Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
DemoneeHo
Nov 9, 2017

Come on hee-ho, just give us 300 more macca


Paul Zuvella posted:

It also depends on what you are looking for I guess. I am noticing a pretty distinct correlation between people who were able to enjoy ZTD and people who really like AI2.

Nah, i hate ZTD but was able to enjoy AI2, even while acknowledging its problems. There's like, five people who didn't hate ZTD.



AlphaKeny1 posted:

if you forget that it's supposed to be the final game and don't expect it to wrap up anything from vlr, ztd is actually really fun in an over the top way

Schlocky fun, maybe. But not actual game play fun. They cut too many corners on the puzzles (yes, i would like to do the same rotating puzzles and fit-into-the-grid puzzles ten times, thank you chunsoft). Besides, to ignore that it is the final game is to ignore half of the story.

I did appreciate the decision games after each room, though. Those were creative than just plain old choices for ally/betray or the next door.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

They tried to do a Telltale's TWD thing with ZTD but it doesn't work at all with the kind of game it is at all. It just looks actively horrible (also the no budget thing).

Remember they couldn't even animate the characters running or falling to the ground, so they cut away and just play a thud, lol

Waffleman_
Jan 20, 2011


I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna!!!

An entire discussion about Back to the Future where people are actively stepping around using any names

Like I understand that part and parcel of that is Japanese copyright laws but come on it's the western translation

theblackw0lf
Apr 15, 2003

"...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"
I still recommend anyone who played 999 and VLR to play (or watch) ZTD as it does resolve some of the character relationships in a satisfying way, even if the plot is a mess.

At least from what I remember. Only played it more.

theblackw0lf fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Jul 11, 2022

Terper
Jun 26, 2012


The ZTD spoiler thread is really funny to read through.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

I actually enjoyed the act of playing ZTD a lot. I liked most of the characters and their interactions, etc. It's just the core plot twists and ending that sucked, so I ended the game with a bad taste in my mouth.

Ibram Gaunt
Jul 22, 2009

I didn't like the general gimmick of everyone having amnesia in every room. It meant you didn't get much growth with the cast in each route since they basically started over from square 1 each time.

Junpei
Oct 4, 2015

Although next time, you would be wise to heed the ancient Japanese proverb... phone first!
Hi yes it is I one of the few people who enjoyed ZTD (even as someone who acknowledges that the main twist is really loving dumb)-AI2 also didn't bother me too much.

LostRook
Jun 7, 2013
I enjoyed ZTD, but that's largely based on assuming that Zero is lying about most things about himself and is really conducting a war against Blickwinkel/the Player.

Terper
Jun 26, 2012


Ending spoilers

https://mobile.twitter.com/drawleivings/status/1544465691033718786

theblackw0lf
Apr 15, 2003

"...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"
I’m actually replaying ZTD and one thing I think it does better than the previous games is that because each team you follow through the game has people who know each other it adds more emotional resonance and chemistry to the interactions.

WrightOfWay
Jul 24, 2010


Ibram Gaunt posted:

I didn't like the general gimmick of everyone having amnesia in every room. It meant you didn't get much growth with the cast in each route since they basically started over from square 1 each time.

That and the groups being separate so there were pretty limited character interactions.

AlphaKeny1
Feb 17, 2006

I will admit I haven't played vlr or ztd since launch, I just have it in my head that I enjoyed them at the time. I think i'm going to replay them, there's a lot I don't remember. Time to rediscover why two milkmen went comedy.

