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Karifean's Blog of Visual Novels

Zero Time Dilemma News

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So I was thinking of making a special for my #100th blog post, but I was letting news pass me by like crazy while trying to come up with good ideas. So screw it, this is something that needs to get posted.

If any of you are Zero Escape fans you might already know this, but Zero Time Dilemma, the third and final entry in the series, has finally gotten a release window, a trailer, and information regarding what the game will be like.


Players of VLR will probably already know when and where ZTD is going to take place. It's once again a survival game, involving nine people trapped against their will. Characters include Junpei, Akane, Sigma, Phi, Diana and four (supposedly) new characters. The game involves having the participants' memories erased every 90 minutes, so the game is split up into 'fragments' of 90 minutes each which we go through in a non-chronological order - which sounds like a pretty neat concept to me! It also sounds like you'll be facing a lot of critical and difficult choices which will hopefully make this game the unforgettable experience it's building up to be.

-After completion of the Quest portion, you will undergo the Decision stage of the Fragment. This will be a frantic decision between two choices, with each choice undergoing either a severe cost or risk that will force the player to decide what is more valuable to them within a short period of time. These events are actually timed, so abstaining from making a decision IS an option, but it will force you down another route or possibly penalize you. We were shown a decision in which a character was locked in a chamber and threatened with an execution at the end of a countdown. To prevent this, the player must operate another device to open the door, but this device in itself has a 50/50 chance of killing another character. The characters present bicker with one another about what to choose, and as the countdown ticks and tocks ever closer to the execution, the player is then given the choice of whether to operate the device or not. We were shown two different outcomes for the decision to operate the device, so the choices you make will have actual risk due to the random outcomes that the player may receive. Of course, you could always replay the Fragment and hope for a different outcome, but who knows if this will have consequences as well!
The game will launch in late June on 3DS, PS Vita and also on Steam, which is a big plus for me. There hasn't been any mention of 999 and VLR making it to Steam yet, but it's definitely a possibility at this point.

Here's a link to some coverage of the relevant conference

For those looking for some good other entries in the escape-the-killing-game genre in the mean time, I point you towards Root Double -Before Crime * After Days-, which is set to get a Steam release near the end of March and has a pretty shining reputation among its Japanese players, as well as Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, a more crazy take on the genre, along with its sequel, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. The Danganronpa series is available on Vita and is currently being ported to PC, with the first being for sale on Steam already and the second coming in mid-April.

Updated 03-17-2016 at 06:47 PM by Karifean

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Comments

  1. Shauna's Avatar
  2. Fynn's Avatar
    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
  3. Formalhaut's Avatar
  4. Fynn's Avatar
    Junpei looks much more like those cool guys on anime than the dorky student he was in 999
  5. Karifean's Avatar
    Did you even read VLR yet? =P
  6. Formalhaut's Avatar
    The trailer is pretty brutal. The methods of execution isn't just a simple bracelet injecting you with a drug, we have full-on armoured mini-guns. Gory.

    That kid with the freaky mask seems... interesting. There's also one member of the group who seems the most highly strung (I think he's the one throttling the kid and wielding the shotgun).

    Looks good, and it keeps reminding me that I need to play VLR.
  7. Fynn's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Karifean
    Did you even read VLR yet? =P
    Was that aimed at me? Or Formy? Because I sure have

    And I actually like that it's back to being gory. The brutality of 999 was one of the things I missed in VLR.
  8. Formalhaut's Avatar
    I mean, I played 999, and it was gory sure, but you were never seen explicit details.

    Really, the worst thing was getting the axe ending and hearing the sound of the axe blow. That made me cringe.

    I need to get VLR. I have a 3DS as well, so it isn't as if I'm stymied. And apparently the pathways are better too. As in, you don't have to replay the entire game again to get another ending. 999 was a slog by the end.
  9. Fynn's Avatar
    VLR is better in some respects and weaker in others. Overall, I'd say I enjoyed 999 more, but VLR was still a very good game
  10. Karifean's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Fynn
    Was that aimed at me? Or Formy? Because I sure have
    It was aimed at you. I remember you hadn't played it back when I went through the series myself.

    There were a few things that made the experience of reading 999 a slog at times. Primarily the text speed, the repeating puzzles and the fact that the final twists were almost a carbon copy of another VN by the same writer I'd read previously. Compared to these, the advantages it has over VLR pale to me, so I prefer the sequel overall.