Jun 28, 2016  Zero Time Dilemma is the third game in the Zero Escape series, which includes 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward. Strictly speaking, you don’t have to have played them to jump into ZTD, but you’ll.

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The unofficial Discord server can be found. Party on, dudes.How to use spoilers in comments: Spoiler Title(#s 'ZE3 in 2016')will look like this:.Just hover over the word 'Spoiler' to read it. No, I'm not trying to troll post, I want to have a legitimate conversation about this-After having just platinum'd the game, I immediately had a lengthy discussion with a friend of mine, we started noticing a lot of glaring plot holes or things that just didn't seem right in the series. I'm gonna try to keep some of them brief for the interest of reading or time and just make a quick list. I'll explain in more detail if someone has a question, comment, answer, or counter, because some of these are just questions.-So, Phi and Sigma both came back from the future, after the events of VLR.

They both mentioned that they'd attempted the whole Decision game before and it let to a woman named Diana causing the escape of Radical-6. We later find out that Phi was the person that brought it out as Mira injected Phi with it as she was dying.

If these were literally the events that led up to VLR, why didn't Sigma and Phi know about this already. Memory drugs were mentioned, but then why didn't they forget literally anything else about the events of VLR or Sigma forgetting that he and Diana survived.-Aliens, really?-So, Delta / Brother / Zero formed Free the Soul (FtS) after Left was killed and then made clones using his DNA later on, as stated in VLR.

Okay so, Delta, in the early to mid 1920's or so, somehow found a way to preserve DNA for cloning for over 100 years? Not only that, but he formed Free the Soul before the events of World War II and managed to expand it over the course of seemingly normal world history? It just seems completely absurd that someone born in just barely the 20th century could do something like that, let alone lead a cult of religious fanatics to try and start a new world order. Let's not even talk about how he's even alive after 120 years.-Is it just me or was Sigma's point in the story literally just a sperm donor for Diana to give birth to Delta and Phi? Not to mention Phi's even less involved role as she was dead like, 75% of the time D team had to do things. I just thought that after having gone through these events before and being from the future that Phi and Sigma would be a little more prepared for this as they at least retained all their memories of that SHIFT every time it was brought up.-So.none of this had anything to do with Left?-So.Who is Kyle / who is in that body back in the future of VLR?- So, what was the point of Gab being kept around during the decision game besides being an unreliable courier?

Never mind, was told an acceptable answer. Gab used to create the illusion of different wards.-Anyone else feel like this game was completely unfair compared to the rest of them? Like, force six people to die?

None of the other games forced death, not even the original Nonary game. It just felt a bit forced to the point where the threat of death stopped being a surprise and the actual action become commonplace instead of a moment of shock and terror.-For being the one that orchestrated the events of 999, Akane seems pretty.daft at times. Like, she completely loses her mind during several scenarios I fully expected her to just attempt SHIFT'ing or something involving the Morphogenetic Field. (MF)-Since when was Mind Hacking part of the MF and why has it literally never been mentioned as an Esper ability before now?-I understand that a young Mira, killed Eric's mother, Akane's dad was framed for the incident which then led to his death and her mother's suicide, which led to an important doctor dying in a taxi ride to a hospital on his way to save Sean, who was sharing a room with Delta. Why does any of that matter and what does it have to do with FtS goals or teachings? Literally just felt like Delta trying to constantly remind people that life isn't fair and that, hey, stuff happens.-At the VLR ending where Akane, Junpei, and Carlos are outside of the Decision game's facility, Akane stabs Junpei to make him forget.the past 90 minutes?

I mean, sure, he'd forget them and it's a setup for VLR, but what about Carlos? What was stopping him from literally doing anything in his power to assist Junpei in finding Akane or telling him what happened?-Was Delta's plan really to just motivate a group of strangers into find a crazed religious fanatic and prevent extinction of the human race? It seemed like a major cop out and no real victory for anyone. Sure, the main cast is still alive, but apart from that, they literally have absolutely no way of knowing what, who, when, or by what circumstances this man causes the total annihilation. They don't even know where!-If Akane went into the Decision game either knowing it was going to happen or at least having some sort of idea for what was to come, shouldn't her organization known too?

What was to stop any of the other members of Crash Keys from pulling an all out search for them? I get that they're in an underground bomb shelter, but still.

Someone would have to know they're around, like the Dcom staff.-If Delta's plan was to save the human race, or changed to it at least by the end, what was the point of forming FtS? By the sounds of how the group acted in VLR, they were more interested with burning the world asunder and starting over with their Myrmidons.-If Left was only 16 when he died, why did Delta use him as the base for the Myrmidons? 16 is like, right smack dab in the middle of puberty. How would you know what type of person he'd be? How would you know what types of genetic markers would be flipped, especially since they weren't even blood related?-If Junpei's reason for being involved in the events of VLR were his Esper abilities to boost those of Phi and Sigma, why didn't they instead bring Carlos?

