Board 8 > Time for me to fumble through Zero Time Dilemma

(+) Yeah! (+)

tcaz2 posted...

The dice is coded so that you will get it after 3 failed attempts IIRC
But also you totally can just get the right combo the first time.

Yep. Random first two, guaranteed third. Which means you can hit the 1/216 on either of the first two (And I am pretty sure I've seen a playthrough of somebody who did, lmao)

Which is better than certain things that are just very hard random.

When I did the part where I had to choose whether or not to shoot Sigma, I killed him 4 times in a row. I had to look up if there was something I was missing after the third time, but nope! Legit 50/50!

MrSmartGuy posted...

When I did the part where I had to choose whether or not to shoot Sigma, I killed him 4 times in a row. I had to look up if there was something I was missing after the third time, but nope! Legit 50/50!

I find this fascinating because this implies the existence of someone who needed like 8 or 9 attempts to get it

There's a good chance someone had to do it 15+ times based on the number of sales of the game

I got fucked on the Monty Hall problem
#NeverSwitch

When going for the wrong ending in Monty Hall I had to redo as sticking was the right answer lol.

Seems like most of the chance games are accurate then. That's pretty cool, but does make the dice roll stand out.

I guarantee Uchikoshi wanted the dice roll to be real but someone finally convinced him to be reasonable

Lmao that sounds about right. But surely in that case they'd let you roll the dice six times or only need two to match up or something, 1/216 would be miserable odds even if you got lucky! I'm imagining people speedrunning this hypothetical game now.

I think he really values putting you into the mindset of the characters, even when it's negative, like what he did with chicken sandwiches and kick the can in Ever17. So he would want the player to feel the misery and desperation and eventually huge relief of the 1/216, since that is what C team actually had to do canonically.

OK but after 500 false dice rolls I would feel nothing but annoyance at Uchikoshi in particular.

Is Uchikoshi the real Zero?

Aaaah these twists!!

Carlos jumps to the timeline where he killed Akane, and writes a note for Q-team. I wonder why he saw their past earlier? Q team receives the message, and sees a locked yellow door like the one in the locker room, only with no place to input a code. We do see 'twins birthday' written on the bottom... one of Phi's X-passes was 'twin'! But I don't know her birthday. Mira was also awake when she was strangled to death, and has blood and skin of the killer on her nails. No DNA testing room?

The next open path takes us back to stranded Diana and Sigma, and this... is an extraordinary sequence. I really like it right from the start, there's a different vibe here from the rest of the game (and trilogy, really). Instead of running around at breakneck pace amid constant threats of death, with the game ended everything grinds to a halt. For better and worse. Some of the conversations between the pair here feel much more real, for want of a better word, than the usual character interactions we get. Whether it's Diana talking about enjoying the peace and tranquility of an enclosed bunker, Sigma talking about Diana's abusive ex-husband, or drunken Diana calling Sigma a coward, the slaps, these scenes are terrific. The pair eventually drop all their barriers and find comfort in each others' arms. I really like Sigma's speech before they embrace.

They have sex, and of course Diana gets pregnant. Diana gives birth to twins, and OK it's easy to see how this gets sci-fied up again but watching Di and Sig duplicate their babies to a better world, knowing that the children they have right now and they themselves will starve to death imminently... it's a lot to take. This must be particularly heavy for Sigma, having been down this road with Diana before. It'll be interesting to watch past scenes knowing Sigma's already been in a long term relationship with her in his past.

But yeah, an A+ ending. D+Siggy are the best couple, if Luna couldn't be in this game they at least did right by her memory. (This also shows up how childish Akane+Junpei are as a romantic pair lol)

I wonder how Phi will react upon learning that her name and brooch are in some sort of a predestination paradox. She'll probably love it. And then there's Delta, who jumps right up to #1 candidate for Zero, unless Delta's somehow one of the other characters... nah I don't think any of the 9 could fit.

But we aren't done there. In another timeline, inputting the twins' birth date at the locker room door is a success (that goes unquestioned by both Diana and Sig), and we have a fairly morbid reunion between the whole gang. Did Q not meet the others in the very opening of the game? They act like none of them have met him, I'll have to rewatch the start. Diana and Sigma face their own dead bodies as well as Phi's, Junpei's, and Akane's, and Zero plays a clip to frame Carlos as the killer of everyone.