Argue
Sep 29, 2005

I represent the Philippines
I don't remember "amnesia in every room" being a plot point at all. ZTD had a crappy core twist, and it wasn't sufficient as a finale for the story, but it's fine as just "another entry in the series". Uchikoshi's been somewhat teasing that he'd like to do another one so the disappointment is probably gonna be mitigated somewhat.

edit: vvvvv oh yeahhhh i guess i got injected by that bracelet too because i totally forgot

Argue fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Jul 11, 2022

YoshiOfYellow
Aug 21, 2015

Voted #1 Babysitter in Mushroom Kingdom

One of the core things of ZTD was that they had devices attached to them that would sedate them and wipe their memories every hour. Every segment you could pick from to play from the big story screen was basically one of those hour chunks.

theblackw0lf
Apr 15, 2003

"...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"
It’s interesting that ZTD seems to be a combination of “how many ways can we brutally kill characters you love” and yet is incredibly fan servicey at the same time.

Though being fan servicey in this case works to the detriment of fans enjoying it as it seems plot coherence took more of a backseat

theblackw0lf fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jul 11, 2022

Waffleman_
Jan 20, 2011


I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna!!!

theblackw0lf posted:

It’s interesting that ZTD seems to be a combination of “how many ways can we brutally kill characters you love” and yet is incredibly fan servicey at the same time.

I don't get it, you said the same thing twice.

An Actual Princess
Dec 23, 2006

i genuinely didn't know people hated ztd to this degree. i had a ton of fun with it even if the central zero-related twist was pretty dumb and it didn't follow up on vlr very well at all

c-team hopping through time over and over loving ruled though. and gab was there.

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

Also most unforgivably Phi is really stupid in ZTD and I don't know why. It's like they had to nerf her intelligence or she would've been way too useful or something

Jack Trades
Nov 30, 2010

She's only extra smart when she's on the moon because of low gravity.

Arrrthritis
May 31, 2007

I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from
ZTD is a game that I am glad to have played, even if I didn't like the overall result. The main twist was very dumb and I don't think the plot holds up under any scrutiny, but I really loved the different moments the game threw at you at different stages. Most notably.

Winning the coin flip at the beginning of the game and rolling credits.

Going through the freezer and using different pieces of Junpei's body parts as ways to solve puzzles (and then the reveal that yeah, you were using Junpei's body parts).

Carlos loving everything up and causing the VLR timeline after his big hero moment.

Sigma and Diana slowly starving to death in the bunker dungeon after winning the game.

Team Q all deciding to merk Delta if you input his name during the standoff.

"Donno" being the correct answer for 'Who killed Mira!?!?!'

Waiting a full minute to decide whether or not to press the button.


I thought the ending sucked and the game was worse off for its twists and design, and it would be cool to see the different teams interact with each other more than they did in the game. It would have been a lot better if the game had a more similar approach to VLR/999 where the characters repeatedly got to interact with each other and you got to see the storyline as more of a narrative than a series of vignettes.

Jack Trades
Nov 30, 2010

Everyone's talking about how bullshit the big twist in ZTD was but did everyone forget the number q door in 999?

Irony Be My Shield
Jul 29, 2012

That was a truly incredible twist that unfortunately works a lot less well in English lookup how you say '9' in Japanese

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

Jack Trades posted:

Everyone's talking about how bullshit the big twist in ZTD was but did everyone forget the number q door in 999?

That twist is genius in Japanese and I'm more than happy to accept it being less good in English so that the Japanese version can exist.

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.
So, I guess I love this game? It's in a really, really weird spot, though.

I'm just gonna put this whole thing in tags and not worry about which microns are not spoilers.

