Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma Thread

Anyone else play this? I downloaded it right after I finished ZTD because it looked like a Zero Escape rip off and that's exactly what it is.

I'm half way through it. The story is dumb and the puzzles get repetative, although unlocking stuff with your DOUBLE PSYCHIC powers is cool the first couple of time. Overall though, it's pretty enjoyable if you like ZE and want to escape from a sinking cruise ship one more time.

Honestly, the only way that I can think of Carlos 2 making sense is that the timelines don't branch at all; all of the decisions and their "branches" are all just their own individual timelines. When Carlos sent himself back with the teleporter, he sent himself back to the exact timeline where C team was executed and the VLR events took place.

Just a thought. It doesn't clear up the whole "why the fuck did he wait 10 months" but it's about the best I can think of.

Ah, I've seen that theory before but never warmed up to it, especially because it somewhat contradicts how Phi and Delta's existences work
and also because it ruins my favorite plot hole

user, if we do that, we'll be swapping conciousnesses and dooming our other selves to spend the rest of their lives in a reality in which ZTD is utter shit!
They didn't do anything to deserve that!

...

>"why the fuck did he wait 10 months"

>constant bullshit about timelines being basically infinite with constant branches from decisions able to change the world in larger ways than expected, like the snail did
>somehow every single timeline in existence has a terrorist that must be eliminated or else humanity is wiped out everywhere

Thanks for the new meme!

I dunno, I kinda assume that the terrorist has some sort of gimmick...like it partially exists in the morphogenetic field or something.

>That atrociously animated jump
>Carlos SHIFTing is represented by an aura of power a la your typical shōnen anime
>All that SHIFTing adventure concluded with Carlos only jumping out of the way, which made the whole jumping to another history completely pointless.

Jesus...

...

>I find human decisions... fascinating
>""""""decision"""""" game is just throwing some dices

>dices

Let me see if I understood Delta's plan:

There's a terrorist who's going to blow up the earth, so he creates a virus that kills 75% of humanity; and he creates this virus that kills six billion people so that in the future they can send some consciousnesses back in time to stop him so that he then trap them and make them play a game so they'll stop him from creating the virus and help him find the terrorist.

...instead of just finding some people, or indeed the same people, and having them help him find the terrorist.

The funny thing is that the only hardcore moral decision is at the end but the game cuts off right there.
For a while I've just been telling people that it just makes more sense if Delta was, to some degree, lying to or trolling the participants.
This man is still Brother, the vile leader of an organization who has committed countless acts of terrorism and still hasn't proved that he's capable of doing any good.
In Uchi's canon, however, you're right.

You forget

>Seanbot breaks the wall but it doesn't disappear

>S-stop, I'll tell you who Delta is! He's this random old man none of us has ever mentioned who's apparently been here the whole time conveniently off camera!
That twist was bullshit.

What makes it more bullshit is Delta teleporting with each cut to stay off camera.

Fucking shitters

Copypasting

>Gun vs Incinerator
This one is ruined by the fact that Sigma WANTS Diana to pull the trigger. With that in mind, there's no logical reason for her not to pull it. If the guy in the chair was begging for you not to do it while it was still the only way to stop the incinerator, THAT would be a moral dilemma.

>Find the mask
I switched first time because I actually know the Monty Hall problem. I lost.

>Gift from Gab
>Guesswork
You refuse to drink and you die of poison. If it's more poison, your situation doesn't change. If it isn't, you're saved. Obvious decision.

>Who killed Junpei
>Who killed Mira
You can never use the actual correct answer

>AB Game
>Execution Votes
>Inject Radical-6
Pointless since you have to go back and choose every other decision to continue the game anyway.

>Final Decision
>Moral Decision (UNFORTUNATELY it rings hollow when all SHIFTers but Diana have already willfully and knowingly killed their alternate selves several times - especially Carlos).
Yep. And they can't even say it's because this time only they'd be switching into selves that weren't about to die anyway. They've already crossed that line, I was paying attention.

What I find worse is that no one ever calls Sean by name until a scenario where he just happens to point out that he isn't Q. THEN Eric will call Sean by his name, which he never uses otherwise. Bullshit.

>>Who killed Junpei
>>Who killed Mira
>You can never use the actual correct answer
But who did kill them?

