Zero Time Dilemma: Time To Die A Lot

The end of my journey with Zero Escape is here. An epic conclusion of a phenomenal series is what I wish that I could write. But, the franchise never gets to the heights that 999 was able to garner. While Virtue's Last Reward had more of a bloat and filler issue. Zero Time Dilemma feels painfully short. The game looks worse, has worse versions of half of the returning characters, and has too minimal of interaction from the player. It makes me wish that they would've just done separate Nonary Games for each title with no strings attached. 

Even the threads that come from VLR into ZTD aren't the best. Especially when you consider that characters like Alice and Clover were so closely involved with the plot line in VLR, and in some cases with 999, yet they are absent from this game completely. And when you think about the idea that VLR and ZTD were made in conjunction with each other, it starts to become more baffling.

So, you have this sequel that picks up almost exactly at the end of the previous title, but it still manages to feel like a lot is missing. It sucks that this is what Zero Escape has amounted to, but nothing can be done about it now. Except to go through the final chapter as much as I can. 

To kick things off, we start at the end of VLR for the most part. Sigma, Phi, and Akane task themselves with trying to prevent the mass annihilation of humanity from the deadly disease known as Radical-6. To clarify, Junpei is in VLR, but he seems to be different from his ZTD counterpart and is closer to his 999 version. So, while he is aware of the mission, he is doing it for a different reason than his future self, who doesn't actually want to prevent the disease. 

These three plus Junpei set out for the DCOM (Dwelling for the Cohabitation of Mars) facility in the Nevada Desert because this is where Radical-6 originates. And what better way to prevent something, than to go to the source.  It makes sense, and I was actually intrigued despite not liking VLR. Like, maybe they would've learned from the messiness, but I was wrong. There is a solid stretch where ZTD isn't the goofiest and overtly serious game, yet it manages to go to back to being that mediocre game every time. 

To get back on topic, our returning characters end up imprisoned in DCOM alongside five newcomers. Diana, Carlos, Mira, Eric, and Q. I would say that these newcomers vary in likeability. Diana is my favorite and there is a reason why that I will dwell on later. And the same goes with Carlos, but for different reasons. I just felt like Diana and Carlos were exceptional and overall integral to the good portions of the writing for ZTD. But then you have Mira, who I think had potential, yet lacks screen time in order to have those special moments. However let's not forget Eric, who is by far the worst character in the franchise. ZTD goes above and beyond to cover for him in one scene, and then drags him in the next. Absolutely insane levels of "Blood thinks he's on the squad". Last but not least is Q. A character that I think is passable. I'm not crazy about him and I don't hate him.

But wait, there's one more. It's Zero! Again? But it's not Akane this time. So, who is it? You'll see later on. Yet what I find funny about this Zero, is that their physical presence is large in more ways than one. So much so that when they do the big reveal, it makes the other characters look dumb as hell. Like, they're 7ft tall or something. Not gonna be too hard find many others that are this big. But, that's for later. Now, Zero hits us with the name of the game. 

The Decision Game is what they call it. And it's that simple. You make a decision. A gambling game with life and death on the line. I think that ZTD is the closest Zero Escape has come to being Saw. You have a large villain putting people in stressful situations, while also using TVs and intercoms to communicate with the players. Zero might as well have been John Kramer. I thought that 999 was very Saw-coded, but ZTD takes the cake. 

So, you start the Decision Game with a coinflip. You get to leave or you don't. A simple concept that can be really funny. I say this because I won the coinflip immediately and rolled credits in like 15 minutes. Funniest situation because there are decisions later in the game that are RNG dependent. Yet, I think you just pick one side of the coin for this. You have to lose in order to play the game. Certainly one of the rewards of all time. 

The real game begins with another decision. To kill or not to kill, that is what I ask of thee. What this means, is that you are now set up into teams, or routes in the video game sense. Like VLR, ZTD functions in a similar way where you pick a route until you can't. Annoying, however I felt that it was more bearable in ZTD. The starts and stops felt more natural. One of the improvements that this game showcases. 

