LogFAQs > #916324160

How the hell did I let this purge? Well, luckily it's not too hard to get a cached version.

Well, we went back to December 31, 2028. Just as expected. But who are these people locked up in a confinement room? Heh...they all have bracelets. Look nothing like the bracelets from either of the first two games. Our "Zero" looks different, too; he's wearing a plague doctor's mask rather than the usual gas mask. He flips a coin. Heh...already a Schrodinger's Cat situation. Red, or blue? Win, and you get your freedom. Lose, and you must stay in the game until six of you are dead.

...Oh good, the thing that I knew is revealed early on. Though she doesn't look much like herself in the previous two games (and yes, her 999-era self does appear in VLR), one of our compatriots has been identified as "Akane". I'm in control of a "Carlos". I don't remember all of the other names; one of them was "Diana", which stands out to me because of the mythological connection to the name of a character in VLR. I have to choose which side landed up. Knowing this series, whatever I choose will be wrong...so why am I thinking it over? I select red, and...it's red?! But now Zero or whatever is passing for Zero in this game puts us to sleep, and we'll forget everything. Heavy dose of Soporil, I assume. We all wake up outside in the desert...without bracelets? Akane remembers making a bet with someone, but everyone's memory is foggy. And no one knows who the kid in the helmet is.

Cue opening credits. They look more like ending credits, though.

Wait, are they, in a sense? Would the first choice have made a difference, and this is some cop-out ending?

Ah, no. Now we have a choice of whose path to follow. C team, following our intrepid protagonist, Carlos. D team, following Diana. And Q team, because there's always a f***ing Q. That would follow the kid in the helmet. The flowchart suggests that, no, we can't go back and redo the very first choice of the game.

Well, blindly following pretty girls is always a rule of thumb in this topic series, so D team it is. I'm alerted by the game that each image I see here is a story fragment, though only one is open to me now. Agh, don't tell me this game is going to be even more frenetic and confusing than VLR!

...What the. I...am going to the one choice? Let's just see what happens if I jump to later...

...Well, I'll be damned. It really is an ending. And to think, I initially was thinking blue, and changed my mind. Was it always going to be red, or are you forced to get the automatic ending first? Now this looks more like a beginning than an ending.

Getting more names. Eric, Mira...wait, Junpei's in this game too? The man in the mask identifies himself as the Second Zero. He tells a story about a woman who goes jogging every day. One day, she takes the left path instead of the right. A person she's known for many years is surprised to see her on this path and asks why she changed paths. She says "because there was a snail." A few hours later, she's found in some bushes along that path, murdered. This happened 17 years ago. Huh, so that's what he meant when he called Carlos "that solitary snail." Zero also tells us we're in a bomb shelter 50 meters below the ground. Carlos, Akane, and Junpei are in ward C. Q, Mira, and Eric are in ward Q. And the three in ward D are Diana...Phi and Sigma?! Heh, I thought the voice sounded like Phi's, but still...ah, I guess Akane's appearance should've tipped me off not to trust my eyes.

So at most, we have 5 new characters. Quite possibly fewer, given that Q is a mystery. Hmm...given where we are in the timeline, it's quite possible that Luna was based on Diana. Zero tells us that it's less than half a day until New Year's, but that many of us won't get to celebrate 2029. Ah, here's the twist...
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Also known as Cyberchao X.