The long awaited third chapter to the Zero Escape series, which for a long time almost didn’t exist if it wasn’t for the continuous support of a devoted and invested fanbase. Zero Time Dilemma is many things: it’s the overarching conclusion to a cult sci-fi thriller series, it’s an attempt to square every thread left unwind during the previous games, it is an experiment of how far will people passively accept faux-science in lieu of common sense; it’s a thriller devoid of real suspense, a conspiracy story where the conspirators never show up, a sci-fi with so much fiction and so little science, a character driven drama where the characters are almost non-existent and lack any sort of humanity and coherent development. Zero Time Dilemma is many things, hardly any of them is good, well developed or new to the general audience.

The story itself won’t require many spoilers as it is more of a giant meme than a serious narrative by this point. Uchikoshi Koutarou came back and decided to strip everything that made previous game enjoyable and memorable – the style, the characters, the mystery, the sci-fi implications – and instead decided to bring everything the players had previously know from the series to a climax consisting solely of SNAILS, of ANCIENT ALIENS and COMPLEX MOTIVES.

Characters still are probably the worst offenders of this game, even more so than the dumbed down puzzles and idiotic narrative: new characters are either disconnected completely from the plot or have one very specific role that is either fix the holes in the narrative or being a hole in the narrative; old characters are unrecognizable from their former selves and probably fit into the story even worse than their new counterparts. You would’ve loved to see some of your favourite come back with their wits and humour to spice things up and get their deserved good ending? Too bad, instead everyone is now a massive unlikeable c-nt and they will gladly leave the centre stage to some lame bugger, like the kid with Yoko Taro’s mask or Carlos.

The graphics are also at their lowest ever. The rigid models in Virtue’s Last Reward were an offense to the eye but at least they stayed put and pretended to be sprites, now instead someone woke up and decided to try a full-fledged cinematographic approach by adding camera movements and panning over the models, probably just to show off their immense ugliness. The facial expressions are more comically rigid than ever, movements just robotically stiff and there is an impossible amount of time lost between unskippable idle animations during replays.

More often than not the game actively punishes you for thinking ahead about the possible solutions, as the most predictable and inconsequential answers will almost always be the correct ones, leaving one without the feeling of reward for actively solving the mystery but more like an accomplice to the huge joke that is the storytelling in this game.

Do you feel the unsurmountable urge to complete each and everything you ever begin, have a fetish for train wrecks and C O M P L E X M O T I V E S, or generally like to enjoy your own anger? By all mean, this game was made with you in mind as the target audience.

After the build up of the two previous games and the insanity of VLR's ending, it feels hard to blame ZTD for not being able to neatly wrap up the series in a satisfying way but even considering all that...this game is still a big disappointment.

Lemme start with the good. Character designs are fantastic. The key art for this game is awesome. The stuff with the alien Phi's parents is great. There's some pretty cool puzzle rooms, like the pantry and the alien transporter room.

Now with the stuff I don't like. Characters keep forgetting what they did after the end of each puzzle so there's no real character advancement until the very end. Akane acts like an idiot in this game which goes against her character in the first two games. The animations look...really bad. I understand this game existing in the first place is a miracle but....man. Eric is one of the worst video-game character ever. And the ending! Oh my god! I can't believe the ending for this entire series is a bad guy being like "i did it all so you would be motivated!" and then they all go off into the sunset being like "yeah! i'm motivated! let's save the world!" and that's it. It's terrible! As well as the note about Mira post-game! Also, the fact that so many threads were left untouched from VLR's ending is so disappointing because it makes that whole ending feel totally pointless now. Like not even going into the indeitity of Kyle? Come on now.

Whatever, this game has some moments in it and it's not all terrible but in the end it's a complete let down.