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[SPOILERS] Zero Time Dilemma Spoiler Discussion Thread [SPOILERS]

I also have a question. Is Sean a player in this decision game or not? He kind of fits both answers and the facts contradict each other.
That's a good question, actually. According to Delta, didn't he build Sean (the quantum computer and the AI based on Sean's personality, not the robot bodies per se) because he wanted to, in a way, give the REAL Sean a chance to experience the world or something like that? The Good End, basically.

So why put him through the Decision game in the first place? Seems kind of cruel and pointless. Unless we're going to handwave it as yet another "I had to recreate the exact conditions I saw in the morphogenetic field (through M I N D H A C K no less) to create a stable time loop so that I could be born blah blah", just like in 999. Eh.
 
I believe Delta had one of the Seanbots kill her. He mentions something about giving her due punishment for her past sins as the heart ripper.

It was actually Delta who killed her. Remember how Mira had blood on the tips of her fingers when she was found dead? Delta later shows Eric his neck with the scratch marks Mira left when Delta probably strangled her.


Also, Tricky, it seems that deep down you really do think the twist is bad because you forgot to list Delta. Even you subconsciously don't agree that he was a player in this game :P

LOL. Delta as Zero was awesome, but old man Delta out of the costume? I'll take Gab over him!
 
LOL. Delta as Zero was awesome, but old man Delta out of the costume? I'll take Gab over him!

About Gab, I was lurking in the ZTD OT before and saw you speculating that Gab had a bigger role to play. I was grinning from ear to ear because I had the exact same expectations.

You have no idea how difficult it was to shut up and let you speculate away,
 
About Gab, I was lurking in the ZTD OT before and saw you speculating that Gab had a bigger role to play. I was grinning from ear to ear because I had the exact same expectations.

You have no idea how difficult it was to shut up and let you speculate away,

I was SO convinced someone's consciousness was using Gab's body. When Mira mentioned metempsychosis (the supposed transmigration at death of the soul of a human being or animal into a new body of the same or a different species) I thought for sure I had cracked the case!

But nope, nothing. Turns out Gab was just Delta's little helper. I was like wait, what? Really? That's it? O_O
 
It was actually Delta who killed her. Remember how Mira had blood on the tips of her fingers when she was found dead? Delta later shows Eric his neck with the scratch marks Mira left when Delta probably strangled her.
Oh, you're right! Still, I'm pretty sure he justified it with "well she's a serial killer, she needed punishment" or something like that. I think I recall something about Mira turning on him, too? Hmm.

Mindhack or not, hard to picture a 120-something year old man strangling a woman shown to be capable of murdering buff young men... Especially when said old man has a small army of robots to do his bidding.

Fanfiction mode engaged: I think that plot point could've been more exciting if they had found white blood under Mira's nails. VLR players would've instantly thought of Sigma (although it'd make no sense because this Siggy doesn't have cybernetic body parts yet... still, misdirection is fun). Sean could at some point discover he has white blood and have another freakout moment like Sigma did in VLR ("Does this mean I actually killed Mira somehow? And why the hell do I have white blood?!"). Eventually it'd be revealed that it was just one of Delta's bots that killed Mira, as instructed by Delta. Yeah. I'm done rewriting the game.
 
6 billion. Delta
5 billion. Mira
4 billion. Eric
3 billion. Sean
2 billion.Akane
1 billion. Junpei

4. Carlos
3. Phi
2. Sigma
1. Diana

Because right now I can't think of anything I liked that anyone other than 1-4 did in ZTD that I actually liked. Oops.
 
6 billion. Delta
5 billion. Mira
4 billion. Eric
3 billion. Sean
2 billion.Akane
1 billion. Junpei

4. Carlos
3. Phi
2. Sigma
1. Diana

Because right now I can't think of anything I liked that anyone other than 1-4 did in ZTD that I actually liked. Oops.

Surely Junpei gets bonus points for bringing up the Funyarinpa in the Rec Room? And Mira should get bonus points too for killing off Eric.
 
One other thing about the Radical-6 timeline bothers me:

Phi is patient zero for Radical-6, but ultimately the virus didn't affect her because she is still alive by the time the antimatter reactors exploded four months later. So, how did Radical-6 affect her in VLR? Wouldn't she have an immunity to it?

Does it have something to do with that 75% fatality rate? She just got lucky the first time around?

Oh, I just realised, Phi never got cured of Radical-6 between ZTD and VLR. That's how they infected the other participants in VLR and why Phi always seems to be the first to feel the symptoms in VLR.
 
