#i guess we already had 'bootcamp for SHIFTers to save the world' in VLR

[the-red-thread-that-strangles]

What a clean analysis! Thanks for sharing this, and putting into words a struggle I've had with this - namely, the focus on the checklist of plot that was set up by VLR, instead of focusing on the characters and their choices, which is arguably the more important part (at least to me)

I've recently been watching a streamer who went into ZTD without having played any other Zero Escape games, and it's been a bit of an eye-opener. Aside from Q-Team (and I guess Carlos), ZTD relies heavily on the games that came before (which is not per default a bad thing, after all, you get to reap the payoff for putting in the effort ahead of time), but it doesn't really...add a lot? Not to the characters at least, and aside from the big twists not a lot to the story either, tbh.

Sure, there is still emotional payoff to the game even if you are not attached to the characters from previous games - but I find this to be more due to the shock value of the terrible things that happen in this game (let's just think of Junpei in the freezer, for example), rather than actual, genuine, heartfelt emotions. These people kill each other in ridiculous and insane ways, and it sometimes seems like it happens just because (yes, I know, stress and trauma and Delta's plan and all that, but still). That promo art of Sigma in a chair with a gun to his head looks nice and spicy, right?

Secondly, absolutely, this game suffers from the temporal seperation of the characters. It's a cute twist, I guess, but, the revisit of this experiment is the culmination of Akane and Sigma's long years of work and dedication, and they can't even work together. They know why they are here, and it doesn't really help them a lot.

That's not even considering Phi, who was a central element of that plan, and as you have been laying out, has been done so, so dirty. And the event that results in the radical-6 timeline even coming about is a serial killer who decides to inject someone with a virus...for funsies? Life is simply unfair, but good lord, I wish there was a more profound way to start the apocalypse (Diana could still make her choice, that would still be impactful).

The group split is also unfortunate because most of the fragments have a very similar dynamic between the characters in a team. Sometimes things shift, usually due to a team member dying or new information coming to light, but it feels to me that due to the parallel nature of the story paths, character growth is difficult to achieve. As you've established, 999 and VLR rely at least partly on your choices, on the way different constellations of people interact with you. ZTD is lackluster simply by comparison.

It is, in theory, a Zero Escape game - it has a convoluted plot, and Akane and Junpei and Sigma and Phi, and all the pseudoscience and actual science and the puzzle rooms and masked baddies you could want. In practice though, it's lacking a heart of it's own, relying on the past more than it's own merits.

To me, ZTD is interesting for it's implications, and it's potential, rather than it's execution.

(Ramblings in the tags, ran out of rambling space in the tags but it's late so that's how it's gonna be)

Zero Time Dilemma roles analysis (and other discussion of how ZTD is set up)

So I finished replaying ZTD the other day. And I have a lot of thoughts about it, like “why did it end up so bad when it had so much potential” and “god I wish the characters were written better.”

And you know, I like thinking about ways I could rewrite ZTD to be better. But as much as I think about it, I don’t think I could ever fully rewrite ZTD. I’m not sure any of the rewrites I’ve read (not that I’ve read many) has come close to my “ideal ZTD” but also, I don’t think “ideal ZTD” exists in any form. So instead of thinking about rewrites, I’ve started thinking about what role each character plays in the story.

This is so long and rambling. But I’m posting it anyways.

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