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The Root Beer Float story was a big strong point too, yeah.
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Jul 1, 2016 23:06
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As a aside a highlight of the entire game for me was Akane's gigantic key. I'm looking back at the screenshots I took and I still can't stop laughing whenever I see it. It's just a loving can opener.
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Jul 1, 2016 23:18
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I know Dio's technically a lovely character in reality but I can't help but love Conflict Man and his Magical Bomb Hat
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Jul 1, 2016 23:42
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I like that the twist with Dio is that he's exactly as lovely as you think he is
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Jul 1, 2016 23:45
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Was it me or were there way less pseudoscience lectures this time around? There wew a couple but they were pretty short and they also ended up rehashing a couple from the last two games. Little disappointing but I guess it'd look worse in cut scenes as opposed to vn style text blocks.
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Jul 2, 2016 00:02
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MrAristocrates posted:I like that the twist with Dio is that he's exactly as lovely as you think he is I think that worked well in VLR, but doing it again twice with Mira and Eric in ZTD just felt lazy.
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Jul 2, 2016 00:04
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ThisIsACoolGuy posted:So why did Delta in some timelines just choose "gently caress it whatever I wanna live in a doomed timeline" and push the shower button or vote for the other teams? Like what was the point in doing that because I don't recall those specific timelines really resulting in anything and it's not like he can shift or anyone on his team can outside Sean (kind of.) I liked it better in VLR when superficially-seeming irrational or terrible choices made by the player was translated into an inner monologue by the protagonist of "why the gently caress did I do that? Was it just fate?" instead of removing human agency through ~*~MIND HACKING~*~. I feel like mind hacking is the ZTD equivalent of MGSIV's nanomachines bullshit and it kind of bothers me. Just seems like a cheap cop-out writing-wise. 
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Jul 2, 2016 00:49
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Was it me or were there way less pseudoscience lectures this time around? There wew a couple but they were pretty short and they also ended up rehashing a couple from the last two games. Little disappointing but I guess it'd look worse in cut scenes as opposed to vn style text blocks. There was less pretty much everything this time around. It's pretty clear they had to cut back on some content to fit a budget. Generally speaking I think the new format held the game back way more than it should have. The third person camera was necessary to do their piss poor Zero/Delta/Sean twist and so they could go all kill bill/saw more dramatically. I would have much preferred another straight Visual Novel.
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Jul 2, 2016 01:02
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Really, omnipotent villains always present kind of a problem in stories like these. Yeah I know Delta can't SHIFT and all but fucker magically knows everything anyway and somehow manages to plan for every single contingency other than "Sean shoots me dead in the Study," including ones he needs to abstract himself through mindhacks. The scenario where he fails is still one where he basically gets off scot-free.
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Jul 2, 2016 01:05
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Delta as a whole really just presents a problem as a non-antagonist, which is all we've had for antagonists since 999 had it's big shithead villains who Akane wanted to murder out of a personal grudge. Unlike VLR and ZTD who have these grand scope stories where humanity dies and we need to do this grandiose game to prepare you for saving humanity/changing the future because we're not actually the bad guys but we kinda are because we still toyed with your lives and effectively hosed with hopes you had of having a decent life. Also we're shades of gray villains because no one in stories of moral complexity is allowed to just be an enormous shithead unless they act as obstacles to the group aka Dio and Eric.
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Jul 2, 2016 01:11
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I hope that in his last decision Carlos turns around and shoots Akane instead, this poo poo is all her fault.
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Jul 2, 2016 01:14
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Oh WAIT he DOESN'T because the epilogue states that AKANE AND JUNPEI GET HITCHED, because gently caress YOU
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Jul 2, 2016 01:16
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Really they should've shoved the old man back into the shelter and locked him in it so he can die in a week because no one changed his bed pan and fed him his supplement.
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Jul 2, 2016 01:16
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alcharagia posted:I hope that in his last decision Carlos turns around and shoots Akane instead, this poo poo is all her fault. *smashes your head with a fire hydrant*
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Jul 2, 2016 01:18
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alcharagia posted:Oh WAIT he DOESN'T because the epilogue states that AKANE AND JUNPEI GET HITCHED, because gently caress YOU Hey man, at least Junpei kept a cool head. And at least Akane quit committing sudoku and stepped up her game to cross-ward puzzles.
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Jul 2, 2016 01:27
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Paul Zuvella posted:There was less pretty much everything this time around. It's pretty clear they had to cut back on some content to fit a budget. Generally speaking I think the new format held the game back way more than it should have. The third person camera was necessary to do their piss poor Zero/Delta/Sean twist and so they could go all kill bill/saw more dramatically. I really believe Uchikoshi must have been heavily influenced by Saw 1 in making ZTD with the whole "the antagonist was actually right in front of you the whole time!" twist, not to the mention the emphasis on gore and traps, morality, life and what it means to live, etc.
