No Escape, you have only two choices. ( Zero Escape Series Review)

1. Read some thoughts about a unique series that mixes visual novel motif with escape room mechanics.

2. Ignore and forever remain oblivious to what might have been.

999: While 999 is the crudest looking of them all it has the most well told story of the bunch.

Gallery

VLR: Too much of a good thing can be bad.

Gallery

ZTD: Making the narrative jumbled on purpose is a interesting choice. Even if it is quite confusing for a while.

Gallery

List items

• 

  999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors

  Getting dropped into a Saw like senario is certainly a bad thing for anyone. Yet it’s been revisited quite a few times thanks to this series and Danganronpa. Other than playing this once when a friend brought it over years ago I didn’t get a chance to revisit it till the PS4 port. The story follows one of the 9 named Junpei who finds himself stuck on a ocean liner. Which happens to be full of puzzles that can only be solved if they all work together. With the artificial time limit put on them all it becomes a race to see if they can all get out even though it seems impossible.

  Unlike other games labeled as a visual novel this one requires some classic adventure gaming skills to succeed. While the narrative plays out via fully voice acted visual novel the rest of the game requires the player to search through rooms to solve puzzles set up by the nefarious Zero. Collecting items is one part of it but each one has some sort of brain teaser to solve. Most of them take a bit of thought but the end game will test your skills if you want to see the true end. I appreciate that it doesn’t really try to hinder the player to much with overly complex puzzles. Since figuring out the mystery of why everyone is stuck in this situation is why you should play this. At least it managed to keep me in the dark the entire time.

• 

  Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

  The Nonary game continues. Another 9 have been put into another life or death game. This time a man named Sigma gets thrown into a room with a girl named Phi. They quickly work together to get out of elevator they were stuck in only to learn that this death game is much more complex than before. All the watches are color coded and the only way to earn 9 points this time is to either ally or betray someone after escaping from a keycard room.The stakes just get higher as the group realizes that not everyone might be sane or even on their side.

  VLR follows the age old trend of just adding more to what they did the first time. More puzzles, paths, and endings. While also increasing the difficulty of the puzzles. Which certainly hiders the pacing of the game. I spent more time writing stuff down to figure out a puzzle than seeing what twist would happen next in the story. Making this whole thing feel back loaded since you won’t even see a real ending till about 12ish hours into it. Solving puzzles rooms are cool but it does get tiring after a while so it’s a good thing it’s possible to make it easier. The extra incentive of finding two codes per room seems rather pointless too since the extra lore you get is just a recap what you already know 80% of the time.

  Even if the pace is not great the narrative they weave is very well done. Doling out just enough clues to keep the player interested. Then when everything gets explained it’s like the answer has been staring you in the face the entire time. They just go for it so I don’t think it’ll ever get boring from that perspective. Unless your a puzzle mastermind I expect that area might be annoying like it was for me.

• 

  Zero Time Dilemma

  Here we are at the final act of the Zero Escape series. Once again another group of nine have been put into a life or death decision game.Unlike the previous two games this one follows a more non standard narrative structure. With Zero putting the 3 different groups to sleep every 90 minutes and wiping their memories you’ll never quite know where on the timeline the next room will be. This is rather confusing at first and lead to a few moments of me not knowing where I had to go next to continue. The 3 group structure is new too since you now get to see what everyone is doing. Which does a good job of fleshing out all of the characters in different ways.

  While the story retains its mystery angle that’ll keep you guessing the visuals got a noticeable bump up from the last. Giving the game a general cel shaded look that lets the characters and environment pop out a bit more. With this being the first time they’ve taken a more Telltale games style of cutscenes the animations are really stiff looking. Not a huge issue but it is certainly noticeable.

  As for the gameplay it remains the same as always. Cutscenes that set the mood, rooms full of puzzles that must be solved and choices to make that will determine everyone's fate. The main difference is the level of difficulty which was lowered back down to 999 levels. At the same time some puzzles do get reused a reasonable amount which never really happened in the previous games.

  Overall this game is a wild ride that certainly brings back horrible looking deaths if you missed that from VLR. At the same time it does have some flaws thanks to how controflued everything is at this point. I can see why the director didn’t want to make any more games since at some point the crazy plot twists are just silly. Plus it’s pretty easy to point out some plot holes if you want to. Eh but in the end some solid puzzles and a wild narrative is what I’m here for and it still has that.

• 

  Zero Escape: The Nonary Games

  Taken as a whole these games craft a compelling storyline that never gets boring. The end result may not be what everyone is looking for yet the journey to it is something else. The escape room puzzles did add some value to the game since it broke up some of the more lets just explain something with a metaphor since stuff like schroders cat shows up a lot. If you don’t like occasional long winded explanations of what crazy stuff is going on then this series is not going to be for you. All of is themaic to the kind of world it is trying to create which is nice.

  This is a easy series to recommend if what I’ve wrote here has sold you on it. Even if it hasn’t I expect trying out 999 should change your mind. Unless you just don’t like watching characters talk for awhile inbetween puzzle rooms. Like I’ve mentioned quite a few times at this point you should never be bored when playing through these games.