Zero Escape 3: Zero Time Dilemma (3DS/Vita/PC, June 28th)

[Pierre]

Not gonna touch any spoilers if they ain't tagged.

[JesusMonroe]

wat

Spoiler: Transporter Room

Aliens? We're just going to bring aliens into this when it's already the final game in the series?

While I do have complaints about the game, this was one I didn't mind at all. A lot of people really hated it though

[blahmoomoo]

wat

Spoiler: Transporter Room

Aliens? We're just going to bring aliens into this when it's already the final game in the series?

While I do have complaints about the game, this was one I didn't mind at all. A lot of people really hated it though

Spoiler: Transporter Room

It would be a whole lot less believable to say it was made by humans in the near past or near future. It would also not work if it was a time machine from the future since it wouldn't act like a fax machine if it was able to transport itself into the past. I don't think saying it's aliens is too far out there for this game, though it is a bit hand-wavey.

Spoiler: Robot Room

There are other weird things in this game that don't get explanation, like the two balls that are stable unless they come in contact with each other, then they blow up a whole room. I know there are explosives out there that work by having two chemicals combine, but I haven't heard of any that involve two solids that can be in a ball form (that is, not powdered or anything that increases surface area). But narratively, it doesn't matter.

Spoiler: Transporter Room

There are also some unanswered questions, like what happens if two people transport to the same time, if the output pods are full, or if the nucleus was unpowered at the destination (unless it's actually powered by the source when reconstructing) but those details are unnecessary for the story to work. It's possible that there are details like that, but they didn't end up in the game for that reason.

Really, I don't mind because it's basically like SOMA, but taken in a different direction and it's a lot shorter (also, just one small part of the game instead of the entire game).

I wonder if ZTD will eventually have an Answers web page like the previous games did to clarify things and flesh out some interesting but narratively unnecessary details.

[Bad Player]

wat

Spoiler: Transporter Room

Aliens? We're just going to bring aliens into this when it's already the final game in the series?

While I do have complaints about the game, this was one I didn't mind at all. A lot of people really hated it though

I really hated it. ZE is supposed to be pseudoscience, not sci-fi.

[JesusMonroe]

Eh, I thought VLR had already made the series straight-up sci-fi

Spoiler: Transporter

Like I guess they could've explained that it was made in the future but was able to be made in the past because the blueprints were sent back in time by a SHIFTer or something but whatever. Hell, that could be a headcanon of sorts since the game just kind of makes it have mysterious origins that they assume to be alien when it could just be a very far off future

They also sort of allude that humans aren't the only people in the universe during the Anthropic Principle timeline when they say they're in a universe that God abandoned. So across all of spacetime, I don't have much trouble believing humans evolved into an advanced race that could make a transporter

But I was mostly ok with it because when the transporter was described all I could think was "So what awesome way will this tie into the plot?" And considering the only good twists in the game involved the transporter, I'd say I'm glad it was there :p

[Pierre]

I also disapprove of that direction with the transporter...I'm just gonna convince myself that Zero was lying.

[Bad Player]

Well, finished it a while ago. It's not just the transporter I don't like--the technology in general was way too advanced. VLR gets a pass with its technology because it takes place in the future, but ZTD was only supposed to take place a year after 999.

It was fun, but the pacing/balance was way off (with the first half being pretty much only puzzle rooms and the second half being pretty much only plot), and there were just way too many unanswered questions and plot holes for it to be the satisfying conclusion to the trilogy that I think people expected it to be.

[JesusMonroe]

That's generally what I think as well I suppose. I do appreciate how each ZE game feels mechanically different but still ZE-ish, but this game really just didn't deliver as many twists as I would've liked nor have as many memorable characters compared to the casts of the previous games

I think budgetary reasons prevented this game from being what it could've and playing it now makes me wish it had another year in development. Apparently Uchikoshi wrote D Team while two other writers wrote C Team and Q Team, which explains why Akane felt so off and why Carlos/Eric/Mira kind of fell flat

Still no excuse for Phi being criminally underused though

[blahmoomoo]

I just finished it today and... yeah. I wonder how much of the issues were due to scheduling and how much was due to changing it from VN to cinematic cutscenes.

Spoiler: Endgame stuff

One thing that was entirely unexplained: what was with that timeline where a hooded figure was killing people and SHIFT abilities were cut off? It wasn't ever brought up again. The only thing I can think of is maybe watching the scene again may reveal something new, but I haven't taken the time to do that yet.

Another that I didn't understand: if Delta can't SHIFT, how was he able to know about the future where all of humanity was destroyed? Was there another SHIFTer that he got in contact with that we never saw?

Also, I wasn't expecting the transporter to be used THAT much. At the time I wrote my previous post, I had just finished the sequence where Sigma and Diana had Phi and Delta and thought that was going to be it. I'm still not too upset about how it was handwaved as alien tech, but I feel mixed about how its presence nearly single-handedly caused ZTD and VLR. I was more interested about the things that could be done with it, which was over with at the end of the baby ending.

By the way, I just want to verify a few things about Delta to make sure I understand things correctly. Can someone confirm these?

• Throughout the whole game until certain parts near the end, the game was being presented through Delta as an unreliable narrator, based on what he saw through the cameras. This is why Sean's name was substituted for Q and Delta was never seen. The reason why I'm not sure about this is that this doesn't reflect toward anybody in the game, and only serves as something to mislead the player. In comparison, the perspective twist in 999 didn't do anything like that.
• I'm going to guess that Q team must have just shrugged at the fact there were four people on their team but only three indicators on the board, probably because he was supposed to be deaf and blind. If Delta is the unreliable narrator, I guess any confusion on their part was purposely excluded. I probably should mention here that the perceptive ending is one of my favorite because of how much it made me laugh.

