Zero Time Dilemma

I don't quite get why this game gets so much hate. I loved the switch from static, text-based dialogue to the scenes being presented almost in an interactive movie style. The animations are janky as hell, but I think that adds more to the charm. The game basically had a shoestring budget to work with so I think they did pretty well with what they had. I come back to replay this game at least once a year and the fact that the scenes are presented to the player in a non-linear fashion, yet the story still comes together to make sense by the end (with different dialogue presented based on the order you picked the scenes in) is genius, on top of the fact that there is RNG added into certain scenes to keep things from getting stale. If this truly was the last game in the series, then I think they picked a hell of an experimental and fun way to go out on.

So I think it's almost impossible to review this game without spoiling things, and frankly the only people who should bother with this game are people who played the first two. I would assume if you were going to check it out, you already have and I don't need to convince anyone. I'll be brief then. I think this is the worst of the Zero Escape games, but even with that said it's a worthy entry to the series. The same stuff you liked about the previous games is in this one, and it deepens the lore a bit. I was not a big fan of the plot twists near the end and despised one of the characters with a passion, but it's small potatoes. The game kept me hooked just like the previous ones. Solid VA, hilarious overuse of dutch angles, weird puzzles.

In my opinion, this game is kind of the best stupidest game ever. There's so much not to like about this game - the animations are clunky as hell, the puzzles are mostly just good (not challenging enough generally), the story is ridiculous and absurd, the characters are over the top, silly, annoying. The cutscenes are cheesy. Some of the music is even crappy (the one "dramatic theme" really sounds bad - something to do with the MIDI-style instrumentation).

But holy hell if this game isn't fun as shit.

There's no point in playing this game if you haven't played Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors [9時間9人9の扉] and Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward [極限脱出ADV 善人シボウデス] - this game will make even less sense than it makes anyways. But if you liked those two game, then I doubt you will be disappointed by this game. Some people seem disappointed by the way the overarching plot wrapped up, but I think it's pretty good personally.

In terms of criticisms I do have, like I said, the puzzles felt mostly weak to me. Maybe I'm just better at solving them now, but I really never had to think very hard - most of the time I got stuck in a room, it was because of some daft reason, like I didn't realise you could remove the screws there, or I didn't realise you could look at that draw, or something like that. The actual puzzles to me felt kind of rote.

The presentation of the game overall is pretty much fine. The graphics look fine, if a little dated. The characters almost look a bit Telltale The Walking Dead: Season One-esque, but the major problem is the animations, which are bloody awful. There's really unfortunately no two ways about it. People moving in this game looks shitty. I think eventually though, your mind just decides to ignore it and you can enjoy the game (or at least, I could).

I feel like sometimes, the exact machanations of how the game works could have been made more clear (minor spoiler, could be considered puzzle solution) the fact that the execution vote actually occurs cumulatively depending on who you vote for as each team, same with the decontamination showers. Those were the times I was most looking things up - that, and finding out where I had to unscrew the dang screws.

To me, this game is where I feel one of the biggest gaps exists between how much I love it and how great I kind of "objectively" think it is. I can imagine and understand people really not liking this game. But I think if you do like it, it has the possibility of being something you love.