True ending is actually three different endings

iOS version of 999 removes ALL puzzles.
VLR and ZTD have flowcharts that let you jump back and forth.
You can get the True Ending of 999 without having to re-solve puzzle rooms (sans the first one, of course)- Safe and True routes don't share any puzzle rooms.

I just beat this game last night.

Holy fuck that ending.

I swear over 6 months ago I beat 999 and so I posted a thread to celebrate and someone quickly spoilered that Quark was zero in the next game. So I basically spent my whole playthru not trusting the little fuck. Every surprise at the end, from Akane to Junpei to future Punished Sigma was a total surprise to me.[\spoiler]

I'm burnt out for now but going to start ZTD too. I liked a lot of changes from 999 to VLR so here's hoping shits improved

These games have been ruined for me by a friend of mine who does nothing but post every piece of every line of the games, spends hours crafting what the next game should be like, and treats them as the highest watermark of storytelling and gameplay.

Get better taste in friends is my advice to you.

He and I don't talk much thanks to goobergate, so its all good. I just can't play what's apperently a good puzzle mystery series.

You're you but from the past in your future body so you can send future you into your body in the past to save the future.

Good luck with ZTD.

But at the very end, you wake up in Kyle's body, and you're told that you're neither Sigma nor Kyle.

But you're someone who is going back into the past to help Sigma stop Radical-6.

Am I Phi somehow?

The Another Time is basically a "ONLY THE PLAYER CAN GO BACK AND HELP FIX THE TIMELINES" when "?" is talking to Akane.

The rest is fine.

Never play ZTD.

>All I want from ZTD right now is to understand what just happened in the VLR ending.

HAH.

Yeah, don't play ZTD. It's shit.

That's not canon, don't worry about it.
The ending is that timeline with young Akane.

>non-canon masturbation for the player at the end of the story
Fucking why

Because it seems that Uchikoshi just completely fucking forgot about it.

>Fucking why

I'll fucking tell you, but it's a long story and you're not going to like Uchi or be happy with anything after it.

You sure?

As long as it doesn't involve ZTD spoilers, I'm game

Phi is Sigma and Diana's daughter, and Zero is Delta, who is their son. Also, his motives are complex.

The creator said that part is "non-canon metafiction", but he also said pic related, so nobody is really sure what's going on.

What's Sigma's relationship with Akane?
Did they fuk?

Because of the 2011 tsunami disaster in nippon
I'm not joking

Fuck Dio.

And Quark turned out to be a boring character, along with Alice. I know not every char can have an omg mystery behind them, but Quark had nothing and Alice came because she was literally good at math.

I think the only big thing I didn't like in the end was there being no real enemy. 999 you're all against Zero and even when that is a wash there's "bad guys" with a too bad guy to contend with to boot.

VLR has Dio, who while doing a great job of being an asshole doesn't have any surprise reveals for the end. The 30 min + ending scenes were nice, but I just really wanted Zero to be some villain that I had finally outwitted and beat.

No spoilers in this post, but there's a fuck ton of ZTD spoilers that no one cares about tagging anymore cause the game's dogshit, so watch out for those (you shouldn't be in this thread anymore actually if you care about that stuff).

But that aside

Firstly: VLR's ending. VLR was ORIGINALLY going to be set in a world where the 9 people in the shelter + Akane + Brother (and FTS) were the only survivors. Unfortunately, as the massive Earthquake had just happened in Japan, Uchi figured people would want a little less of a downer ending and made it so that 25% of humanity survived. This may have affect ZTD a bit, but no one knows for sure.

Anyways - Uchi designed VLR and ZTD at the same time. The overall plot of ZTD was actually made in tandem with VLR, and the first draft was completed shortly after VLR released. ZTD was really supposed to be VLR: Part 2.

However, after ZTD went on hiatus and then got picked back up in 2014/2015, Uchi had decided that since he knew about ZTD's story for so long, writing all the scenarios (like he normally does) would end up just being boring for him, so he decided that he'd change the majority of... well, everything in the game, and leave only the bare basic plot points the same. We don't know what those plot points DID stay the same, but given how different ZTD is, it doesn't seem like very many.

With how much Uchi changed ZTD's story, a lot of ZTD doesn't properly match up with VLR in general, not even considering Another Time. When comparing ZTD with the Q&A or Another Time, there's WAY more plotholes and fuck ups - so Uchi decided to retroactively make Another Time non-canon, by saying "Oh, it was non-canon the whole time - I thought you all already knew." We figure it's retroactively because Uchi's Q&A and several of his comments on twitter answer questions about things in Another Time, but he never once said it was non-canon until after ZTD was released and he got pelted by questions via social media.

tl;dr

Uchi got bored, changed ZTD's original story, then retroactively said "VLR's ending isn't canon" because he's a hack.

>Fuck Dio
Dio is one of the most likable characters in VLR though. Alice is the worst by far.

I feel you.

It's weird that the entire game is setup for some greater purpose.

Like, even with Dio as the "villain," it was all planned out so he wasn't actually a threat.

