Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma review
To fully appreciate this game, I think it is necessary to play or at least watch a Let’s Play of 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward.
The third and final installment of this series has received mixed opinions, and I completely understand why. Overall, I really enjoyed it, though it’s a very flawed game.
(Warning: spoilers for the entire Zero Escape series below.)
In terms of quality, I’d rate the games in the following order: 999 > VLR >>> ZTD
In terms of my enjoyment, I’d rate the games as follows: ZTD ≥ VLR >>> 999
zero escape + main characters (sinsukes)
For a bit of background, I got into 999 by watching supergreatfriend’s stream LP in 2012. I admit I mostly listened to his commentary while doing homework, but I ended up getting interested in the game’s (true ending) third act. I will agree with the fanbase that it is technically the best game in the series. It has the best art direction - especially considering the unfortunately low budget the series has had to deal with - it has a complete story that can function well enough on its own, the characters are quirky, it’s got an emotional, satisfying ending (arguably the most satisfying in the series), the plot is accessible and well-paced, and the twist is really good. Not Deadly Premonition levels of mindblowing, IMO, but really good.
But I confess that I didn’t become fully invested in the series until VLR.
VLR is long. Really, really long. It drags, it repeats philosophical and scientific concepts and uses 50 different metaphors to explain them like the game thinks you’re ten years old and you’ve never heard of Schrödinger’s Cat, it has frustrating locks which can screw with the flow of a timeline, and the cast has a lot of unlikable or unreliable characters who become absolutely infuriating at certain points. The animation is janky, and some of the sprites have bizarre, unintentionally hilarious reactions that don’t really match the script or voice acting, and you really have to suspend your disbelief at a lot of moments. But something about it grabbed me, and as I’ve found with Deadly Premonition, I’ve come to embrace the jank. (That goes double for Zero Time Dilemma.)
If 999 has the best story of the series, VLR has, in my opinion, the best plot twists. I guessed a few of them from the beginning, but they still surprised me at the end because I had discarded my theories halfway through and thought of new ones (my sister still tells me to this day that she was shocked at how I had correctly guessed, after watching a couple of SGF’s VLR vids, that the protagonist’s body was actually the old version of himself. I still don’t remember telling her I thought that.) A couple twists shocked me, especially Luna being a robot, Tenmyouji being Junpei, and Sigma being Zero (I accidentally spoiled myself on K being Kyle.) And I admit that a big part of why I love VLR so much is Luna.
On a surface level, Luna’s kind of boring and one-note, and I can see why she’d be irritating in a cloying, too nice way. But her niceness is balanced out by the rest of the cast’s less-nice antics, and I was really surprised that she turned out to be such an integral part to the story. I had pegged her as just another waifu, and even though she kind of is, her end has one of my favorite scenes in the entire series, and one of my favorite scenes in most games. Forget Aerith’s death scene, Luna’s crushed me to my core. It’s heartwrenching and upsetting, and I was legit surprised that a bunch of text and images - well, it was coupled with fantastic voice acting and has one of the best tracks I’ve ever heard in a video game - could make me feel so many emotions about a robot breaking down.
So, while 999 is definitely the strongest in the series, I had found myself more attached to VLR. I honestly think 999 is the most boring of the three, and distinctly remember not paying much attention to it until Lotus started hacking in the True End.
I like Lotus and Seven. I wasn’t really blown away by Clover’s axe ending, or any of the non-True endings. Santa and Snake are IMO, overrated characters. All I think about when I think of them are “Draco” and “House M.D.” respectively. I just find it difficult to care about either of them, although I don’t mind reading about them in fic - fic writers flesh them out and make them more interesting to me than 999 ever did. I didn't care about Ace, and combined with my complete lack of caring about his villain reveal (and bafflement at his motive, it's by far the dumbest thing in the entire series to me), the whole Nineth Man beginning bit, and Snake and Santa disappearing in half the game, are many reasons why 999 has the weakest cast to me. I could only connect to a couple of them, the rest were just kind of... there - or not there, in Santa's and Snake's cases. I literally can barely remember anything about them other than they are both snarky, smart, and love their sisters.
While I love that Akane was the mastermind, I found all her conversations with Junpei kinda boring and repetitive - I lost count of how many times she fainted or said, “Do you remember when we were kids?” I like that her standard damsel in distress moe spiel turned out to be an act (well, sort of, considering ZTD), and their end scene as kids was sweet, but I didn’t feel very emotional about them. My main takeaways from 999 were, “Oh shit, Akane is Zero! Sudoku is the final boss! Yay Lotus is finally doing stuff! Woah, that’s the mummy?” and that’s about all the emotion I could muster for that game. I think I needed to have played it to be blown away, but then again, watching games like Deadly Premonition, VLR, Journey, and the first ¾ of The Walking Dead Game (I played the rest by myself and bawled my eyes out at the end) inspired me so much more. I suppose the aspect of 999 being a visual novel is part of the immersion process, but I did watch NicoB’s 999 series to hear the dialogue, and it still didn’t work for me (and it’s not his voices; I like his voices, especially for Seven, Junpei\Sigma, Ace and Snake.) Idk, just, the more I hear about how 999 is a masterpiece in gaming, the more “eh, whatever” I feel toward it. Same thing happened with The Last of Us, which I still think is the most overrated game in recent history.
Anyway, onto ZTD. It is the worst in the series, I’ll just say that up front. On its own, as a game, it’s good - I’d even say great, but that’s because I’ve watched SGF play NightCry and Super Best Friends play Omikron: The Nomad Soul - but as a trilogy conclusion, it missed the mark, especially at the end. ZTD dropped a bunch of plot-heavy stuff from the previous games and, when I think about it objectively, had 2 decent twists and 1 that actually made me sit up and go WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK. That did melt my brain, but it was more in a “Wait, what?” way than an Ohhhhhhhh way like I had with the 999 and VLR twists.
But. Despite the disappointments and shortcomings, I think ZTD arguably has a lot of heart, which is strange, considering how brutal it is in terms of violence, death, and psychological horror. I’d say this game, out of all 3, has the most collective feels, and I will forgive a lot of narrative and technical shit for feels (see Deadly Premonition, Life and Dollhouse.)
What I loved
+ D-Team. Everything D-Team. I went into it with high hopes for them, especially since I prefer VLR over 999, and I wasn’t disappointed on that front. Although I wish Uchikoshi had had more time to write for all teams, I am very grateful that of all the teams he wrote for, he wrote D-Team, because in lesser hands I think I would’ve been disappointed (much like, unfortunately, many Akane and Junpei fans are.) Sigma and Phi’s banter was on point (their banter was one of VLR’s highlights), Phi and Diana got a few sweet, genuine moments that legit made me cry, and I got pretty much everything I was looking forward to in Diana/Sigma’s arc - well, okay, I would’ve liked more, but I always want more of my OTPs!
