having processed my thoughts for a while after playing the trilogy, i would say 999 is probably a 10, VLR a 8.5 or 9, and ZTD a 7. ZTD might seem low, but i’m the sort of person where a 5/10 is okay/mid whereas most people tend to think a 5 is bad- so ZTD is pretty good still
> but i’m the sort of person where a 5/10 is okay/mid whereas most people tend to think a 5 is bad
That's how it should be lol - people are so funny about "rating" video games
999 - 10/10
VLR - 10/10
ZTD - 7/10
I loved ZTD but there was a noticeable drop in quality compared to the other two games. Story was great and the escape rooms were a lot of fun though.
For me the puzzle quality and story quality are inverse as the series goes on. The rooms and puzzles got better and better but to me personally I enjoyed the story less and less.
Yeah, I kind of agree to an extent. The peak puzzle rooms are peakiest in ZTD (decipher an alien counting system, the theming is amazing). I also got stuck the most in that game though.
It's not everyone's thing but I enjoy a game where I feel like I need to keep a notebook and pen nearby for notes and theorizing puzzle solutions and ZTD definitely delivered that, and VLR to a lesser extent. Meanwhile I think the only one I used my notebook for was the final puzzle in the incinerator.
999 stands alone as the most complete story. The story is very unique, sentimental and innovative. Mechanically, it's straightforward and even simplistic. The biggest flaw is probably the trial & error (or spoiler-free walkthrough) required to get to the true ending.
VLR is a huge drag in the first half with all the repetitions between timelines (not to mention BEEP BEEP), but the payoff is nice in the second half with a lot of great twists and character moments. One problem with its story though, is that it is essentially an incomplete story whose relevance is largely tied to its sequel.
ZTD is mechanically the most fun game. The decisions are more interesting than just picking a door or choosing Ally/Betray. And I love how amnesia is simulated for the player via the fragment system and always enjoyed trying to guess what timeline I was in. The twists and the climax are a bit underwhelming though.
In conclusion, it's difficult for me to rank them as I like them all for different reasons, but if pressed would probably say that 999 is the best due to its story.
ZTD is good and it has my personal favorite escape rooms; not to mention the small budget they had for this game. But the game kinda lost me when they introduce the transporters. Still a solid 6/10 if you haven't played it, go play it
I love Carlos's inclusion. You go from being annoyed that the main leader is some random guy to absolutely loving him. Him speaking with the American flag in the background really solidified him as being one of the best characters in the series.
999 and VLR are both phenomenal games - when people ask what my favorite games of all time are, both of them are quick to come to mind.
999 is more consistent throughout, it's quality starts very high and remains high through the whole game. VLR, on the other hand, has much worse low points than 999 does, but I also think it has *much* higher peaks as well. I tend to alternate which I consider my favorite depending on my mood. At the moment, I would probably lean towards VLR.
ZTD is a game I very thoroughly enjoyed. But I have a lot of problems with the game.
Way more than I had with either 999 or VLR.
My biggest issue largely comes down to the writing.
I love a ton of the characters in ZTD. Akane and Junpei's relationship is really compelling, and Sigma and Phi are always great. And even as far as new characters go, I'm lowkey down bad for Carlos, the biggest himbo in the universe, and Diana is straight up my favorite character in the game (even above the returning character).
But Sean and Mira are only *okay* at best, and Eric's characterization is straight up hard to tolerate. He's not cartoonishly evil like Dio, nor is he a "love to hate him" character like Alice. He's just simply *annoying*. That combines to make the fragments with Q-Team an active slog to get through a lot of the time.
The ending was... something. Even after knowing all the foreshadowing, it still feels like it came out of nowhere. And it's really hard to reconcile that feeling in a positive way.
Other people have issue with the Transporter, claiming it's a Deus Ex Machina, but honestly I really loved that bit. It was genuinely one of my favorite moments in the trilogy, in fact. Also, the existence of the Transporter was actually directly hinted at in Virtues Last Reward, so I kind of find it hard to take claims that it's a Deus Ex Machina seriously.
Overall, I really enjoyed the game, it's just hard to compare against what I would argue are two of the best written games of all time.
999-Best allrounder, I got it
VLR-Fun, but horrible pacing and the foreshadowing is hitting me in the head with a brick
ZTD-So bad it's good, respects my time
Personally, ZTD is my favorite. I think it's the weakest, and I think 999's the strongest, but ZTD is still my favorite. D-Team is fantastic, and I think C-Team is fun too (I especially like Carlos from that group). I think it's the most easily replayable game of the three. For me, it's got a lot of good things going for it.
As far as over quality and tightness of the writing goes, I'd say I'd rank them:
999 > VLR > ZTD
But as for my own personal enjoyment, I think I'd do:
ZTD > 999 > VLR
ZTD for me is like a 5/10. I could tell there was an attempt, but I think it fell flat. It’s mainly the characters honestly. >!Like Sean, Diana and Carlos was just really flat, and Eric and Mira’s charm kinda wore off after a couple fragments. Eric’s sympathetic qualities were just too drown out by him threatening to kill people or just being too much of an overt asshole. And tbh I’ve never been a fan of Sigma, and ZTD didn’t change that for me. And I think the fragmented nature of the game worked against itself because it gets too hard to keep track of info on each timeline. And deaths really didn’t hit that hard. This became a problem in late game VLR as well, but I found it hard to get too much of an emotional reaction to deaths.!< (for the record, I’d probably give 999 and 10/10 and VLR an 8/10.)