So, like, the primary thing I come to an Uchikoshi game for is to get punk'd. There are other considerations, like, yeah, give me some good mind-bending mystery poo poo, give me some heart-destroying character moments, and definitely give me a main character who's nonsensically horny and everyone's sick of his poo poo, that's all good stuff, but, I'm here for that one thing. I'm here to get punched in the face by a plot twist. I want it to be big, I want it to be dumb as gently caress and also dumb as poo poo, I want it to be right under my nose the whole time and I want to have to break in order to laugh for a continuous minute after it hits. I don't understand how this guy keeps doing this. I don't understand how he keeps getting away with this. Kotaru Uchikoshi and huge dumb existential timeline twists are like Final Fantasy VII Remake and new arrangements of Those Who Fight; every time, you think there cannot possibly be any new ways left to pull the exact same stunt again, and every time it just rolls up and smacks you with a new one. My acceptance of this game hinged on exactly one matter and by god it delivered, and therefore I love it even though I also kinda lowkey maybe don't really like it, I think a lot of its writing standbys got old a bit too fast, I feel like it tripped over itself a little too much, the somnia were a little... well we'll get to that, the inexplicable collectable/completion cruft is literally five times more obnoxious than the first game, and I feel like I was sick of the impromptu dance numbers from about four seconds into the first one and it was just kinda jarring and between the weird sloppily-measured lyrics and the lackluster performance and the janky animation and the fact that there were like six of them in the game and only one song and it just critically missed with me, but I don't care, because none of that is the one thing I forked over my money to get.

A similar judgement goes to ZTD from me, although with a lot of different reasons - the important thing is that those reasons don't matter because again I came for one thing and I got it.

So yes the twist is really loving stupid and I'm fine with that, but, we have to be honest, it is loving stupid.

As I think a lot of people have noted already, it is pretty definitively targeted exclusively at the player, and even by what we might call the usual standards is completely nonapplicable to the characters in the story. Even ZTD has AI2 beat here. ZTD has the infamous Delta twist, but they have an excuse for that - two, actually. One; it is arguably a holdover from a version of the plot that was teased in VLR which more explicitly involved our friend Blick Winkel who I think Delta was supposed to be hiding from/at war with or something. And two; there are other enormous twists in ZTD, like, yes, a whole True Flowchart which is as much of a mindfuck to the in-game characters as it is to the player. So it has that going for it. Meanwhile, in AI2, nobody knows or cares that someone out there has been completely bamboozled by all this. It's funny, I guess, that the nature of the twist was very directly foreshadowed by the Extremely Bad Tearer Balloon Hint Combination Puzzle, but, well, Tearer wouldn't have known about that side of the plot, so again it's a bit of a non-sequitur. There's some evidence to suggest that Ryuki is experiencing - or possibly remembering - events out of order, but other than that nobody in-game is actually particularly perplexed by any of the central mysteries of the plot except specifically the body of Jin Furue, as all the other corpses are basically notable only for being sliced in half.

Now don't get me wrong. Despite how poorly the twist is situated within the plot, it's still fascinating and rewarding to go back and unpack the story we saw in retrospect of the twist and to see all the parlour tricks the game was using to misdirect us. One way in which I think maybe it actually is maybe situated pretty well in the plot is that it puts us in a little bit of synchronicity with Ryuki, because if you start to pick up on the inconsistencies it causes it can feel a little bit like you're losing your mind and struggling to remember what was true and what was just vibes. I imagine everyone has two or three out of the ten or twenty possible hints that they picked up on that just kind of stick in your mind and gnaw at it; for me it was Lein claiming to have been to the Horadori basement before and then seeming to do it for the first time with Mizuki (actually Bibi, with a loving chapter transition during it, the absolute mad lads), there sometimes not being an elevator in the Cathedral (which isn't even a continuity thing, which is why I like it, also, this is why the game has Tama make such a big deal out of explaining which way the windows in Toriko's office are facing), and Shoma having deja vu about being given chocolate by Mizuki (this one is extremely weird, because in a non-canon past 12 year old Mizuki gave chocolate to 12 year old Shoma, but in a canon past which we don't know is in the past Bibi gives chocolate to Shoma, who we don't know is 12 and not 18, and then in a non-canon future, Mizuki gives chocolate to 18 year old Shoma and he remembers being given chocolate by Bibi. So this whole plot point is a trainwreck of misdirections). So that stuff's all good. It's just, well, there's no way around the fact that they couldn't think of a good way to work this twist into the actual plot other than to have Mama, who is already being relegated to a kind of deus ex machina status as the person who exists solely to provide completely unaccountable but uncannily accurate leads, randomly explain it out loud in her empty bar and then doesn't even remember doing it. It's a delivery several orders of magnitude lower than a weapons-grade Uchikoshi Special like this deserves, and also there's maybe a few too many contrivances around Bibi needed to make it work for my liking, but, god drat, it's what I came for.

