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Gato posted:- I kept waiting for there to be some twist with Eric because his backstory just seemed too obvious complete with an abusive dad straight out of central casting (with standard anime voice acting) literally going 'shut up and get me a beer you brat' but no, turns out he really was just a messed-up guy with no ulterior motives. I guess it's sort of a meta-twist to have a genuine ordinary person with no secret connection to anybody else in the cast after the two previous games? Eric has the connection to Mira, who killed Eric's mother, which was the crime Akane's Dad was falsely accused of-so technically she kicked everything into gear, snail be damned Which means that in the epilogue where Sean breaks her out of prison to go stop her past self with Eric, they're actually doing the "preventing all of this from happening", including 999/VLR/the events before those too, possibly without even realising it
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Jul 11, 2016 20:04
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| # ? May 28, 2024 05:27 |
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it's the set up for the eventual slice of life vn.
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Jul 11, 2016 20:25
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I finished Zero Time Dilemma yesterday and I really didn't like it. The first two games had this sawlike murder-mystery-death-puzzle vibe going, where every choice I made unfolded into a horrendous trainwreck as the consequences of everyone's decisions snowballed right in front of me. The scifi wank was there, but it was vague and simple enough for me to just accept it without too much thinking. ZTD by comparison went with these weird story fragments and the first thing this did to me was that I never felt involved in the story, because half the time I didn't even know the context of what was happening. Okay it's like cool that Junpei got murdered but uhm what timeline are we in, what are the choices that brought us here, and why are you guys already going at each other with chainsaws and why does it happen in this timeline specifically, like what's the significance, whoops, guess I'll kill myself and channel-surf somewhere else, okay. When I make a choice I don't get to further explore that branch of the timeline and see the result, because the game wants me to randomly jump between scenes. This also means the pacing is bad because the devs can't know what order you watch the individual fragments in, and because you're switching between isolated teams all the time so the narrative of any team's given timeline is confined to one or two scenes anyway. Isolating teams also seriously limits the interactions between most of the cast, and one thing that I thought made VLR so interesting was to watch the changing social dynamics as the AB game went on. Then there's all this stuff about how SHIFTing is now an official superpower with its own rulebook and they just explain the gently caress out of something that actually makes very little sense if we're being honest, and the whole story comes off as more of a device for the creator to explain his multiverse setting to me and I guess he also had like 90 open ends to tie up so ticking off those boxes eats up a good chunk of story estate. I dunno it's hard to really define what makes me dislike this game so much, because some of those things are also present in the previous games in some way. I guess I'm just disappointed that ZTD shifted its focus from the character dynamics towards worldbuilding and replaced branching narratives with a series of loosely connected snapshots that try to ramp up the "mystery" by confusing me about where I am in the story. I jump between isolated scenes, watch meaningless drama happen inside a vacuum, bla bla bla multiverse morphogenic field schrödingers cat, and then I'm randomly teleported somewhere else, and half of the mysteries and murders boil down to "Mira did it because she's crazy and I guess I thought it was a good idea to let her run around  "And the cutscene animations are goofy as gently caress.
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Jul 11, 2016 21:20
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https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R8S8CHNZ6SUFW/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B010U1DNE8
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Jul 12, 2016 00:03
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Just finished this game and I'd say it's my least favorite of the three. 999 still takes the top spot for me in spite of the unrefined method for which replays occurred. While I liked the setting and game theme for ZTD more than VLR, the characterizations and interactions just weren't there for me. I feel like they kind of decided to coast by on a lot of the characters on account of most players being somewhat familiar with them and instead opted to focus on the goofy psuedo-science of SHIFTing. Usually these games leave me with strong feelings one way or another about any given character, which is something I really enjoy, but this one was so tepid. Eric was like Dio without any charm, Mira felt like a plot device, and most of the old characters seemed stock. Carlos and Sean were the only ones that brought anything to the table for me, and I would have liked to see more of that kind of thing. That said, the puzzles were fun and I certainly don't regret playing it. I kind of liked the idea of piecing the different fragments together with the knowledge of memory loss there as the explanation for them. It was suitably disorienting and I feel like they achieved what they were going for.