+ The D-2 end was phenomenal storytelling and voice acting, and after finishing it, I felt like I’d ridden a rollercoaster of emotions (and, now that I think about it, I appreciate that it focuses on the feelings and character development the whole way through, which was a tremendous improvement on the 40-minute infodump in Luna’s end that even I got tired of listening to, until the emotions kicked in during the last 5 minutes.)
+ While I actually like some of the pseudoscience and love the philosophical themes in the series, all the timeline shit can get a little hard to follow, and one of the reasons I think 999’s climax is so well-received (for good reason) is because it added a human element to puzzle solving. D-End:2 leaned all the way on the emotional aspect, but I think that’s why it’s very effective, and is generally regarded as one of the best parts of ZTD (and arguably in the series.)
+ I admit I actually swooned like a fucking teenager when Sigma wrapped his (human!!) arms around Diana, apologized and admitted all his flaws, explaining why he was always so distant and cold with her (which I had picked up on in the other fragments and was like wtf Sigma, I thought you loved her!), she apologized too for having lashed out at him, and then they kissed. So immensely satisfying, and the bonus was no awkward close-ups of dead-eyed models making out (it was framed a lot like the Deadly Premonition post-credits kiss! Big thumbs up), and no creepy mannequin sex scene (looking at you, David Cage). Showing Sigma and Diana’s kiss from behind and focusing on their hands in the pod, then zooming away from said closed pod and fading to black was very tastefully done, IMO - it showed their intimacy, it was integral to the story, and it capped off a very emotional series of events. Standing ovation from me.
+ And God, at the end, they’re both so happy with their babies, but their faces are sunken in from near starvation and they know they’re going to die in the shelter, but they can give their children a second chance. Even though I was accidentally spoiled on Delta, even though the game actually didn’t make this a shocking twist but rather slowly played up the dramatic irony, I was so into this fragment and it is without a doubt my second favorite part of the series, after Luna’s End.
I was actually surprised when I looked up others’ reactions. I thought I was being my dumb het-loving fangirl self and everyone else would be grossed out or hate how it played up, but overall it seems like this a fan favorite part of the game and I was even happier to see that :D
...Oh yeah, other stuff happened in this game lol
+ The C team SHIFTing party. LOVE that. One of the highest points in the game. It hearkened back to Sigma and Phi jumping all the way back to the very beginning of the AB game to prevent Akane’s death. In contrast, Carlos’s SHIFTING in order to save Junpei and Akane (his baes <3) ended up being futile and helped lead to the VLR verse, which I thought was fitting. I actually think that scene elevated the D-1 ending. I was initially so mad that that writers had completely forgotten that Akane and Junpei were alive in VLR, but had died in that ZTD verse - I shouldn’t have doubted them. That was a very cool segment.
+ Music was A+++ Had a couple classics like "Ustulate Pathos" and "Interminable Dilemma," but my favorites are "Quondam Monitors," "Nostalgic Scenery," "Transporter," "Locker Room," "Clarification," "Morphogenetic Sorrow (Third Mix)," and "Placidity 2nd Mix." "Unliberated Library" grew on me. I prefer VLR's versions of Ambidexterity and Blue Bird Lamentation, but it was nice to hear them in ZTD.
+ Carlos was surprisingly a good dude who tried to get shit done and was very likable and easy to root for. I had totally pegged him as an asshole Left clone and I think that was some great (probably purposeful?) misdirect with his art. He had a bunch of amazing one-liners, and while I do OT3 him with Akane and Junpei (though it’s more like Carlos/Junpei/Akane or Junpei/Carlos&Akane), I really appreciate that he wasn’t given a romance arc. There was already a ton of romance in this game that he did not need one. His “The fuck?” reactions to Junpei telling Akane he and Carlos would be her shield was fucking gold, his “Shoot me. I won’t die” and getting shot moment is one of the highlights in the entire series, and I love him for stepping aside so Kanny and Jumpy could have their sweet pre-proposal moment.
+ Diana is my favorite character in this game and I am so happy with how she turned out. Her one detracting factor is that I still find her eyes hard to look at when she faces the camera directly, but I can easily overlook that because her writing and voice acting was fucking phenomenal. Uchikoshi had a really tough character to write following Luna, and for a good while I was a tad underwhelmed by Diana, but she completely won me over in her D-End 2 fragment, and I gained so much appreciation for her that my love for her carried over to all the other fragments, especially the Q-End 2 one. As I said before, Diana is human, she’s flawed, and I like the contrast that Sigma acknowledges, that Luna, as perfect as she is, is perfect because she’s the idealized version of Diana. She’s the sweet innocent who is literally the perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world. Diana fucks up and fucks up hard, yet she’s tenacious, sympathetic toward others, determined, and recognizes that she has faults. Diana is tied with Luna as my favorite character in the entire series, and for Uchikoshi to pull that off with Diana in just ONE game and change is pretty impressive, IMO.
+ Unpopular opinion: I like Junpei and Akane in this game. Carlos helped a lot, but I dug Junpei’s arc in going from being an emo edgelord to the game’s threats and Akane’s presence chipping away at his icy, jaded armor. It might have made more sense if there’d been a longer timelapse than a year between games, but I’ll let it slide. It’s not like it was a week later. I like that we see all these different versions of Junpei and Akane, and to be frank, I didn’t become invested with their relationship until VLR, when Tenmyouji was yelling her name and desperately trying to touch her hologram, then later saying, “She’s just like [Sigma]. She isn’t anywhere.” That really got to me and I think ZTD does a great job extending on that while showing the ramifications that the second Nonary game had on his psyche. His voice actor also won me over in the 1+1+1 dice roll ending. Junpei’s pure joy at winning, prancing out of the room and chugging beer is one of my favorite sequences in the entire series. I found him the most bland in 999 and liked seeing the threads of his selfishness and willingness to fuck over anyone so long as Akane lives, get taken to another degree in this game. As for Akane… I will say that after mulling it over and looking at 999 art again, I think she did get shafted in terms of design, characterization, and especially voice acting. Diana’s voice actress sold the hell out of her character and made her believable, especially in emotional scenes. But the voice actress for Akane ended up hurting a lot of her emotional moments. She was much better at the ‘Akane pseudosciences!’ moments, and I think her best moment in the game was in the C-1 End, when she tells Carlos, “I do what I must to accomplish my goals.” I think Akane in this game would’ve been much more well-received by the fandom if her young!Akane VLR voice actress had been in this game instead. Otherwise, I still appreciated Akane’s characterization, even though it did seem kind of inconsistent. I would argue, though, that 999’s Akane, with the fainting and flirting and random “Hey Junpei let’s talk about Ice-9!” moments pretty much were Akane at her core. She’s weird, she’s a bit ditzy, sure she did get Cloverized, but I appreciated seeing bloody yandere!Akane. Basically, I think Junpei was fine overall. Akane could have been done better - and I get the feeling that her not being written by Uchikoshi did make her characterization suffer - but overall, I still like them.