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Jul 2, 2016 01:31
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alcharagia posted:Really, omnipotent villains always present kind of a problem in stories like these. Yeah I know Delta can't SHIFT and all but fucker magically knows everything anyway and somehow manages to plan for every single contingency other than "Sean shoots me dead in the Study," including ones he needs to abstract himself through mindhacks. The scenario where he fails is still one where he basically gets off scot-free. Wait, that brings up a thought: what is Sean's in-universe reason for shooting Delta in the Mexican Standoff? If I remember correctly, you input Delta, Sean just sort of shrugs and goes "um, okay then?..." before shooting at the camera, killing Delta. Is it a case of Delta trying to commit suicide for no apparent reason through mind hacking Sean to make an illogical choice? Or is it just a weird one-off player fuckery thing? Also, did ZTD ever comment on Blick Winkel directly? I saw people talking about this early on before the official release but I don't recall hearing it mentioned (granted I streamed from Twitch to get my ZTD experience so I'm probably missing a lot of minor details).
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Jul 2, 2016 01:39
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Sean can't be mind hacked, so it's just a weird quirk. And no, K/? was never brought up, which a lot of people seem unhappy about.
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Jul 2, 2016 01:41
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I've come to realize that the reason the Delta reveal doesn't work is two-fold. The first is that he totally sucks as a character, but the second is that the game intentionally deceives you in order to accomplish the reveal. It definitely does get foreshadowed yes, but that's not enough. The reason I like the twist that Sigma is old is because it relies on a very basic assumption from the player that gets completely reversed. Not only that, but the entire game is built around it. On the other hand, Delta's very presence not only comes right the gently caress out of nowhere, but the game has been concealing information from you in order to accomplish it, and for what? The reveal offers no new real information about the characters or the central story. It's not in service of anything, and so it feels deceptive for its own sake. It's also patently absurd that Zero's just been hanging out in front of you, in harm's way, all this time. It's not bad because it's not foreshadowed enough, it's bad because the game lies to your face to do it, and fails to provide any meaning to justify that.
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Jul 2, 2016 01:54
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ApplesandOranges posted:Sean can't be mind hacked, so it's just a weird quirk. I think the story feels a little tighter if you treat the "?" ending of VLR as more of a "what if?" story where the cast gets to address the player directly rather than as part of the canon. Then the simple explanation for K is just that he is a backup plan for Sigma to carry on his work in case of a contingency rather than him having some role to play at the Mars test site. This also means the suggestion that clover and Alice could travel back to 2028 isn't part of the official timeline either, closing that plot hole as well.
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Jul 2, 2016 01:59
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healing_room_button.mp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhLFlIuuyMQ&t=71s Edit: There was another youtube of that clip without the Colbert part, but it had ISIS at the end? So I didn't use it. 8-bit Miniboss fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Jul 2, 2016 |
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Jul 2, 2016 02:01
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Winky posted:That's essentially the point! Though in one ending he shoots a bunch of people then goes "I have no more use for this history".
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Jul 2, 2016 02:09
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Your Dunkle Sans posted:Wait, that brings up a thought: what is Sean's in-universe reason for shooting Delta in the Mexican Standoff? If one more person dies they can open the X door. It's not completely out of the question that Sean might decide to sacrifice the blind, deaf, mute, crippled and possibly vegetative old man to allow Mira and Eric to escape - especially if the alternative is for them to kill each other.
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Jul 2, 2016 02:23
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8-bit Miniboss posted:healing_room_button.mp4 I called the Ren and Stimpy-esque History Eraser Button gag in ZTD way before release in the main thread.  NJ Deac posted:I think the story feels a little tighter if you treat the "?" ending of VLR as more of a "what if?" story where the cast gets to address the player directly rather than as part of the canon. Even with all this benefit of the doubt being given, people are going to be disappointed anyways since it still violates the Chekhov's Gun rule. Why all that set up only to be shelved with the end of VLR and no pay-off? Also, why couldn't Sigma!OldMind somehow replicate the Transporterizer and other futuristic equipment for use at the future moon base? He's already got decades-worth of training and basically setting up the moon base with Diana/Luna and Akane single-handedly.
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Jul 2, 2016 02:47
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NRVNQSR posted:If one more person dies they can open the X door. It's not completely out of the question that Sean might decide to sacrifice the blind, deaf, mute, crippled and possibly vegetative old man to allow Mira and Eric to escape - especially if the alternative is for them to kill each other. The other reason is perhaps he knew that he was Zero and just didn't want to put up with this poo poo any longer.
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Jul 2, 2016 02:56
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alcharagia posted:I know Dio's technically a lovely character in reality but I can't help but love Conflict Man and his Magical Bomb Hat Dio's (english, at least) voice acting is fantastic and is what really makes the character, imo. Also: So what exactly is the timeline for Sigma, again? It's young Sigma -> VLR -> young Sigma gets sent back to the VLR ending of ZTD -> Sigma does his moon poo poo until he's Old Sigma -> Old Sigma goes back to ZTD and stays there forever in the "good" timeline? Not knowing exactly what the hell happens there is another reason why the lack of a D-team epilogue (along with them being the best characters) pisses me off so much. 