I think I overall like the somnia a lot, although I think perhaps there's a balance still to be refined between the conflicting ideas of dream worlds that run on bizarre, personal and thematic dream logic and puzzles for the player to solve that aren't horseshit. A lot of AI1's somnia were horseshit, not because in the end they were inconsistent with themselves but because there wasn't really a good way to approach any of them that wasn't basically just trial and error. AI2 is on to a good thing with its idea that you explicitly figure out and notate the rules for each somnium and then apply them, but the process for doing that isn't really organic, even if the application of those rules is. The acquisition and use of timies still feels completely artificial and arbitrary, as does the time constraints in general, especially since so many somnia culminate in time-consuming decisions to which you cannot apply timies, so the overall goal of trying to finish with time remaining for unlock purposes is basically never interesting. This is a shame because on the whole, the somnia are fascinating. The highlights for me were definitely Amame's, both the climactic final one in which you can present evidence like an interrogation, which was a neat combination-twist of ideas, and the initial quiz show one, because once you figure out the keys the entire final round becomes exposition, like, it becomes less like you're trying to break into Amame's psyche and more like she's becoming increasingly desperate to be able to tell somebody about what she's done and how she came to do it. Real games as art poo poo. Plus of course there's Iris' excellent sendup of Pokémon Go, which works infinitely better as a playable setpiece than the Minecraft knockoff in AI1. Gen's wasn't really that interesting overall but was hilarious and poignant. There were some less great ones too, such as Masked Woman's (a great concept ruined by some complete garbage stealth action) and, I note with some dejection, Tearer's, where the gimmick seemed to be that you were basically required to retry and cheese the passwords in order to have enough time, and also the final puzzle hint just uses some extremely icky puzzle logic where the same cue hints at two different transformations you have to apply in order to different parts of the process. I got it on my own in the end but I can see it being a stumper.

And speaking of stumpers, this game has possibly the worst puzzle hints I think I've ever seen in a game that periodically halts until you solve a puzzle. Nine times out of ten, the game will immediately mock you for getting an answer wrong (there's also no "I don't know, give me a hint" button), and then when it does deign to acknowledge that you don't seem to know what to do the sum total of advice will often be "hey remember you were given a hint you moron". I'm particularly astounded at how most of the time when a puzzle hinges on some particular visual clue from an investigation you're never allowed to bring it up for reference while inputting the answer, even though you can bring up the dialogue log (which if you're lucky might still have a text representation of the clue from back during the investigation). Particular demerit goes to the aforementionedly absolutely dogshit balloon hint puzzle which is just oblique as poo poo and has clues that are both completely direct and broadly useless in guiding you to do anything in particular, and to top it all off, the solution it leads you to is gibberish and gives you no sense of heading in the right direction if you ever do happen to read the clues right (I gather this issue was exacerbated greatly by the English localisation and its use of letter pairs and particularly its use of an abbreviated answer, with the Japanese original being a sane set of six individual kana which add up to a solution that actually means something when read). Compare this to VLR and even ZTD, in which basically every prompt that wasn't explicitly a plot branch/lock had a whole sequence of escalating hints that eventually led to simply being told the answer (unless you specifically disable that feature)

I found the action sequences weak, frequently even weaker than in the first game (in which they were largely held up by the absurdity of Date's porno-driven superpowers (it's telling that probably my favourite action setpiece is the one that reveals Date's return in the future arc by way of having "Gen" power up with porno and waiting for you to connect the dots (unless you undercut that reveal by doing the other half of that route first). I thought the stadium fight was basically garbage almost beginning to end, with my opinion letting up solely for Kizuna's minigun and also I guess for Ota just driving up and down the pitch with an armoured truck and just bowling through bad guys.