>writing all the scenarios (like he normally does) would end up just being boring for him
What the fuck

>>writing all the scenarios (like he normally does) would end up just being boring for him
>What the fuck

Do you want to know the second best part?

Uchi actually got 2 other writers to write the scenarios for 2/3'rds of ZTD - Uchi only wrote for Team D, while other writers did the scenarios for Team C and Team Q. So the fucker changed the story because he thought he'd get bored writing the scenarios, and then he fucking pawned off 2/3'rds of the fucking scenarios to other writers.

Now, do you want to know the best part? Like, the ABSOLUTE best part?

I'm not even shitposting. But holy fuck do I wish I was.

nintendoeverything.com/zero-escape-creator-on-origins-and-making-zero-time-dilemma-series-as-a-whole-more/

>When Uchikoshi was developing the second and third games simultaneously, he had the plot skeleton for the third game which was left intact, but the rest of the game became totally different. It’s because when he was writing the plot, he already knew what the outcome was going to be, so he might end up getting bored in writing the scenario. In order to avoid that, he had a suggestion to ‘surprise himself even more’, which resulted in the story getting changed.

Uchi is a crazy idiot. I bet he trips over himself getting groceries or some shit because he starts thinking about some conspiracy to replace potato chips with a new kind of coolant.

>Uchikoshi doesn’t write a clear conclusion to the scenario again. Regarding the main gimmicks and tricks, they had been decided from the start, but Uchikoshi started writing about them without clarifying the conclusions.
>While writing the scenarios, he imagined how the characters would move, and the scenes that came out were put into the text until the conclusion. The interviewer found it surprising, since he expected him to have a clear stop due to having a big flow with three titles. At first Uchikoshi wanted to do it like that, but it just couldn’t come out well, because as he mentioned before, mid-way he wanted to change the conclusion.
>Rather than impossibly expanding it all according to the plan, he’d prefer leaving it to the natural flow. He intentionally made the conclusion to feel natural in-universe but can invoke controversy among users.

DID I READ THAT RIGHT?

>because as he mentioned before, mid-way he wanted to change the conclusion.

ARE WE FUCKING SERIOUS

>mid-way he wanted to change the conclusion.

WELL FUCKING THEN

HERE WE GO GUYS

FUCKING PROOF THAT UCHI CHANGED THE FUCKING CONCLUSION OF THE TRILOGY BECAUSE HE GOT FUCKING BORED

WAY TO GO HACKOSHI

FUCK

wtf why would he do this at the goddamned end of the trilogy

Y'all are really making me not want to dive into ZTD. 999 took me only 24 hours but VLR took over 50. Now I hate the idea of investing so much time in a trilogy that's going to end shittily

I've got answers for pretty much every question relating to the Zero Escape trilogy.

Except that one.

The only answer I can think of there is that he went off his meds.

>Y'all are really making me not want to dive into ZTD.

GOOD.

We want people to have FOND memories of this trilogy.

Not to retroactively hate everything about it.

...

>got a warning for posting spoilers
When did this board get so fucking pussified?

>We want people to have FOND memories of this trilogy.
>by only playing two games and thus not make it a trilogy
OK.

The jannies have complex motives

Yeah I know I had the exact same disappointed feeling when I finished VLR.

It didn't even came close to the level of 999. But it's still good I guess.

Just throw away ZTD. Playing it will genuinely ruin your memories of both 999 and ZTD.

Is ZTD still worth playing if I already know it's shit and don't really care? VLR already let me down massively to the point that I have no more expectations. I still enjoyed all the suspense and solving the puzzles and stuff.

Yeah if you think VLR is bad then don't even think about trying ZTD.

999 should just never had any sequels. It was a perfectly fine story on its own that didn't need any tampering.

The puzzles are crap and the pacing is shit because the player is forced to watch cutscenes instead of reading through text at their own pace, never mind the dumb fragments system.

ZTD is fine. Yes, the plot is stupid. The plot has been stupid since 999. Yes, they abandoned seemingly important plot points. VLR did the exact same thing.

After 999*

>someone quickly spoilered that Quark was zero in the next game

>999 should just never had any sequels. It was a perfectly fine story on its own that didn't need any tampering.
Yeah I mean, I've already accepted that. But I still liked playing VLR, even if I couldn't actually follow or enjoy the story, so if ZTD will give me a similar experience I'll give it a shot.

Now that will be really disappointing

>All I want from ZTD right now is to understand what just happened in the VLR ending.
ZTD deals with the "saving the world" plotline and sigma and phi's full stories, nothing else.

999 is a damn good game, play it and ignore the rest of the series.

wait for 999 remastered, I think it's coming before 2017

fuck me I just remembered that everything in ZTD takes place in the same area spread out throughout the day instead of everything happening simultaneously and I'm fucking PISSED

VLR was pretty good up until the ending. Definitely not as good as 999, but still worth playing.

999=10/10
VLR=8/10
ZTD=6/10

Agreed?