In comes a confrontation with Eric's shotgun, and I am confused- Eric didn't shoot the lock of D-room's lounge, how did Carlos get to D area from C, etc, but all is soon illuminated. This scene starts with an interrogation, but halfway through Diana becomes a genius. She explains, to the gang's and my incredible shock, that there was only ever one 'ward' the whole time! We've all been in the same area, sharing the same lounge, and the times on our watches are lies. This explains why we've never had a scene between 13:30 and 18:00, or 19:30 and 00:00 because the other teams were awake while we slept! Ah!! I love this twist, I'm a bit annoyed at myself for not thinking of it but it's terrific. And as the cherry on top, the flowchart has now automatically shifted to show the linear times.

I do wonder why the walls of the lounge shifted between teams, and why the times were lies. Zero must have planned for the three teams to meet up at some point, or there'd be no need to differentiate the lounge layout other than tricking the player.

After this route closes for now, I input the brooch and blue bird and get a heartwarming family reunion without words. I can't think of a better way to end the day. Wow, these were all really fun sequences! I know people tend to be down on this game but I love pretty much everything that I saw tonight. A big day for Diana! Her and Sigma are hands down the MVPs of this game so far. I can't wait to see what happens next!

Team D forever

That D ending is definitely one of the peaks of the game.

Definitely the best sequence in the game yeah

The game undeniably does its job

Yeah, there are a lot of things that are fuzzy in my mind, but I do remember that scene with Diana and Sigma fairly well. A shame they couldnt just access the pantry room, as there wouldve been lots of food there

Not sure you know this, but all three routes were written by different people. Uchikoshi wrote the Sigma/Phi/Diana route, which is why it's way better than the other two.

Interesting. I did not know that, thanks. Was this the case for the other games, too? I know they were more interconnected but did writers get assigned certain characters etc, I've heard of that happening before.

And do you know the other two writers of this game and what else they've done?

Ken Shimomura - Chain Chronicle, Onmyoji, some blockchain game, some LNs.

Makoto Yodawara - Tears of the Kingdom, not sure what else.

MacArrowny posted...

Makoto Yodawara - Tears of the Kingdom, not sure what else.

*what*

I look forward to playing Tears and seeing how long it takes me to figure out if the writer is responsible for C team or Q team.

there are two names listed as writers on wikipedia and neither of them is Makoto Yodawara

they're credited in Tears under "game design" alongside 49 other people

th3l3fty posted...

there are two names listed as writers on wikipedia and neither of them is Makoto Yodawara

there's clearly three names there

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Time_Dilemma

obviously andyt don't actually go to this link yet

3 writers for ZTD. One of them is Makoto Yodawara.
2 writers for TotK. None of them are Makoto Yodawara

Uhhhhhh wondering if I did something in the wrong order here, because what the hell

What happened? Did you accidentally guess at an answer or something?

OK I'm gonna skim through the rest to get to the big deal- Carlos goads Eric to shoot him, and we have a bunch of shifting timelines. Zero mentions being dead in a timeline where Team Q was executed, so I wonder again if he is Q. Junpei and Akane get in the transporters, and Carlos ices Seanclone into the machine. I wonder why he doesn't shift into another timeline where the teleporter is active, but I guess he does that later on. Also J&A should still be inside the teleporter pods so I guess that's more alternate timeline deaths to add to the pile.

Zero explains himself sorta to Junpei and Akane in another timeline. He is Brother, the leader of Free the Soul, and pretty clearly Delta. He shifted to 1904 as a baby. He wants to kill 6 billion people to get one super terrorist dead, so they can't kill the other 2 billion. It's all very silly. There's an anagram and Akane can't spell the word Delta, and it takes the two ages to realise Q is still alive in this timeline. Also Akane's parents died because of the snail story, because... idk, I guess that's why Zero brought her here?

Carlos heroically arrives in his firefighter getup, and then Akane and Junpei are mad at him because this is the doomed timeline. Akane then decides the only possible course of action here is to go through the VLR gameplan, and sorry for rushing through this but honestly I don't buy these actions from the characters, the writers clearly had an endpoint here and shoved the characters there by any means necessary. Just shift to another history like you always do!

Right, now to the real what-the-fuckery. Team Q has another scene available, and Eric still has his gun. We open Q's helmet, and then have to type in Zero's identity. I type in Delta, because of course that's who he is, and... Q points directly at the camera. Eric calls Q Sean, and a random fucking old guy in a wheelchair was sat in the camera's viewpoint and nobody is surprised by his presence and he confirms he is actually Delta and Zero. What????????? Some more revelations hit, I guess this guy was there the whole time and he's the Q from Team Q? We get the code for the supercomputer and Delta can forcibly manipulate people's movements (alienhand!). He calls Diana mom and I laugh as the game fades to black.