I think the real disappointment is that the emotional high point of the game for me wasn't the ending like the two previous games, but the Phi and Delta birth and teleport scene. The actual ending didn't have me going OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH like that part did. Even the part where Delta was revealed because it wasn't immediately apparent what was happening, nor was there any attachment to him (unlike previous Zeros).

I wonder if the whole terrorist thing will end up going anywhere in the future or if that was really all. Considering the amount of epilogue text that unlocked by the game ending and the fact that people were still looking...
Then again, maybe all that was supposed to be concluded by making Mira teleport to the past? Which is a weird way to end it...

There's more I could say, but this is getting long, so I'll stop for now.

In the end, the game does have a lot of good points and didn't completely drop the ball with the ending (far too many shows I've watched chose to just... kind of leave everything open), so I do like it. It just could have been better.

I'll probably be watching someone else run through the game over the next several months (based on how often they play it), so I'll get a chance to see the game again while knowing all the spoilers and see if some things make more sense.

[JesusMonroe]

By the way, this is a bit of a prologue to the game written by Uchikoshi. No spoilers (in fact I'll probably recommend newcomers read this first), just don't read the comments:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ZeroEscape/com ... m_the_art/

@blahmoomoo

Spoiler: Endgame Stuff

That was Mira killing everyone. Delta never injected her with anesthetic so he could put a little more excitement into the game. As for SHIFT abilities being cut off, I interpreted it as Sigma got stabbed and once he realized he was dying, he didn't really have the feeling of "danger" anymore, just the acceptance that he was going to die, so he was unable to SHIFT. Probably a poor explanation but it really just seemed that he was explaining he couldn't do it then

And yes, there had to be another SHIFTer he got in contact with. The real question is how he found out he was born during the Decision Game...

And I liked how the transporter was used to explain how Junpei and Akane were alive in VLR despite the "six of us are dead" message, since I thought that was just gonna be explained as "Oh, Diana was mistaken." It was a small twist with a very satisfying answer so I appreciated it

-Yes, the game is from Delta's perspective except in timelines where has died. He always mindhacks people to make the decisions (fun fact, the decisions in timeline where Q-Team is dead are all probability based). The twist didn't work for me because it's a twist solely for the player, not the characters. When we find out Sigma is old in VLR, we find out WITH Sigma. The only twist for the characters is that Delta isn't handicapped. We're also misled in that we're supposed to believe Sean told Mira and Eric his name off-screen and that's what they were calling him the entire time. I feel the twist doesn't work as well as VLR's because even if you catch all the foreshadowing, it's very likely you won't guess the Q-Team has a 4th participant because it's absurd to think he would be completely ignored just for being blind and deaf

-Q Team didn't shrug it off. The team was Q/Eric/Mira and the reason Eric thought Sean was the most suspicious was because he wasn't a participant in the game and was just an extra stand-in to help around, whose death didn't count towards any X-Passes. Eric thought he was the most suspicious because he WAS the most suspicious by far. Q was the leader of the group, which is why Eric and Mira were like "Is this a joke?"

But yes, Delta is an extremely unmemorable villain because of how out of nowhere he was, though I guess it's *kind of* neat how each Zero Escape game has us playing as Zero in a different way. Also the true ending is only like 10-20 minutes long and in this game and Delta kills Gab for no reason at all

I don't think the terrorist thing was sequel-bait but I hated how underdeveloped that plot point was. I would've so much rather had Brother be a complicated villain with the goal of eradicating humanity

And tbh, all the epilogue files are so cringey and border on fanfiction that I don't even want to acknowledge them as canon. Mira suddenly becomes good at the end of the game with no explanation, Eric loves her despite her killing his mother (really? We never have a scene in the game where he confronts her on that?), and now they're preventing Mira's first murder I guess

[blahmoomoo]

Spoiler: Endgame stuff

Ah, I forgot about Mira being Delta's pawn. Although, I don't understand why she had to be his pawn when he could control the other Sean bots ("more interesting" isn't a very good reason). And yeah, I guess a slow death would prevent SHIFTing.

Maybe whatever SHIFTer that Delta managed to get into contact with was able to somehow see into the future through someone else's eyes like Akane did. I wonder... Theory: Delta set Carlos' house on fire in order to induce stress in Maria and see the future through Carlos' eyes, which caused Maria to lapse into reverie syndrome. But since Maria was calling out to Carlos during the fire, I don't know if this holds any weight.

I didn't even think about that Junpei and Akane thing. Also, I guess Akane already foresaw the Radical-6 future and already had plans for VLR, otherwise it wouldn't make sense for her to already have the plan to make Junpei forget the whole thing.

I completely agree with you there about the twist not working so well because the characters themselves weren't really invested in it. But the part about Delta forcibly making decisions is neat (and I forgot about until now) and is a good way to explain choices that characters shouldn't make in the absence of the AB game.

OH, I didn't realize that being suspicious of Sean was because Delta!Q was actually there the whole time. The game totally misleads you into thinking that they just didn't know who Sean was, not that he was a fourth person. I also just realized why the four way showdown requests that you enter Q's real name if you try to enter Q (instead of "me" where it says you can't suicide).

Delta shot the dog because that's what bad guys do, I guess? Show that he's serious, even though just him being Zero is enough? Really no other reason for it that I can tell.