Carlos displayed what seemed to be much stronger abilities during the course of the game, even so far as to saying Junpei's had since repressed due to the lack of use in the year that followed 999.-As stated in Eric and Mira's epilogue, Sean still has the ability to time leap. Or at least, it sounded like he did based on he was trying to get Mira to travel back and prevent the deaths she caused. If he is still capable of such a thing, why isn't he helping Crash Keys with their fight against FtS or search for the fanatic?-Have robotics really not advanced at all in the time span between ZTD and VLR? Sean seemed about the same as what we expected from robots in VLR. I mean, I can understand that the world is like, terrible and broken from all the death and atomic destruction, but I still feel like there'd be some strides or advancements. Not a 50 year standstill.-And the last one for now: During the events of the D Team Ending 1, the one that leads to the VLR future, why did no one question the absence of Q?

Zero told the team that all of Q team was behind the showers, and to this point, D team still has no idea who Sean is and that Q should still be with them. Though, when they get to the escape elevator and find both Sean and Eric dead, as well as a gravely injured Mira, no one seems to question the fact that Q is gone. I understand it's part of the illusion that he was always present, or something along those lines, it just seemed weird that they saw the rest of Q Team dead or dying on the ground and immediately didn't think what would have happened to a presumably blind, deaf, and relatively immobilized old man. I can understand that they had a lot going on at the moment, but still. Q was one of the original people from the Dcom experiment, I figured they'd care more.Anyway, that's all for now.

Sorry for the word vomit, but these were just some things I noticed when playing. Any comments would be appreciated and such, so please come by and have a chat!. Delta's COMPLEX MOTIVATIONS are a straightforward retread of the previous game, which I believe is part of the reason so many were disappointed in the ending.There is a bit of a difference with Delta, he's set things up so that he can tell the cast (and himself) that he's won no matter what happens. Radical-6 escapes? Crash Keys refocuses itself on this mysterious new threat? He's a foil to Akane - both are manipulators creating huge schemes, but while Akane has a point to it all even if she goes rather far sometimes, Delta creates plans so all-encompassing that he can't even tell you why he did it.This won't be a popular opinion but I blame VLR's direction for where the series ended up.Agreed completely.

999 blew my mind and made me look at humanity and consciousness in a completely different way. I didn't even consider it a scifi story, because it slowly explained through real-world concepts what terms the story is playing on.

It was an extremely believable game. Come VLR, and we've already resorted to the word 'esper', as well as the idea that certain people just get these powers, which made the discussions about what the point of humanity is seem more like interesting insides than anything actually relevant. Then ZTD went full corny with phrases like 'SHIFTing' and 'mind hacking'. In 999, the morphogenetic field works because human minds have the potential to connect; in ZTD, mind hacking works because Delta just happens to have mind hacking. It becomes a 'power' instead of a 'force'. I thought VLR was overall the superior game because of how much attention was spent to exploring the consequences of quantum-aware characters.

999 was fantastic, but VLR's tonal shift I thought was very much an appropriate direction to take the story in after what was established in the first game. It definitely skirted the line a little bit (like what you said about 'espers', and going a little too sci-fi) but I thought it was mostly justified.ZTD, however, along with all of the other problems just with the implementation of the game (fragments, shitty cinematics, etc) just completely jumped the fucking shark towards the end. The more things got revealed the more insulting it felt - an alien transporter? MIND HACK!?It feels like this was a project that ran out of money, or that some key staff responsible for some of the 999/VLR magic wasn't around for this game. So much unresolved exposition from VLR didn't even factor into this game. Uchikoshi lost the fucking thread with ZTD. If a new timeline is forged after every choice, there are infinite timelines where FtS and the fanatic fail.

What was the purpose of these two games? To add one more happy ending to the infinite pile of happy endings?As a whole I love the games, but this is the concept I struggled with the most, both in ZTD and VLR. I even submitted such a question to Uchikoshi's VLR Q and A and he never answered it.