+ Sean. Sean is a MASSIVE improvement over Quark. Half the time in VLR I was like, “Oh yeah, Quark’s here,” (much like I kept forgetting about Santa and Snake) because I’d forgotten about him. He was basically a plot device for Tenmyouji and I was ok with that, I just ended up not really caring that much about Quark. Sean, however, is gold, and I think his ‘Happy’ ‘Death’ endings are, you guesed it, some of the best in the series. I teared up during his Happy End; that fragment gave Zero II some much-needed dimensions and even made him sympathetic to a point, and I really really love some of the lines/frames in that fragment, especially Sean facing down Zero II and looking wrathful, but when Zero II gives him the opportunity to kill him, Sean wants answers and gets them. I love his “Why can I feel something here [his heart]. It’s warm, and I know it’s there,” and the exchange at the end of the ‘Death’ ending where Zero II explains the quantum machine and Sean asks “Traverse the universe?” and Zero II suddenly tells him the code to his helmet. That was so fucking good. If none of the other scenes justified the 3-D cinematics (which I got used to), that scene did. Sean was the heart of Q-Team. He made Mira and Eric tolerable, and I kinda like the idea of him hanging out with them after the game.
+ After having given it some major thought, I appreciate Eric being in the game. And I do like Mira’s twist ending. Did not see that coming, at all! I do think Q-Team was the weakest of all 3, but I think they were fascinating in their own right and I think that Eric is a much more entertaining antagonist than Ace. Ace had a great design and was threatening in a different way, but I’m sorry, I still think his “I need to put children in these death games so I can ~~~~see people’s faces~~~~” is so fucking dumb and one of the reasons I go “eh……really?” when people tout 999 as masterful writing. Look, all the games are full of dumb bullshit, at least ZTD had fun with it! Anyway. Dio’s still my favorite villain, but after re-watching a bunch of NicoB’s LP and SGF’s stream, and reading some meta on Eric, gave me a lot more appreciation of Eric. He’s horrible, but there’s a reason for that. He had a terrible childhood, then meets Miro who basically becomes the one beacon of light in his life, then we realize Mira would rather murder him than be with him, then Eric finds out she’s been murdered, and Sigma and Diana’s copies wake him up… yeah, so is Eric not supposed to freak out? After a few re-watches, I'm just as frustrated by Carlos and Sigma not even trying to grab the gun from Eric as I am with Eric being trigger happy. When he yells, “I’m so sick of this shit!” I kind of do sympathize with him, whereas with Dio, I just straight up hated him and wanted him to get continuously punched in the face. So I like that there are different shades of villainy in this series and Eric wasn’t just like Dio. He was thrown into these death games and had an unstable personality. It makes complete sense for him to fly off the handle. It DOESN’T make sense for Sigma and Carlos - especially Sigma, who has both arms - to stand around and let Eric hold the shotgun. It did make me feel a little better to rewatch NicoB’s VLR playthrough and hear him voice the same frustrations for a similar problem, in that everyone jumps Sigma to keep him from using the #9 door by himself, but just kind of stand around gaping, suddenly helpless as Dio or K or Clover leave by themselves. But noooo, VLR is godtier level writing in comparison! My point is, 999 and VLR have flaws too, I wish the fandom would stop acting like those games are suddenly perfect just because ZTD had more glaring issues.
What I didn’t love
- Kyle did get shafted. I find all the game bashing ONLY due to the fact that he wasn’t in it annoying, but he should have been in it, if only to SHIFT into Sigma’s body to dropkick Delta, or if he SHIFTED with Delta due to gene-sharing and took control to let the others go. I know it would’ve been pandering but I guess it would’ve made at least some die-hard fans happy.
- If I could change only one thing and one thing only, I would have added a montage of watercolor paintings at the end credits to show different snapshots of all the different timelines as a montage. One painting of Junpei's floating corpse in 999, one of him enjoying a root-beer float with Quark on Earth post-VLR, one with the aftermath of everyone being discovered dead on Rhizome-9, one with Ace in jail, one with Clover and Alice showing up in ZTD via the pods, one post D-End: 2 with Diana/Sigma and the babies starving to death in the lounge, one with Diana/Sigma happily holding toddler Luna and baby Kyle and with Phi in a family portrait, one with Alice and Clover killing Delta, one with Dr. Klim sitting on a bench with Kyle and Luna post-VLR, one with Dio trying to get out of his handcuffs all alone, one with all the Nonary and Decision game characters at Junpei and Akane’s wedding, etc. I think that the game would still have pissed people off, but a montage would have helped minimize the salt.
- I would have added even more cutscenes to D-End: 2. I love it but I want more, lol. I would have included a scene of Sigma tinkering with the robots in Manufacturing, and I'd include a scene of Sigma and Diana trying to make up a game with the alien cards and having more happy, joking moments (AND SIGMA WOULD HAVE VOICED A CAT PUN!!). On a more serious note, I would have changed the execution of finding out Diana’s background. It makes sense but it's …. not grate Bob that Sigma is the one who tells Diana all the shit she went through and he’s so calm about it. Again, I believe his compassion in VLR did get eroded on the moon, and I do believe all that time in isolation truly fucked with his brain and how he interacts with people, or that he might have wanted to be blatantly cruel to Diana so she would avoid him, but it still comes off as -.- at best. And so does the literal ‘slap slap kiss kiss.’ That bothers me more than anything in the fragment and is the one low point because even though they both slap each other, from Sigma’s end it just shouldn’t have happened at all because we literally had just had a cutscene of him explaning how she was abused by her ex, and then right after he slaps her while she's drunk, they do it. It's not a good look, even though I love his confessing scene and telling her how much of a fuck-up he is. I personally pad out the time in between mentally so that it's not directly following the slap, but yeah. It’s not a dealbreaker, they’re still my OTP, but it’s... ugh, yeah, I definitely would’ve omitted both the slaps. Then again, I had completely forgotten Junpei knocked Akane out to put her in the fireplace, so basically I'll chalk this up to "there's a lot of fucked up shit in these games" and if people hate the ships, Diana/Sigma especially, I don't blame them. I get super defensive when people shit on the game but if people hate S/D then I get a bit salty but I'm much more accepting if people hate them, or if they still ship Sigma/Phi or whatever which amuses me (However, I can't stand the thought of Diana/Carlos, and Sigma/Akane makes me feel ill. I see the basis of Sigmakane much more than D/C but I'd like to think of Sigma and Akane as purely platonic Zero bros who are deeply and irreversibly in love with their better halves, Diana and Junpei, respectively.) I feel so much for these two and headcanon that they have a happy, healthy marriage with babies (and a close relationship with Phi) after defeating the terrorist with the other espers.