Junpei was killed by Mira.
Mira was killed by Delta.

R11=E17=999=VLR=ZTD=The best VNs ever created

Yeah, the whole game revolves around that one twist to a ridiculous degree. It's kind of funny playing through a second time and seeing everyone calling Sean 'him' and 'kid' and 'brat', then suddenly switching to 'Sean'.

>Mira was killed by Delta.
But how? The needles weren't injecting her.

ZTD isn't a visual novel. And your taste is trash if you actually believe that; you've probably only played maybe ten visual novels in your lifetime.

He strangled her to death the old-fashioned way. He explains this in another timeline, but he killed her the same way there.

Elaborate please. Why is it that they can`t be considered the best VNs?

I haven't played many VN's so I don't know what's out there. But if there are better ones than ZE and Infinity, can you name them? I may have to play them.

Not better, but Danganronpa series, Swan Song, Ace Attorney are on par with ZE. Currently waiting for Dies irae and 12Riven translations, they are definitely going to be good.

>Claims his taste is trash if he thinks ZE is the best VN series
>"These aren't better, but they're on par"

Don't claim someone has shit taste then. You implied there were better VNs, but you can't name them.

Because there are many better ones out there.

Steins;gate, Muv-Luv trilogy, Rewrite, Majikoi, Tsukihime, The House in Fata Morgana, Saya no Uta, and Sharin no Kuni all come to mind.

>Danganronpa
>on par with ZE
You must be joking. They're entertaining but that's it.

That's a different person. Fuck if I know why he's jumping in like that.

Interesting. A few of those I haven't even heard of, so I'll have to check them out.

If you like ,urder ,ysteries Umineko is pretty much 10/10 until 60 hours in where the best friend of the author dies and the writing goes to shit

So what happened here? VLR's animations weren't the best, sure, but they were at least way better than this filth.

Taking a guess that the ones you haven't heard of are Rewrite, Fata Morgana, and Sharin no Kuni. The first two of those are the ones I'd recommend the most highly. Muv-Luv Alternative was a great read but Extra is absolutely required reading before playing Alternative and I found Extra to be excruciating with how bland it all was and the fucking lacrosse arc.

"We want to appeal to a wider audience."

i.4cdn.org/wsg/1473042511626.webm

Having animations as stiff as user's first Maya project is appealing to a wider audience?

>tfw Uchi got blown the fuck out by Capcom with Ace Attorney 6

Also Q&A when?

It's more appealing because there's less reading to do now, and we all know casuals are scared of needing to read.

Bootstring budget paradox

I didn't really get why they were so pissed at carlos here, whatd he do that was so bad? he saved them right?

More like Uchi blew himself the fuck out

>appealing to a casual audience
>with the third and final entry in a franchise that mostly only hardcores like

Even after all these months I'm still pissed.

See
youtube.com/watch?v=73O2NUM88mQ
and
youtube.com/watch?v=_zAU7tZnCcQ

Why do you try to deny the supremacy of Infinity/ZE?

ah i see, carlos didnt realise how bad that timeline ends up being later on. so he didn't see the need to try and prevent everything.

oops.

Still funny to think about. People were hyped as fuck for ZTD and expected it to be fantastic while AA6 only had some mild anticipation before its launch.

Because while 999 was great, it left too many questions at the end along with the last minute sequel hook to feel like a finished story, and VLR was entirely a setup for ZTD, which turned out to be a fucking mess. 999 was fantastic and VLR was great, but the trilogy didn't make a satisfying whole and with ZTD's ending still feels unfinished, so I can't consider them anywhere near as good as the other VNs I listed.

I've never actually finished Ever 17 as I find the characters to be incredibly dull and the writing rather stale. And I've never heard anything good about Remember 11.

>Dub

if i have to sit through garbage slow animation and dialogue it may as well be in english while i look at something else

>he didn't play with the dub
youtube.com/watch?v=ojf8xSQiZ4E

Am I the only one who laughed every single time the dog appeared? He's just so stupid.

Sugita's delivery of that line was much better.