Ok... what? Really, what? Was I not supposed to get Zero's identity at this point? Or is this how this reveal is supposed to go? If so it's done so bizarrely, I feel like I missed a scene somewhere else, but I don't see where I could. I assume this tracks with the past, but watching all the characters talk like this old guy has always been there (and Eric suddenly referring to Sean by name) made me feel insane. I need to stop and think about this.

Nah, you're here at the right time. There's, like, a dozen subtle hints that Q team has 4 members the entire time that I'm sure someone else can go over here. While you're reeling from the reveal, may I suggest going to the standoff choice on Q team and plugging in "Zero's real name"? It's a good scene.

Yes, that is how the reveal is supposed to go.

I know people praise D team writing, but I generally like Q team writing. It just kinda sucks that the team is so unlikable, but I liked the reveal and the overall weirdness surrounding Q team. Some foreshadowing regarding this:

1) There's various dialogue for Q team scene that makes way more sense knowing that the leader is an old, blind/deaf, wheelchair-bound man named Q, such as Eric referring to someone on the team as "old man", Sean asking if a certain someone on the team could speak, various Q members saying "you all" rather than "the both of you", and all the suspicion Eric has towards Sean and his concerns about the Q team's leader.
2) The status screen tracks Q's status, not Sean. This is most clear in the Diana/Sigma ending where Q is alive (exactly when the children are birthed) but Sean is dead.
3) Decontamination scene shows 3 corpses and scenes where Sean + Q die often have two thumps rather than just one.
4) Similarly to how Nonary game suggests 9 participants, this is the Decision game. Deci also means "ten." There's also the X-passes, with X being 10.
5) There are various scenes suggesting shadows of 4 people or someone beyond Mira/Sean/Eric: https://imgur.com/a/44wYR
6) The X-passes for Q clearly do not relate to Sean, like how all the other X-passes refer to their specific character.
7) Zero Time Dilemma = Me? I'm Zero. I'm Delta.
8) When inputting an answer for who killed Mira and during the showdown between Sean/Mira/Eric, putting in "Q" and putting in "me/myself" gives radically different answers.

I legitimately love the Q reveal - nothing will ever be as good as the 999 DS reveal but this one is really great IMO.

Yeah, the characters on Q Team are hard to like sometimes, but it has some bonkers twists.

andylt posted...

Carlos heroically arrives in his firefighter getup, and then Akane and Junpei are mad at him because this is the doomed timeline. Akane then decides the only possible course of action here is to go through the VLR gameplan, and sorry for rushing through this but honestly I don't buy these actions from the characters, the writers clearly had an endpoint here and shoved the characters there by any means necessary. Just shift to another history like you always do!

This was the funniest part of the reveal imo. The entire VLR was just a dumb mistake in one of like 40 of ZTD's timelines. I think the writers treated it with the appropriate (lack of) seriousness.

Xiahou_Shake posted...

I legitimately love the Q reveal - nothing will ever be as good as the 999 DS reveal but this one is really great IMO.

Especially because it's literally the same reveal as in 999 and VLR and Ever17

Zero is always the player's perspective

Bitto posted...

I know people praise D team writing, but I generally like Q team writing. It just kinda sucks that the team is so unlikable, but I liked the reveal and the overall weirdness surrounding Q team. Some foreshadowing regarding this:

1) There's various dialogue for Q team scene that makes way more sense knowing that the leader is an old, blind/deaf, wheelchair-bound man named Q, such as Eric referring to someone on the team as "old man", Sean asking if a certain someone on the team could speak, various Q members saying "you all" rather than "the both of you", and all the suspicion Eric has towards Sean and his concerns about the Q team's leader.
2) The status screen tracks Q's status, not Sean. This is most clear in the Diana/Sigma ending where Q is alive (exactly when the children are birthed) but Sean is dead.
3) Decontamination scene shows 3 corpses and scenes where Sean + Q die often have two thumps rather than just one.
4) Similarly to how Nonary game suggests 9 participants, this is the Decision game. Deci also means "ten." There's also the X-passes, with X being 10.
5) There are various scenes suggesting shadows of 4 people or someone beyond Mira/Sean/Eric: https://imgur.com/a/44wYR
6) The X-passes for Q clearly do not relate to Sean, like how all the other X-passes refer to their specific character.
7) Zero Time Dilemma = Me? I'm Zero. I'm Delta.
8) When inputting an answer for who killed Mira and during the showdown between Sean/Mira/Eric, putting in "Q" and putting in "me/myself" gives radically different answers.

Some of these (And significantly more of the things in the reddit thread you pulled them from) are blatantly coincidental bullshit that somebody tried to call a "clue" ex post facto

Some of them are legitimately good and interesting clues to the whole thing about Delta being there all along.