I mean, Eric forgave Mira when she killed him, just like his mother did. Him forgiving her in the epilogue is consistent. I don't really like the idea of using the transporter to prevent Mira's first murder though, because that would make a canon timeline where VLR and ZTD never happened. It also wouldn't necessarily be a happy ending, as many other sci-fi stories about changing the past already demonstrate. It also isn't about changing decisions, but intervening and making a decision that was never made before. Also, did Delta really not hide away the transporter and the quantum computer (Sean) well enough for Crash Keys to never find them (the whole point was to not get him arrested)?

Speaking of Crash Keys, I don't remember if there was an explanation for what that name means.

[Pierre]

Hmm does this make sense?

Spoiler: Control Room Decision Game

So I got the gas mask and Junpei is suggesting they just share the mask. Carlos dismisses it as there is only enough oxygen for 1 person.

Couldn't they still rotate the mask and everyone would be in various stages of dying and still make it out? I mean they might be breathless but so long as one person is healthy they can pop the mask on someone else until they are healthy right?

[JesusMonroe]

@blahmoomoo

Spoiler: Endgame

I don't have a good explanation at all for why he just didn't use the Sean-bots instead of Mira. Seems like another plothole, in which there are quite a few

It would make sense if Delta found out about everything through Maria actually since he had an interest in children and she wasn't able to understand the info she was receiving. It would've been a nice tie-in since Maria being an esper didn't end up being relevant at all

There definitely is some clever foreshadowing for the Q twist but it's still bothersome for me to think about. Some others I can think of (besides his shadow appearing in a few scenes): if Sean presses the button he stays behind for Q (not Gab), Eric saying "What do you think, old man?" and Mira saying "He can't speak" are in reference to him asking Q for his opinion (not Gab), typing "Q" in as Mira's killer will have Eric say "That's clearly impossible!" but typing "me" will have him say "I knew it was you!", there are always four thumps when Q team gets knocked out by the drug instead of three, nobody recognizes Sean in the first ending but they make references to Q throughout the game like "They even killed poor Q...he couldn't even see or hear when...", Sean is briefly alive after Mira shoots him even though "his" X-Pass is already revealed (cause Mira shot twice), there are three drinks on the bar for Q-Team even though Sean can't drink, Sean often refers to Eric and Mira as "all of you" instead of "both of you" (because he's including Q), Carlos realizes who Zero is after the coin toss cause he realizes Q is missing from the group, Carlos knows who Q is but doesn't recognize Sean, the Crash Keys twitter account never revealed Sean as a participant in the game, and my favorite:

Status screen at beginning of D-End 2: https://i.imgur.com/shdRDcB.png
Status screen after twins are born: https://i.imgur.com/K0clxqv.png

I can believe he forgave her but it's not good character development and still would've liked at least one timeline where he finds out

And Crash Keys = Kurashikis

@Pierre

Spoiler: Control Room

I thought the same thing but ultimately realized that it didn't really matter and trusted a firefighter to know more about the situation than I did. If there's only enough oxygen for one person, it's probably best for that one person to use it rather than to be holding their breath 2/3rds of the time and then rapidly breathing and using more oxygen than they should 1/3rd of the time.

[Bad Player]

Spoiler: Endgame

So why didn't Sigma, Phi, and Akane know what happened during the experiment in the ending where they escaped and released radical-6? I mean, they could've at least left a note for themselves saying "Phi--Don't help Mira up!!".

Speaking of which, I think that was my biggest disappointment in the plot--we never find out where radical-6 came from, or why Delta used such a silly way of releasing it into the world.

[blahmoomoo]

Spoiler: Control Room

Inhaling a high concentration of carbon dioxide will poison your blood, so rotating the oxygen mask around wouldn't quickly counteract that; inhaling smoke is not quite the same as drowning. Using up the oxygen tank is of course another concern.

Spoiler: Endgame

Man, that's a lot of stuff that hints to the presence of Delta, where most is easily missed or could be shrugged off as a localization oddity. I look forward to searching for that. But I think the problem is that these are so subtle that you can't even tell that something is off. There is only one layer protecting the fact that Delta is Q, so they can't give away anything.

By the way, the way I revealed Delta probably didn't help. After D-End 2, you are able to either guess who Zero's identity is or watch a scene that ends in solving an anagram, but somehow having no idea that the remaining letters could form Delta (which is a word, so...). I went to the guess identity scene and just guessed Delta because, well, haven't heard of him before. And... he was in the room that whole time.

Speaking of things that hint toward Delta's existence: if you guess Zero's identity wrong and Eric shoots everyone, there's an extra gunshot and blood splatter (IIRC).

[JesusMonroe]

Spoiler: Endgame

So why didn't Sigma, Phi, and Akane know what happened during the experiment in the ending where they escaped and released radical-6? I mean, they could've at least left a note for themselves saying "Phi--Don't help Mira up!!".

Speaking of which, I think that was my biggest disappointment in the plot--we never find out where radical-6 came from, or why Delta used such a silly way of releasing it into the world.

Spoiler: Endgame

Radical-6 should've been one of the factors of the Decision Game. I remember thinking it was weird that the game took so long for it to come up and it's only released in one timeline.

Free the Soul gets mentioned like four times and Left is only mentioned once just in a handwavey "Oh, he's adopted" comment. My biggest disappointment was that Zero had good intentions AGAIN and wanted to each everyone the power of teamwork and friendship so they'd be willing to save the world from an unnamed religious fanatic.

If anyone wants evidence of rewrites/budget constraints, look at the VLR Q&A and see how many questions Uchi answers with "This will be revealed in the third game, hope you look forward to it." Carlos' presence in general just feels like there was meant to be some insidious twist about his character like how he was a clone of Left or something (Uchi also said there would be a clone of Left in the third game, also dropped) but he kind of had a completely irrelevant presence.