But the ZE trilogy`s ending is pretty much perfect. Just imagine that all the events, coincidences and characters` actions led up to the events in that very moment (Pay-off 2). Truly masterpiece.
Read R11, it is THE best VN. Don`t know where you heard bad things about it, but this VN is really 10/10.

>Just imagine that all the events, coincidences and characters` actions led up to the events in that very moment (Pay-off 2).
Too bad the last third of those events are a fucking incoherent mess that didn't resolve the important plothreads from VLR.

If you think ZTD was a good conclusion to the series then I don't think I can trust you saying that Remember 11 is the best VN ever.

You can literally see the budget running out for this game.

0/10 retroactively ruined VLR for me.

>didn't resolve the important plothreads from VLR
Like?

>Find the mask
>I switched first time because I actually know the Monty Hall problem. I lost.
This is exactly how it should be.
Random chance.

honestly thought the dog would be a robot.

Kyle, Blick Winkel, and Alice/Clover. Also Brother and Free the Soul going from evil cult who actually kill billions to "nevermind we weren't bad guys we're just trying to save the world from an evil terrorist!!!"

>non-canon metafiction
That excuse is pure bullshit.

...

Don`t let mere prejudices and prepossessions make you not play R11 (and do/not do other things too, this is a real issue nowadays).

What happened to Akane?
Her voice is shit and her body a shit.

Pic related is superior in every way.

Never mind that ZTD isn't even a real ending to the story of the series anyway, since it's all setting up another villain that has to be stopped to save the world. Anyone thinking it's a satisfying note to end the franchise on is deluding themselves because they know we'll never get another game and even if we did it'd probably do the same thing again.

ZTD had a new character designer.

>non-canon metafiction
I will never understand why people call this bullshit. The only problem was that Uchikoshi should have said it was non-canon a long time ago. He even said it wasn't voiced because he wrote the scene much later when the game was almost done.

It's literally called "Another" Time which sort of implies it's just a fun bonus ending.

>New art is 10/10
>It isn't in the game
Bravo Uchi

>Brother and Free the Soul going from evil cult who actually kill billions to "nevermind we weren't bad guys we're just trying to save the world from an evil terrorist!!!"
Wasn`t it a good idea? I found this dilemma of Delta`s to be pretty smart in context of FTS.
>non-canon metafiction
What if everyone`s headcanon is a real canon? Uchikoshi showed us a limited number of universes, what if some other universes not shown in the games contain your own canon-view of the events?

>Junpei didn't get his jacket because the devs found it too hard to implement on his model
>Eric was supposed to have uneven shoulders but the devs found it too hard to implement

Gab was a treasure.

>It's literally called "Another" Time which sort of implies it's just a fun bonus ending.
All that did was not tell you exactly when it was taking place. And given that ??? was a dimension-hopping omniscient mind hacker anyway, that hardly mattered.
If it was not meant to be canon then why even put it in there? The whole scene only served to hint at more things to come. A joke ending would be one thing, but that scene did nothing to indicate that it wasn't supposed to be canon, and Uchi also changed his excuses, previously saying that he decided to make it non-canon because not everyone would have gotten the gold files and seen it.

>"""devs"""

>I will never understand why people call this bullshit
Because it is. Prior to ZTD's launch literally nobody ever suspected this scene of being non-canon, nor had Uchi ever said anything to the affect that it was non-canon until years later.

>He even said it wasn't voiced because he wrote the scene much later when the game was almost done.
It was voiced in the English version, which is what most people played. Even if you played with the Japanese dub (like I did), there is still no fucking reason to suspect the scene was non-canon. It was clearly meant to set up the sequel further by tying together some of the lose plot-threads of VLR, such as what happened to the real Kyle and what characters like Alice and Clover going to do since they're stuck in the wrong timeline.

>It's literally called "Another" Time which sort of implies it's just a fun bonus ending.
That doesn't imply shit considering how crazy the series is with alternate timelines. It doesn't matter because, again, literally everyone thought the scene was 100% canon and the was no fucking reason to ever suspect otherwise. There was a 4 year gap between VLR and ZTD and Uchi never said a single word about it through years of fan speculation and a fucking Q&A.

I still liked it.

I think it would be better if dialogue was still incremented like it is in VLR and 999. VLR proved you could still voice the lines and animate the characters while delivering audio so whyd they turn it into such a strangely paced anime?