So, your teams are C-Team (Carlos, Akane, Junpei), Q-Team (Q, Mira, Eric), and D-Team (Diana, Phi, Sigma). Your choice for team is purely preferential until the game locks you out. You have a lot of choice, yet this first execution is vital. This choice will be the biggest obstacle for any player because it determines what gets unlocked later. You have to get all possible execution scenarios. Which involve killing each team and also not killing anyone. 

But the way to get these scenarios are confusing because of what the game doesn't tell you. I thought that you could just do every decision and that would unlock all execution scenarios. However, the game actually only takes the last decision made in each team's scenario. You actually have to go through and make sure that each team has picked a specific way. Interesting in a immersive sense, but annoying when you consider that the game lacks linearity on purpose. 

What makes this even weirder is that this is one of the many times where characters will reference things that the player has not seen or interacted with yet. I ended up coming across a few scenes like this, and even one of the endings. It was weird and something that makes me dislike the format that VLR and ZTD follow. Non-linear stories can work (i.e. Baccano), but you also have to reveal information in a proper way. The big reveals are found out too fast or given away haphazardly in most cases. 

The first team I am going to go over is Q-Team. My least favorite team by a longshot. Q is likable, but I just do not vibe with Mira, and especially not with Eric. To start off, Eric is just an asshole and he actually has no bearing on any event in the game. He's like a stand-in that they forgot about. His lack of relation to the plot is one of the least problematic things about him though. 

Eric is an abuse victim that is constantly abusing Q. Which totally defeats the purpose of trying to make the player feel empathetic towards him. I couldn't believe how many times he would just berate Q and then the game would play a dialogue-only cutscene to remind us that he was abused. Like, yeah Eric didn't deserve that. So why is he perpetuating the cycle onto Q. It makes no sense, and it made me wish death upon his character. Every scene with him is just worse off because he is in it. 

While Mira is not much better, at least she has some bearing on the game itself. Mira is mysterious, but can be unraveled quite quickly. She's indifferent to many situations, however one of the first things I noticed, came in one of the D-Team routes where a mysterious figure in black kills them.  I suspected Mira due to the figure being a moderate height, having tan skin, and black nails. The biggest giveaway is the skin tone though. No one else has her skin tone across Q-Team and C-Team. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out something like this. So, when she does have her scenes of depravity revealed, it's not shocking. It's more expected of her. She doesn't offer much outside of being a sociopathic murderer.  Not even the learning to love motif is enough. 

So, Q by circumstance is just better in general. One of the major reasons is that his story is actually layered. Because Q is not actually Q, but Sean 729 or simply, Sean. And Sean is based off of a child who died of an illness. Same name and likeness, outside of the giant head. This reveal does not happen until the end of a Q-Team route, and it ends up working quite well. Sean is an interesting character that doesn't get tripped up by some of the follies laid throughout ZTD.  

It is in Q-Route where we learn who Zero is. But, I'm not sure if that was how they intended it. Because the pieces are found in D-Route. And I ended up using that knowledge to get a secret ending that sets up the endgame. Which doesn't quite make sense to me, but that is for the end discussion. So, that information ends up being the name of Sigma and Diana's son, Delta. 

By typing in Delta during the Q-Team standoff in the Study, I was able to confirm that Delta was the new Zero, along with suspecting that they were also Brother of Free the Soul. All that information makes sense, but did they want it to be found out in the Study. I say this because the Zero reveal is actually done in a different Q-Team segment. Yet the Study is accessible first and the Zero Reveal unlocks after the Sigma and Diana portions. I think they wanted you to unmask him than do the standoff. 

I say this because Sean fires the arrow at the player and then the game's like, "You got him". I knew who it was, but I was confused at how this functioned. Because then Eric calls Sean by his real name, which had never happened in this branch. It's one of those things where I said how they revealed things too early. It made no sense then and it still doesn't make sense as to why they wouldn't account for the player to just use new information to complete a segment. 