Surely Junpei gets bonus points for bringing up the Funyarinpa in the Rec Room? And Mira should get bonus points too for killing off Eric.

Nope about the funyarinpa. And I put Mira below Eric on my character list, and killing someone above on the list isn't going to get your position improved!

Oh, I just realised, Phi never got cured of Radical-6 between ZTD and VLR. That's how they infected the other participants in VLR and why Phi always seems to be the first to feel the symptoms in VLR.

Potentially that could have been it, but the VLR bracelets had injection needles on the underneath that never got explained, which are probably responsible for a radical 6 injection to everyone. It does explain why she had to go right in to stasis though.
 
Nope about the funyarinpa. And I put Mira below Eric on my character list, and killing someone above on the list isn't going to get your position improved!

Eric over Queen Mira? That's a no-no.
ClNIcRD.jpg



No bonus point for Mira because Eric didn't remain dead at the end.

How about when she KO'd Eric when he was freaking out over pushing the yellow button? LOL, that was great!
 
Mira had the potential to be an interesting character if they had delved more into her whole not understanding but wanting to understand human emotions thing. It reminded me of Ace a little bit (and I love Ace). It feels like time/budget constraints prevented a lot of story/character development from happening...
 
Mira is probably one of the worst characters Uchikoshi has written. I was laughing my ass off during the scene in which she plays with Eric's heart. She's a failure on all fronts.

The only boobs character he did well was Lotus in 999, Alice was super-lame too despite how much she was hyped.
 
Alrighty GAF - it's that time again. Let's all rank the characters from your least favourite to your favourite!

9. Mira
8. Akane
7. Jumpy
6. Sigma
5. Phi
4. Carlos
3. Sean
2. Diana
1. Eric


If we rank in terms of the whole series, Jumpy (ZTD)> Akane (ZTD) > Mira rank near the very bottom of the whole series. They were all pretty bad. Though Jumpy/Akane at least had their moments where they were okay. Mira was just all around awful.

Edit: Whole series ranking, spoilers, obviously.

Santa > Seven > Ten > Dio > Luna > Eric > Snake > Diana > Sean > Gab > Zero The Third > Phi (VLR) > G-OLM > Ace > Sigma (VLR) > The Funyarinpa > Carlos > Jumpy (999) > Delta > Clover (999) >Lotus > Akane (999) > Phi (ZTD) > Sigma (ZTD) > Quark > Akane (VLR) > Junpei (ZTD) > Akane (ZTD) > K > Mira > Clover (VLR) > Alice > 9th Man.
 
I wonder how Delta got injured by Mira when he was killing her when he could have just Mind Hacked her to avoid her fighting back.

To be fair, Mira is the girl who goes CRAZY and want kill even when she is affected by Radical 6. She don't think like a normal (sane) person.
 
After finishing it, I wish I could shift to another history where this game is actually good.

Seriously, I am really disappointed with the last itineration.
The whole game felt a bit off: this the first time that I saw the puzzles pointless. The twists did not add much to the whole story, they were there just for the surprise factor and some I would rather like to have never seen them. Instead of nanomachines, everything can be explained with MY PLAN IS COMPLEX. The mind hacking thing is absurd. Some characters were useless or meaningless. I thought that they could connect all the fragments in a decent manner, instead they remain as fragments that just pile up to make "surprising" bad endings. C team got addiced to SHIFT. I think I got lost with the whole story of Phi who went to the past, then to the near future, then frozen, then her consciuosness to the past again, later… whatever. And I could go on and on.

At least I like the memes (sorry if they were already posted):
rakBeNT.png

51ja7z9.png

6EuVIPV.jpg
 
Mira is probably one of the worst characters Uchikoshi has written. I was laughing my ass off during the scene in which she plays with Eric's heart. She's a failure on all fronts.

The only boobs character he did well was Lotus in 999, Alice was super-lame too despite how much she was hyped.

Pfffffffft, Alice was great. One of my favourites!



XZ5hq2L.gif



Probably takes longer to strangle her than the Mind Hack lasts.

Yup. The Mind Hack only lasts a few seconds.
 
Hehe, I posted about why I liked Eric here.

Cool write up.

In Eric's defence, even though I placed him last, his backstory was very effective and made me sympathise with him.

The story of why he always smiles was honestly one of the most touching moments in the game for me. It was convincing and made him go from an insufferable one dimensional character, to a fairly interesting, tragic character with some depth.
 
