#zero escape asks

5i. Unpopular opinion

So here goes my take:

ZTD is not that bad and Delta is not that bad of a character.

I saw a post somewhere talking about how ZTD should or could be taken as a comedy and, in part, yeah. The models are funky, some of the things they say are idiot, and even gore moments are sometimes more funny than truly horrific (and I'm not a gore fan, although I got used to watch it in anime).

Nevertheless, I really how the game kept all the shenanigans from the other games, the thought experiences, and I enjoyed the core message regarding the consequences of shifting. The new characters were also very interesting. Even Q team, towards who I was very skeptical at the beginning, showed to be quite interesting, and relevant to the game, even if at the start they seemed the most unrelated to the series.

I came to like Delta more, lately, as a character. I think ZTD wasn't delivered in the best way, as I feel like most of connections I made come from people's analysis and simply trying to create a meaning for it. But I like to think of Delta as a tragic character who, as Phi, was born in weird circumstances, and obliged to come to knowledge of a big threat that has to be eliminated, and whose path of destruction he had already witnessed (the repeated snail story). Delta wasn't born with the ability to shift and, as such, he isn't unable to fix the timeline and save the world. But he is aware of other realities through his ability to read people's minds. Due the fact he is alive, he is also obliged to recreate the circumstances that made him possible to exist (Zero Escape plays a lot with the non linearity of time).

I haven't thought about what could he have done, due to the fact everything is presented almost at once and I do not know much more than the chain that started the whole Zero Escape series, but the fact he has lived this long, that he was probably the one who met and seen Sean die, that he had never met his real parents before because he was alive before they even existed, and at some point came to know it, they must have taken a mental toll, even if we can't certainly assure that.

Besides that, the whole possibility of Delta being a meta critic of the player who wants to the see what happens through the end is also very interesting. Especially when the game even starts by giving the player the easiest way out in the coin toss. Had the player stopped there, nothing of what comes from there would ever perceived.

Now his morality is very very twisted due the horrific tone of the game (the most gorish of all the three games) and due to him seemingly being fine with creating an option that dooms 2/3 of the population in an attempt to eliminate a supposed fanatic (in reality I believe the main point is to create the Sigma that comes do DCOM to play the decision game, but the other purpose is also included).

And that's it, there are a lot of interesting elements in ZTD. I wish they were better delivered as we only get to know most of the stuff at the end, and it also seems a bit convoluted, but it's an interesting source of points to discuss.

5l. Headcanons

These are just funny random ideas I had. Most of them are just funny, maybe a bit idiotic but I haven't thought much about it in detail. I think I ended up writing more short ideas than necessary. I hope you don't mind.

Aoi kept the original clover that Light gave in the first Nonary games and looks at it every night, thinking about him and the plan he and Akane are about to execute in 999.

Him and Light end up together after ZTD because I say it. I don't know how and Light is probably mad because of what he had already done to him and Clover in 999, plus kidnapping her again for VLR. The Fields are strong, but Aoi manages the solve stuff, probably with the help of Akane, who is an expert in dealing with severely traumatized people (Junpei).

Girlboss Hazuki and Seven also work with Crash Keys to find the fanatic. I love the potential of Hazuki and Seven together. Hackerwoman and sweet detective.

This reminds me how it would be cute if Seven and Ace Attorney's Gumshoe knew each other or worked together, as well as Junpei and Apollo Justice (two boys who suffer a lot in their games).

Btw I want Akane and Junpei adopt a bunny, and, although Akane loves bunnies, it is Junpei who plays with them the most because it's therapeutical. He is also having therapy, nonetheless. He needs it. The whole cast needs (Eric I'm also looking at you).

I believe Sigma, Diana and Phi created a shelter for cats with some weird pun name, and that's how Sigma tries to deal with all the trauma from the games.

Finally, how cute it would be Eric going with Sean to anime conventions, but Eric is the most excited about it as he likes to cosplay.

I suppose old Sigma returns to his timeline after finishing the mission, and, if so, I want him to start being a decent father. I can't stop thinking about how I was so lovely riding that Lagomorph "car", so who knows, maybe they can build a whole Funfair.