But yeah, when every decision causes an alternate reality, why should Akane from VLR give two shits about stopping the outbreak? VLR through Tenmyouji even admits that the VLR world isn't just going to disappear, a timeline old Akane lives in.As an esper who actively can see these other timelines, she should know humanity lives on in an infinite number of universes. The only way they wouldn't is if every single life form since the beginning of time was incapable of deciding, which would collapse the multiple worlds theory to a single timeline, which renders the whole series just a matter of closing timeloops. I tried to reason that Akane had to do this to save as many universes as she could, but again, infinite good universes, so who cares. Seems to me that she was already in the mindset of wanting to create change, rendering ZTD moot as well, but I digress.If you instead consider that the alternate universes don't exist, that there is only one universe, that all others are simply 'what if' scenarios and nothing more, and that consciousness swapping is just being able to forsee the outcomes of certain decisions, I think that would have gone a long way to fixing this problem.

Aliens, really?I assumed that that was just speculation - although the transporter technology's origins WERE totally unknown, the idea of aliens was just a popular theory. In particular, the notes about the number of fingers they have and stuff was probably bullshit Zero made up for the puzzle. It would have been better to give a real answer to it, though.It just seems completely absurd that someone born in just barely the 20th century could do something like that, let alone lead a cult of religious fanatics to try and start a new world order. Let's not even talk about how he's even alive after 120 years.Mind hacking?

His age seems to be some kind of biological quirk, Sean seemed to imply that because of the circumstances and frequent esp use of the parents, Q got quite lucky with his body.So.none of this had anything to do with Left?Yep, at first I thought Sean was Left but then I read that Left's death was the catalyst for the founding of FtS and, having remembered this, realized they couldn't be the same. There's a lot about FtS that we don't know still, we really only learned about this one plan.So.Who is Kyle / who is in that body back in the future of VLR?The person in the body was intended to represent the player, but every single thing in that epilogue was not followed up on.Anyone else feel like this game was completely unfair compared to the rest of them? Like, force six people to die? None of the other games forced death, not even the original Nonary game.Well, yeah. Say anything quotes. That's why Zero kept reminding you.

Also, it was so you had no doubt you really were in danger this time, after the first two games were caused by what were ultimately benevolent people.For being the one that orchestrated the events of 999, Akane seems pretty.daft at times. Like, she completely loses her mind during several scenarios I fully expected her to just attempt SHIFT'ing or something involving the Morphogenetic Field.

(MF)I hated this too. They totally ruined Akane. Junpei whining about how she changed, and seeking her out after 999 to find out who she really was, seemed completely pointless when she was acting hardly any different than June. In fact, she was almost more bland than June. I just can't buy that the Akane in ZTD actually runs a secret organization. I feel like they dumbed her down so she could be a love interest again, which misses the point of 999 entirely.As stated in Eric and Mira's epilogue, Sean still has the ability to time leap.

Or at least, it sounded like he did based on he was trying to get Mira to travel back and prevent the deaths she caused.They were actually going to use the transporter. Which is an idiot move on Sean's part, since it creates a copy, meaning that a better life for Mira will only exist in an alternate timeline; both him and Mira are still going to be arrested for that prison break stunt. Whoops.Delta's/FtS' motives not making much sense, being contradictory, etc.This kinda works.

I would prefer to get actual exposition on FtS, but Delta is kind of a dick; he can sound badass at times, but he also seems to have enjoyed his role as Zero, on getting to surprise people with twists, on pulling his elaborate schemes; I've read that he's sort of the evil counterpart to Akane and that does hold up. The 'my motives are complex', 'I have done nothing wrong' and stuff like that almost seems like his way of looking cool and ambiguously moral (in the same way that Akane is.) when in reality his plans are probably more for his own enjoyment or an ideal that even he cannot grasp. Not the sort of character I envisioned Brother as whatsoever; but on his own, he's great.

The point on the game being unfair kind of makes me think of something else though. If Zero would win in any situation that happened with the players, why not just not use them at all? In 999 it was to save Akane in the past as the current timeline, in VLR it was to train Sigma and Phi as Espers. This game just seemed.confused as to what its overall goal was by the end of it with the whole motive complexity thing.

I'm stupid, this was so he could be born with his Mind Hack ability and such in the shelter from Diana and Sigma.The Sean thing with the transporter makes sense, I must have either completely forgot that or just overlooked it, haha. Still, like you said, I figured someone would at least understand that it won't fix their current timeline. Plus, if they made it so that murder never happened, most of the games' events would have never happened.I'm glad I'm not the only one that felt the major shift in character of Akane and Junpei from 999.In terms of Brother being an evil counterpart to Akane, that's an interesting point that I hadn't considered. It makes sense considering they had incredibly similar backgrounds and ran games to force their own existence / living.

From a story standpoint though, I hate it, mainly because it just doesn't fit in with the religious cult we've come to know. Or at least these events and his motives as Brother just don't seem to match how they were depicted in other games.Thanks for the input and participation in this conversation!.