Also I don't have a problem with bootstrap paradoxes but we were promised an explanation for it in this game and not only was one provided, but there are more in this game than 999 and VLR combined.

Spoiler: VLR/ZTD

Something that I do think is interesting enough though that I saw online is that we now know why Brother sent a dumbass like Dio to stop the AB Project--he wanted him to fail and Dio's presence was necessary for the project's success.

This actually makes Dio a pretty tragic/interesting character. He found a woman he cared about, gave her up to serve Brother, who had no interest in seeing him succeed. Dio's whole belief system is a pile of garbage but he clings to it because that's all he has.

[Bad Player]

Spoiler: Endgame

There definitely is some clever foreshadowing for the Q twist but it's still bothersome for me to think about. Some others I can think of (besides his shadow appearing in a few scenes): if Sean presses the button he stays behind for Q (not Gab), Eric saying "What do you think, old man?" and Mira saying "He can't speak" are in reference to him asking Q for his opinion (not Gab), typing "Q" in as Mira's killer will have Eric say "That's clearly impossible!" but typing "me" will have him say "I knew it was you!", there are always four thumps when Q team gets knocked out by the drug instead of three, nobody recognizes Sean in the first ending but they make references to Q throughout the game like "They even killed poor Q...he couldn't even see or hear when...", Sean is briefly alive after Mira shoots him even though "his" X-Pass is already revealed (cause Mira shot twice), there are three drinks on the bar for Q-Team even though Sean can't drink, Sean often refers to Eric and Mira as "all of you" instead of "both of you" (because he's including Q), Carlos realizes who Zero is after the coin toss cause he realizes Q is missing from the group, Carlos knows who Q is but doesn't recognize Sean, the Crash Keys twitter account never revealed Sean as a participant in the game, and my favorite:

Spoiler: Endgame

Wait what
Does Q's wheelchair tip over every time he's injected with the drug? xD

[Pierre]

Got my first ending...well aside from "Payoff" but I've still got problems with it.

Spoiler: D-1 Ending

So ultimately this is the "TRUE" ending of VLR. 6 billion people dead, outbreak starts, Sigma loses arms and an eye.

However Akane is dead....as is Junpei Tenmyouji...who are integral in the events of VLR....

Wouldn't this break the stable time loop and ensure that the end of the world is stuck like that?

[JesusMonroe]

Just keep playing

[JesusMonroe]

D-2 Ending Spoilers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUneNc_dnm4

[Church Of Sumire]

How's the game? Sadly i havent had the money to get it

[Franzise Deauxnim]

So I've reached a point where I don't know what the fuck to do, I've cleared all of the available fragments, now all that's left is a bunch of roadblocks

This is one problem I've always had with this series; getting the best/true endings has a lot less to do with using logic to work out the right path and a lot more with just trying everything and eventually getting lucky. It wasn't as big a deal in the previous games since there was enough interesting story and character development to keep me going, but in ZTD, there's been hardly any story and what there has been is all over the place due to the fragment gimmick, plus we already know who half the cast is so

Spoiler: General ZTD spoilers

It's also hard to get emotionally invested when you get dropped into a story segment where certain characters are dead with no explanation, especially when you're forced to jump to another point in time right after you make a decision and all of a sudden they're fine

Spoiler: Q, Door of Truth, Force Quit spoilers

Going back to the first thing I said, it really feels like the game is flat-out trolling me at times. So Zero gives you an eight-digit number and says it's important and to remember it. Q uses it to deactivate the helmet shortly after that. So I'm figuring okay, the number must do more than that. Door of Truth fragment has a lock that needs eight numbers, hey, bet that's the number! Nope. Okay, fine, so we get to Q team's Force Quit fragment where they need a number for the central computer. Nope, number doesn't do shit there either. Cool.

Spoiler: Carlos and Portrait

How exactly did Carlos know Q team needed to "search the family portrait" anyway? And why does checking the portrait do nothing?

I guess at this point I have to either go back through all the story segments and hope something else activates or look up a walkthrough

[blahmoomoo]

Spoiler: Response to Franzise

The characters that are dead aren't dead with no explanation. Once you complete a fragment, you can find it on the global flow chart to see where the fragment is on the timeline and see what scene led to their demise. But the characters aren't privy to that information, so I can see why you may think that way.

There is an answer to the code and Carlos things, but you seem to be missing something.

Did you end up with every possible outcome of the first major decision game, where you have to vote for a team to kill off? The icons to the left of that area on the global flow chart indicate if you did or not. If not, you need to do that to open more things up. To achieve this, go to the decision times and select a different answer; the last one chosen in each route will determine which team is killed (or not). If you did that already, let me know and I'll have another suggestion for how to progress.

[Doctor Nanjo]

Spoiler: Thoughts on ZTD: ZE series spoilers

I really love VLR's complexity and scope. Ever since it came out, it's been my standard for what I want mystery games to be: a complex labyrinth of twists that bring together the narratives of many mysterious people. You really can't spoil VLR with a single sentence. Even if you tell someone who Zero is in VLR, they will probably still have a wonderfully complex experience. VLR is such a wonderfully complex game with some of the highest hights of mystery characters with so much of its cast, and it explores so many of the different circumstances that the cast could find themselves in.

Anyway, VLR sticks in my my mind as the game with the most complex and interesting narrative of anything I've ever played and is my standard for mystery VNs/video games. (The games that even get close are probably Umineko, Ever 17, and DR2, but even then, each of those don't quite re

So, when I was at the 20ish hour mark in ZTD (it took me about 25 hours total), I felt really good about it. The characters seemed to have interesting backstories which had kept me guessing, and everyone seemed like they were going to be well-utilized. Everyone had something going on that I assumed would come into play in a big way. By the time I completed the game, I was proved wrong. I was expecting a game with the complexity and scope of VLR, and I got one with the complexity and scope of 999. I wanted this game to be 10/15 hours longer, and I think it would have benefited greatly from that.