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Jul 12, 2016 01:46
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Random fragment picking gave me the knowledge that Junpei was dead in that Team C timeline long before I did the Pantry puzzle that utilizes it the best it kinda ruined what would've been a decent twist I think
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Jul 12, 2016 03:16
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My disappointment is that Junpei never really blows up on Akane for horribly murdering people in 999 and forcing him to go through the nonary game twice, ostensibly. I was waiting for that to pay off but nah Akane continues to think she's an arbiter of justice when she's definitely one of the craziest people in the whole series.
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Jul 12, 2016 03:30
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I'm down on the game as a whole but I actually liked the bouncing-around-out-of-sequence structure of the plot. While, as the above poster said, you do miss out on the cascading clusterfucks that arose in the first two games' structure, it gave its own new sense of mystery and disorientation. Although none of the characters must have seen Memento because in their situation I'd think the rational thing to do would be to start carving notes into your arm whenever something important happened.
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Jul 12, 2016 03:57
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When I first saw the disjointed plot structure with the mind wiping, I originally thought Zero was going to make them think they were in different timelines and have them loop through some of the scenarios in the same timeline, just to mess with them, and have them be unable to tell if they were shifting or not, and the actual canonical order was going to be some super weird path where people dying offscreen doesn't actually happen. I'm not sure where I thought that was going to go but I thought it would have been a cool reverse twist on what's going on.
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Jul 12, 2016 04:06
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I'm genuinely surprised the common pre-release thought of "One of the teams isn't playing the game in the same time period as the others" isn't actually a twist
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Jul 12, 2016 04:09
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Shear Modulus posted:Although none of the characters must have seen Memento because in their situation I'd think the rational thing to do would be to start carving notes into your arm whenever something important happened. BABY... DELTA...?
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Jul 12, 2016 04:20
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Shear Modulus posted:I'm down on the game as a whole but I actually liked the bouncing-around-out-of-sequence structure of the plot. While, as the above poster said, you do miss out on the cascading clusterfucks that arose in the first two games' structure, it gave its own new sense of mystery and disorientation. Well apparently Clover did if we go by VLR then!
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Jul 12, 2016 04:28
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I just finished the game and I liked it a lot, the twists were really goofy and I'm okay with Evil Steve Jobs Mind Hacker.
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Jul 12, 2016 07:56
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Is there any reason that Sigma's arms look like this in the VLR Beginning or End whatever-the-gently caress, when ABT and all of that clearly already exists in 2029 as evidenced by Sean's general existence? I always figured that the technology existed by the time 2074 rolls around, but it wasn't quite as advanced in 2029, but once I got to the Sean's a robot revelation, that was all I could think about. It could have just been for shock value in VLR and I'm way overthinking it though 
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Jul 12, 2016 08:17
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I thought Sigma had real-looking arms, but the fake flesh was stripped away at some point? I remember him bleeding white was a plot point.
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Jul 12, 2016 08:24
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voltcatfish posted:I'm genuinely surprised the common pre-release thought of "One of the teams isn't playing the game in the same time period as the others" isn't actually a twist It'd be seen as a recycled Ever17 twist if that happened.
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Jul 12, 2016 08:46
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Extra Tasty posted:Is there any reason that Sigma's arms look like this in the VLR Beginning or End whatever-the-gently caress, when ABT and all of that clearly already exists in 2029 as evidenced by Sean's general existence? I always figured that the technology existed by the time 2074 rolls around, but it wasn't quite as advanced in 2029, but once I got to the Sean's a robot revelation, that was all I could think about. It could have just been for shock value in VLR and I'm way overthinking it though I just assumed that those were like temporary replacements. The real answer was that they had to look all spooky and stuff for effect.