>Wasn`t it a good idea? I found this dilemma of Delta`s to be pretty smart in context of FTS.
His plan can be smart but it doesn't mean it's not a huge fucking retcon that shouldn't have happened.

>What if everyone`s headcanon is a real canon? Uchikoshi showed us a limited number of universes, what if some other universes not shown in the games contain your own canon-view of the events?
"Hey if you don't like the shitheap I put out just create your own canon because the series is about multiple universe and stuff!!!"

I really liked that when the lounge plot twist was revealed, they added a document to explain that Gab was just chilling in a hidey hole.

>Wasn`t it a good idea?
This is his plan: He kills six billion people so that in the future, they'll send someone back to stop him from killing six billion people.

Yes?

My favorite thing is that they ran out of scientific and philosophical principles to talk about, and spend an entire scene dedicated to Back to the Future.

>"Hey if you don't like the shitheap I put out just create your own canon because the series is about multiple universe and stuff!!!"
What don`t you like about it? Just imagine a world in where that snail wouldn`t exist, where Myra wasn`t a psycho, where Ace didn`t have prosopagnosia... It wouldn`t have led to ZE events at all, and these worlds would be as real as the world in which all these events happened (ZE events). And you can think of your own canon, which will likely be true for some universes.

Deltas plan is the exact same as the premise he sets up for Q team to inject FANATIC-BIO-R,
fanatic is the keyword there.

>If you don't like a story just think of a better one yourself
This does not make the actual story any better.

>And you can think of your own canon, which will likely be true for some universes.
That can literally apply to any medium and it's still an incredibly shit argument.
>"if you don't like my ending just create your own!"
The reason Uchi is using it as an excuse is because Zero Escape is about multiple timelines and shit.

It`s easier to find a fanatic in a post-R6-world, and then to transfer this knowledge to pay-off 2 ending.

>...instead of just finding some people, or indeed the same people, and having them help him find the terrorist.
But how would he find those people? Unless he just read the minds of thousands (or millions) of people to find Espers that way.

But by planning to release Radical-6, he knows Espers will come to him by themselves to try to stop him. That's how he gathers them.

>His plan can be smart
Then why didn't he use his mind hack to find the person going to end the world?

>Unless he just read the minds of thousands (or millions) of people to find Espers that way.
Which is what he already did to know about the terrorist in the first place.

>It`s easier to find a fanatic in a post-R6-world
Not if he's dead, which was the entire point of R6.

I said can, I never said it was smart.

But wasn`t the fanatic a survivor, one of 25%?

Shit... you're right. I don't know then.

I'm still confused about the Carlos Ex Machina ending. So he sent Junpei and Akane in the transporter and then SHIFTed to another timeline where the transporter hadn't been used and he used it to transport himself to a place where he could rescue Junpei and Akane. I think I got all that; what I don't get is why he was just waiting for ten months in that timeline. He said he was waiting for the transporter to activate, but why? He's already outside Dcom, why would he need to wait ten months?

>Reads the minds of millions of people
>Can't find the terrorist

>he was the terrorist all along

Because he used it, and it was then used again later in the same timeline. He had to give it enough time to recharge or he'd make a paradox.

Wait, was it used in that timeline? Because C-Team is in the bad/VLR ending, which means C-Team is dead in that timeline, D-Team (which is the only team with access to the transporter) starts in the robot room with the bomb and ends in the decontamination chamber, and Q-Team gets blown up. I don't think anyone uses the transporter in that timeline.

No, which is why humanity doesn't go extinct in the VLR timeline. 6 billion die instead of 8 billion.

Carlos still wanted to be friends with akane and jumpy so he jerked off for 10 months in the FTS secret base until they were trapped in the decision game so he could reunite with them and be bffs forever

It's never clearly stated but the transporter probably needs to recharge even if it just receives something. Carlos needs the transporter to be fully charged in every timeline before the game begins, so he went back 10 months to give it enough time to recharge.

Or the single fanatic can no longer cause a nuclear holocaust after the world has already gone to shit.

either way, the fanatic is no longer a threat

pretty sure it's strongly implied he died though, if not explicitly stated

>virtually no porn
So we live in the timeline God abandoned, huh...