I like that the plot is sufficiently bonkers, even once you account for how normal things are when you're not confused about the time, although I think Tearer's plan is a little odd, like, I cannot for the life of me understand why if he has the big brain virus and the literal missile to put it on he doesn't just... launch it? Why does he need to launch an ARG to direct a horde of brainwashed mooks to the stadium, thus having to put its location on the internet, instead of just... doing it? Ah well.

Finally, I want to know exactly what changes based on whether or not you convince the game that you've played AI1. Like, the game seems to be going out of its way not to engage with anything that would spoil the first game, and yet it still does this nonsense quiz gimmick. What's it for?

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

The spoiler quiz is for people like me who would be even more upset about Date's appearance if the game didn't offer at least some crumb of an explanation.

Waffleman_
Jan 20, 2011


I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna!!!

Yeah I think it's mostly the explanations as to why Date is still Greg Chun and why Pewter is out of jail

Irony Be My Shield
Jul 29, 2012

The Pewter thing didn't really bother me. I can believe some strings could be pulled to keep using someone who seems to be completely irreplaceable to the psync program.

Momomo
Dec 26, 2009

Dont judge me, I design your manhole
Boss literally lets a hitman for the mob walk free because she likes him (AI1 spoilers, do we even need to do this?) So Pewter by comparison is absolutely nothing.

Terper
Jun 26, 2012


Pewter did nothing wrong

Sometimes

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.
Is it me or is it mathematically impossible to meet the par time in Gen's somnium?

I am walking immediately to the cookbook, winning the cookoff (240s remaining) and then walking immediately between the three dishes (20s each), ending with the one closest to the judges (the shortest possible route). I examine one of the dishes along the way burning 10s for a 1/2 timie. The final input eats 30s + 160s with that timie. You will note that this is more time than is available. What is missing here? There are other 1/2 timies but every one in the level takes 10s to get and saves you 10s when used so I don't see how they help, save for saving another net 5s from Amame which isn't nearly enough.

e: forgot this is even worse than i originally made it sound, by an entire 30s

Fedule fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Jul 14, 2022

Terper
Jun 26, 2012


Fedule posted:

Is it me or is it mathematically impossible to meet the par time in Gen's somnium?

I am walking immediately to the cookbook, winning the cookoff (240s remaining) and then walking immediately between the three dishes (20s each), ending with the one closest to the judges (the shortest possible route). I examine one of the dishes along the way burning 10s for a 1/2 timie. The final input eats 160s with that timie. You will note that this leaves 10s (9, since you need 1s left on the clock) to do the walking, which is barely enough for one of the three trips. What is missing here? There are other 1/2 timies but every one in the level takes 10s to get and saves you 10s when used so I don't see how they help.

As I recall, Amame has a timie that is replaced once you find the answer. So you'll have to talk to her before you examine all the dishes. I think.

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.

Terper posted:

As I recall, Amame has a timie that is replaced once you find the answer. So you'll have to talk to her before you examine all the dishes. I think.

That's extremely silly! So yeah that gives a 1/5, eating 30s but saving 96s relative to what I had before.

I'm gonna say it; even leaving completely aside the whole "dream logic" idea in somnia, I extremely do not like and have never liked the time limit aspect and especially timies as a mechanic, they're just a layer of mechanical cruft that complicates a gameplay system that categorically does not require complication and adds nothing to the game except a few tedious replays.

Ineffiable
Feb 16, 2008

Some say that his politics are terrifying, and that he once punched a horse to the ground...


Honestly I loved every one of the zero escape games and the AI games (I think AI2 is stronger than the first in most ways except maybe the overall plot) but I am just here for uchikoshi's wild ride and enjoying what they put together.