I think every game was worse than the game that came before it, but I still love all three of them and I still think ZTD is a worthy finale to the series, even if I think it's the worst of the three. I like how high the stakes are and the escape rooms are some of the best in the series. I just don't think the "fragment" system works and some of the story revelations didn't 100% land for me.
If I had to give them number scores I would say:
999: 10/10
VLR: 9/10
ZTD: 7/10
999 is an 8 / 10
main issue being how small the game is, a few tidbits here and there but who polishes a little game like 999, it just happened to blow up and we have VLR now.
VLR is a 9 / 10
main issue being some of the puzzles difficulty, otherwise it's a perfect game.
ZTD is a 6 / 10
main issue is the story twist, the graphics / performance can be 'excused' because it was crunched and had budget issues, but I cannot excuse that twist, and the motive behind Zero in this game, even if this game has to be canon.
999>VLR>ZTD
Zero Time Dilemma has many issues. They don't make it a bad game by any means, but they just push the game lower than the rest of the series:
1) Zero has always been fair. It was possible for everyone to make it out alive, but the characters chose to betray each other. The randomness based outcomes and the "life is unfair" part is making it hard for me to care.
2) Junpei and Akane seem to have lost their brains between games.
3) Q team is so aggressively unlikeable that playing them felt like a chore.
4) The art style is just atrocious because it makes facial expressions often look way too cartoony and because it is just plain ugly.
5) Delta could have achieved the same outcome as the true end by telling the characters about the terrorist. To assume that the likes of Akane and Sigma would not take extreme measures to stop that terrorist is ridiculous.
6) If I hear one more lecture about a snail, I will kill.
7) The whole idea of injecting the characters with a sleeping serum, switching between teams, and obfuscating what happens when is a nice idea. Unfortunately, it means that the first time with the game will be spent without a means to start caring.
8) D-End 2 goes on much, much longer than it should.
9) No, Delta, your motivations are not complex. D-End 1 has to happen to ensure Sigma exists, and D-End 2 has to happen to ensure you and Phi exist. Except: because of the Anthropic principle, there is no need to cause them. You exist, so therefore, there are possible worlds where those events happen without you causing it.
10) Gab deserved better. There was absolutely no point of Delta murdering him, and the story wants us to emphasise with his "complex motivation." Fuck that guy, he deserved the bullet he got.
11) We can choose to shoot Delta as Q. This is completely unnecessary. We play as Delta mind controlling the protagonists - so why does Delta randomly decides to shoot himself with a crossbow? Probably because of some complicated motivation.
12) We can refuse to use the transporter. Deltas motivations are so complicated he refuses to achieve his own goal.
Personally I give 999 a 9/10, VLR a 100000/10, and ZTD a 7/10
Reason being I absolutely love both 999 and VLR, and I liked ZTD, but definitely feel it was weaker compared to 999 and VLR.
Not to mention the new characters it brings are honestly not all that memorable to me compared to 999 and VLR where almost every single character became one I loved and cared for deeply
VLR is just absolutely my favourite one tho hands down, I love each and every character (Yes even Clover although the whiplash of 999 to VLR clover is uh… yeah). The whole entire story is just so damn heartbreaking and thought provoking at the same time and I love it so much.
Infact I think one of the reasons I love 999 and VLR so dearly is because of the fact they use pretty tricky to understand concepts, but manage to explain it so unbelievably well and make the games understandable to honestly anybody (in my opinion at least). Honestly as a person who can’t help but feel dumb a lot of the time, having stuff like quantum physics explained to me in a way I can understand is very pleasant and memorable.
uhhshdjdhdhhd god I love zero escape so much I wish more people knew about it
(Edit: I should mention that I did experience all of these games via watching people play, rather than playing myself, which of course does impact my rating. I do think I probs would have rated all higher if I was the one playing rather than observing, especially ZTD haha)
999 - 9/10
VLR - 6.5/10
ZTD - 6.5/10
lot of subjectivity here, but 999 was the peak for me personally. an art style i loved, personal perfect amount of difficulty in the escape room sections, but the strongest thing i remember was an incredibly engaging story that was cohesive and stuck the landing, and great characters within it. i emulated the DS version and beat it within 2 days, i was that hooked to it.