- I think the Delta=Zero reveal does have issues but I honestly don’t know how to change it without making the twist obvious - I suppose the ‘best’ choice would have been making him Santa or Snake, but I still think that’d be dumb and I'm frankly over those two and their overrated boring blandness. I would have rather Delta’s character be built up more, I would have added more flashbacks to DCom to flesh out the interrelationships (especially Akane/Junpei and Diana/Sigma angst) and I DEFINITELY would have added a C-End:2 fragment of Carlos finding out that he’s a clone with Delta explaining everything, maybe adding a flashback painting of Delta and Left as children playing together, with Phi in the background. I had my heart set on "Carlos is a Left clone" and I still think it was originally going to be a thing, but ended up on the cutting room floor. I also would have included a three-room puzzle at the end (or a puzzle in the Quantum computer room) in which all the characters have to do something to solve the puzzle. And while I’m ok with the open ending, I guess… Idk, I would’ve made it more clear that the characters had a satisfying conclusion? ZTD's ending basically ended on the same note VLR did and while I'm much more satisfied with ZTD's ending than Animorph's ending in comparison, I don't think that was the best way to end the series. Put in a surprise twist with Dio, Clover and Alice coming out through the pods, and Kyle SHIFTing, and sure throw in an apperance with Snake to appease the old school fans, but as the ending stands, it could have been better. But all that being said, I don’t know if I want a ZE4 or not. Half of me doesn’t because I want to make up the multiple post-game endings on my own, but the other half of me wants more of the characters I love, and I would be over the moon haha if we ever got a canon confirmed ending that Diana and Sigma got married and had babies, and I guess it would be nice if there was a ‘good’ game to round out the series. But I think that’s the pessimistic, high-expectations entitled fandom effect talking (especially sgf's last stream). On my own, I love the game, but I’m letting the fandom’s opinions sway me into pointing out all the flaws, but I want to defend it because I went into it not expecting a masterpiece, but just a fun dumb ride with pseudoscience, good music, philosophical themes, and fulfilling shippy moments, which is what I got. Oh well.
- And yeah, I would have given the art direction crew way more time and money to work on the models. I got used to the animations, but it’s still pretty bad, and if I had the money, I would totally fund a more quality version of the game, keeping the puzzles and voice acting as-is and doing other things like modifying D-End:2, adding C-End:2, adding a final puzzle and getting a good writer to rewrite the ending lol.
All right, that’s enough negativity. As I’ve said, I still love this game - and the more it gets bashed, the more I love it - and I’m still glad it got made at all.
The third and final installment of this series has received mixed opinions, and I completely understand why. Overall, I really enjoyed it, though it’s a very flawed game.
(Warning: spoilers for the entire Zero Escape series below.)
In terms of quality, I’d rate the games in the following order: 999 > VLR >>> ZTD
In terms of my enjoyment, I’d rate the games as follows: ZTD ≥ VLR >>> 999
zero escape + main characters (sinsukes)
For a bit of background, I got into 999 by watching supergreatfriend’s stream LP in 2012. I admit I mostly listened to his commentary while doing homework, but I ended up getting interested in the game’s (true ending) third act. I will agree with the fanbase that it is technically the best game in the series. It has the best art direction - especially considering the unfortunately low budget the series has had to deal with - it has a complete story that can function well enough on its own, the characters are quirky, it’s got an emotional, satisfying ending (arguably the most satisfying in the series), the plot is accessible and well-paced, and the twist is really good. Not Deadly Premonition levels of mindblowing, IMO, but really good.
But I confess that I didn’t become fully invested in the series until VLR.
VLR is long. Really, really long. It drags, it repeats philosophical and scientific concepts and uses 50 different metaphors to explain them like the game thinks you’re ten years old and you’ve never heard of Schrödinger’s Cat, it has frustrating locks which can screw with the flow of a timeline, and the cast has a lot of unlikable or unreliable characters who become absolutely infuriating at certain points. The animation is janky, and some of the sprites have bizarre, unintentionally hilarious reactions that don’t really match the script or voice acting, and you really have to suspend your disbelief at a lot of moments. But something about it grabbed me, and as I’ve found with Deadly Premonition, I’ve come to embrace the jank. (That goes double for Zero Time Dilemma.)
If 999 has the best story of the series, VLR has, in my opinion, the best plot twists. I guessed a few of them from the beginning, but they still surprised me at the end because I had discarded my theories halfway through and thought of new ones (my sister still tells me to this day that she was shocked at how I had correctly guessed, after watching a couple of SGF’s VLR vids, that the protagonist’s body was actually the old version of himself. I still don’t remember telling her I thought that.) A couple twists shocked me, especially Luna being a robot, Tenmyouji being Junpei, and Sigma being Zero (I accidentally spoiled myself on K being Kyle.) And I admit that a big part of why I love VLR so much is Luna.
On a surface level, Luna’s kind of boring and one-note, and I can see why she’d be irritating in a cloying, too nice way. But her niceness is balanced out by the rest of the cast’s less-nice antics, and I was really surprised that she turned out to be such an integral part to the story. I had pegged her as just another waifu, and even though she kind of is, her end has one of my favorite scenes in the entire series, and one of my favorite scenes in most games. Forget Aerith’s death scene, Luna’s crushed me to my core. It’s heartwrenching and upsetting, and I was legit surprised that a bunch of text and images - well, it was coupled with fantastic voice acting and has one of the best tracks I’ve ever heard in a video game - could make me feel so many emotions about a robot breaking down.
So, while 999 is definitely the strongest in the series, I had found myself more attached to VLR. I honestly think 999 is the most boring of the three, and distinctly remember not paying much attention to it until Lotus started hacking in the True End.
I like Lotus and Seven. I wasn’t really blown away by Clover’s axe ending, or any of the non-True endings. Santa and Snake are IMO, overrated characters. All I think about when I think of them are “Draco” and “House M.D.” respectively. I just find it difficult to care about either of them, although I don’t mind reading about them in fic - fic writers flesh them out and make them more interesting to me than 999 ever did. I didn't care about Ace, and combined with my complete lack of caring about his villain reveal (and bafflement at his motive, it's by far the dumbest thing in the entire series to me), the whole Nineth Man beginning bit, and Snake and Santa disappearing in half the game, are many reasons why 999 has the weakest cast to me. I could only connect to a couple of them, the rest were just kind of... there - or not there, in Santa's and Snake's cases. I literally can barely remember anything about them other than they are both snarky, smart, and love their sisters.
While I love that Akane was the mastermind, I found all her conversations with Junpei kinda boring and repetitive - I lost count of how many times she fainted or said, “Do you remember when we were kids?” I like that her standard damsel in distress moe spiel turned out to be an act (well, sort of, considering ZTD), and their end scene as kids was sweet, but I didn’t feel very emotional about them. My main takeaways from 999 were, “Oh shit, Akane is Zero! Sudoku is the final boss! Yay Lotus is finally doing stuff! Woah, that’s the mummy?” and that’s about all the emotion I could muster for that game. I think I needed to have played it to be blown away, but then again, watching games like Deadly Premonition, VLR, Journey, and the first ¾ of The Walking Dead Game (I played the rest by myself and bawled my eyes out at the end) inspired me so much more. I suppose the aspect of 999 being a visual novel is part of the immersion process, but I did watch NicoB’s 999 series to hear the dialogue, and it still didn’t work for me (and it’s not his voices; I like his voices, especially for Seven, Junpei\Sigma, Ace and Snake.) Idk, just, the more I hear about how 999 is a masterpiece in gaming, the more “eh, whatever” I feel toward it. Same thing happened with The Last of Us, which I still think is the most overrated game in recent history.
