Part 83: Payoff (2)

Part 83: Payoff (2)



If they all want to stay so bad, I'm inclined to let them.



Letting the timer run out has the same effect as explicitly choosing not to SHIFT.

Music: Aftermath (Decontamination Room)



















Well, that was fun.



The fragment is complete, because choosing to SHIFT would, of course, take us to a different fragment.



In fact, do you notice the only fragment without the completion border around it?



So, not SHIFTing is just another boring game over.



My argument for SHIFTing is pretty simple. What would you rather have? A version of you running around outside with no idea what happened? Or a version of you running around outside with full knowledge and abilities from the rest of this game? Whoever's left in the shelter is getting blown up either way...



Anyway, let's SHIFT.





Yeah, there's no scene or anything.



We're not locked in anywhere, either. If you weren't paying attention to the dialogue before the decision that revealed our destination, you might have some doubts on how to proceed here.



Checking the global flowchart reveals a new node on the coin flip fragment, that was stuck behind a hidden lock before. And true to the characters' plan, the new node is located right after the Sun End.



You can also see the new node by going into the coin flip fragment itself.



Anyway, let's get on with the final ending of the game.



Music: Glacial Solitude



The background music is different, but we're seeing the same shot as when we first won the coin flip. Including the small crowd at the bottom.



We start about halfway through the original scene (a minute into it, by the timestamp given). This line is right after Carlos had an image of the flipping coin flash through his brain.



The rest of the scene plays out the same, but I'll let you enjoy it again anyway. It was quite a few updates ago, after all.















Hey, uh, could I ask all of you something?



Who...is this kid?



That's where we ended the first time. But now...



I imagine Carlos is the light in the center leading the way.

Music: Transient Tranquility

Interestingly, this track is what plays during the original Sun End scene.



I'm...not sure why they're all passed out on the ground. Maybe that was a particularly strenuous SHIFT? Passing out wasn't really a side effect in the other ones we saw.







Carlos's hand barely twitches.



His eyes slowly open.



One last standing animation for the road.



Junpei and Akane stand as well, but I already promised Carlos would be the last one.



Sean looks around. He's never been outside the shelter, so doesn't know this is Dcom.



Eric moves to help up Mira.









Missing Lip Animations: 69







I definitely remember you.



Then we really did...

It must've worked...



Life is unfair. Don't you think?

Music: Divulgation 2nd Mix



Delta and Gab are here. Remember how last update, Delta said he had two good things to tell everyone? And those two things turned out to be Gab being killed, and Delta forcing Eric to kill him? Those are "good things" because we were free to SHIFT out of the doomed shelter without worrying about leaving anyone behind. And remember, Sean stayed behind after pressing the button in the Decontamination Room, because Gab and Delta were both chained up and unable to leave.



You bastard...



Seventeen years ago... A snail traveled down a narrow path in the park.



If that snail hadn't been there, perhaps all of you here would've lived a completely different life than you did.



Just one small snail. And everyone's lives...even the world...changed.

We've been given bits and pieces of the snail story throughout the game. So, let's explain it in its entirety for once. It begins with a woman jogging along a path. Normally, she goes down one path, but one day there was a snail on that path. So she took the other path, instead. There, she was killed. It's heavily implied that the woman is Eric's mother, and the killer is a young Mira.

A man is falsely accused of the murder, and eventually convicted and executed. His wife commits suicide in her grief. These are Akane's parents. As a result, Akane was vulernable to the kidnappings ten years ago, dragging Junpei into this whole mess last year to save her younger self. Without Akane, Sigma doesn't get dragged into the events of VLR, which means the events of this game wouldn't have happened, either. At least, not the same way. So Phi and Delta wouldn't have been born.

When Akane's father was arrested, he had called for a taxi but didn't end up taking it. Instead, the taxi picked up a surgeon and got into a fatal accident, killing both. A young boy in the hospital was supposed to be operated on by that surgeon, and ended up dying instead. That young boy was Sean, after whom our robot friend is modeled and named.

The only ones who don't seem to be directly affected are Carlos and Diana, the primary heroes of the game. It could be that Maria, Carlos's sister, wouldn't have had Reverie Syndrome. Diana has some backstory from having an abusive husband and working as a nurse, but neither seems to fit in with the rest of the story.







Gab walks over.



This version of Gab hasn't gone through anything troubling.



You all have SHIFTed in from another history.















Specifically, in this history not a single person has died. I strongly doubt the police would listen...



I'm annoyed that the characters are still this ignorant of the effects of having multiple timelines after all this time.











If so, then I'd say this world would be full of criminals of all kinds.

I love that they focus on Akane for that line. The original Zero, murderer of many in alternate histories.



Yeah.



all over the shelter...



You've slept for quite a while.



No transporter, no quantum computer... Loaded into a truck and taken away.

We know that after the coin flip, we either wake up here or we start the Execution fragment, both starting at 12:00. But we don't actually know when the coin flip took place, other than it was earlier on the same day. So there could have been enough time to do what Delta's saying?



Sean is able to move right now due to radio signals received from a satellite.



What, aren't you happy?



I say again. In this history, not a single person has died.