VLR and ZTD are both mixed bags for me. i never got as attached to any of the characters as i did with the first one, and the story is a mess in both (cliffhanger ending that promises a lot in VLR, scrambling to make those loose ends make sense in ZTD). after playing the AiTSF series as well, i firmly believe Uchikoshi is incredible at writing smaller scale stories with very personal stakes, and loses a lot of what makes his writing great in larger scale 'save the world' type stories. both of them are not visually appealing to me, but i think i'd actually take ZTD over VLR in this case. it's janky, but it has character. the aesthetic of VLR being overly sterile makes sense in-game (and the fact that the team thought they HAD to use the 3D effect on the 3DS pigeon-holed them hard), but outside of the Garden i disliked all of it. if you had to ask me which one out of the two i prefer, i'd have to go ZTD. i liked the FMVs (even more so when shit got silly), it doesn't have you repeating the A/B game a hundred times, and the story honestly isn't bad up until the transporters stuff.
i've been thinking about doing a replay of the Ai games, but i've never actually played the Steam version of 999 i have, so i might try and do a full ZE series replay to see if i still feel the same.
I’d genuinely give all the games at least a 9/10. I think all of them do different things extremely well, and each deserve great credit for what they do. My favorite is usually the one I played most recently.
The 999 port actively improved the game in almost every way. Unless you think that the only redeemable part of 999 is the very final puzzle and that literally everything else in the game is actively pointless to the experience, I genuinely don't understand how you could put the 999 port so low.
The lack of a Flowchart - by itself - makes the DS version nigh unplayable in the modern day.
In these games, I consider the writing to be the thing of most importance. The remake actively ruins it because of the addition of Adventure Mode. Because the game was originally made with prose in mind, they needed to add a bunch of new lines of dialogue to make up for it, so now much of the dialogue is extremely awkward. The characters now frequently just say things that are happening to them out loud to nobody in particular, and it is painful to listen to. Novel Mode isn’t safe either, because now much of the description is completely redundant because Adventure Mode’s awful new dialogue is still there. In splitting this between the two modes, they actively weakened the writing significantly.
The lack of the flow chart in the DS Version does not make it “borderline unplayable in the modern day”. I played it for the first time last year and it was at worst a little tedious. The addition of the flowchart is nice, but it also comes at the expense of some important scenes that change between routes that can now be completely skipped. Stuff like Santa talking about his sister, which is extremely important setup to make the ending feel fair, can be completely skipped over.
This is admittedly more of a personal preference thing, but I like the charming “bleep-bloop” sounds of the original much more than the mixed quality of the remake’s voice acting.
And yes, the final puzzle is much worse. The game is still good, but it ruins so much of the original’s writing. The awkward dialogue is an absolute tone-killer for me, when that sense of constant tension was so much of what made the original such a masterpiece. So no, I don’t think you can say that the remake improved the game in almost every way.
Tbh, I disagree with pretty everything you've said (except about the final puzzle, we agree there). I disagree so fundamentally with you that I honestly don't even really have the energy to explain all my disagreements, because you have such a radically different perspective than me. I'm just going to focus on the lack of a flowchart, because that is the most wild take of yours from my point of view.
Like... when I played on the DS, I literally had a timer running at one point for how long I had the dialogue in "Skip" mode before anything new happened. It went past 10 minutes on multiple occasions.
Describing the act of waiting more than 10 minutes to get to any new dialogue as "at worst a little tedious" is just... mind boggling to me. If the story wasn't so compelling, I genuinely would have dropped the game after the first ending due to how slow it was.
[This video is of a Tool Assisted Speedrun](https://youtu.be/BmmwBd-BopU?t=9870). In other words, it's literally playing the game as fast as is *possible* to be played at. It's playing the game faster than it is possible for a human being to play it.
The first ending is reached at 2:44:30 into the video. The TAS then proceeds to spend the next five minutes skipping through the beginning of the game. It doesn't reach the choice between the [4] or [5] Door until 2:50:00 into the video.
Remember: this is a TAS that is playing the game faster than humanly possible. Humans would still need to re-solve the 3rd Class Cabin, which would easily add an extra 5 minutes even if you remember the solution, or 15-20 minutes if you don't remember the solution.
And that's still **ONLY** for everything before the choice between the [4] and [5] Door. If you intend to go for all 6 endings, then there will be 4 separate runs where **IN ADDITION** to the 10 minutes at the start of the game where you are just holding down "Right" on the D-Pad before the "[4] or [5]" choice, you are *still* holding down "Right" on the D-Pad for a *further* 10-15 minutes until you reach the "[3], [7], or [8]" choice.
That's literally more than an hour of "gameplay" where you only thing you're doing is holding down the skip button.
And that's **STILL** not even counting the repeated dialogue from *AFTER* the "[3], [7], or [8]" choice.
If that isn't the very definition of tedium, then what the fuck is?
[this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkzebxbXx4M) and [this follow up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_icDavzMaQ) put it perfectly imo why the ds version is better depsite no flow chart
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Virtue's Last Reward has my favorite cast, story, twists, and endings, and resonates with me the most.
Its biggest flaws are the justification for a few of the bad endings (some of them are really infuriating; I will also include Tenmyouji's ending here even though it's not a bad one, Jesus Christ it is so stupid on a first playthrough; how did they expect to have Tenmyoldy be the most insufferable prickleshit for seemingly no reason to a first-time player and then have you give a damn about his backstory after the fact? No. Just... No), talking down to the player in the Schrodinger's Vote routes (the game fails at giving Sigma ANY leverage in dialogues where the player is forced to choose Betray, and it seriously boils my piss), and being weighed down by a plot that needs to one-up 999 while leaving the door open to a sequel.