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Jul 12, 2016 10:50
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I just realized that every single timeline in that game has an extra copy of Carlos hanging around somewhere in the Nevada desert, but in only one of those timelines does he attempt any kind of rescue. What a dick
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Jul 12, 2016 14:01
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Carlos was still thinking of That One Sci-Fi Movie Featuring M. He was too afraid of changing history and creating a time paradox. So once again, it's all Akane's fault.
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Jul 12, 2016 14:15
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Wait, that's a good point. Why isn't Carlos busting down doors in the other timelines? How did he know that the correct sequence of events had occurred that signal him being in the timeline he wanted? Carlos knows too much, man.
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Jul 12, 2016 15:04
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Wait, that's a good point. Why isn't Carlos busting down doors in the other timelines? How did he know that the correct sequence of events had occurred that signal him being in the timeline he wanted? Carlos knows too much, man. Too busy spending time with Maria in the hospital.
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Jul 12, 2016 15:08
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Wait, that's a good point. Why isn't Carlos busting down doors in the other timelines? How did he know that the correct sequence of events had occurred that signal him being in the timeline he wanted? Carlos knows too much, man. Because we only see the carefully curated set of timelines where he only busts in in the right timeline (we are pretty bad at being a fourth dimensional entity it turns out)
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Jul 12, 2016 15:21
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Wait, that's a good point. Why isn't Carlos busting down doors in the other timelines? How did he know that the correct sequence of events had occurred that signal him being in the timeline he wanted? Carlos knows too much, man. The Radical-6 outbreak was probably a good indicator, since somehow there was actually only one timeline it managed to escape in. I can't remember whether Carlos had knowledge of that, though.... Let;s just say morphogenetic field and call it a day.
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Jul 12, 2016 15:21
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Good Lord Fisher! posted:The Radical-6 outbreak was probably a good indicator, since somehow there was actually only one timeline it managed to escape in. I can't remember whether Carlos had knowledge of that, though.... Let;s just say morphogenetic field and call it a day. He explicitly didn't have knowledge of it at the time.
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Jul 12, 2016 15:27
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It's been a long time so I didn't even remember Kyle etc. Anyone have a quick summary on what they were hinting at in VLR that was ultimately ignored in ZTD?
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Jul 12, 2016 15:37
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In the epilogue of VLR Akane specifically states that Kyle had jumped back to 2028 through a mechanism that was unexplained. He doesn't have a body in 2028 so we didn't know how that would be possible. In addition, the person she's telling this to is an unknown entity (the dialogue box labels it as "?") inhabiting Kyle's body in 2028. She explains that this entity doesn't follow the normal rules and will be going back to 2028 as well and will be the key to changing the past (since Old Sigma had failed). From Ever17 it can be inferred that "?" is actually Blick Winkel, a fourth dimensional being not bound by spacetime who can inhabit the bodies of others and jump freely between time periods and timelines. There's evidence in ZTD that Blick Winkel was indeed involved - it's very likely that the player was effectively playing as BW jumping between timelines and transferring information between different characters. Unlike Ever17 and VLR however, this was not explicitly acknowledged so not everyone caught it or was even aware it was a possibility. As for Kyle there's no evidence whatsoever of his presence in ZTD so who knows what happened with him.
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Jul 12, 2016 15:48
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnvpslNOFIQ
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Jul 12, 2016 15:51
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Is it possible that Delta is ? across all three ZE games? Keep in mind that Delta isn't a shifter, but being in a group of shifters can allow you to jump through time like Eric and Mira during the ending. Also, Delta's Esper abilities allow him to access the morphogenetic fields. In previous Uchikoshi games, '?' was a stand in for the player who has god like abilities. In 999 Akane needed ? to help her search across different time lines to save herself, and that is us by passing info between the top and bottom screens of the DS. In VLR, ? is needed to complete the conscious transfer, and it may be a nod to Ever17. In ZTD, we are still ?, but this time it turns out we are Delta making the decisions and learning about all the possible futures. What are your thoughts?