The only thing really jarring about the reveal scene itself is Eric calling Sean by name after not having done so at literally any other point prior. Which, yes, it would've ruined the reveal if he did. But it also makes no sense for him to start doing so there in particular which makes it jarring.

I got the reveal a different way personally!

Hm, some of the hints are neat, and I did note some of the inconsistencies earlier but thought it was merely pointing to Q (by which I mean Sean) as Zero. Maybe the oddly done reveal is unfairly influencing me but I still have questions. Why does Eric, the most paranoid man in the world, not ever accuse 'Q' of murder or deception? They knew this guy for five days, then the world was turned upside down and he didn't think maybe he was lying about the blind/deaf aspect? I guess there's a reason they kept the more perceptive cast members out of Team Q, but still, Eric's waving his gun at everybody except this one guy. And in the standoff, would he not kill the defenceless old man so he and Mira can get to safety? It would seem in character for Eric, imo.

Also, the teams are named after their leader, right? So when we're making decisions in Team Q, are we playing as Q or as 'Sean'? Sometimes it has to be Sean, but I'd have thought the execution at least should be decided by the leader.

And I thought The Character Formerly Known As Q had no memory at all, but I guess he knew the name Sean and told the other two offscreen? I was under the impression the name Sean was entirely unknown until Zero brought it up in that one ending.

The character portraits in the library- is the one for Sean actually for Q?

I dunno, I like aspects of this, but I need to be convinced some more. It's reminding me a bit of Sigma's age reveal in VLR, in that it relies on the game withholding a huge amount of information from the player and selectively framing things purely to make the twist land even if it doesn't fit with the characters ingame.

Also sidenote but when Mira killed Junpei did she rip his heart out? I didn't think she did but it would be weird for her not to.

OK I've thought about it, and I think the main reason I'm not feeling this twist so much is that it by design distances you from the characters in this world. There's no emotional connection there because this isn't a twist for the characters (not nearly to the same magnitude), the game-y aspect to it is all there is. In the past this series has tried to weave both gameplay and story together for its major reveals, but here that doesn't really happen. It's a big reveal of course, but what does it actually mean for the story or the characters? I've had the wool pulled over my eyes successfully the whole game, but how does this reveal impact anything going forward? Delta is the villain, but how does him having been there from the start alter anything? What can even happen now, he villain monologues and we stop him? Or he's secretly doing things for The Greater Good (no I do not buy that ridiculous '6 billion murders to stop a terrorist' as a greater good, and if that was the goal then he'd instigate the pandemic with the deadly virus he apparently has just lying around, there'd be no need to go through any of this). I guess I'll find out!

Bitto posted...

2) The status screen tracks Q's status, not Sean. This is most clear in the Diana/Sigma ending where Q is alive (exactly when the children are birthed) but Sean is dead.

Ha, I'd noticed Q being listed as alive when he should be dead, but after Sean's reveal I assumed it was due to his robot body not being technically killed by knife/gun wounds, and that he only died if the execution trigger was pulled.

Bitto posted...

4) Similarly to how Nonary game suggests 9 participants, this is the Decision game. Deci also means "ten." There's also the X-passes, with X being 10.

So is Sean an official member of Team Q or not? He has no X-passes, and his portrait isn't listed, but he does have a bracelet and gets moved around with the rest of them.

I finish the other standoff ending and complete the force quit boxes. How did Carlos know the Latin password? Even with the shifting, he wasn't there when Zero said it, it was the other two. Anyway after sitting around for an hour he assaults Akane, I assume to bait Junpei into beating him half-dead so he can shift but come on there must be a better way to accomplish that >_> He then takes the two behind the bar, probably to reveal some secrets away from Zero's eye (how do we know there's not a security camera back there?).

Team Q open up the computer, and we have to take Sean's head off again despite already needing those numbers to unlock the code to open the computer we just opened. OK! Sean explains how he can jump too by being a quantum computer, and that maybe we're all quantum computers. It's really weird watching this scene knowing Q is sat just off camera at any given time. Do the others never even glance at him? They never include him in the gang when they're talking to each other? I know he's supposed to be blind and deaf but at least acknowledge his existence in the room!

Each team has a scene open up, I think all I have left now is the endgame. If the past two games have taught me anything, it's that I'm in for a wild ride right up to the finish line!

Some of these (And significantly more of the things in the reddit thread you pulled them from) are blatantly coincidental bullshit that somebody tried to call a "clue" ex post facto

I generally agree, but I do think the ones I posted here all feel intentional.

The character portraits in the library- is the one for Sean actually for Q?