Anyway, onto ZTD. It is the worst in the series, I’ll just say that up front. On its own, as a game, it’s good - I’d even say great, but that’s because I’ve watched SGF play NightCry and Super Best Friends play Omikron: The Nomad Soul - but as a trilogy conclusion, it missed the mark, especially at the end. ZTD dropped a bunch of plot-heavy stuff from the previous games and, when I think about it objectively, had 2 decent twists and 1 that actually made me sit up and go WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK. That did melt my brain, but it was more in a “Wait, what?” way than an Ohhhhhhhh way like I had with the 999 and VLR twists.
But. Despite the disappointments and shortcomings, I think ZTD arguably has a lot of heart, which is strange, considering how brutal it is in terms of violence, death, and psychological horror. I’d say this game, out of all 3, has the most collective feels, and I will forgive a lot of narrative and technical shit for feels (see Deadly Premonition, Life and Dollhouse.)
What I loved
+ D-Team. Everything D-Team. I went into it with high hopes for them, especially since I prefer VLR over 999, and I wasn’t disappointed on that front. Although I wish Uchikoshi had had more time to write for all teams, I am very grateful that of all the teams he wrote for, he wrote D-Team, because in lesser hands I think I would’ve been disappointed (much like, unfortunately, many Akane and Junpei fans are.) Sigma and Phi’s banter was on point (their banter was one of VLR’s highlights), Phi and Diana got a few sweet, genuine moments that legit made me cry, and I got pretty much everything I was looking forward to in Diana/Sigma’s arc - well, okay, I would’ve liked more, but I always want more of my OTPs!
+ The D-2 end was phenomenal storytelling and voice acting, and after finishing it, I felt like I’d ridden a rollercoaster of emotions (and, now that I think about it, I appreciate that it focuses on the feelings and character development the whole way through, which was a tremendous improvement on the 40-minute infodump in Luna’s end that even I got tired of listening to, until the emotions kicked in during the last 5 minutes.)
+ While I actually like some of the pseudoscience and love the philosophical themes in the series, all the timeline shit can get a little hard to follow, and one of the reasons I think 999’s climax is so well-received (for good reason) is because it added a human element to puzzle solving. D-End:2 leaned all the way on the emotional aspect, but I think that’s why it’s very effective, and is generally regarded as one of the best parts of ZTD (and arguably in the series.)
- Amidst all the shocking plot twists and scientific/mathematical discussion, the characters are a big draw to the series. We care about them, and in some cases we want to see them fail and suffer (Hongou, Dio, Eric), while in others we want to see them succeed and prevail (Junpei, Sigma, Diana). In the case of D-End:2 specifically, we had already been frontloaded with knowledge of Luna’s personality and the reveal that she was based on a person Dr. Klim knew. In D-End:1, we learn the depths of Sigma’s and Diana’s feelings for each other, but in D-End:2 we get to see it play out for ourselves, and we also finally get to see what happens after the door is closed. It’s a natural spiral into misery, but the Hope Spot in the middle really turns things around and makes the build-up worth watching, and there’s both natural build-up and a plot-heavy reason for them to comfort each other. Uchikoshi understands that some people might have a difficult time with the fragment system and time travel in general, so in D-End:2, he tapped into that intrinsic, basic instinct part that we would understand. Concepts like multi-verse theory, probability and mathematical conversion are kind of ambitious to get across and facilitate, but most of us easily connect to despair and love. Both are simple, relatable concepts to grasp, and both worked best in the cutscene format rather than in a puzzle room or littered with “Decision Time!” mechanics - I find D-End:2 very similar to the climax cutscenes in Deadly Premonition. “The Stranded Pair” gave me that same intense, glued-to-the-screen sensation I had when I watched those DP climax cutscenes and was completely riveted. Uchikoshi knew we would sympathize with Diana’s descent into depression, and he knew we could see that Sigma was in love with her and why, and that Sigma could not keep himself distant from her because of her pain. It was a masterfully crafted segment, and I love it.
- For more context, when I watched Luna’s End, I had mentally prepared myself for incoming feels… and then SGF kind of shat on the scene’s emotions by laughing his ass off at Sigma’s jumpsuit. That really detracted from the emotional weight of the scene, and I’m still bitter about it. NicoB has a much better and more appropriate reaction, and I kinda wish I’d watched his version of that scene first.
- In ZTD’s favor, I played the game myself and got to experience the D-2: End fragment without any commentary, and no chat building it up, and not knowing exactly how we got the result of Phi being Diana and Sigma’s kid after that had been teased a bunch (which I think worked in this game’s case, rather than Sigma discovering some secret folder labeled PHI’S DNA coupled with Dramatic Strings, like VLR would have done.) “The Stranded Pair” was so powerful to watch in a vacuum and I am very, very glad I got to experience it by myself.
+ I admit I actually swooned like a fucking teenager when Sigma wrapped his (human!!) arms around Diana, apologized and admitted all his flaws, explaining why he was always so distant and cold with her (which I had picked up on in the other fragments and was like wtf Sigma, I thought you loved her!), she apologized too for having lashed out at him, and then they kissed. So immensely satisfying, and the bonus was no awkward close-ups of dead-eyed models making out (it was framed a lot like the Deadly Premonition post-credits kiss! Big thumbs up), and no creepy mannequin sex scene (looking at you, David Cage). Showing Sigma and Diana’s kiss from behind and focusing on their hands in the pod, then zooming away from said closed pod and fading to black was very tastefully done, IMO - it showed their intimacy, it was integral to the story, and it capped off a very emotional series of events. Standing ovation from me.
+ And God, at the end, they’re both so happy with their babies, but their faces are sunken in from near starvation and they know they’re going to die in the shelter, but they can give their children a second chance. Even though I was accidentally spoiled on Delta, even though the game actually didn’t make this a shocking twist but rather slowly played up the dramatic irony, I was so into this fragment and it is without a doubt my second favorite part of the series, after Luna’s End.