I do miss the more escape puzzles that the Zero Escape games were more about so hopefully they can try to do that style again.

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.
Oh here's a fun fact; telling the game that you have played the first game (and proving it) locks you out of a couple of trivia files and appendices. I think it's not so many that it locks you out of the trophies for them but it's enough to make it a big pain to get them without just going back and replaying the first chapter of the game again. Why do designers just choose violence sometimes?

(that said, I cannot recommend highly enough replaying that first chapter after finishing the story and observing Mizuki's conversation options with Aiba in the Stadium after briefly investigating the body)

what if Jin has a twin brother?
what if the body was frozen?
what if the left and right halves belong to different people?
what if he was still alive with just the left half?

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

Ineffiable posted:

Honestly I loved every one of the zero escape games and the AI games (I think AI2 is stronger than the first in most ways except maybe the overall plot) but I am just here for uchikoshi's wild ride and enjoying what they put together.

I do miss the more escape puzzles that the Zero Escape games were more about so hopefully they can try to do that style again.

I will never tire of uchikoshi's wild rides

wuggles
Jul 12, 2017

Fedule posted:

(that said, I cannot recommend highly enough replaying that first chapter after finishing the story and observing Mizuki's conversation options with Aiba in the Stadium after briefly investigating the body)

what if Jin has a twin brother?
what if the body was frozen?
what if the left and right halves belong to different people?
what if he was still alive with just the left half?

He can't keep getting away with this

LostRook
Jun 7, 2013
Has anyone solved the man robs ghost code?

Polderjoch
Jun 27, 2019

May the sacred flame guide me... Or something like that.

LostRook posted:

Has anyone solved the man robs ghost code?

Yes, actually, and also Bats490, MAN ROBS GHOST is just a key used to decrypt the rest of the symbols in the videos; here's the copied solutions:

SOLUTION TO BATS490:

Step 1: RIP ME BURN ME => RIPME BURNME
Step 2: RIPME is an anagram for "Prime", and BURNME is an anagram for "NUMBER" so the cipher is talking about prime numbers.
Step 3: The code for the top for is 28936th, and the bottom row is 4th*339th,. Go to a prime number lookup site (https://primes.utm.edu/nthprime/index.php#nth) and find the nth prime numbers
Step 4: 28936th prime = 336767, 4th prime = 7, 339th prime = 2281.
Step 5: Top Row = 3 3 6 7 6 7, bottom row = 7 * 2281 = 1 5 9 6 7 ,
Step 6: Unzip the top and bottom row:
3 3 6 7 6 7
x x x x x
1 5 9 6 7 ,

and you obtain 35666,139777, which convert to coordinates. The decimal goes before the last 4 digits, so this becomes

35.666 N, 139.777 E

If we enter these coordinates into google maps, it brings us to a shed in the Central Kuritsu Akatsuki Park (shown below), presumably the entrance to the cathedral



NIRVANA TRIAL SOLUTION:
G A => Gallium => 3 1
B R => Bromine => 3 5
T M => Thullium => 6 9
O S => Osmium => 7 6
H O => Holmium => 6 7
N , => Nitrogen => 7 ,

unzip to get 35666,139777 => 35.666 N, 139.777 E

(Same location given in the Bats490 video)

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

LostRook
Jun 7, 2013

Polderjoch posted:

Yes, actually, and also Bats490, MAN ROBS GHOST is just a key used to decrypt the rest of the symbols in the videos; here's the copied solutions:

NIRVANA TRIAL SOLUTION:
G A => Gallium => 3 1
B R => Bromine => 3 5
T M => Thullium => 6 9
O S => Osmium => 7 6
H O => Holmium => 6 7
N , => Nitrogen => 7 ,

unzip to get 35666,139777 => 35.666 N, 139.777 E

(Same location given in the Bats490 video)


drat, that's impressive. I should've figured out the last one since the video ends with ATOM but was overthinking it. Oh well, thanks for the answer

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply