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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 th...

 As per my last posting, I had finished 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors. And what do you know, I have now also finished Virtue's Last Reward. The sequel to an almost perfect game. But that is certainly not how I would describe VLR. The game feels like a downgrade in every direction. The writing is bad in nearly every aspect sans one character, they switched to doing the cutscenes in 3D, and I personally felt that the puzzle design was just not nearly as fluid. There are a myriad of issues to be had with this game, and I really think much of that has to do with the production time.  Like, I checked the release dates for both games, and the gap was almost two years exactly. With 999 releasing in December of 2009 in Japan, and VLR releasing in February of 2012. That window alone is simply not enough to achieve anything other than a rushed game. Their deadline just didn't have the room for them to develop a sequel to a game like 999.  While I did not go into many sp...

 After mainlining the first three Gears of War titles, I decided that I needed a genre switch-up. That decision came in the form of 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors. A Visual Novel-Puzzle Game hybrid that borrows from many mystery and horror tropes. An inescapable death game with the purpose of pitting others against one another while collaborating, in a sense. While a lot of parallels could be drawn to many forms of media, the one that jumped out to me was Saw.  A franchise that is known for playing games in life or death situations with the intent being on the life aspect. The games are supposed to be winnable, but performed at a high difficulty. The decision making is crucial to getting out of a Saw Trap. While some methods may differ, the games created by John Kramer (Jigsaw) are indeed winnable. The only caveat being that your nerves are working against you. So, while the framework is there in 999, the puzzles are not nearly as stress inducing. They are intended ...