I was actually surprised when I looked up others’ reactions. I thought I was being my dumb het-loving fangirl self and everyone else would be grossed out or hate how it played up, but overall it seems like this a fan favorite part of the game and I was even happier to see that :D
- I have a rebuttal against those who take issue with Sigma’s “unconditional love” speech toward the end, specifically with regards to Kyle. First of all, I believe old!Sigma did love Kyle, in his own way, but much like how he acted toward Diana in a lot of this game, he did the same to Kyle because of the fact that Kyle had to be a backup (and because I think Old!Sigma had shut himself down emotionally after Diana’s death, much like one of his robots. Throwing himself into his work was a coping mechanism for him, as well as being a means to the end he so desperately wanted.) Kyle was integral to the AB game and that does not detract from his existence in the series. Sure, it would’ve been nice if he SHIFTed into Sigma’s body to punch Delta, or SHIFTed into Delta’s body because of the shared DNA and idk, made Delta let everyone go free. And it would’ve been nice if we’d gotten closure on Kyle, especially his tumultuous relationship with Dr. Klim. But I think this game did what it could with the time and limited resources it had, and Kyle unfortunately had to be one of those things left by the wayside. It is a little disappointing, but ultimately, I’m not mad about it.
- Anyway, with regards to Sigma’s love for Kyle, it was conditional. Kyle had to be made. Sigma also implies he didn’t love Diana unconditionally with that speech, and I’m not mad about that either. I think the speech is supposed to say more about Sigma than any of his loved ones. Sigma is a very flawed character, and ZTD is a great arc for him, in terms of emotional maturation. He realizes how selfish and expecting of praise he is. In VLR, he’s arrogant, inappropriate, and creepy - but he’s also brave, honest, and above all, emotional to a fault. In ZTD he’s muuuuuuch less skeevy and way more mature and logical, but his major flaws are replaced by a cold, distant Sigma. In D:End-2, his icy center melts through his love for Diana and desire to comfort her; he also becomes humbled and completely selfless through the love of his children.
- And as much as Sigma says he suddenly understands unconditional love, there are canon timelines when he gave up his chance to go through the #9 door for Clover’s sake. He pushed Phi out of the way of being stabbed by Akane, and didn’t ask for praise (which is tempered with him asking for praise and swimsuit time re: disarming the bombs, which is IC and fucking gross, damnit Sigma, I love you but ugh.) He also begged for Zero II to take his life instead of Phi’s in the Fire fragment without hesitation or asking for praise, and he instantly pushed Diana out of the way when Mira attacks them, taking the fatal knife blow meant for Diana. He tried to disarm the bomb knowing he would lose his arms and eye, to keep Diana and Phi safe. Additionally, he didn’t hesitate to protect them in the Decontamination chamber, even if it meant condemning 6 others to death. Sigma has moments of extreme selfishness and extreme selflessness, which I think is very human and makes him one of the best characters in the series. People can have sudden revelations like he did even after showing that they’ve had them.
- And I think Sigma's speech was supposed to be, in hindsight, a fantastic example of dramatic irony. Sigma goes on about how he wants his children to survive and be safe and he would do anything to protect them. Later, after finding out Delta is Zero, he stands by and barely reacts as Delta gets shot. His focus is on desperately warning Phi not to attack Delta (I don't believe it's for Delta's sake, I think it's because he was afraid Delta would shoot Phi), and comforting Diana right after that (giving without expecting anything in return.) Both he and Diana have multiple shots of glaring hatefully at Delta. Diana has a moment of sadness/regret, but Sigma declares he will never forgive Zero in one timeline, so I think we can extrapolate that he’s pretty much washed his hands of Delta in the True End. Fans can make up their own ending that Sigma forgave him, but I don’t think he ever really could, whether or not Carlos shot Delta. And we’re all correct, thanks to canon multiverses. But the overarching thing we see is Sigma denouncing Zero II and looking at the adult version of him with utter hatred. He does not feel that way about Kyle. Sigma neglected Kyle and treated him like shit, but that was also an effect of losing the woman he loves and living alone for decades before creating Kyle. I imagine Sigma lost a lot of humanity while working on the AB project in near solitude; he regains that humanity in ZTD and we can still infer that, despite the ‘Another Time’ ending being rendered noncanon, that what Akane said is probably still true. The VLR old Sigma that returned to his own body did carry Kyle to the infirmary, and did love him, and probably went on to fix his relationships with the people in his life in that timeline, after having realized that his consciousness did what he could and he now has to appreciate what he has, now that his mission is complete. Tl;dr I’m fine with Sigma’s ‘unconditional love’ speech, though I can see why it bothers some fans.
- OTOH, I fucking LOVE the scene of Sigma talking about Luna and how he’d lived with ‘D,’ LOVE the entire ‘Fire’ fragment, love Phi constantly calling Sigma an old man and their continuation of the ‘Cup’ exchange, love Sigma’s desperate cries for Phi when she was gone, love that little moment of Diana crying over Phi’s headless corpse and Phi asking Diana for a hug in DCOM, love Diana/Sigma’s flirty moments in the puzzle rooms and Sigma being a dork with her, like putting the bucket on his head - how much do I adore that Sigma’s idea of pillow talk is to use his legs to explain multiverse theory? A LOT - and D-Team’s puzzles are pretty neat. And we got a brief return of Sigma’s cat puns! Fantastic, all around. OMG and the Force Quit Box scene made me cry ;__; Such a satisfying conclusion to their arc. While I think Blue Bird Lamentation should’ve been left out of the true ending (VLR’s orchestra theme should have played at the end instead), the song still got to me in a lot of their fragments.
...Oh yeah, other stuff happened in this game lol
+ The C team SHIFTing party. LOVE that. One of the highest points in the game. It hearkened back to Sigma and Phi jumping all the way back to the very beginning of the AB game to prevent Akane’s death. In contrast, Carlos’s SHIFTING in order to save Junpei and Akane (his baes <3) ended up being futile and helped lead to the VLR verse, which I thought was fitting. I actually think that scene elevated the D-1 ending. I was initially so mad that that writers had completely forgotten that Akane and Junpei were alive in VLR, but had died in that ZTD verse - I shouldn’t have doubted them. That was a very cool segment.
- While I’m on this, I really like the scene of Akane and Junpei talking to Zero before Carlos gets them. I was wondering when the whole Brother connection would come in, and I legit got chills from Zero announcing that Brother was born in the shelter. It all slotted into place: Zero = Delta = Brother. The buildup could have been better, of course. But that was one of those “oh shit!” scenes that, for me, was on par with realizing Tenmyouji was Junpei. I’m re-watching NicoB’s VLR playthrough and got to the Dio end, where he talks about Brother, and even then it flat-out says that Brother was rumored to have some kind of mind-control ability. That is really cool. Anyway, another thing I really liked in this scene was Zero telling Akane to wear the robes and go to the Free the Soul meeting in April, the same day we see her when young!Sigma shifts back into his body at the end of VLR. One of my favorite exchanges in the entire game was Akane asking how Zero can play God and he replies, “Oh ho. To think you of all people would invoke God.” Fucking awesome.