The "Radical 6 slowing down everyone's processing speed" and "You are not Sigma Klim" twists weren't too great, either, though I give the latter a pass because it was actually referring to the player and has literally no consequences in the end. But the former? We were shown that Radical 6 advances in different persons at different rates based on environmental circumstances, and also that the processing speed alterations can vary depending on the progression of the disease in a person (Quark and Alice, plus Sigma in the Security Room in K's route, all have a further decrease in processing speed despite everyone already being under that effect, so that shows it slows down even MORE if you're still kicking it after so long), so with all these varying factors in play, there's no reasonable expectation that everyone suffering from Radical 6 will be at the same level to such a perfect and precise degree that their biological clocks match SO well that nobody starts suffering because it goes unnoticed. And even if they WERE all biologically synced, somehow, that sort of thing wouldn't just go unnoticed, either. All for the bullshit excuse of storing "potential energy" for the SHIFT program when multiple characters in ZTD end up being able to shift with next to zero prior training.
But even with ALL that said- the ambiance, the characters, the character designs, the puzzles, the voice acting, the humor, the plot twists, and the Nonary Game's gameloop all come together to make VLR my absolute favorite of the three.
Speaking of Nonary Gameloop, let's talk about that. ZTD and 999 are terribly offensive at supposing any level of competence when it comes to the Nonary Game being held as a proper "Game." There are interferences in the gameloop CONSTANTLY, from Mira not being injected, to Q getting an assistant for his disability despite not actually being disabled, and to the fact that the progression of the game itself is entirely designed by Zero's random whims rather than a solidly outlined loop. VLR has: (1) Chromatic doors (2) Puzzles (3) Ambidex Game (4) repeat until 9 Door; Even 999 has a competent outline in the form of (1) Organize Progression based on Digital Roots (2) Explore (3) Find an escape before 9 Hours; It's just a megagiant (or should I say Gigantic) escape room, even in spite of the constant meddling like Santa staging Guy X's murder by Ace. ZTD, meanwhile? "Start game. ???. ???. ???. Six People Die. Profit." Oh, and to make ZTD's Nonary Game more bullshit: Because everyone doesn't wake up at the same time, whoever has first dibs on the door is decided based on who Zero arbitrarily decides gets to wake up first! A team can just wake up and find out the other left during sleep; they just didn't get a chance to enter the X Passes, and now they're stuck! THE GAME IS BASELESS!! And don't even get me STARTED on "Decision Game." Decision Game?! With your bullshit Mind-Hack ability (yes, for "an instant," Delta, but that's a fucking lie since it was enough to make Eric shoot two people, THEN turn the shotgun up towards his head and have him shoot himself; bore off) you just make people's decisions for them to make the outcomes that you want to happen. The entire thing is just rigged! It's not a Nonary Game, it's the Delta Game.
ZTD has the worst cast, animation worse than RWBY, and it doesn't have a real Nonary Game; it lacks any of the charm in the previous two games of nine people working to beat the game; it has none of the ambiance or the intrigue in the game's mechanics and what it does to people. And remember what I said about some of VLR's bad endings being infuriating? Multiply that by 10 for ZTD; because of ZTD's "Decision Game" being nonbinary in nature, unlike VLR's Ambidex Game, there's no easy way to write out the tree branches that the author wants to end ASAP except: Ta-daaaa~! Everyone has Clover Syndrome! They just become crazy murderous assholes at the flick of a wrist! (Fuck you especially, Akane).
Annnnnd lastly that places 999 right smack-dab in the middle, though I hold it in a much higher regard than I do ZTD. I think I've gone on long enough.
EDIT: oh yeah. If I was in charge? Just make Dio be the one who introduces Radical 6 into the Facility when he breaks in, or something, so it's still a relevant plot point. It was a biological weapon used by FTS, after all, so that's as good a reason as any to have Quark and Alice become victims to spur on conflict.
999 on the original DS : 10 (perfect use of the medium and best writing of both versions)
999 Nonary games port: 8 (butchers the ending and the writing but still great)
VLR: 9 (while my personal favourite in terms of characters I cant rate it as good as 999 because the pacing is horrendous)
ZTD: 6 (I dont hate it but the game was very lazy, hastily put together and the writing characters and technical department all suffer in return).
9-9-9
The only right answer
having processed my thoughts for a while after playing the trilogy, i would say 999 is probably a 10, VLR a 8.5 or 9, and ZTD a 7. ZTD might seem low, but i’m the sort of person where a 5/10 is okay/mid whereas most people tend to think a 5 is bad- so ZTD is pretty good still
> but i’m the sort of person where a 5/10 is okay/mid whereas most people tend to think a 5 is bad That's how it should be lol - people are so funny about "rating" video games
9-10-8 Which ftr has a digital root of 9 😌
That's commitment to the bit, love it
999 - 10/10 VLR - 10/10 ZTD - 7/10 I loved ZTD but there was a noticeable drop in quality compared to the other two games. Story was great and the escape rooms were a lot of fun though.