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Jul 2, 2016 02:57
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Also am I the only one who really disliked SHIFTing being made visible in ZTD (and how it was depicted)? I liked it way more in VLR when it was more like instantly "blinking" from the time right before death to another point in the timeline, which is the closest resemblance (I think) to how it would be experienced in the first-person in real life. It's that sort of confused, disoriented, and terrified/disturbed feeling from the abrupt change of imminent death to the mundane, which is honestly pretty great. I also really liked in VLR how it made the experience of dying and being dead more explicit and palpable as drowning in a sea of nothingness (granted, is a less about internal monologues and inner dialogue than it is about SHIFTing morality quandaries and inter-character conflict, so I'll give it that at least). Instead in ZTD, SHIFTing is depicted as a dumb DBZ blue super Saiyan anime aura that descends from on high to whisk you away to another far away time and place like the loving warp whistle from SMB3. It's really, really stupid. Teriyaki Koinku fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Jul 2, 2016 |
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Jul 2, 2016 02:58
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Killing Delta as Sean in the Standoff is literally just a gag. The dude gets shot, bowls over to die, the group barely reacts to it, and then Delta's like "welp time for my tiresome Latin phrase of this timeline." It honestly feels like it's meant to be comedic.
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Jul 2, 2016 03:11
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The Delta reveal was weird for me because at first, due to his location behind Gab in that particular scene, I thought the reveal insinuated that Gab was actually a human. It was distracting and kind of ruined the moment. Delta ended up making the most of his limited screen time, though, and after thinking about it overnight and during today I am ok with the twist. I guess it was inferred several times. It still feels a little cheap, but it hasn't detracted too much from my overall love for the game. I read somewhere that Uchikoshi knew exactly what he wanted the story to be before he even made the game, and there wasn't This trilogy did an amazing job of building on the lore and game mechanics from one game to the next. 999 had multiple endings and branching paths, and switching between them to find the right path just felt like playing a normal game. VLR took that to the extreme and had an awesome twist that revealed it was actually a crucial plot and gameplay device. In ZTD, the player understands the principle of shifting and takes it for granted while bouncing not just between timelines, but between characters. It may not be canon, but my interpretation is that ? from the end of VLR is still the player throughout ZTD - some extradimensional consciousness/observer who can appreciate all of the information gained from different people shifting to bring it not just across timelines, but from one character to another. At some point I expected a number of twists: Carlos as "Brother;" Sean actually being Maria before I knew who Sean was; God somehow being involved, possibly even as Zero; the whole game being some weird "Reverie Syndrome" experience that would tie Carlos into being Brother somehow. I thought the writing and voice acting were fantastic, and the cinematic stye added a lot to the experience. Akane continued to be a total boss, Diana was awesome even though I don't remember caring about Luna at all, Sigma and especially Phi were perfect, and the new characters added to the story without drawing too much focus away from the characters and plots we actually care about. So glad things worked out and this game was able to be made without resorting to Kickstarter or whatever.
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Jul 2, 2016 03:14
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the truth posted:I don't remember caring about Luna at all you monster
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Jul 2, 2016 03:15
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I thought she was just some annoying anime trope. Sorry. She wasn't developed until the very end of the game, unfortunately. Diana was cool.
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Jul 2, 2016 03:18
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The Luna ending was one of the highlights of VLR...
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Jul 2, 2016 03:19
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the truth posted:even though I don't remember caring about Luna at all I'm the OP and you're banned from posting in this thread, because you're as bad of a human being as Akane Kurashiki.
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Jul 2, 2016 03:20
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That comes really late in the game, though. I spent most of the game not caring about her. I didn't hate her like Alice or Clover, but most of the time she was just there. Of course her ending was great, and I was looking forward to seeing Diana in this game.
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Jul 2, 2016 03:21
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alcharagia posted:I'm the OP and you're banned from posting in this thread, because you're as bad of a human being as Akane Kurashiki. Akane Kurashiki did nothing wrong 
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Jul 2, 2016 03:21
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I actually liked Akane in this game at moments unlike 999 and VLR so good job Uchikoshi Her voice acting was loving awful though YOU KILLED JUNPEIIIII AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH
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Jul 2, 2016 03:22
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the truth posted:That comes really late in the game, though. I spent most of the game not caring about her. I didn't hate her like Alice or Clover, but most of the time she was just there. Okay you're somewhat redeemed
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Jul 2, 2016 03:24
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Baal posted:I actually liked Akane in this game at moments unlike 999 and VLR so good job Uchikoshi I didn't like Akane in this game in the slightest. She always gave me a "mastermind" vibe in the previous games with very strong hints of sociopathy for the greater good. At this point, she freaks out whenever Junpei dies despite leading him to his death in multiple timelines. As well, she's shockingly out of the loop for having planned things for as long as she has.
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Jul 2, 2016 03:25
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the truth posted:Akane Kurashiki did nothing wrong 
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Jul 2, 2016 03:25
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I think I would have preferred Akane in this game if she was more freaked out, not about the horrible things that were happening, but about the events not being in her control for the first time ever There were a few hints of that but I'd have liked more
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Jul 2, 2016 03:27
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