I also like to think that even in a different timeline, Junpei and Quark will meet again, in the future. Quark will have a nice family that takes care of him. It would be interesting something like, Quark running to catch a ball and Junpei catches and gives it to him. He thanks him, but the thanks carries more than just the act of giving the ball back. It's also thanking him for saving him and giving him a future. They don't know it, but they feel it.

3d. Rank the endings (for one game of your choice or the true endings of the 3 games)

In terms of all games, I think I would rank 999 ending > VLR ending > ZTD ending.

However, each one of them gave me a different experience so I really enjoy them as a whole package. For example, when I finished VLR, I felt I needed more. The experience had been so intense that I wanted to play ZTD right away. On the other hand, ZTD's true ending made me feel very introspective, even if the writting felt lacking sometimes.

I ranked 999's ending higher because I feel like 999, in general, felt more concise and it had my favourite cast. I loved the epilogue and how the game could simply end there and not even have a sequel. It felt like a complete game by itself. Of course I was a bit desperate with the situation between Akane and Junpei, and how they ended up in separate ways, but it felt fitting.

As for VLR I really enjoyed the plot twist. I felt the true ending was a bit too long, like a never ending ride, but, despite the confusion, I enjoyed the general explanation of it. I also enjoyed the sad tone of the story, and I absolutely loved some of the reflections from the another time (even if not considered as canon).

However, the game asked for more.

And there's where ZTD enters. I had some problems getting used to the cinematics of the game and the characters, and, at the time I played, some things felt weird, like how suddenly it seemed so simple to just shift. As for the ending, I really like how it was put as a moral dilemma, a ZERO TIME DILEMMA, in fact, the situation of shifting (not sure if to think that the shifting until then had been made too easy, or it was purposedly used so that only later they had to face the fact that they doomed their other selves). The ending made me think a lot about how, despite them being alive at the end, despite this seemingly good turn of events, it still felt all like a gamble, as the begining of the game. In the end we didnt' even know the identity of the terrorist, and they still doomed their first ending iteration, for their last iteration (which has the trauma from playing the decision game).

Delta's character is generally a source of memes due to his quotes, but his words still left some marks. His whole plan was convoluted. It's almost like the second nonary game, but here the multiple timelines had to happen in order for this future to come true, and for him and Phi to exist.

I also love the ending theme and it plays very well, complementing this interminable dilemma mood the characters live through. I also love how, in the end, we can interpret Delta as a character portraying the player: "One of Delta's motivations for creating the Decision Game: he can't shift himself, but can read the minds of those who experienced other timelines, and was interested in learning about them. Given that Delta is technically the Player Character, this is probably a meta-narrative commentary on player curiosity" (taken from ZTD TV tropes).

So in the end this was all to say that, despite liking 999's ending better for how solid it seemed to me, the other games' endings also deserve a lot of credit for their worth.

(I didn't know the ranking was for the endings of all games or one in specific so I went with this, but I may try to rank for a specific game later).

5d. Do you consider Another Time to be canon? If so, do you have any theories on ?'s identity

I think at the time I finished ZTD I found that Another Time was not considered canon. Nevertheless I really liked its contents so I like to pick elements from it and incorporate in canon. One of my favourite part of it is Tenmyouji’s thoughts on this plan of jumping to the past and change it. The bikers’ story is one of my favourites there and I felt it was a message about how, despite losing Akane, he found Quark along his journey in this doomed timeline, and how, even if their plan works, this timeline still exists. There is also a possibility that the transporter was hinted with Alice and Clover’s conversation, but not sure if that was the alternative or not.

About ?’s identity, I think my favourite take is the player. Because the player is an irregular identity in the game. To get the Another Time, the player has to achieve certain goals, such as collecting the golden files. The player can play with timelines as much as they want since they can jump through the flowchart freely and they even command Sigma’s action through the game (which can explain the way sometimes he was surprised with his vote during the Nonary Game). And I believe it refers to the player coming from the true ending of ZTD, but this is merely speculation...