- I also think this game expands on the brilliance that is ‘Sigma and Akane are foils of each other.’ They’re both idealists, but Akane is at heart, much more cold-hearted than Sigma is, and I think she is much more of a hypocrite than he is. But she believes in God, and he doesn’t. And in the true ending, she suggests everyone shift out of the shelter before it explodes, swapping consciousnesses with the coin flip winners, but Sigma rejects that option. I wish we’d gotten to see more of them interact. I think they’re probably two of the best video game characters in recent history, and their relationship and identities as Zero, is immensely fascinating to me.
+ Music was A+++ Had a couple classics like "Ustulate Pathos" and "Interminable Dilemma," but my favorites are "Quondam Monitors," "Nostalgic Scenery," "Transporter," "Locker Room," "Clarification," "Morphogenetic Sorrow (Third Mix)," and "Placidity 2nd Mix." "Unliberated Library" grew on me. I prefer VLR's versions of Ambidexterity and Blue Bird Lamentation, but it was nice to hear them in ZTD.
+ Carlos was surprisingly a good dude who tried to get shit done and was very likable and easy to root for. I had totally pegged him as an asshole Left clone and I think that was some great (probably purposeful?) misdirect with his art. He had a bunch of amazing one-liners, and while I do OT3 him with Akane and Junpei (though it’s more like Carlos/Junpei/Akane or Junpei/Carlos&Akane), I really appreciate that he wasn’t given a romance arc. There was already a ton of romance in this game that he did not need one. His “The fuck?” reactions to Junpei telling Akane he and Carlos would be her shield was fucking gold, his “Shoot me. I won’t die” and getting shot moment is one of the highlights in the entire series, and I love him for stepping aside so Kanny and Jumpy could have their sweet pre-proposal moment.
+ Diana is my favorite character in this game and I am so happy with how she turned out. Her one detracting factor is that I still find her eyes hard to look at when she faces the camera directly, but I can easily overlook that because her writing and voice acting was fucking phenomenal. Uchikoshi had a really tough character to write following Luna, and for a good while I was a tad underwhelmed by Diana, but she completely won me over in her D-End 2 fragment, and I gained so much appreciation for her that my love for her carried over to all the other fragments, especially the Q-End 2 one. As I said before, Diana is human, she’s flawed, and I like the contrast that Sigma acknowledges, that Luna, as perfect as she is, is perfect because she’s the idealized version of Diana. She’s the sweet innocent who is literally the perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world. Diana fucks up and fucks up hard, yet she’s tenacious, sympathetic toward others, determined, and recognizes that she has faults. Diana is tied with Luna as my favorite character in the entire series, and for Uchikoshi to pull that off with Diana in just ONE game and change is pretty impressive, IMO.
+ Unpopular opinion: I like Junpei and Akane in this game. Carlos helped a lot, but I dug Junpei’s arc in going from being an emo edgelord to the game’s threats and Akane’s presence chipping away at his icy, jaded armor. It might have made more sense if there’d been a longer timelapse than a year between games, but I’ll let it slide. It’s not like it was a week later. I like that we see all these different versions of Junpei and Akane, and to be frank, I didn’t become invested with their relationship until VLR, when Tenmyouji was yelling her name and desperately trying to touch her hologram, then later saying, “She’s just like [Sigma]. She isn’t anywhere.” That really got to me and I think ZTD does a great job extending on that while showing the ramifications that the second Nonary game had on his psyche. His voice actor also won me over in the 1+1+1 dice roll ending. Junpei’s pure joy at winning, prancing out of the room and chugging beer is one of my favorite sequences in the entire series. I found him the most bland in 999 and liked seeing the threads of his selfishness and willingness to fuck over anyone so long as Akane lives, get taken to another degree in this game. As for Akane… I will say that after mulling it over and looking at 999 art again, I think she did get shafted in terms of design, characterization, and especially voice acting. Diana’s voice actress sold the hell out of her character and made her believable, especially in emotional scenes. But the voice actress for Akane ended up hurting a lot of her emotional moments. She was much better at the ‘Akane pseudosciences!’ moments, and I think her best moment in the game was in the C-1 End, when she tells Carlos, “I do what I must to accomplish my goals.” I think Akane in this game would’ve been much more well-received by the fandom if her young!Akane VLR voice actress had been in this game instead. Otherwise, I still appreciated Akane’s characterization, even though it did seem kind of inconsistent. I would argue, though, that 999’s Akane, with the fainting and flirting and random “Hey Junpei let’s talk about Ice-9!” moments pretty much were Akane at her core. She’s weird, she’s a bit ditzy, sure she did get Cloverized, but I appreciated seeing bloody yandere!Akane. Basically, I think Junpei was fine overall. Akane could have been done better - and I get the feeling that her not being written by Uchikoshi did make her characterization suffer - but overall, I still like them.
+ Sean. Sean is a MASSIVE improvement over Quark. Half the time in VLR I was like, “Oh yeah, Quark’s here,” (much like I kept forgetting about Santa and Snake) because I’d forgotten about him. He was basically a plot device for Tenmyouji and I was ok with that, I just ended up not really caring that much about Quark. Sean, however, is gold, and I think his ‘Happy’ ‘Death’ endings are, you guesed it, some of the best in the series. I teared up during his Happy End; that fragment gave Zero II some much-needed dimensions and even made him sympathetic to a point, and I really really love some of the lines/frames in that fragment, especially Sean facing down Zero II and looking wrathful, but when Zero II gives him the opportunity to kill him, Sean wants answers and gets them. I love his “Why can I feel something here [his heart]. It’s warm, and I know it’s there,” and the exchange at the end of the ‘Death’ ending where Zero II explains the quantum machine and Sean asks “Traverse the universe?” and Zero II suddenly tells him the code to his helmet. That was so fucking good. If none of the other scenes justified the 3-D cinematics (which I got used to), that scene did. Sean was the heart of Q-Team. He made Mira and Eric tolerable, and I kinda like the idea of him hanging out with them after the game.
+ After having given it some major thought, I appreciate Eric being in the game. And I do like Mira’s twist ending. Did not see that coming, at all! I do think Q-Team was the weakest of all 3, but I think they were fascinating in their own right and I think that Eric is a much more entertaining antagonist than Ace. Ace had a great design and was threatening in a different way, but I’m sorry, I still think his “I need to put children in these death games so I can ~~~~see people’s faces~~~~” is so fucking dumb and one of the reasons I go “eh……really?” when people tout 999 as masterful writing. Look, all the games are full of dumb bullshit, at least ZTD had fun with it! Anyway. Dio’s still my favorite villain, but after re-watching a bunch of NicoB’s LP and SGF’s stream, and reading some meta on Eric, gave me a lot more appreciation of Eric. He’s horrible, but there’s a reason for that. He had a terrible childhood, then meets Miro who basically becomes the one beacon of light in his life, then we realize Mira would rather murder him than be with him, then Eric finds out she’s been murdered, and Sigma and Diana’s copies wake him up… yeah, so is Eric not supposed to freak out? After a few re-watches, I'm just as frustrated by Carlos and Sigma not even trying to grab the gun from Eric as I am with Eric being trigger happy. When he yells, “I’m so sick of this shit!” I kind of do sympathize with him, whereas with Dio, I just straight up hated him and wanted him to get continuously punched in the face. So I like that there are different shades of villainy in this series and Eric wasn’t just like Dio. He was thrown into these death games and had an unstable personality. It makes complete sense for him to fly off the handle. It DOESN’T make sense for Sigma and Carlos - especially Sigma, who has both arms - to stand around and let Eric hold the shotgun. It did make me feel a little better to rewatch NicoB’s VLR playthrough and hear him voice the same frustrations for a similar problem, in that everyone jumps Sigma to keep him from using the #9 door by himself, but just kind of stand around gaping, suddenly helpless as Dio or K or Clover leave by themselves. But noooo, VLR is godtier level writing in comparison! My point is, 999 and VLR have flaws too, I wish the fandom would stop acting like those games are suddenly perfect just because ZTD had more glaring issues.