I think there should have been a Q-END-3 (Roughly the length of Tenmiyouji end in VLR) focusing on Eric and Mira and their relationship. I think it's really cool that Eric and Mira, in their own really weird way, have a mutually beneficial relationship and are able to stay together in the epilogue, but I don't think the game EARNS that epilogue with the subtext surrounding their relationship alone. There should have been a great conclusion to their story and development, and I think Sean would have a great place in their narrative as well, since their the only people he's ever known.

There also should have been a moderately long C-END-2 focusing on Carlos and Maria. Maria could have had any number of cool plot-relevant purposes beyond just being Carlos's motivation for everything, but at the very least this ending could focus on how, again, Carlos was only able to save one person: his sister.

The true ending should have been longer and focused way more on Phi confronting her brother. I know that they're mostly strangers to one another, but something more could have definitely been done with the twins in the true end.

Not to mention, this game could have been way more complex with the number of things that could be brought into the main storyline but weren't; K, Left, Maria and Chris are the big ones.

Overall, ZTD has strengths. Notably, I found D-2 and almost everything about Eric and Mira to be highly emotional and gripping. I think that Q/Delta is still a better telegraphed Zero than Akane in 999, and all the little hints about it are very well crafted and gratifying to look back on even if it's sort of a far out solution (which is what kind of stinks about it). I consider the general quality of the cast to be pretty high, even with in their partially realized states, I think they are better and more fun than the general 999 cast. I think this game makes pretty good use of choice, and probably gets close to VLR in how well done choice is, and some moments of choice are really fantastic (The incinerator, Who killed Mira, Triangle, Who killed Junpei).

Basically, my thirst for VLR-level mystery games is unsatisfied. I can only hope ZTD is successful enough to validate future mystery games of that size.

So I've reached a point where I don't know what the fuck to do, I've cleared all of the available fragments, now all that's left is a bunch of roadblocks

Did you clear the Pod Room fragment completely? The answer to that one is really tricky, and it had me stumped.

Spoiler: Pod Room Decision Hint

"You better tell me the truth, I don't like liars." (Also there's two different WAYS to solve it properly).

[JesusMonroe]

@Franzise

Spoiler:

Like blahmoomoo said, you need to view the execution of each team. The game only counts your most recent vote for each team so to execute D Team, redo the vote for C and Q Team (you have to actually make the decision again)

Carlos knew about the Family Portrait cause he saw it being knocked over when he "saw" Q Team's execution

You also sometimes have to look at the flowcharts again because a new path (represented by "!") will suddenly unlock at points

@Nanjo

Spoiler:

I mostly agree. I liked Eric and Mira enough but think they needed a "capstone" to feel complete. Eric should've had an ending where he confronted Mira about killing his mother. A lot of people suggest that Mira shifting at the end gained her access to the morphogenetic field and the ability to feel emotions (which I can buy, as this was set-up from Ace's motivation in 999, though I still would've liked for it to have been explicitly stated). I think Mira also needed an ending or a moment in the true end where she acknowledges Eric and realizes how shitty she's been to him because he's a good guy at heart and he truly loves her

Diana, Phi, and Sigma should've confronted Brother at some point too. I also really wish Brother was truly evil instead of being a Zero with good intentions AGAIN

I just feel the story didn't wrap up so many of the things VLR brought up: Free the Soul, the clones, radical-6 (only in one timeline...), etc. It could've had an amazing ending if it had another year with the script but maybe the budget wouldn't have allowed that

I really do think this game can be spoiled in a sentence, though. Honestly I didn't care that much about the "Who is Zero?" mystery during this game because it was very clear early on (due to the genuine anguish the characters were feeling) that Zero wasn't one of them and was a 10th participant. So even though I didn't guess who Zero was, I wasn't active in the guessing-game which kind of sucks

And after that, there's not much left to spoil. Phi being Diana and Sigma's daughter is made extremely obvious by the game and none of the other twists really blew my mind or anything. None of the characters really had twists surrounding them either which is a shame

I do think ZTD is a good game, maybe even great, but it really doesn't hold a candle to 999 or VLR. Even a lot of the general writing was weaker throughout the game. I guess I should just be happy that the series didn't end with a horrible game but it's still disappointing to think about what could've been

[Franzise Deauxnim]

Spoiler: blah & JM

Yeah, I got all the executions from the team vote and I've been checking the full flowchart for ! marks

I know characters aren't dead for no reason, I mean it isn't explained during that fragment and by the time you stumble onto the explanation you've almost certainly seen them alive again, idk it just kind of lessens the impact the deaths might otherwise have for me

Thanks, Doc, that was exactly what I needed~

[Pierre]

Think I've beat it? But it's more confusing and unsatisfying than the other games.

[JesusMonroe]

Sounds like you beat it then :p

[Pierre]

Yeah I went back and checked all the bits on the flow chart, did a couple of 'obvious death' choices to max it out. Still nothing, no secret ending or anything so far as I can see.

Right let's open the spoiler box.

Spoiler: ZTD End

So, the thing was set up to a: Create Phi and Delta and b: To give them the mindset of wanting to save the world from the future?

Also I thought this was the end of the series? The implications of the Global Nuclear Apocalyptic future (which I'm guessing is the reason to not accept the "we're free" ending early on) certainly imply a new game.

Shouldn't Akane have already known about the Nuclear Apocalypse though? Granted she never saw it but she saw the radical-6 future where Zero explained it to her. Why would she set up the AB game to stop the radical-6 outbreak instead of working towards stopping the nuclear apocalypse?

