Introduction

Zero Time Dilemma

The Zero Escape trilogy has a bit of an odd history. The first game, 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors (999) was released in 2009 and intended to stand alone, but got enough critical acclaim that a sequel was announced a couple years later. That game, Virtue's Last Reward (VLR), released in 2012 and turned the original game into the opener of a trilogy. While it also received high reviews, VLR sold so poorly in Japan that the third game was put on hold for awhile. As the plot for VLR leaves a pretty big hook for the third game, the fanbase was rather disappointed and managed to raise enough of an uproar that Zero Time Dilemma (ZTD), the conclusion to the trilogy, resumed development in 2015 and was released a year later.

CAUTION

As ZTD is the third game in the trilogy, there will be spoilers for 999 and VLR in this LP. I'll go over what you need to know for this LP, but as these are essentially mystery games, you're doing yourself a dis-service is you don't experience them for yourself. There's a bundle for both games on Steam, or you can read the fantastic LPs that introduced me to the trilogy:

9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors - Dragonatrix
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - Fedule

You've been warned!

Like the first two games in the series, Zero Time Dilemma was developed by Spike Chunsoft (only this time via the Chime studio) and directed by Kotaro Uchikoshi. Technically the first two games were developed by Chunsoft before the merger with Spike, but that's business for you. The game is a mix of visual novel-style cutscenes and escape room puzzles, but the plot gets pretty out there.

Unlike the first two games in the series, Zero Time Dilemma has animated cutscenes instead of talking portraits. The animations...aren't great, so I won't be showing most of them off. The voice acting is a bit better, but not enough for me to try and make videos of solving puzzles seem interesting. This LP will be screenshot format. Yes, I know there's a lot of dialogue. Wish me luck.

Ground-rules for the LP:

Absolutely NO spoilers for this game, even in tags. No hints or fake speculation, either. The plot for the previous games, you're free to talk about, even outside spoiler tags. I warned everyone for a reason!
The plot has some branches to it, so I'll be leaving every decision I can up to the audience. Be gentle.
The puzzle rooms have a lot of flavor text to them. I'll show off as much as I can but if I miss something feel free to point it out after the room is complete.

Post titles may contain mild spoilers! If you're just starting out, dive right into the first part without looking too closely at the list.