However, I want to conclude the Q-Team section with my thoughts on the "gameplay". Standard affair for this series, do puzzles and leave room. But Q-Team only has 3 rooms. While I actually didn't mind the structure as much in this game, Q-Team exemplifies the issues moreso than any other team. They went with less gameplay and a heavy focus on story. ZTD is a very "set down the controller" ass game. This team almost had as many cutscene segments as C-Team and D-Team despite missing two rooms. Like holy shit, can I just play the fucking game? But I digress, let's move onto C-Team. 

The second best team in the game. And that comes down to Akane and Junpei just being alright in this game. They're not bad, yet they pale in comparison to their 999 iterations. While I can say that they feel more like themselves in this game than VLR. That doesn't discount the fact that nearly every returning character is outdone by the new MCs. And Carlos is very near perfection in my honest opinion.

Carlos has a heart of gold and goes out of his way to do the best thing in Carlos's mind. And that sentiment never changes. Carlos is authentically meatheadish in the best way possible. He's at DCOM to save his sister, Maria, who has Reverie Syndrome. The game says that it causes her to be in a dreamlike state at all times because her brain cannot handle the amount of information entering, causing a shutdown. So, Carlos becomes easy to root for because his goals are modest. He is not for himself, but for others. This translates to his actions as he sacrifices himself constantly in order to advance the story. He believes in the you that believes in me that believes in you and so on. 

So with the C-Team throuple, this route expands on the ideas behind the time-jumping that VLR established. As opposed to just focusing on the Morphogenetic Field aspect that was exclusive to Junpei and Akane. And this expanded concept is called SHIFT (Spacetime Human Internal Fluctuating Transfer). What SHIFT does is swap minds with another timeline. A concept that even gets them to question their own morality before ignoring that shit. Like, they questioned it after doing it haphazardly for quite a while before they felt bad, and then didn't feel bad again. Masterful writing that's for sure. 

Now, I'll end the C-Team discussion with some gameplay notes. I wasn't totally in love with the rooms in this route. The lack of character interjection is noticeable. I'm still questioning as to why they did away with it after the first game. But, the puzzles themselves felt more like Resident Evil and less like 999. There's not much thinking and the only issues that arise are for clarity because the wording or imagery just isn't clear.  This game in general has at least four puzzles where you rotate things and fit them in a box. 

And the worst one is in the Rec Room in the C-Team Route. You have to make a heart with various pieces. What makes this puzzle terrible, is the colors. The background is white and the heart is red. The issue comes from the box being the exact same image and tone. So, the pieces blend into the image and the readability becomes very difficult. I already have bad eyesight, so I just looked the answer up immediately (Shout outs to Thonkey). While this is not the only puzzle with this specific issue, you can't brute force this one like the others. This is why C-Team lands right in the middle for me. It has its highs and lows, but not enough Carlos to surpass D-Team. 

Finally, we have arrived at D-Team. The best team bar none. Why? Sigma and Diana. The powerhouse couple who seemingly did not pass any of the good writing onto their children. Those children being Phi and Delta (Zero). 

Phi had two whole games to be a character with depth, but sadly she just never gets there. Her whole arc in this game is about being the child and not worrying about her death because she will return. I would also say that Phi's reveal is even more telegraphed than Delta's because they kind of shove it in your face. Her character model has mixtures of Sigma and Diana's faces. Her hair is red like Diana's, she has Sigma's scowl and eyebrows, and her eyes are a greyish blue. With Diana having blue eyes and Sigma having grey eyes, it doesn't take a lot to pick up on these things. And then you pair this with the fact that Phi looks nothing like Sigma in VLR. It makes you think that they just didn't tell Kinu Nishimura the same things that they told Rui Tomono when designing the characters. 

But now it's Sigma time. Despite loving the design from VLR more than ZTD, I think that Sigma gets a massive glow-up in general. His arc is supposed to be about stopping Radical-6, but instead it shifts into being a love story. And I adore that because Diana pairs with him nicely while calling back to the best character from VLR, Luna. The Golem that just so happens to be modeled after Diana of all characters. This ends being the best part of the game for me. A favorite character and storyline looping into a new favorite character and storyline. I was suspicious about Diana and then the reveal made it that much cooler. I need to know who wrote storylines for Luna and Diana because they are peak. But overall I think that Sigma's strength lied in that love and kindness aspect. Allowing that to be his main driving point was the best possible decision. 