Also is Mira really off the hook for everything she did? I feel weird about her character. She acts like she doesn't understand emotions but then she cackles evilly when she murders Eric after taking radical-6. She also understands anger and vengeance enough to stab Phi with radical-6 out of spite. Other times make her seem a bit more emotional either. Also when she killed Junpei she didn't follow her MO as should be according to her condition. Shoulda opened up that chest and found the heart but he was cut cleanly into pieces and his chest was intact. Her being allowed to go free and murder people feels like a cheap way to generate tension as it didn't serve any purpose and was kinda outta character due to her MO. Hell if they'd included it as her MO then at least it would be a clue to the nature of the killer. As it was it was just blindsided.

Also I'm suspending my disbelief quite a bit that no one would mention the elephant in the room of the old man who sits in his chair and presumably needs to be wheeled everywhere for so long.

[blahmoomoo]

Spoiler: Pierre

I think it was said somewhere that Akane was able to contact her past self and warn her about Radical 6, but the message didn't get through cleanly. In any case, I'm guessing that in the future where all of humanity died, the Akane from that future was dead before she had the chance to contact the past. Then again, I still don't know how Delta knew about that future, so...

There were a lot of subtle hints about the Q team being aware of Delta's existence that I entirely looked over the first time through. For example, the reason why Eric was incredibly suspicious of Sean throughout the game isn't just because he was overly paranoid of a stranger: he was a fourth person in what was supposed to be a team of four. As a result, there are a few oddities in how they refer to Sean!Q that could suggest the presence of a fourth person, but could also be brushed off as minor quirks in how they talk. Like one person referring to the others as "all of you" instead of "the two of you".

Also, the whole game is told from Delta's point of view as an unreliable narrator (excluding the times that Q team was dead), replacing Sean's name with Q, so he could have skipped anything that directly referred to his presence.

[Church Of Sumire]

Thanks guys for answering if the game is good or not. Dicks.

[blahmoomoo]

It's a good game and I'd recommend it, it's just that parts of the story didn't live up to expectations.

[JesusMonroe]

@Pierre

Spoiler:

There is no 4th game for these characters, the series is wrapped up. Nothing suggests there will be a game with them catching the terrorist, the ending is supposed to be ambiguous because the future they're building to is uncertain. I have problems with the ending but I like the ambiguous last shot because the characters aren't being forged ahead by us anymore but are actually deciding things on their own now

[TheDoctor]

Just recently bought the game. Played through the opening sequence and Diana's first fragment. Thoughts so far...

I cannot stress how much I hate the art direction in this game. VLR was an absolutely beautiful game with nicely expressive characters. This game is almost painful to look at, and the characters seem to have the same expression plastered on their faces the whole time. Not to mention, Phi's redesign in particular makes me want to gag (might not be so bad if the artwork looked more like the previous two games, but it doesn't, so it is).

Having cinematics in place of novel segments feels really off to me. Not to mention, I have a hard time wanting to even watch the cinematics due to the aforementioned ugly art style.

Side note: Playing it on the Vita, and at one point during Carlos' first fragment, Akane's ponytail started glitching and flipping out all over the place. Amusing, but they really should have tested the cinematics better to ensure crap like that didn't happen.

[blahmoomoo]

Spoiler: End Game Spoilers

I just rewatched the part where Q team has to decide which team to vote for. I do see that the conversation they had before the vote does show that Sean isn't actually the leader (though at first you could just think it's a weird way to say they don't trust Sean as the leader). But I can't tell for sure if the vote was ultimately entered by Sean or Delta, though it does seem like Delta entered it by himself. If you vote for D team, the conversation does make it sound like none of the three actually entered the vote, since they aren't shouting at Sean, just lamenting that they had no way to justify the vote and Mira saying "the plot thickens". The make a decision screen is also focusing on the computer, not on someone's face. Then again, they also aren't wondering why Delta decided to touch something when he's supposed to be unaware of his surroundings through sight or sound. Of course, Delta could just be excluding that from the narration...

[luck]

Spoiler: Left

Why are you guys saying that Left was dropped? Wasn't the 'Left will appear but not as the man we knew in VLR' comment referring to Sean, since his personality is based off him and everything?

So I finished the game just yesterday. I think overall it's at the level of 999 but pretty far from VLR in my personal scale.

And now more long and spoilery thoughts:

Spoiler:

First off, the art style was borderline narmy. The derp faces the characters kept making just made laugh in the middle of extremely serious situations. Junperi's head in the pantry is one of the worst offenders. I think VLR's style of using sprites and 3D cutscenes when necessary was way better.

The fragments thing was kinda cool as a narrative experiment but I don't think it was implemented to well. A lot of characters are left hanging in many histories (like, what happened with Phi in the history with the rec room) and the way they're unlocked makes you play all the puzzles first and then see the story, instead of being interconnected. I also missed the fact of mixing the characters and seeing different interactions depending on the path you choose, which was one of the best parts of 999 and VLR.

Now, for the characters, I don't think they're particularly better or worse than in the other installments, although I've never considered character development to be one of the main strengths of this games.

Akane and Junpei seem to change personalities in every game they appear. I guess it makes sense considering the situation, but sometimes it seems like a cheap way to build tension between them that in the end doesn't go anywhere so...what's the point?

Carlos is the Quark of this ZTD. The game makes him looks like there's going to be some huge twist with him but...nope. He's just a noble firefighter that wants to do the right thing. We don't even know why he's even there. Phi, Akane and Sigma sneaked in. Junpei wanted to find Akane. Mira had to be to add danger or whatever (although the Decision game was already pretty dangerous without her) and Eric tagged along. But Carlos? The only thing that makes him special is that he's a SHIFTer, but that's not so special when half the cast can do it. Why it had to be him as opposed to anyone else?