Phi and I exist, and there will never be an outbreak of Radical-6.



There is only a bright future ahead for all of us.





One last slow circling of the camera around everyone.







You said you released Radical-6 so that you could kill that person.

Hmm...











Buried in the implications of these statements - every ending we've seen where Radical-6 isn't released, just results in all of humanity dying anyway.



What...?!



Was the ending leading to VLR the good ending after all?









Delta stops, and so does the music for a second.

Music: Blue Bird Lamentation 2nd Mix





Nothing in the future has been determined yet.



















Screw that!





Delta cackles maniacally again.



For several seconds.











Imagine. What if... None of you had experienced the events that occurred in the shelter...



You're so determined now to change the future.



One of the goals of all of this was to get you into that frame of mind.



It's all going according to plan...



Without a single casualty--



I created a future where mankind will be saved.

Yeah. So it turns out Delta's primary goal was creating a timeline with a team of motivated super-SHIFTers that could stop the fanatic. Alongside the other goals of ensuring his own birth and ensuring a "failsafe" timeline where Radical-6 is released to kill the fanatic instead.







I will give all of you one last choice.





Delta tosses the gun over to us.



Carlos catches it.



you will be able to choose whether to kill me now, or allow me to leave.



I promise, I won't use mind hacking on you. You are free to decide.



Pull the trigger, or let me go...







Music: Interminable Dilemma (Payoff)



Yup, that's it.



We either keep Delta around to help us find the fanatic...



Or kill him for being an untrustworthy asshole and torturing us in other timelines.



The outcome is left to our imaginations.



Seems odd that Delta couldn't find the fanatic by himself, with those powers of his.



But I guess it really takes his powers combined with the SHIFTers' ability to see the future to really excel.



Some people are probably upset that the ending makes this game seem like another setup or training for a future mission.



I don't really see it that way, though.



Delta's already claimed to have created a timeline where everyone is saved.



So the outcome is already known, or at least the ability to reach it.



Really this game just put together the super-team to be able to deal with the fanatic.



The legwork of tracking down and defeating the fanatic probably wouldn't be as interesting on its own, anyway.



Overall, I'm satisfied with that part of the conclusion.



Even leaving that final decision and its consequences up to the audience, I rather like.



There's a bit of a problem with a lack of closure with the characters, though.



It's somewhat helped by the epliogue that we'll see shortly, but not entirely.



For instance, what happens with Sigma and Phi?



Are their consciousnesses from the VLR timeline going to jump to here?



Or is there some future version of their selves in this timeline that's going to hop back?



Even though our Sigma and Phi clearly remember the events of the VLR timeline, not whatever new one we've just created?



Does Diana stay with old Sigma here, only to have him replaced by a young Sigma who doesn't know her? Or a young Sigma who spent some unknown time in an unknown future?



I like to think that, in this timeline, Sigma and Phi put themselves into a cryo pod in 45 years so that their younger selves don't experience anything at all, and just hop back into the present while skipping over the events of this game entirely.



Then old Sigma and old Phi are bounced forward 45 years in the current timeline, and morphogenetically access the memories from the old versions of themselves in this timeline. Hopefully a happier future than the VLR one they left.



I get the feeling that the developer didn't really know what to do with that tangled consciousness-swapping mess, either, which is why it doesn't get mentioned at all.



The futures of C-Team and Q-Team are interesting, as well, but I'll get to those with the epilogues.



What about Free the Soul, though?



Did Delta create them as just a means to an end to get to this timeline?



And if so, what happens to them now?



Their leader, Delta, aka Brother, is either dead or is likely going to be using the group to help track down and deal with the fanatic.



There are probably some other unanswered questions from the earlier games.



But overall I feel like this game did a good job of picking up enough of the threads from the earlier games to satisfy the fans, while delivering a story that has sufficient complexity and twists to be its own work, as well. Despite some mis-steps and some poor animations in particular, the game delivers on a well-executed twist with the combined wards, and a heavy emotional impact with the Twins End.



The statement in this image isn't an exaggeration. ZTD was canceled at one point, and only got revived due to extensive fan support and activity. In particular, a Facebook group called Operation Bluebird arose as an online campaign to garner support for the series and for development of the third game. It's said that the game's director, Kotaro Uchikoshi, eventually pitched resuming the project using a fan-made rendition of the Morphogenetic Sorrow track that was published in Operation Bluebird, and gave credit to it for getting the green-light to move forward with the game.



With that, we've reached the final ending. CQD-END:2, or the Eye End. If you'll recall, CQD-END:1 was the Sun End from the very beginning of the game.



Also, the coin flip fragment is finally cleared!



We have all the endings on the save file, now, too!



You might think that's it, but there's just a little more.



It's pretty hidden, but I've gotten into the habit of checking for new files after every fragment anyway. After the final ending, jump into any scene, and take a look at the files. We've got seven here to tell us a bit of what happens to C-Team and Q-Team afterwards.








With that, we've finally reached the end of the LP! We've got 69 missing lip animations, 5 references to the LP title (plus a few close variations), and 83 updates in 75 days, which seems insane looking back on it. I hope you all enjoyed the ride!

One last present before we wrap things up - a complete picture of the global flowchart!