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Jul 12, 2016 16:56
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The thing is, ?/Blick Winkel doesn't seem to push people's consciousness out of them when he observes them. That's a SHIFT thing. So the one thing that kinda makes sense to me is that the consciousness that wakes up in Kyle's body at the end of VLR is Delta's, and Blick Winkel just happens to be observing that point in history - and Akane is aware of this. So first, she explains to Delta that he's swapped bodies with Kyle, and then later address Blick Winkel and tells him to go watch that, too. It opens the possibility that Kyle is not just a clone of Sigma, but a clone of Delta; which explains why the two were able to swap consciousnesses. Of course none of this is actually substantiated by ingame poo poo. It's just a vaguely consistent idea.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:30
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So for those of us who want to actually experience the Ever17 stuff is there just no way to do it outside of  ?
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Jul 12, 2016 22:18
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Yeah just download it, the company that brought it over has long since go under
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Jul 12, 2016 22:20
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Luna Was Here posted:So for those of us who want to actually experience the Ever17 stuff is there just no way to do it outside of You sometimes see copies on ebay. Maybe $250 or so? The japanese version is buyable as a download if you want to support the
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Jul 12, 2016 23:31
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gently caress I can't stop thinking about how D Team owns and how I totally want them to live a happy family life together I'm one step removed from writing fanfiction. If I write some I promise I'll post it here
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Jul 12, 2016 23:58
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So what the hell happens to 22 year old Sigma's mind? If I recall, the plan was that he'd return to his body after they managed to stop Radical 6 from spreading, but they also talked about Kyle and such there so obviously that was thrown out the window. Does young Sigma just not get a happy ending?
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Jul 13, 2016 00:07
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young sigma gets to spend 45 years alone on the moon becoming old sigma to close the loop. he does get to be with diana though until she dies young sigma has it rough
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Jul 13, 2016 00:09
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Cake Attack posted:young sigma gets to spend 45 years alone on the moon becoming old sigma to close the loop. young sigma does eventually get to become ZTD sigma, doesn't he? so at least he'll get a happy ending after many years of bullshit
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Jul 13, 2016 00:13
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Sigma's timeline is this Get knocked out at college Get shifted into virtues last reward Do vlr Get shifted back in time to ztd Do ztd, get arms blown off Get replacements, bang Diana on the moon Do science sorcery Set up vlr Shift back into young body Live life?
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Jul 13, 2016 02:02
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Luna Was Here posted:Get replacements, bang Diana on the moon Mission accomplished am I right
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Jul 13, 2016 02:58
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Luna Was Here posted:Sigma's timeline is this Nah, it's more like: Get knocked out at college. Get SHIFTed to VLR. Do VLR. Get SHIFTed to four months after the ZTD Apocalypse ending. Go to the moon. Spend 3 years falling in love with Diana only to watch her die. Spend 42 more years mastering a variety of sciences including AI programming, human cloning, robotics engineering and game design. Set up VLR. Shift back to college when your young self was knocked out. Go to DCom. Get kidnapped for ZTD. Do ZTD. Live in your young body with your old man mind because why the gently caress would you SHIFT back to that hellhole future when you have the woman of your dreams and your improbable time daughter? (And maybe your Diet Wesker improbable time son if Carlos decides not to kill him.)
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Jul 13, 2016 02:59
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| # ? May 28, 2024 05:27 |
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And then Diana's journey in the VLR timeline: -Get abused by husband -Divorce him -Endure harassment from him -Go to DCOM, suffer through ZTD -End up causing a pandemic that kills 6 billion people -Four months later, finds a young Sigma that has probably no idea who she is -Follow him to the moon and fall in love, only to die after three years
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Jul 13, 2016 04:21
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