No, the doll is for Sean. ...Which raises the question why Q doesn't get a doll and why no one finds that weird, especially since it's the Q team investigating the library.

OK I've thought about it, and I think the main reason I'm not feeling this twist so much is that it by design distances you from the characters in this world. There's no emotional connection there because this isn't a twist for the characters (not nearly to the same magnitude), the game-y aspect to it is all there is. In the past this series has tried to weave both gameplay and story together for its major reveals, but here that doesn't really happen. It's a big reveal of course, but what does it actually mean for the story or the characters? I've had the wool pulled over my eyes successfully the whole game, but how does this reveal impact anything going forward? Delta is the villain, but how does him having been there from the start alter anything? What can even happen now, he villain monologues and we stop him? Or he's secretly doing things for The Greater Good (no I do not buy that ridiculous '6 billion murders to stop a terrorist' as a greater good, and if that was the goal then he'd instigate the pandemic with the deadly virus he apparently has just lying around, there'd be no need to go through any of this).

These are all really fair points.

I think you gotta finish the game before you have thoughts about the reveal.

andylt posted...

So is Sean an official member of Team Q or not?

No. Which is why that deci=10 thing is probably false.

When you make choices as Sean it's just Delta controlling the robot. And for other team choices you're using Delta mind control through the cameras.

andylt posted...

Some more revelations hit, I guess this guy was there the whole time and he's the Q from Team Q?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/7770b295.jpg

I love the Delta reveal so much, I don't care that it's a total ass pull that makes no sense, I like stupid magic trick shit like that in these games

Not much longer now until I can post the video

Xiahou_Shake posted...

Not much longer now until I can post the video

I find human decisions fascinating

You gotta let him find it on his own. It's part of the experience.

Oh, there wasn't much left.

The gang reunite, and Delta shows up to monologue. He and Phi were shifted to 1904 from 2029, and he's been stuck riding the slow path since then. He cannot shift, and executed all of this to ensure he was born, and particularly born with the power he has. The power to MIND HACK. So it's just another circular thing, huh. Pretty disappointing. He alludes to having more reasons, but before he can explain why the other six were brought here Phi kicks him in the head, and Eric reclaims his one true love, the shotgun. We trigger the Force Quit box, Delta reveals he killed Gab for some reason, and then he mind hacks Eric to shoot him.

We have to decide whether to shift our innocent alternate selves to death or not. Oh, now you all care about that. We've already slaughtered a dozen alternate forms of ourselves, some of them for very weak reasons (I'm looking at you Akane, setting off that nuclear bomb), but now it's an ethical dilemma. I choose to respect the alternate reality for once, and we get a game over. OK, so we have to shift to get the real ending.

Delta continues to monologue, but he doesn't explain much more. Everyone is very hung up on seeing him brought to justice. He brings up the Unstoppable Terrorist and Humanity's Doom again, and I groan before Carlos invokes the Power of Friendship and we all agree to stop the extinction. Yeah, you tell him Carlos! Delta then claims that he has saved the world by making us all eager to do the work that he and his cult apparently couldn't be arsed doing. Has he never considered that simply telling us about this threat may have motivated us, and there was no need for all the convoluted trauma? Nah you know he loved doing all that shit. He claims he's accomplished his goal 'without a single casualty'. So I guess he doesn't care about any of the alternate timelines, including the VLR timeline with 6 billion casualties. Did he want the pandemic to happen or not? Did he create Rad-6? Why was everyone else brought here? In what way was Eric necessary to save the world? When are we going to see the famous snail?

Delta gives Carlos a gun and lets him decide whether to shoot, claiming humanity is on the line (yeah, yeah). I expect this to be our final decision, but we do not control Carlos anymore and the game ends before we see what he chose. My initial reaction to this final sequence is a big ol' shrug of indifference. For as much as Delta talked, I don't think we learned very much, and I find his character pretty irritating. Nothing comes together to form a greater result, there's no satisfactory payoff, and the game ends rather abruptly.

The extra files give us a glimpse of epilogue for some- Carlos's sister is fine, J&A are getting married, Mira has a heart now (?) and turned herself in, and Sean wants her to go back into an alternate past and not kill that woman. Sure, whatever. I find it difficult to care about any of this, the ending has left me pretty cold. Moreso than the other two games, this one feels like a collection of scattered ideas without a cohesive throughline, there's no solid core here and I don't feel the weight to any of it. A sadly disappointing end to what was an overall fun experience.

Thanks for reading along with my playthrough, sorry my interest dropped off right at the end there.

2complex4u

I am a simple man

Thanks for the playthrough topic!