And now, it's time to talk more about the MVP of ZTD. The one and only, DIANA. She is perfect and I love her and I wish that she was in any other game. Why do they do this to me for the second game in a row. Props to Sigma in universe because he made a near perfect version of his wife. Not mention the connection between naming the character Luna which means moon. And Diana is the Roman name for the Goddess of the Moon, also know as Artemis. The layers of love behind this is immense and I could not be happier. 

This was one of the reveals that felt earned and rewarding to sickos like me. Because I remember in VLR there is the distress call about the events at DCOM and I recognized that the voice sounded like Luna's. And then you get to that part in ZTD where Diana makes the call and it was sweet. I found that to be such a satisfying payoff. There's also Diana pulling out the Blue Bird Cage Music Box. Like, Luna fans were eating. I was fed like a goddamn pig. I was initially drawn to D-Team because of Diana, and my love only grew more. They should've just made Diana the MC as whole, I'd play that game. 

That's enough gushing about Diana, let's talk about the gameplay. D-Team is in a similar boat to C-Team where most rooms were fine, but the Healing Room was just annoying to me. The concept of the room changing from the dial on the wall is neat, but then you have to play I-Spy for specific piano key shapes. The damn shapes were so finnicky. I spent way too long in there because it wanted some annoying angle or item combination. I understand wanting to show off some cool tech, but they needed to cut that shit out. All in all, D-Team was massively enjoyable and everyone got something out of it at the least. 

Finally, we have arrived at the end of the story and it is so bad. Delta reveals that he is Zero and that he has been participating in the Decision Game the whole time and he also has mind control powers. He calls them Mind Hack. It's so fucking stupid and would've been more tolerable if the game wasn't trying to lie to my face. I say this because he claims that he was also Q the whole time, but that motherfucker wasn't in the cells during the coinflip. Like, do they think I am stupid. Not to mention he is only mentioned in two Q-Team cutscenes. This kind of writing should get you suspended because why did they do it a second time. It's old Sigma all over again. 

So, Delta may suck cheeks, but I ranked him above Phi, Mira, and Eric because at least he has something going on. Him using Radical-6 to stop a nuclear war caused by a cult leader is funny as the destruction is theoretical. He says that it would wipe out humanity, yet claims to not be able to SHIFT like the other characters. So, how does he know that human extinction is imminent. Delta is just insane and should've been put down. Which funny enough, he does kills himself a la John Kramer from Saw by getting Eric to kill him while using Mind Hack. An assisted suicide that is once again ripped from Saw. James Wan and Leigh Whannell might need to collect royalties at this point. But Delta has complex motives and all that means to an end bullshit. 

The game ends with a whimper as the heroes leave DCOM and vow to find this Super Terrorist. You get tiny text epilogues for C-Team and Q-Team but not D-Team. Why? Kinda fucked up how the best group got nothing at the end. Fuck me I guess. If it feels like there's a lot going on, just know that this game still has a bunch of holes. Thirty hours of mostly cutscenes and there's still unexplained information. The lack of completeness is what ZTD is wholeheartedly. 

Those are my thoughts on this mess of a game. It makes VLR a tad bit better, yet the focus on cutscenes and a lack of puzzles show how far the mighty have fallen. Not to mention how bad the animations and character models look. I sincerely hope that Zero Escape can get a new game because maybe they can restore the magic by just honing in on a singular concept. Alas, we may never know. 

And remember to Free Palestine, Free Congo, Free Sudan, Free Venezuela and to Free Lebanon from the onslaught of their oppressors. Never stop talking about them. They think that we don't care, but we see everything. Never forget that. They are trying to suppress our voices because they matter, remember that. There may have been a ceasefire in Gaza, but Palestine still needs to be completely free.