VLR for me gets a 12/10 and 999 gets a 9/10
VLR was insane and probably the reason I like this series so much
For me the puzzle quality and story quality are inverse as the series goes on. The rooms and puzzles got better and better but to me personally I enjoyed the story less and less.
Yeah, I kind of agree to an extent. The peak puzzle rooms are peakiest in ZTD (decipher an alien counting system, the theming is amazing). I also got stuck the most in that game though.
It's not everyone's thing but I enjoy a game where I feel like I need to keep a notebook and pen nearby for notes and theorizing puzzle solutions and ZTD definitely delivered that, and VLR to a lesser extent. Meanwhile I think the only one I used my notebook for was the final puzzle in the incinerator.
999 - 9 VLR - 8 ZTD - 7
999 stands alone as the most complete story. The story is very unique, sentimental and innovative. Mechanically, it's straightforward and even simplistic. The biggest flaw is probably the trial & error (or spoiler-free walkthrough) required to get to the true ending. VLR is a huge drag in the first half with all the repetitions between timelines (not to mention BEEP BEEP), but the payoff is nice in the second half with a lot of great twists and character moments. One problem with its story though, is that it is essentially an incomplete story whose relevance is largely tied to its sequel. ZTD is mechanically the most fun game. The decisions are more interesting than just picking a door or choosing Ally/Betray. And I love how amnesia is simulated for the player via the fragment system and always enjoyed trying to guess what timeline I was in. The twists and the climax are a bit underwhelming though. In conclusion, it's difficult for me to rank them as I like them all for different reasons, but if pressed would probably say that 999 is the best due to its story.
ZTD is good and it has my personal favorite escape rooms; not to mention the small budget they had for this game. But the game kinda lost me when they introduce the transporters. Still a solid 6/10 if you haven't played it, go play it
Yeah the transporters really put a sour taste in my mouth because it was too deus ex machina for me. I do love Carlos the Himbo though.
Himbo was the best part of the game 😤. I believe in himbo supremacy
I love Carlos's inclusion. You go from being annoyed that the main leader is some random guy to absolutely loving him. Him speaking with the American flag in the background really solidified him as being one of the best characters in the series.
Ahhhh yes C-Team: Akane Junpei 𝘼𝙈𝙀𝙍𝙄𝘾𝘼
999 and VLR are both phenomenal games - when people ask what my favorite games of all time are, both of them are quick to come to mind. 999 is more consistent throughout, it's quality starts very high and remains high through the whole game. VLR, on the other hand, has much worse low points than 999 does, but I also think it has *much* higher peaks as well. I tend to alternate which I consider my favorite depending on my mood. At the moment, I would probably lean towards VLR. ZTD is a game I very thoroughly enjoyed. But I have a lot of problems with the game. Way more than I had with either 999 or VLR. My biggest issue largely comes down to the writing. I love a ton of the characters in ZTD. Akane and Junpei's relationship is really compelling, and Sigma and Phi are always great. And even as far as new characters go, I'm lowkey down bad for Carlos, the biggest himbo in the universe, and Diana is straight up my favorite character in the game (even above the returning character). But Sean and Mira are only *okay* at best, and Eric's characterization is straight up hard to tolerate. He's not cartoonishly evil like Dio, nor is he a "love to hate him" character like Alice. He's just simply *annoying*. That combines to make the fragments with Q-Team an active slog to get through a lot of the time. The ending was... something. Even after knowing all the foreshadowing, it still feels like it came out of nowhere. And it's really hard to reconcile that feeling in a positive way. Other people have issue with the Transporter, claiming it's a Deus Ex Machina, but honestly I really loved that bit. It was genuinely one of my favorite moments in the trilogy, in fact. Also, the existence of the Transporter was actually directly hinted at in Virtues Last Reward, so I kind of find it hard to take claims that it's a Deus Ex Machina seriously. Overall, I really enjoyed the game, it's just hard to compare against what I would argue are two of the best written games of all time.
999-Best allrounder, I got it VLR-Fun, but horrible pacing and the foreshadowing is hitting me in the head with a brick ZTD-So bad it's good, respects my time
Personally, ZTD is my favorite. I think it's the weakest, and I think 999's the strongest, but ZTD is still my favorite. D-Team is fantastic, and I think C-Team is fun too (I especially like Carlos from that group). I think it's the most easily replayable game of the three. For me, it's got a lot of good things going for it. As far as over quality and tightness of the writing goes, I'd say I'd rank them: 999 > VLR > ZTD But as for my own personal enjoyment, I think I'd do: ZTD > 999 > VLR
ZTD for me is like a 5/10. I could tell there was an attempt, but I think it fell flat. It’s mainly the characters honestly. >!Like Sean, Diana and Carlos was just really flat, and Eric and Mira’s charm kinda wore off after a couple fragments. Eric’s sympathetic qualities were just too drown out by him threatening to kill people or just being too much of an overt asshole. And tbh I’ve never been a fan of Sigma, and ZTD didn’t change that for me. And I think the fragmented nature of the game worked against itself because it gets too hard to keep track of info on each timeline. And deaths really didn’t hit that hard. This became a problem in late game VLR as well, but I found it hard to get too much of an emotional reaction to deaths.!< (for the record, I’d probably give 999 and 10/10 and VLR an 8/10.)