Since Delta could be meta commentary about the player, I also liked to think he could be involved in this, but since he can’t shift , it’s much improbable. However I like how there is a link with how the end of ZTD is Carlos pointing the gun at him, which represents a situation of danger that could trigger a shift.

Other than this, I think I haven’t thought much about it. I may have read some theories some time ago, but I don’t remember them now...

5n. Do you have any fanart/fanfic/fangame recommendations?

Fanart is probably what I consume the most. I really love @/keycrash’s works, @/kisschasey’s portraits of Snake, @/caelytrix, the way @/aestheticcannibal portrays Kyle and Dio, @/i0n4 and much more artists. I always try to reblog the amazing works I find from the fandom and sorry for not listing more, nor any work in specific.

Twitter is also a very good media to find a lot of good ZE fanarts. Not all of them are tagged, but generally searching the ZeroEscape tag allows you to find very cool works, along with other tweets and memes.

Now, on fanfiction I can’t really give much recommendations because I haven’t read many. I mainly read some from Zecret Santa event. I remember enjoying the one I got about Tenmyouji and Quark because I really love their wholesome relationship. Link here

There’s also one I once started to read but didn’t finish due to lack of time, but which was VLR’s story told from Phi’s POV and I found the idea extremely interesting although I still haven’t read it. It’s pretty long too. Link here

Now for an idea which concept I feel it’s funny and interesting: I once found one that was a Nonary game in the IKEA. I actually haven’t read it but at the time I thought it was a really funny idea. Link here

I’ve only read the first recommendation, but thought I should leave the other two, as they seem interesting and funny.

Sorry for the long post and the delay in replying. I also apologize for any mistake I made. I’m a bit tired but I really wanted to finish this post.

5c. Codename for 999:

This is one of the things that probably a lot of people must have thought about after playing 999, but, to be honest I haven't thought about it much :')

So, last night I was trying to think if there was any funny codename I could use, and, as usual, when thinking about it, nothing that sounds cool comes to my mind.

In the end I thought that probably I would be as simple as Seven and go with the name of the number, but I also thought of two other ideas:

- first one, that made me do a little Google search, was playing with the word "night", but it could be used in other languages. Now what "night" has to do with any of the numbers? Well, probably none. I just remember my mother telling me how it was funny that "night" looked like n+8 in various languages (like 'oito' (8)/'noite' (night), 'ocho' (8) 'noche' (night) 'acht' (8)/'nacht' (night), 'huit' (8)/'nuit' (night). I'll stop here because I don't know more 😋).

According to the small search I made, 'eight' and 'night' aren't really related in terms of the origin of the words, it's just a coincidence, I guess, but it's a funny similarity, so maybe I could make it my codename if my number was 8 😅.

-the second one was to have the name of a month (ups for 6 and being June again), but for I would ignore July and August for 7 and 8. I would instead go with September for 7, October for 8 and November for 9, because of their prefixes.

(I could eventually copy the ideas from 999 because their codenames were really cool. Regarding the name of months idea, I thought 'May' would be cool to use for month 5 because it also sounds like a person's name so I could use it.)

5a. How did you find out about the games?

I've been a fan of Professor Layton games since Pandora's Box (however I still haven't finished last game though </3). Because of that, once a friend recommended me Ace Attorney and 999 (because of the puzzles in the escape rooms). He lend me his Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright game which I liked a lot and made me play the other Ace Attorney games. I had never seen those games for sale and I think at the time I tried to install an emulator but I think it never really worked out for me, so I forgot it for a bit. Later on I remember two things that reminded me of the game again: one was seeing VLR for sale in one of those second hand game stores (and Azran Legacy). At the time I thought I could wait a bit and maybe buy another day (perhaps wait for them to lower the price), but that had been a bad choice and I never saw those games for sale, physically in that store. The other thing was a meme that put Danganronpa and Zero Escape side to side, to say that they were great trilogies, with a bad third game. At the time I had played first two danganronpa games and I had enjoyed them, but I didn't know a thing about the third game. Seeing Zero Escape once again made me curious about the game. I think later (1 year) I saw it for sale on Steam, and, as I had met another person who had played the games and liked them, I decided to give them a try. Those two friends were the only people I could talk to about the game, so I didn't know a thing about the difference between the Steam and DS version, nor that google search was a dangerous place, so I got spoiled about Junpei's identity.