I could say the same for Phi, but her case is actually worse because she's been set up for two games for...basically nothing. Her presence there doesn't add anything. The only big twist involving her doesn't require her presence, her only relevant purpose is getting injected with Radical-6 in one history and her biggest secret is that her hair is naturally red (I've just realized that that was foreshadowing as I was writing the sentence. Really, I'm not kidding XD). She was so underused that I was expecting her to be Zero. I still think it would have been cool. Maybe not as the girl, we know, but she's a SHIFTer that's been transported through spacetime twice. I'm sure some alternate version of her could have pulled the same shit as Delta. She could have even used the same motivations.

Sigma seems to be two different characters. In the cutscenes he's all serious as someone his age is supposed to be, but in the room puzzles he's happily cracking jokes about Phi's chest size. Which is pretty awkward now after the big reveal.

Diana is basically Luna, which makes a lot of sense and since Luna was one of my favorites characters from VLR, I obviously like her.

And speaking of Luna, Sean's twist was basically the same as hers, just not that well done, so...whatever.

I liked Mira a lot. I think she must be my favorite 'evil player' of the trilogy but she doesn't really has much of an impact on anything. I didn't like that Dio and Ace were behind 85% of the stuff that happened in their respective games either, but there has to be some middle ground.

I also liked Eric, because he reacted to most things as a normal human being would if they were put in that situation.

I liked most of the endings, but sadly the ones that I didn't like were the final ones.

I thought the Q-1 ending was pretty good and gave Mira some character development that I honestly didn't expect her to get. I found her description of the warmth of Eric's heart almost cute. Is that too weird? Because I think that's what they were going for.

The endings leading up to VLR's reality were fairly satisfying and explained most things I wanted to know, although they left a plothole or two around.

The babies' twist was probably the only thing in the game that actually managed to blow my mind, as opposed to VLR where everything blew my mind. My only problem with it it that it doesn't really go anywhere. The fact that Delta is Diana's and Sigma's son is not brought up at all after the Zero reveal. Not even a 'I'm not angry, I'm disappointed'? So much wasted potential.

The Zero reveal was pretty lame. It's not that I can't believe it, but more that it feels like a copout. Isn't it one of Knock's rules? That the culprit can't be someone who hasn't been introduced? And it's not even broken in a incredibly smart way like it happened with all the twists in VLR. And Delta isn't that great as a character, either. He just comes out and says 'My motivations are complex'. Have you ever heard about 'Show, don't tell', sir? Or what about at least bothering to explain why your motives are complex instead of using your kinda asspully ability to shoot yourself?
Because the only motives we really know are a)assuring his own existence like Akane was trying to do in 999 and b) preventing a huge catastrophe like Sigma was trying to do in VLR. And it isn't clear why he needed those specific people to do that. Diana and Sigma are obvious, and I guess that Akane, Junpei and Phi are necessary due to their adventures, but what about the others. Was Mira there just to increase danger or was it a punishment for her crimes? Was Eric relevant or did Delta just allow him to join to make it 9? Why did he choose Carlos? And what purpose did the Decision Game serve exactly?

As for the final ending, my only thought was 'That's it'? But I guess there really was no other option other than ' And they lived happily ever after' if they wanted to actually conclude the saga. The only reason all the twists in VLR worked was that they were justified by Sigma's plan, and the plan itself only made sense if there was a sequel in the horizon. So it was either a simple ending like this one or an ending full of crazy twist that leaves behind more questions than answers, and I don't think that would have satisfied people either. I would have liked to know at least what happened with the characters. The epilogue files at the end were fanfic-cky as hell and they didn't even include Diana, Phi and Sigma.

[blahmoomoo]

Spoiler: Reply

SHIFTers are supposed to be rare, so Carlos being a SHIFTer is enough of a reason to be there. Plus, being a noble firefighter is just the kind of leader that Delta was looking for: someone who would fight for a future where nobody dies, even when the power of SHIFTing could also be used for power.

Phi being underused seems to be one of many issues with the budget and/or timeline causing plot points to go unanswered. It's also notable that (from what I've heard) Uchikoshi wasn't the scenario writer for the whole game, just D team's side.

Sigma seesawed between being serious and a goof in VLR too, so I dunno.

But Delta's reasons are SO complex! As complicated as two reasons! Unless there were more than two reasons, but what's the point if this is the final game.

The purpose of the decision game is a combination of the two prior games run by a Zero. The first is resolving a bootstrap paradox by ensuring that Delta is born, just like in 999 where the game was needed to save Akane. The second is to save the world by preventing a disaster, just like VLR. So I guess you could call that complex... but it's a bit presumptuous to call your own thing complex. Personally, I'd only call it complex if there was a third reason that wasn't encountered in the series before.

But anyway, baby ending was the best ending in terms of getting a reaction out of me, followed by the unofficial Perceptive ending which made me laugh.

I agree with someone else in this thread that the idea of the true ending is that the characters are no longer under anybody's control, which is why the game ended when Delta gave Carlos the choice to shoot him. I don't expect there to be a follow-up game for this reason. The problem is that this is gets more of an "oh" reaction from me instead of something bigger. Maybe because the whole twist only had one layer to it: you the player are acting as Delta, but there's no way to wrap that twist in another twist, so there's only one reveal.