Cool write up.

In Eric's defence, even though I placed him last, his backstory was very effective and made me sympathise with him.

The story of why he always smiles was honestly one of the most touching moments in the game for me. It was convincing and made him go from an insufferable one dimensional character, to a fairly interesting, tragic character with some depth.


Thanks.

And yea, it definitely helped to give some tragedy to his character.

I have to use that monkey gif at you putting Mira in the #1 spot tho. :P
 
Character rankings:

9. Mira
8. Junpei
7. Sean
6. Carlos
5. Akane
4. Sigma
3. Phi
2. Diana
1. Eric

Mostly, the characters sucked. Sigma and Phi were great in VLR, but Phi is a complete non-factor here, and Sigma just feels like the same guy despite the fact that he's supposed to be the 67 year old Dr. Klim who arranged everything in VLR. Junpei is practically a different character altogether, and Akane feels like one for most of the game.

As far as the new characters go, Mira is the worst Zero Escape character (not counting the 9th man in 999 since he was in the game for like two minutes), making Quark look like the most complex character of all time. (Well, I'm also not counting Delta since no one else is. He's even worse than the 9th man and the Fake Snake or the Captain)

Sean is boring. Carlos, despite seeming like a nice guy, is also really boring and has no development at all. Diana and Eric are the only new characters who I can really muster myself to feel any sympathy for and interest in.
 
The only character that I can say that I actually cared about was Diana, because she herself had novelty, some development and a more interesting Dynamic than Eric who was stuck with Sean and Mira and thus suffered tremendously. Eric is the second best character for novelty and extremely minor development.

The three team dynamic would have worked if all three teams had an interesting dynamic, but they don't for the most part. Zero Escape has been more plot focused overall, but ZE3 comes across as extremely confused because of the abandoning of Visual Novel ideas such as playing from a character's perspective. I can't help but feel that the game would have benefited if we played from Eric, Diana and Carlos' perspectives.
 
Carlos is the best character in the game and the only new one with a hint of charisma (though I like Diana too). Eric is probably worse than Mira, he's a large part of the most cringey scenes in the game.

It's a shame Phi is barely in it, she's probably the least significant character in the game other than the dog.
 
1. Phi
2. Sigma
3. Zero (Better with mask than without)
4. Carlos
5. Sean
6. Mira
7. Gab
8. Mira
9. Junpei
10. Eric
11. Akane

I'm actually quite happy with ZTD, though of course, with time travel stories, that are written sequentially, when everything come to a wrap, not everything fits together 100%, but I feel the main points were addressed nicely and I enjoyed the game a lot.
 
I running into this glitch that won't unlock the trash disposal note in my quest files, not letting me get the platinum. Anyone know how to fix this?
 
Clear this up for me...

Signs and Diana sends Phi and Delta to the past.

That baby Delta grows up to be Q/Zero.

That Phi grows up to... Look after baby Phi? Where did the other Phi come from?

How the fuck does Delta have a "brother"? Sigm and Diana only had the twins.

What the fuck?
 
After finishing it, I wish I could shift to another history where this game is actually good.

Seriously, I am really disappointed with the last itineration.
The whole game felt a bit off: this the first time that I saw the puzzles pointless. The twists did not add much to the whole story, they were there just for the surprise factor and some I would rather like to have never seen them. Instead of nanomachines, everything can be explained with MY PLAN IS COMPLEX. The mind hacking thing is absurd. Some characters were useless or meaningless. I thought that they could connect all the fragments in a decent manner, instead they remain as fragments that just pile up to make "surprising" bad endings. C team got addiced to SHIFT. I think I got lost with the whole story of Phi who went to the past, then to the near future, then frozen, then her consciuosness to the past again, later… whatever. And I could go on and on.

At least I like the memes (sorry if they were already posted):
rakBeNT.png

Please post more.
 
Clear this up for me...

Signs and Diana sends Phi and Delta to the past.

That baby Delta grows up to be Q/Zero.

That Phi grows up to... Look after baby Phi? Where did the other Phi come from?

How the fuck does Delta have a "brother"? Sigm and Diana only had the twins.

What the fuck?

Delta got adopted into a foster family where he has a step brother named Left.

Phi was part of another Transporter experiment while she was a child which cloned her many decades later. The Phi that was the same age as Delta grew old and took care of the clone Phi.
 
Delta got adopted into a foster family where he has a step brother named Left.

