for the Japanese title, I’m honestly not happy with the higher up’s instruction on making it “light”. But if I don’t comply, they won’t allow me to make the game, so what can I do, right? This is the downside for a creator.


I heard in the movie industry there are cases where the production company will give orders and would even change an ending of a movie. (For example, “I Am Legend”). Please go ahead and think something of that sort happened with VLR.


So with that said, I’m sure you guys can conclude which mood I’d enjoy writing for more

I'm not entirely sure about this, but I believe the replicator couldn't just replicate any sort of medicine; it could only replicate vaccines. Tubocurine is a toxic muscle relaxant, so the cure wouldn't be a vaccine.

Apologies i meant a cure for Radical 6.

Nobody knew that everyone was infected until the true ending, so they had no need to vaccinate everyone. Also, considering those who were treated didn't suddenly perceive things differently than everyone else, I wonder if its effects were purposely weakened to not completely cure the (I assume weakened considering most people didn't have worsening conditions) Radical-6 infection.

One thing I never understood was that time that everyone seemed to be moving/speaking super-fast. We later "learned" that it was due to radical-6, which caused the person to move slower, hence everyone else seemed to move faster. But then we found out that everyone was already infected with radical-6, so... what was it early? Was he moving even slower? Was he infected with a new mutant strain, regular-6?!

My impression was that they were infected by a weakened strain of Radical-6 or something that only slowed them down by, well, radical 6 without further issues. But for whatever reason (Schrodinger's Cat reasons since it wasn't consistent among timelines?) it progressed even further with some people.

Due to the many worlds theory, doesn't a universe where Radical-6 was never released already have to exist? What are we trying to accomplish in ZE3?

Most likely. But the game is just about this world/set of timelines, because that's the best story.

PS: Play this if you haven't yet.

Perhaps, but I'm pretty sure the morphogenetic field time traveling stuff does not allow you to jump into specific alternate universes. It allows you to create them by jumping to a point within your universe and creating a new one as soon as you make a different choice (so practically immediately). So I guess you could think of it as this: the universe where Radical-6 doesn't kill humanity doesn't exist within Sigma's context, so he needs to make it exist.

Basically what Bad Player said in more words and with story context, because Bad Player is a tl;dr ninja.

At the end of the game, he basically finds out he needs to spend the rest of his life learning AI, genetic engineering, cloning, and other shit for the sake of the AB Project and he doesn't even care. I mean, I know he's dedicated to saving the world, but it seems like he didn't even care at all. Junpei felt kind of realistic with his selfish (but relatable) desire to not prevent the outbreak and just let history play out the way it's meant to

Nah everything didn't seem to gravitate towards Phi. I was curious about her and I guess I considered her pretty much parallel and on par with Sigma himself. Sigma nor Phi were especially outstanding, her powers weren't quite as developed as Sigma's after all. She doesn't take over everything and always seems to stay kinda on the outside of things. She let the rest of the cast have their moment and never really outshined Sigma.

I do like how so many 'predictable' twists have been refuted on the poster :D