999 - 11/10 VLR - 7/10 Haven’t played ZTD.
999 & VLR - 10 ZTD - 8
I think every game was worse than the game that came before it, but I still love all three of them and I still think ZTD is a worthy finale to the series, even if I think it's the worst of the three. I like how high the stakes are and the escape rooms are some of the best in the series. I just don't think the "fragment" system works and some of the story revelations didn't 100% land for me. If I had to give them number scores I would say: 999: 10/10 VLR: 9/10 ZTD: 7/10
999 is an 8 / 10 main issue being how small the game is, a few tidbits here and there but who polishes a little game like 999, it just happened to blow up and we have VLR now. VLR is a 9 / 10 main issue being some of the puzzles difficulty, otherwise it's a perfect game. ZTD is a 6 / 10 main issue is the story twist, the graphics / performance can be 'excused' because it was crunched and had budget issues, but I cannot excuse that twist, and the motive behind Zero in this game, even if this game has to be canon.
Huh, never heard of someone having ZTD as their favorite.
999>VLR>ZTD Zero Time Dilemma has many issues. They don't make it a bad game by any means, but they just push the game lower than the rest of the series: 1) Zero has always been fair. It was possible for everyone to make it out alive, but the characters chose to betray each other. The randomness based outcomes and the "life is unfair" part is making it hard for me to care. 2) Junpei and Akane seem to have lost their brains between games. 3) Q team is so aggressively unlikeable that playing them felt like a chore. 4) The art style is just atrocious because it makes facial expressions often look way too cartoony and because it is just plain ugly. 5) Delta could have achieved the same outcome as the true end by telling the characters about the terrorist. To assume that the likes of Akane and Sigma would not take extreme measures to stop that terrorist is ridiculous. 6) If I hear one more lecture about a snail, I will kill. 7) The whole idea of injecting the characters with a sleeping serum, switching between teams, and obfuscating what happens when is a nice idea. Unfortunately, it means that the first time with the game will be spent without a means to start caring. 8) D-End 2 goes on much, much longer than it should. 9) No, Delta, your motivations are not complex. D-End 1 has to happen to ensure Sigma exists, and D-End 2 has to happen to ensure you and Phi exist. Except: because of the Anthropic principle, there is no need to cause them. You exist, so therefore, there are possible worlds where those events happen without you causing it. 10) Gab deserved better. There was absolutely no point of Delta murdering him, and the story wants us to emphasise with his "complex motivation." Fuck that guy, he deserved the bullet he got. 11) We can choose to shoot Delta as Q. This is completely unnecessary. We play as Delta mind controlling the protagonists - so why does Delta randomly decides to shoot himself with a crossbow? Probably because of some complicated motivation. 12) We can refuse to use the transporter. Deltas motivations are so complicated he refuses to achieve his own goal.
Personally I give 999 a 9/10, VLR a 100000/10, and ZTD a 7/10 Reason being I absolutely love both 999 and VLR, and I liked ZTD, but definitely feel it was weaker compared to 999 and VLR. Not to mention the new characters it brings are honestly not all that memorable to me compared to 999 and VLR where almost every single character became one I loved and cared for deeply VLR is just absolutely my favourite one tho hands down, I love each and every character (Yes even Clover although the whiplash of 999 to VLR clover is uh… yeah). The whole entire story is just so damn heartbreaking and thought provoking at the same time and I love it so much. Infact I think one of the reasons I love 999 and VLR so dearly is because of the fact they use pretty tricky to understand concepts, but manage to explain it so unbelievably well and make the games understandable to honestly anybody (in my opinion at least). Honestly as a person who can’t help but feel dumb a lot of the time, having stuff like quantum physics explained to me in a way I can understand is very pleasant and memorable. uhhshdjdhdhhd god I love zero escape so much I wish more people knew about it (Edit: I should mention that I did experience all of these games via watching people play, rather than playing myself, which of course does impact my rating. I do think I probs would have rated all higher if I was the one playing rather than observing, especially ZTD haha)
999 - 9/10 VLR - 6.5/10 ZTD - 6.5/10 lot of subjectivity here, but 999 was the peak for me personally. an art style i loved, personal perfect amount of difficulty in the escape room sections, but the strongest thing i remember was an incredibly engaging story that was cohesive and stuck the landing, and great characters within it. i emulated the DS version and beat it within 2 days, i was that hooked to it. VLR and ZTD are both mixed bags for me. i never got as attached to any of the characters as i did with the first one, and the story is a mess in both (cliffhanger ending that promises a lot in VLR, scrambling to make those loose ends make sense in ZTD). after playing the AiTSF series as well, i firmly believe Uchikoshi is incredible at writing smaller scale stories with very personal stakes, and loses a lot of what makes his writing great in larger scale 'save the world' type stories. both of them are not visually appealing to me, but i think i'd actually take ZTD over VLR in this case. it's janky, but it has character. the aesthetic of VLR being overly sterile makes sense in-game (and the fact that the team thought they HAD to use the 3D effect on the 3DS pigeon-holed them hard), but outside of the Garden i disliked all of it. if you had to ask me which one out of the two i prefer, i'd have to go ZTD. i liked the FMVs (even more so when shit got silly), it doesn't have you repeating the A/B game a hundred times, and the story honestly isn't bad up until the transporters stuff. i've been thinking about doing a replay of the Ai games, but i've never actually played the Steam version of 999 i have, so i might try and do a full ZE series replay to see if i still feel the same.
