*Talks constantly about a snail that causes people to die and how life is unfair.*
- Zero the Second (Zero Time Dilemma)
Zero Escape Trilogy
Zero Time Dilemma tells the story of nine people and a dog trapped in an underground shelter. Some of them have been trapped for a second or even a third time as there are multiple familiar faces in this game. The nine people have been split into groups of three with three people in each group. Each of the Zero Escape games have been created in the form of the killing / survival game sub-genre from horror and mystery fiction and this game follows that same tradition, so you know what's coming. Betrayal and regrets, at least. Zero Time Dilemma might have the most subtle foreshadowing in this series, which makes it from the mystery aspect of the story a nice send-off to the Zero Escape trilogy. However, the game is less than half as short as the previous game, Virtue's Last Reward. In other aspects I can see why people would find the game lacking. The game is similar to the Danganronpa game series (here are links to my reviews of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc and Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair) and is also created by the same company. However I think Zero Escape has more originality to it in comparison.
The goal for Zero Time Dilemma's cast is to survive a killing game where they could collect points from other groups of people - or even their own - dying as they are split into three different groups. After at least six or more people out of nine die, an elevator door that takes the survivors outside can be opened with digital keys known as X-Passes. The door is open for about 30 seconds before it closes forever and never opens again. This door opening scenario and tragic fates are shown in the series multiple times.
You play with three different main characters; as Carlos who is the leader of the C-Team with 999's Akane and Junpei with him in the team, as "Q" with two new characters in his Q-Team known as Mira and Eric, and as Diana who is the leader of the D-Team which consists of our main characters from VLR, both Phi and Sigma (Young with old man's mind).
ZTD has the same concept of multiverse theory as Virtue's Last Reward. This time the characters we are familiar with are up against the leader of the Free the Soul cult whose existence has been foreshadowed since the first game.
To defeat their opponent, the groups have to use their ability to swap with other timelines of themselves to survive and keep their memories. Unlike in VLR, this broken (overpowered) ability to swap their presence within timelines isn't however as much help this time around as the villain of the game can use their power somewhat against them. To find more about the truth of why they were kidnapped our main characters have to solve gruesome puzzles and do anything they can to survive from getting killed by others.
First thing about Zero Time Dilemma's art that I must say is that its PS4/Vita/etc. CD cover page is stunningly beautiful with great aesthetics. The little we have of the hand-drawn 2D artwork for this series constantly one-ups itself. Sadly after the first game, 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (2009), the series switches its games to 3D environment with 3D characters. Despite the heavy praise 3D products get from the masses, I don't prefer it when it looks mediocre (it's hard to make good-looking 3D games without cheap assets. These games would lose originality just from utilizing assets that they don't make for these games). Disney does 3D nostalgia bait remake movies constantly nowadays; Lion King, Aladdin, Maleficent, Mulan, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Lilo & Stitch, Pinocchio, Cruella, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, etc... it's absolutely ridiculous right now how much they milk old hand-drawn 2D animated beautiful projects with 3D. Why would they do that, you might ask? Because they sell hundreds of millions more than the original movies did. That's why these big 2D games go 3D - they want to maximize their profits even though they lose some of their identity in the process (however sometimes these series may even gain their real identity later on, eg. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure really gains its identity from part 3 onwards when it introduces stands as power source, and the originality of the series' fights starts from part 4 onwards). Anyway point was that in movement Zero Time Dilemma does not please the eyes of your average gamer by any stretch of the imagination. The animations are very stiff and off-putting, they're very out-of-model.
The soundtrack isn't memorable at all either. I've tried to listen to the tracks but just like with Danganronpa, the Zero Escape series just doesn't have good beats. None of the tracks stick with me. Music in games is one of those things that I really like. I can remember couple PS1 RPG's soundtracks still. Final Fantasy 7, Grandia 1, Breath of Fire 3 and 4, Chrono Cross and Chrono Trigger. Also on other consoles the Dragon Quest series, the Dark Cloud game series... There are many game series with tracks that are memorable. Zero Escape should at least have had a tense soundtrack or something.
The game's length brings both positives and negatives to the gameplay experience. The game is less than half the length of Virtue's Last Reward which makes it have weaker build up to the endings and less emotional impact. However this game is 3rd in the series which means that we already do understand how this whole convoluted timeline multiverse thing works. The game could honestly have been much worse if it was just as long as VLR - hell, that game was far too long to begin with. The monotonous feeling is not as bad in this game when you jump around the timelines and the game kind of ends where it has to end instead of dragging the story out any further. I don't like how the ending is basically the same as in the other games in a sense that it doesn't give closure though (I don't have anything against open endings in stories which this sort of was but the problem comes from there being a villain left for them to defeat for no reason. They could have easily wrapped the story up instead of leaving a sequel bait which will never even come into fruition due to the lacking sales this series has). From the very beginning I could see that there is no way the game is going to go the way it should have with VLR in mind, but it was going to be just its own thing. The main characters being new characters for example tells the player that they can't focus just on the overarching plotline. If the game was as long as VLR it might have been able to, however its pacing would have been messed up. I think this game has a fine pacing as it starts and ends without much hanging, and the story fits a decent amount of plot twists for each group - couple surprising ones exist in the game as well that could be likened to a sleight of hand tricks. The same way I praise Ace Attorney 6 and Miles Edgeworth 2 to be very inspirational for mystery writers I'd suggest this game as well. Experience helps one to create better stories.
All in all I would say that I enjoyed Zero Time Dilemma and I can recommend it to people who don't have unreasonable expectations from playing Virtue's Last Reward on what and how the plot handles overarching themes.
I can't believe that I just breezed through this trilogy game series. I'm still in limbo with Danganronpa's 3rd installation as those games have been unnecessarily too long for my taste, but I think finishing this series so easily motivates me to finish that series as well. Next up I will still be posting a full story overview of this game with a whopping 17 000 words in that document. I was kind of immersed to it enough to do that, yeah...
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| Official art from a nicely presented puzzle that exists in one of the game's story arcs. |
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