What I didn’t love
- Kyle did get shafted. I find all the game bashing ONLY due to the fact that he wasn’t in it annoying, but he should have been in it, if only to SHIFT into Sigma’s body to dropkick Delta, or if he SHIFTED with Delta due to gene-sharing and took control to let the others go. I know it would’ve been pandering but I guess it would’ve made at least some die-hard fans happy.
- If I could change only one thing and one thing only, I would have added a montage of watercolor paintings at the end credits to show different snapshots of all the different timelines as a montage. One painting of Junpei's floating corpse in 999, one of him enjoying a root-beer float with Quark on Earth post-VLR, one with the aftermath of everyone being discovered dead on Rhizome-9, one with Ace in jail, one with Clover and Alice showing up in ZTD via the pods, one post D-End: 2 with Diana/Sigma and the babies starving to death in the lounge, one with Diana/Sigma happily holding toddler Luna and baby Kyle and with Phi in a family portrait, one with Alice and Clover killing Delta, one with Dr. Klim sitting on a bench with Kyle and Luna post-VLR, one with Dio trying to get out of his handcuffs all alone, one with all the Nonary and Decision game characters at Junpei and Akane’s wedding, etc. I think that the game would still have pissed people off, but a montage would have helped minimize the salt.
- I would have added even more cutscenes to D-End: 2. I love it but I want more, lol. I would have included a scene of Sigma tinkering with the robots in Manufacturing, and I'd include a scene of Sigma and Diana trying to make up a game with the alien cards and having more happy, joking moments (AND SIGMA WOULD HAVE VOICED A CAT PUN!!). On a more serious note, I would have changed the execution of finding out Diana’s background. It makes sense but it's …. not grate Bob that Sigma is the one who tells Diana all the shit she went through and he’s so calm about it. Again, I believe his compassion in VLR did get eroded on the moon, and I do believe all that time in isolation truly fucked with his brain and how he interacts with people, or that he might have wanted to be blatantly cruel to Diana so she would avoid him, but it still comes off as -.- at best. And so does the literal ‘slap slap kiss kiss.’ That bothers me more than anything in the fragment and is the one low point because even though they both slap each other, from Sigma’s end it just shouldn’t have happened at all because we literally had just had a cutscene of him explaning how she was abused by her ex, and then right after he slaps her while she's drunk, they do it. It's not a good look, even though I love his confessing scene and telling her how much of a fuck-up he is. I personally pad out the time in between mentally so that it's not directly following the slap, but yeah. It’s not a dealbreaker, they’re still my OTP, but it’s... ugh, yeah, I definitely would’ve omitted both the slaps. Then again, I had completely forgotten Junpei knocked Akane out to put her in the fireplace, so basically I'll chalk this up to "there's a lot of fucked up shit in these games" and if people hate the ships, Diana/Sigma especially, I don't blame them. I get super defensive when people shit on the game but if people hate S/D then I get a bit salty but I'm much more accepting if people hate them, or if they still ship Sigma/Phi or whatever which amuses me (However, I can't stand the thought of Diana/Carlos, and Sigma/Akane makes me feel ill. I see the basis of Sigmakane much more than D/C but I'd like to think of Sigma and Akane as purely platonic Zero bros who are deeply and irreversibly in love with their better halves, Diana and Junpei, respectively.) I feel so much for these two and headcanon that they have a happy, healthy marriage with babies (and a close relationship with Phi) after defeating the terrorist with the other espers.
- I think the Delta=Zero reveal does have issues but I honestly don’t know how to change it without making the twist obvious - I suppose the ‘best’ choice would have been making him Santa or Snake, but I still think that’d be dumb and I'm frankly over those two and their overrated boring blandness. I would have rather Delta’s character be built up more, I would have added more flashbacks to DCom to flesh out the interrelationships (especially Akane/Junpei and Diana/Sigma angst) and I DEFINITELY would have added a C-End:2 fragment of Carlos finding out that he’s a clone with Delta explaining everything, maybe adding a flashback painting of Delta and Left as children playing together, with Phi in the background. I had my heart set on "Carlos is a Left clone" and I still think it was originally going to be a thing, but ended up on the cutting room floor. I also would have included a three-room puzzle at the end (or a puzzle in the Quantum computer room) in which all the characters have to do something to solve the puzzle. And while I’m ok with the open ending, I guess… Idk, I would’ve made it more clear that the characters had a satisfying conclusion? ZTD's ending basically ended on the same note VLR did and while I'm much more satisfied with ZTD's ending than Animorph's ending in comparison, I don't think that was the best way to end the series. Put in a surprise twist with Dio, Clover and Alice coming out through the pods, and Kyle SHIFTing, and sure throw in an apperance with Snake to appease the old school fans, but as the ending stands, it could have been better. But all that being said, I don’t know if I want a ZE4 or not. Half of me doesn’t because I want to make up the multiple post-game endings on my own, but the other half of me wants more of the characters I love, and I would be over the moon haha if we ever got a canon confirmed ending that Diana and Sigma got married and had babies, and I guess it would be nice if there was a ‘good’ game to round out the series. But I think that’s the pessimistic, high-expectations entitled fandom effect talking (especially sgf's last stream). On my own, I love the game, but I’m letting the fandom’s opinions sway me into pointing out all the flaws, but I want to defend it because I went into it not expecting a masterpiece, but just a fun dumb ride with pseudoscience, good music, philosophical themes, and fulfilling shippy moments, which is what I got. Oh well.
- And yeah, I would have given the art direction crew way more time and money to work on the models. I got used to the animations, but it’s still pretty bad, and if I had the money, I would totally fund a more quality version of the game, keeping the puzzles and voice acting as-is and doing other things like modifying D-End:2, adding C-End:2, adding a final puzzle and getting a good writer to rewrite the ending lol.
All right, that’s enough negativity. As I’ve said, I still love this game - and the more it gets bashed, the more I love it - and I’m still glad it got made at all.