5b. Do you usually go for the good or the bad decisions first?

After getting Axe ending twice, when I first played 999, I definetly feel like I usually go for the bad decisions...jk... for VLR and ZTD I tried my best to save everyone. In VLR I tried to ally at first (I can't remember when did I start betraying), and in ZTD I went with C team's plan to tie the voting, and I didn't push the button in the decontamination room. However, I decided to complete the whole flowcharts so eventually I made the optional bad decisions too.

5c. Codename for 999

Reply here 

4b. VLR Sigma or ZTD Sigma

So I made this decision based on my appreciation of Sigma as a character, how it was written and my experience with the games, as far as I remember.

I think I prefer ZTD Sigma.

I like how funny VLR Sigma is, but sometimes I didn't really enjoy his remarks on women. Sometimes it was funny like typical young boy mentality, but others it felt too much...

I think it didn't help 999 Junpei (still my favourite main character) was different in those terms.

I also felt bad whenever I chose betray. The game had a dynamic of deceiving people so it didn't help in terms of trusting people.

Fortunately most of the time, Sigma seemed to be very considerate: he was very cooperative most of the time and even asked himself why did he betray in some occasions, showing how betraying also seemed, morally, a wrong decision to make.

As for ZTD Sigma, he still retains some of VLR Sigma's humor, the cat puns, some of the stupidness (like the bucket on the head scene or "the press the button", which are funny moments). But he looks a bit more mature and more complex as a character. We can feel the weight he carries. He has gone through a lot, he went back to the past and is side by side with the woman he once loved (and still loves), but he can't bring himself to approach her due to his mission there, and he's also fearfull of what might happen if he's not successful.

He also regrets he won't be able to create Luna, Kyle, Lagomorph in one of ZTD fragments so it seems he had some concern about them.

I like the deepness of the character, and his grumpiness is also funny.

Saying this, I have to tell that I absolutely dislike the way he treated Kyle in VLR timeline, and the scene where he hits Diana, even if it was because of her drunk state. Knowing she was a victim of domestic violence hit me really hard, but even if she wasn't I didn't really enjoy watching it.

Despite this, I feel like Sigma has good intentions and is a good person, and even if not a favourite, I like him as a character.

Having said all of this, I don't think ZTD Sigma is way superior than VLR Sigma. They are the same person after all. It's just a matter of I see both personalities and how, to me, I think I like ZTD version a bit more.

Sorry for the delay and long reply. I always feel like I should justify a bit my choices here, although I didn't want to make it too long.

It's just that I like most of Zero Escape characters and so I feel like when choosing one over the other (even if it's the same person) it may look like the other is bit bad and it isn't necessarily.

5c. Codename for 999

For 5c, I replied it here

1h Favourite Quote:

Probably "Happiness is closer than you think".

It's one of those quote whose real meaning we never really now because it comes from your own experience, and sometimes you only realise it much later that the path you walked was the thing that brought you joy.

Nevertheless I really like this quote and the whole discussion about the meaning of the "Blue Bird" story.

Special mentions to Apologise to the Funyarinpa, Life is really unfair and my motives are complex quotes because they are memorable (and meme material).

Thank you for the ask.

zero escape asks | accepting

seven: what's your earliest memory? how clearly can you recall it?

They’re silent for some time.

“...When I was first born, I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear. But I could feel.”

“I felt sand. Snow. A mingle of both. Life was strange and new, each movement I made gave me more information than I knew what to do with. I had two legs and two arms. My body was sharp, hard to maneuver. I didn’t have the language to comprehend what I knew.”

“Before long, I was picked up and carried away. I assume it was Adamant who carried me. I was set down and chiseled into. When the chiseling stopped, I was smooth to the touch.”

“I assumed that this touch was the only sense I’d ever have. I was wrong. Very, very wrong.”

luna: is there anyone whose trust you would never betray, not under any circumstances?

zero escape asks | accepting

9th man: what’s the most regrettable thing you’ve ever done on impulse?