ALIENS
COMPLEX MOTIVES
MINDHACKS

I think 999 is a 9/10 because of no flowchart, VLR is a 9/10 because of the BEEP BEEP BEEP and lack of conclusions, and ZTD is a 8/10 because it has decent puzzles, I liked the storyline but the ending alone and lack of final puzzle shaves 2 full points off.

fuck off lol

>ZTD
>decent puzzles
>I liked the storyline
7/10 made me reply

ALIEN
FAX
MACHINE

999 is the worst one. Simple and boring puzzle rooms and the lack of flowchart in the DS version making playthroughs unbearable.

If you only care about the writing then you can say whatever you want.

>lol look at these dumb plebes actually caring about the writing in this visual novel lol just wait until the boys over at /ksg/ hear about this

I think it's better without a flowchart since you don't know what kind of story you'll get.

If you see fucking time travel crap in the flowchart it'll change the experience of first timers.

I really liked the puzzles in 999 but apparently I'm unique in this one.

Also I played 999 at the release without knowing anything about it and Cred Forums didn't have a single thread about it back then. So everything was a surprise.

I went into VLR with certain expectations which might skewed my favor towards 999.

VLR was the true disappointing one. ZTD managed to bring back a bit of the thriller/police novel that 999 had and it made the game superior to VLR for me.

VLR has:
>A fucking useless mascot
>Dumb antagonists with Dio being stupidly obviously a baddie
>Over the top character design. Just compare the 999 cast to VLR's one next to each other. Half of the characters seem to come from a circus
>Dio looks actually like he came from a circus
>Alice has ALL ICE clothes for absolutely no reason.
>Clover and Alice bring nothing to the plot and act only has deus ex machina device " yeah this big ass number I can give you its square root because the plot needs it."
>The Rabbit completely kills the serious tone of the prequel

And then you have stupidly complex plot devices that have absolutely nothing in common with the quite simple setting of 999.

People spitting on ZTD but claiming that VLR was masterpiece never cease to enrage me.

I really liked the concept of prisoners dilemma and seeing how your opponent votes.

of course this only works the very first time while voting but it still gave me that rush and thinking about if I should pick betray or ally.

Really liked it.

>check the flowchart just before voting
>the betray path ends immediately
flowchart was a mistake

I agree I didn't like the flowchart system.

But I have a feeling that the flowchart would have had a plot reason as you the spectator are watching the flowchart and somehow involved into the plot. Akane even referenced something like this at the ending. But ZTD fucked it up and did something else entirely.

I feel like in 999 Ushikoshi had all the freedom to do what he wanted. In VLR he was limited but still had the budget to back him up.

And in ZTD he didn't have the budget to do what he wanted to do.

I liked VLR more than 999, personally. It also had less moments where the characters would dump exposition for no good reason.

I fucking loved the exposition in 999. Made it feel "off" in a good horror novel way.

The way they did it is fucking terrible, though.
>Let me take half an hour out of the handful of hours we have left before the ship sinks to tell you about some parascientific bullshit

999 is redherring the game.

If you think VLR and 999's puzzles were better you seriously need to replay the fucking games.

You got a warning for not using a tag, you shit.

>no flowchary
Isn't the remaster getting a flowchart

>It also had less moments where the characters would dump exposition for no good reason.
Like the entire last two hours of the game are an exposition dump

By Akane who put together the whole thing, yeah. I'm referring to characters who have literally no reason to know or talk about this stuff like Clover or Lotus.

>Dio looks actually like he came from a circus
His cover story was that he was a ringleader from a circus, you dope

>Ztd is good
No it fucking isn't.

In that sense, sure

Seven telling you about All-Ice and Lotus going on about morphogenetic field theory and Santa telling you about [fuck I forget] while you're all freezing to death, sure.

But VLR has SO MUCH exposition dumped on you at all times.
Just, most of it isn't overarching themes of the narrative like in 999.

It does but I think it's justified. Sigma and Phi probably wanted an explanation after all the shit they had been through, after all.

No, a lot of shit brought up in 999 is pretty stupid. It's just a tighter plot, so you can gloss over it easier.

The only thing that blows my mind more then the zero escape series itself is how people actually liked the second game better. VLR was good but it had worse character design and some awful plot holes.
The whole "you aren't you" thing was the worst part. How would Sigma not notice that he's a 60+ year old man? One with long grey hair and a fucking mechanical eye that protrudes off of his face a couple inches. As if he never touched his head or face the whole time he was there. Even if he lacked those extreme features, his voice would be different, his skin would be wrinkly, shit like that. There is no way it would escape his notice for 9 hours. They played that so poorly.

Also I thought ZTD wrapped up the story nicely, even if the ending was a bit anticlimactic.

fuckin hell, I'm dumb. for some reason I thought you were complaining about ZTD.

Voice - He was infected with Rad-6
Skin - Assuming he didn't touch his face, his arms look young due to the ABT.

>How would Sigma not notice that he's a 60+ year old man?
Combination of robotic arms programmed to not feel the wrinkles and robotic eye in his face, no reflective surfaces and Radical-6 infection messing him. But yeah, it's the weakest twist in the game, especially when they use the fucking pond to reveal his face.

Luna has nice skin