Finished my written exams (only one oral left), finished ZTD!

Here are some thoughts on the endgame - which don’t echo my feelings on the game as a whole at all.

This is from yesterday:

I managed to get unstuck.

• I had to replay the execution votes on both Team C and Q again to vote against D in order to get the execution symbol to light up… Weird. Anyway, it still showed no indication of anything unlocking, so I replayed the video of Eric shooting the shifting Carlos, and unlocked a new fragment from there. It’s weird the game gives no indication though.
• I really enjoy Sigma’s writing throughout this game, and I will be sure to replay VLR sometime after this specifically for Sigma. When Q proves that he’s a robot, Sigma has a very pensive look on his face. And when Eric is about to shoot him after Q revealed his affiliation with Zero, Sigma jumped in to protect Q. All of this sure reminds me of Luna and Kyle.
• I think I forgot to mention this in detail when I talked about themes a few posts ago, but this is a really great link to 999, and in particular about Lotus’ explanation about it (the computer/monitor thing): the way Q works, and what Zero mentioned in the Reality segment (iirc) (if not Zero, then Sigma) about the real you perhaps sending out commands from an alternate timeline, across the timelines.
  

I stopped yesterday after getting all force quit sequences because I had to study. I didn’t know that the finish would be this short, considering that it was very, very long in 999 and VLR, where the unexpected length was a pleasant surprise.

After finishing up today:

The troll ending turning out to be actually relevant to the story is just as brilliant as the global flowchart deception omgggggg. But aside from that, I’m feeling very underwhelmed by the endgame revelations and the finale right now, unless I’m just not seeing things from the right perspective. (Someone enlighten me. For now, I’ll just digest this and crawl other people’s opinions.)

Just by length and emotional impact alone, I feel like the finale is very untypical of Zero Escape when you compare it to the revelations in VLR and 999. There are several reasons for this:

• For how prominent the snail analogy was, and how it has direct links to several characters (Sean and Akane in particular), I feel as though it was ultimately dropped? Before the finale, I would have thought for it to matter much more, especially due to the personal connection between Zero and Sean in the Reality segment. I know that the snail story is also understood as an analogy: that you, the player, are the snail… But I’m just not really feeling it.
• For how much VLR’s intermission ending hyped up an outside consciousness being crucial to the game, and you being implied to be Zero, I’m not feeling it much either. I thought there was a set-up: Carlos and Diana in particular stating on multiple occasions that an uncharacteristic action of theirs didn’t feel like their own actions. The “Perceptive!” ending where you enter Zero’s name, and Sean directly turns around and shoots at the player. The way your screen “flickered” and “bugged out” during the reveal of the presence of a tenth person, and again when Sean hacked the computer. But I don’t feel like that set-up and the play with perspectives was followed up on? I didn’t feel any particular connection between Zero and the player despite the implications - whether narratively or emotionally.
• I also don’t feel any emotional impact between Phi and Zero, as well as Zero and the rest of the family. It just feels weirdly empty. Narratively, I understand on some level why the connection was established (the circumstances of birth and the powers), but emotionally, it… somehow doesn’t feel necessary? This is also why in some way, Phi’s character significantly loses impact in the second half of the game, especially because she’s largely absent from a certain point onwards. It feels weird because I had expected the story to ultimately revolve around her, and still held on to that expectation during the last parts of the game: Phi was upset at Zero’s revelations, and I would have expected her to get the spotlight as someone who has gone through a looooot and volunteered for a lot across all timelines in order to save the future.
• The revelation of Zero’s identity in this game, Zero themselves, and Zero as a narrative concept all feel flat to me - all the more so if you compare it to the narrative and emotional impact of the Zeros in 999 and VLR, AND the hints leading up to those revelations: the way they turned out to be so much more than expected, but especially the way the narratives and mechanical aspects were set up to both conceal and imply that connection. (The dual screen, the recurring fever and the character trope in 999, the voiceless and faceless first person narrative along with the other characters’ reactions and the lack of intact mirrors in VLR.)
• What I miss - and on this point I will admit that I might just not be seeing it yet - the most is all pieces falling into place to form one central theme. In 999, so many different experiments, studies and concepts were brought up that eventually all turned out to be analogies for the morphogenetic field. I don’t remember VLR as well, but I do remember that Akane’s scheming and the dooming of alternate timelines for the sake of one timeline was heavily - and rightly so - criticized in the intermission (?) ending. In ZTD, a few themes WERE indeed brought up, but I don’t feel like they were adequately emphasized in the finale and in the general narrative to ultimately leave an impression? During the final decision, the characters finally discussed what was criticized in VLR: whether you can justify dooming your alternate selves to save this one self, and whether the other yous can even be qualified as being you. That is a direct continuation of 2) in the post I linked to, and I think it’s important to ZE as a whole. But it is then dropped…?

I’m feeling very very weird now because Zero Escape has always delivered, especially during finales, and especially to make an entire game and miscellaneous concepts and trivia finally click, and I’m not feeling it here. I will let it sit for a while, maybe revisit some parts, read what other people feel and what I might be missing out on, and then replay VLR, because I feel like Free the Soul, Zero as Brother, Left, Myrmidons, the antagonism between Crash Keys and Free the Soul, etc. just… weren’t really addressed. And considering how a lot of people have been extremely curious about Aoi, I’m also just… wondering… Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be anything bigger than it was in 999.