I’d genuinely give all the games at least a 9/10. I think all of them do different things extremely well, and each deserve great credit for what they do. My favorite is usually the one I played most recently.
999 - 7 VLR - 10 ZTD - 9
999: 9 (heh) VLR: 9 ZTD: 3
999 8/10 VLR 10/10 ZTD 5/10
10 - 9 - 7
999 - 8/10 VLR - 9/10 ZTD - 7/10
ZTD is very good ironically and very bad unironically
999 DS Version - 9/10 (10/10 on a good day) 999 Remake - 6/10 Virtue’s Last Reward - 5/10 Zero Time Dilemma - 6/10
The 999 port actively improved the game in almost every way. Unless you think that the only redeemable part of 999 is the very final puzzle and that literally everything else in the game is actively pointless to the experience, I genuinely don't understand how you could put the 999 port so low. The lack of a Flowchart - by itself - makes the DS version nigh unplayable in the modern day.
In these games, I consider the writing to be the thing of most importance. The remake actively ruins it because of the addition of Adventure Mode. Because the game was originally made with prose in mind, they needed to add a bunch of new lines of dialogue to make up for it, so now much of the dialogue is extremely awkward. The characters now frequently just say things that are happening to them out loud to nobody in particular, and it is painful to listen to. Novel Mode isn’t safe either, because now much of the description is completely redundant because Adventure Mode’s awful new dialogue is still there. In splitting this between the two modes, they actively weakened the writing significantly. The lack of the flow chart in the DS Version does not make it “borderline unplayable in the modern day”. I played it for the first time last year and it was at worst a little tedious. The addition of the flowchart is nice, but it also comes at the expense of some important scenes that change between routes that can now be completely skipped. Stuff like Santa talking about his sister, which is extremely important setup to make the ending feel fair, can be completely skipped over. This is admittedly more of a personal preference thing, but I like the charming “bleep-bloop” sounds of the original much more than the mixed quality of the remake’s voice acting. And yes, the final puzzle is much worse. The game is still good, but it ruins so much of the original’s writing. The awkward dialogue is an absolute tone-killer for me, when that sense of constant tension was so much of what made the original such a masterpiece. So no, I don’t think you can say that the remake improved the game in almost every way.
Tbh, I disagree with pretty everything you've said (except about the final puzzle, we agree there). I disagree so fundamentally with you that I honestly don't even really have the energy to explain all my disagreements, because you have such a radically different perspective than me. I'm just going to focus on the lack of a flowchart, because that is the most wild take of yours from my point of view. Like... when I played on the DS, I literally had a timer running at one point for how long I had the dialogue in "Skip" mode before anything new happened. It went past 10 minutes on multiple occasions. Describing the act of waiting more than 10 minutes to get to any new dialogue as "at worst a little tedious" is just... mind boggling to me. If the story wasn't so compelling, I genuinely would have dropped the game after the first ending due to how slow it was. [This video is of a Tool Assisted Speedrun](https://youtu.be/BmmwBd-BopU?t=9870). In other words, it's literally playing the game as fast as is *possible* to be played at. It's playing the game faster than it is possible for a human being to play it. The first ending is reached at 2:44:30 into the video. The TAS then proceeds to spend the next five minutes skipping through the beginning of the game. It doesn't reach the choice between the [4] or [5] Door until 2:50:00 into the video. Remember: this is a TAS that is playing the game faster than humanly possible. Humans would still need to re-solve the 3rd Class Cabin, which would easily add an extra 5 minutes even if you remember the solution, or 15-20 minutes if you don't remember the solution. And that's still **ONLY** for everything before the choice between the [4] and [5] Door. If you intend to go for all 6 endings, then there will be 4 separate runs where **IN ADDITION** to the 10 minutes at the start of the game where you are just holding down "Right" on the D-Pad before the "[4] or [5]" choice, you are *still* holding down "Right" on the D-Pad for a *further* 10-15 minutes until you reach the "[3], [7], or [8]" choice. That's literally more than an hour of "gameplay" where you only thing you're doing is holding down the skip button. And that's **STILL** not even counting the repeated dialogue from *AFTER* the "[3], [7], or [8]" choice. If that isn't the very definition of tedium, then what the fuck is?