Phi was part of another Transporter experiment while she was a child which cloned her many decades later. The Phi that was the same age as Delta grew old and took care of the clone Phi.

K... Thanks

Ugh
 
Mira was an aweful character wasn't she? A boring character with no charisma or drive, or anything remotely interesting about her. So they decided to put all the interest in one scene. They basically pulled a Eternal Sonata-lite where all her characterization was hamfisted into a single, awkward, scene that never wanted to end.
 
Mira was rather lame and predictable, yeah. I could see her being the serial killer from a mile off. I prefered Sean and Eric in that team. Eric or Carlos were my favourite characters in the game. Junpei and Sigma were surprisingly lame and easily preferred previous iterations of their characters (old man Junpei in VLR was probably my favourite character in the entire series). Akane was okay but didn't have any real character development moments.

Sigma and Diana sends Phi and Delta to the past.

That baby Delta grows up to be Q/Zero.

That Phi grows up to... Look after baby Phi? Where did the other Phi come from?

This is...kinda weird.

How the fuck does Delta have a "brother"? Sigma and Diana only had the twins.

What the fuck?

Supposedly from another family? Whether it is on Diana's side, from Sigma's side or is actually a clone (like Left's clones all were) is basically unanswered. Some people in here may present speculation as facts but honestly, it's unknown. I don't see how it's possibly either Diana or Sigma when they both obviously die from starvation in that fragment unless it's from another timeline somewhere. If so, why isn't he present in any of these timelines in ZTD?
 
So what were people's previous theories for why Brother ruined Earth with Radical-6? I thought it was going to be something more than just "crazy guy wants everyone dead because humanity is scummy." Considering how the end of VLR really started to ramp up on the notion that humanity is building something it cannot understand much like how termites build things they cannot understand, I thought we were headed to something like 2001: A Space Odyssey. I thought Brother was going to be a guy who was able to see the true nature of the Morphogenetic Field. Maybe it was some sort of alien civilization's version of the internet or something and we were just accidentally accessing it. I thought Brother was going to be this guy who felt that the only way for humanity to advance is to gain access to this alien medium and Radical-6 was the best way to do so, even if it had a high cost of human life. I dunno, it really felt like the story was headed in a direction that way to me.
 
So what were people's previous theories for why Brother ruined Earth with Radical-6? I thought it was going to be something more than just "crazy guy wants everyone dead because humanity is scummy." Considering how the end of VLR really started to ramp up on the notion that humanity is building something it cannot understand much like how termites build things they cannot understand, I thought we were headed to something like 2001: A Space Odyssey. I thought Brother was going to be a guy who was able to see the true nature of the Morphogenetic Field. Maybe it was some sort of alien civilization's version of the internet or something and we were just accidentally accessing it. I thought Brother was going to be this guy who felt that the only way for humanity to advance is to gain access to this alien medium and Radical-6 was the best way to do so, even if it had a high cost of human life. I dunno, it really felt like the story was headed in a direction that way to me.

You'll take your 5 minute ending of ,,COMPLEX" and ,,they lived happily ever after" and like it.
 
Y'know what would have been neat? If they had a scene where Mira was confronted by the rest of the group who now knows her antics, and Delta mindhacked Eric and tried to make him kill her, but he cared too much for her that he couldn't be made to do it. Thus, causing Mira to finally actually understand how he felt.

As it is, the game does not, AT ALL, explain how Mira heel-face turned - the game just says that she does.
 
So what were people's previous theories for why Brother ruined Earth with Radical-6? I thought it was going to be something more than just "crazy guy wants everyone dead because humanity is scummy." Considering how the end of VLR really started to ramp up on the notion that humanity is building something it cannot understand much like how termites build things they cannot understand, I thought we were headed to something like 2001: A Space Odyssey. I thought Brother was going to be a guy who was able to see the true nature of the Morphogenetic Field. Maybe it was some sort of alien civilization's version of the internet or something and we were just accidentally accessing it. I thought Brother was going to be this guy who felt that the only way for humanity to advance is to gain access to this alien medium and Radical-6 was the best way to do so, even if it had a high cost of human life. I dunno, it really felt like the story was headed in a direction that way to me.
This would've been a great tie in to the alien technology. I also liked the idea mentioned earlier that the alien technology was just from the future, which would've been an easy and sensible handwave.
 
Was it ever explained anywhere how Clover and Alice were going to be sent back in time? Kinda weird how they would bring that up in VLR, making you expect something in the 3rd game but I don't think I found anything related to them in Zero Time Dilemma
 
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