[luck]

Spoiler: Reply

SHIFTers are supposed to be rare, so Carlos being a SHIFTer is enough of a reason to be there. Plus, being a noble firefighter is just the kind of leader that Delta was looking for: someone who would fight for a future where nobody dies, even when the power of SHIFTing could also be used for power.

Phi being underused seems to be one of many issues with the budget and/or timeline causing plot points to go unanswered. It's also notable that (from what I've heard) Uchikoshi wasn't the scenario writer for the whole game, just D team's side.

Sigma seesawed between being serious and a goof in VLR too, so I dunno.

But Delta's reasons are SO complex! As complicated as two reasons! Unless there were more than two reasons, but what's the point if this is the final game.

The purpose of the decision game is a combination of the two prior games run by a Zero. The first is resolving a bootstrap paradox by ensuring that Delta is born, just like in 999 where the game was needed to save Akane. The second is to save the world by preventing a disaster, just like VLR. So I guess you could call that complex... but it's a bit presumptuous to call your own thing complex. Personally, I'd only call it complex if there was a third reason that wasn't encountered in the series before.

But anyway, baby ending was the best ending in terms of getting a reaction out of me, followed by the unofficial Perceptive ending which made me laugh.

I agree with someone else in this thread that the idea of the true ending is that the characters are no longer under anybody's control, which is why the game ended when Delta gave Carlos the choice to shoot him. I don't expect there to be a follow-up game for this reason. The problem is that this is gets more of an "oh" reaction from me instead of something bigger. Maybe because the whole twist only had one layer to it: you the player are acting as Delta, but there's no way to wrap that twist in another twist, so there's only one reveal.

Spoiler:

I get that that's what Delta was trying to do, but why did he specifically need to make people make a lot of life-or-death choices? Was he just trying to prove that 'life is simply is unfair'? And if it was actually him making all the choices with his Mind Hack, then what was even the point?

And I know that SHIFTers are rare, I just didn't like that Carlos seemed to be unrelated to everything going on. He had nothing to do with the Radical-6 outbreak or the story about the snail. Did Delta knew that he would be the one to stop the religious fanatic somehow? Because then he should have mentioned it instead of insisting in the complexity of his motives.

[blahmoomoo]

Spoiler: Reply

SHIFTers are supposed to be rare, so Carlos being a SHIFTer is enough of a reason to be there. Plus, being a noble firefighter is just the kind of leader that Delta was looking for: someone who would fight for a future where nobody dies, even when the power of SHIFTing could also be used for power.

Phi being underused seems to be one of many issues with the budget and/or timeline causing plot points to go unanswered. It's also notable that (from what I've heard) Uchikoshi wasn't the scenario writer for the whole game, just D team's side.

Sigma seesawed between being serious and a goof in VLR too, so I dunno.

But Delta's reasons are SO complex! As complicated as two reasons! Unless there were more than two reasons, but what's the point if this is the final game.

The purpose of the decision game is a combination of the two prior games run by a Zero. The first is resolving a bootstrap paradox by ensuring that Delta is born, just like in 999 where the game was needed to save Akane. The second is to save the world by preventing a disaster, just like VLR. So I guess you could call that complex... but it's a bit presumptuous to call your own thing complex. Personally, I'd only call it complex if there was a third reason that wasn't encountered in the series before.

But anyway, baby ending was the best ending in terms of getting a reaction out of me, followed by the unofficial Perceptive ending which made me laugh.

I agree with someone else in this thread that the idea of the true ending is that the characters are no longer under anybody's control, which is why the game ended when Delta gave Carlos the choice to shoot him. I don't expect there to be a follow-up game for this reason. The problem is that this is gets more of an "oh" reaction from me instead of something bigger. Maybe because the whole twist only had one layer to it: you the player are acting as Delta, but there's no way to wrap that twist in another twist, so there's only one reveal.

Spoiler:

I get that that's what Delta was trying to do, but why did he specifically need to make people make a lot of life-or-death choices? Was he just trying to prove that 'life is simply is unfair'? And if it was actually him making all the choices with his Mind Hack, then what was even the point?

And I know that SHIFTers are rare, I just didn't like that Carlos seemed to be unrelated to everything going on. He had nothing to do with the Radical-6 outbreak or the story about the snail. Did Delta knew that he would be the one to stop the religious fanatic somehow? Because then he should have mentioned it instead of insisting in the complexity of his motives.

Spoiler:

Well, it has been previously established that SHIFTers normally can't remember what happened in histories that they SHIFT from, so I guess one of the goals of the game was to train the ones who aren't already capable of this.

He was forcing decisions because there are certain decisions that characters couldn't have possibly made without it. For example, Carlos would have never pressed the button to shower the other two teams with acid.

I guess you could say that Delta was able to foresee that Carlos would be the ideal person for the game, but I think it still makes sense that he also seemed like the ideal SHIFTer for the job. The former explanation would probably make a bit more sense for how Delta runs things; he had the whole decision game under his control, even in the timeline where he was dead.

[TheDoctor]

About halfway through the game now (I think?), and I like teams C and D, but I really hate Q Team. There is nothing likable about Mira's character, and as "hot" as she supposedly is, those unearthly green eyes ruin it for me. Eric is a pathetic loser with virtually no redeeming qualities, and I just don't give a crap about Q.

At least in VLR, I was able to find something I liked about most of the new characters, but in a game where you have only five new characters (six, if Zero ends up being someone outside the teams), it's a problem if I end up liking less than half of them. My judgement on Zero will have to wait until I understand his/her motive though.

Of course, Carlos and Diana had a leg up on the competition just because they're voiced by Tomokazu Sugita and Mamiko Noto, respectively. Even so, I rather like their characters regardless (I might possibly end up liking Q a bit more depending on what happens, but I'm not holding my breath).