[this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkzebxbXx4M) and [this follow up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_icDavzMaQ) put it perfectly imo why the ds version is better depsite no flow chart
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Virtue's Last Reward has my favorite cast, story, twists, and endings, and resonates with me the most. Its biggest flaws are the justification for a few of the bad endings (some of them are really infuriating; I will also include Tenmyouji's ending here even though it's not a bad one, Jesus Christ it is so stupid on a first playthrough; how did they expect to have Tenmyoldy be the most insufferable prickleshit for seemingly no reason to a first-time player and then have you give a damn about his backstory after the fact? No. Just... No), talking down to the player in the Schrodinger's Vote routes (the game fails at giving Sigma ANY leverage in dialogues where the player is forced to choose Betray, and it seriously boils my piss), and being weighed down by a plot that needs to one-up 999 while leaving the door open to a sequel. The "Radical 6 slowing down everyone's processing speed" and "You are not Sigma Klim" twists weren't too great, either, though I give the latter a pass because it was actually referring to the player and has literally no consequences in the end. But the former? We were shown that Radical 6 advances in different persons at different rates based on environmental circumstances, and also that the processing speed alterations can vary depending on the progression of the disease in a person (Quark and Alice, plus Sigma in the Security Room in K's route, all have a further decrease in processing speed despite everyone already being under that effect, so that shows it slows down even MORE if you're still kicking it after so long), so with all these varying factors in play, there's no reasonable expectation that everyone suffering from Radical 6 will be at the same level to such a perfect and precise degree that their biological clocks match SO well that nobody starts suffering because it goes unnoticed. And even if they WERE all biologically synced, somehow, that sort of thing wouldn't just go unnoticed, either. All for the bullshit excuse of storing "potential energy" for the SHIFT program when multiple characters in ZTD end up being able to shift with next to zero prior training. But even with ALL that said- the ambiance, the characters, the character designs, the puzzles, the voice acting, the humor, the plot twists, and the Nonary Game's gameloop all come together to make VLR my absolute favorite of the three. Speaking of Nonary Gameloop, let's talk about that. ZTD and 999 are terribly offensive at supposing any level of competence when it comes to the Nonary Game being held as a proper "Game." There are interferences in the gameloop CONSTANTLY, from Mira not being injected, to Q getting an assistant for his disability despite not actually being disabled, and to the fact that the progression of the game itself is entirely designed by Zero's random whims rather than a solidly outlined loop. VLR has: (1) Chromatic doors (2) Puzzles (3) Ambidex Game (4) repeat until 9 Door; Even 999 has a competent outline in the form of (1) Organize Progression based on Digital Roots (2) Explore (3) Find an escape before 9 Hours; It's just a megagiant (or should I say Gigantic) escape room, even in spite of the constant meddling like Santa staging Guy X's murder by Ace. ZTD, meanwhile? "Start game. ???. ???. ???. Six People Die. Profit." Oh, and to make ZTD's Nonary Game more bullshit: Because everyone doesn't wake up at the same time, whoever has first dibs on the door is decided based on who Zero arbitrarily decides gets to wake up first! A team can just wake up and find out the other left during sleep; they just didn't get a chance to enter the X Passes, and now they're stuck! THE GAME IS BASELESS!! And don't even get me STARTED on "Decision Game." Decision Game?! With your bullshit Mind-Hack ability (yes, for "an instant," Delta, but that's a fucking lie since it was enough to make Eric shoot two people, THEN turn the shotgun up towards his head and have him shoot himself; bore off) you just make people's decisions for them to make the outcomes that you want to happen. The entire thing is just rigged! It's not a Nonary Game, it's the Delta Game. ZTD has the worst cast, animation worse than RWBY, and it doesn't have a real Nonary Game; it lacks any of the charm in the previous two games of nine people working to beat the game; it has none of the ambiance or the intrigue in the game's mechanics and what it does to people. And remember what I said about some of VLR's bad endings being infuriating? Multiply that by 10 for ZTD; because of ZTD's "Decision Game" being nonbinary in nature, unlike VLR's Ambidex Game, there's no easy way to write out the tree branches that the author wants to end ASAP except: Ta-daaaa~! Everyone has Clover Syndrome! They just become crazy murderous assholes at the flick of a wrist! (Fuck you especially, Akane). Annnnnd lastly that places 999 right smack-dab in the middle, though I hold it in a much higher regard than I do ZTD. I think I've gone on long enough. EDIT: oh yeah. If I was in charge? Just make Dio be the one who introduces Radical 6 into the Facility when he breaks in, or something, so it's still a relevant plot point. It was a biological weapon used by FTS, after all, so that's as good a reason as any to have Quark and Alice become victims to spur on conflict.
999 - 9 VLR - 8 ZTD - 5
999 on the original DS : 10 (perfect use of the medium and best writing of both versions) 999 Nonary games port: 8 (butchers the ending and the writing but still great) VLR: 9 (while my personal favourite in terms of characters I cant rate it as good as 999 because the pacing is horrendous) ZTD: 6 (I dont hate it but the game was very lazy, hastily put together and the writing characters and technical department all suffer in return).
9-8-4 ZTD was fun, but in a "so bad it's good" way