Zero Escape is a trilogy of video games. The first two entries: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Virtue’s Last Reward are available for purchase as Zero Escape: The Nonary Games on Steam. The third entry: Zero Time Dilemma is also available on Steam.

This is a reflection on this trilogy, naturally of my experience. For some context, I played through all three games within the last half a week. I’ve played through all puzzles, read all plot points, and have gathered all relevant endings. All of this was on PC. Afterwards, I feel like I’m inclined to offer some opinions. I’m assuming whoever’s reading this has already played the game to some extent, because there will be heavy spoilers, as indicated by the title. If you somehow stumbled here, go buy the game. The link’s up there.

The Zero Escape games are, undoubtedly, good games. I could even call them great, but I need to put my thought in order some more before I can do that. I definitely enjoyed my time with it, as well as recommend anyone who hasn’t already to buy these three games.

Nine Hour, Nine Persons, Nine Doors:

The first of the series, and how I got my feet wet. Honestly I didn’t know what I was expecting going in, since I never owned or desired to own a Nintendo handheld in my life. I’ve played the Phoenix Wright series, and I’ve played Sherlock Holmes series. From this game’s blurb I expect it to be somewhere in between. I was right, but there was so much more.

I’m not a puzzle fan. It sounds funny, true, but the puzzle games I stuck through were all for the sake of narrative. This one was no different. Thus, I elect not to comment on the puzzles, at all. I leave that to those who care. I’ll use my limited words to talk about the writing in general. Note that while I acknowledge the series’ continuity, I’ll judge the games based on what would have been available on release, as in there’ll be no consideration for sequels.

Now, Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (henceforth referred to as 999) as a narrative is very unique. Video games stories, as with most narrative, are often linear, perhaps featuring some time skips here and there. Those aren’t special, jumbled story lines have been done before. However, I’ve yet to see something that elevates video games as a storytelling medium quite like 999. It’s a solidly constructed narrative, first of all. It’s both self-referential yet in-universe. It’s both fourth wall-breaking and self-contained. It’s both straightforward, and not. It’s both interactive and passive. It’s a video game, no two ways about it. On that note alone, I applaud its execution.

On to the writing itself, I’d first like to draw attention to the one thing that all Zero Escape games focus on, to varying degrees of success: characters. After playing 999, I could name you all of the characters in the Nonary Game off the top of my head, accompanied by their personalities, motivation, appearance, and significance to the plot at large. They are just that memorable. There’s an exception — the ninth man — but he and his cohorts weren’t on screen most of the time, so they don’t factor.

There’s Ace: the man with a past, older and fatherly. There’s Snake: wise and reserved, blind but perceptive beyond his years. There’s Santa: bratty and standoffish, but only on the surface. There’s Clover: quirky and very emotional, the other half of the unexpected but ever-present loving sibling duo. There’s Seven: the gentle giant type, plagued with amnesia. There’s Lotus: the intensely voluptuous and aware, with an obvious chip or two on her shoulder. These are the supporting casts, and they are nothing short of amazing. They’re unique, recognisable, and even at the worst of times sympathetic. They always have something to chip in, they’re relevant on most accounts, and can carry their weight within the narrative well enough, at least most of them.

That leaves the main characters: Junpei and Akane. It was rather obvious from the start that this story was going to be about them. It has to be, else the game risks serious disconnects. The player steps into Junpei’s shoes, a man with a convenient lack of motivation other than saving his childhood crush, a desire so intense it often overtakes his own need for safety. Akane is warm, unconventionally loving, and feminine girl whose the entire game revolves around, and whose lives and experiences are minutely detailed for the purpose of the big reveal. These characters aren’t the most unique in their presentations nor personalities. They are, in fact, tropes if anything. The way 999 avoided the usual pit falls is to actually make them believable by heightening their level of interaction. It’s a very good strategy. Their awkward half-flirting dialogues are infuriating though, and is a frequent point of criticism of visual novels in general.

Naturally, there’s a great sense of mystery abound. No doubt this game wouldn’t have been nearly as great without it. The game with its twists and turns kept me guessing until the very end. Weaved in alone with folk tales and seemingly heavy-handed references dropped like bombs by your companions are real references to real events, which cause those otherwise familiar to do a serious double take. The blocking of endings with locks and intentionally misleading players through multiple interpretations of the same plot point serves beautifully to keep the reveal under wraps, while trickling in just enough new information and subjects for the player to raise an eyebrow over during conversation is done masterfully here.

Nothing is perfect, of course. I won’t lie and say the childhood stories which our two main characters shared was particularly enjoyable, done to characterise characters that are meant to be empty. I also didn’t care for the retelling of scenes from multiple perspective yet adds no context. The mystery itself is a double-edged sword. While it handily wows me in its thoroughness and shock, its delivery often lacks subtlety and interactivity. There’s a lot of reading here. I read most of it, but a good deal I can say was unnecessary. It’s important to characterise every party involved, but on revisits it feels like a chore. Naturally, the game requires crosses to fully appreciate, and that’s also a leveraged criticism. The story, beginning as a desperate race for survival yet at the same time mutual annihilation, ends on a very soft-hearted note. The pacing jumps from tension to non-tension very rapidly, and you often don’t really feel the nine hour clock weighing on the plot. Everyone, who’s anyone, survived and ready to tell their story for another day. The impact of your choices are still felt, but not their consequences.

Despite that, the game, as I finished it, stood as a masterpiece of its genre. There were mysteries up until the very end, and plenty that was left unresolved even after the credits roll for the dozenth time. It left me wanting for more, but was enough for me to feel satisfied. There’s an underlying plot that’s massive just beneath the surface, and I can see hints of it, but I don’t know it yet. The events which took place during the time of the game, however, are all revealed, giving it all a nice blanket to sleep over, and wait.

Virtue’s Last Rewards:

Shortly after passing the buggy crashing mess that is the early 999 port, I quickly booted up Virtue’s Last Rewards (VLR). The first I noticed was some actual mouse control beyond poorly imitating a touch screen, as well as 3D models. I have to admit that caught me off guard, for the two-years gap between the release of this and the last game didn’t prepare me for such a leap in technology. It was later made clear to me that VLR was released on a more modern platform, which explained a little.

Having finished 999 just hours prior I steeled myself in preparation for what was soon to come in this second instalment, as far as the mystery is concerned. My first impression with Phi marked something very clear: she was going to be the significant female character of this game. It’s formulaic, if only in name, for this sort of push-pull duo to lead the narrative of both 999 and VLR. She’s the beginning and the end, and that was obvious enough.

Soon, I’m introduced to a new cast of companions with which I’ll spend the next 12 or so hours. I’m glad to see that there were no throwaway characters this time, bless their wicked hearts. For the sake of mental impression, I’ll list them here. There’s K, the gentle giant type, whose memory has suffered a loss. If you haven’t noticed, he’s a direct carry-over of Seven, only slightly less prone to threaten violence (the key word being “threaten”). There’s Quark. He’s unfortunately bland and token, far too straightforward to my liking, and purely there to characterise Temmyouji. The kid did spend the majority of the game frozen or trying to kill himself, after all. Alice, despite also spending a large part of the game being suicidal, are a much more worthwhile character. Another intentionally voluptuous woman with a chip on her shoulder, the only thing lacking here is a bellydancer costume, she at least has a past to offer, linking herself as one of the duo which connected to the last game. Her motivation is quite clear and decently believable, she gets a pass. Clover, of course, is the second part to that duo. She’s a reappearance, naturally, so there’s no need to drone on. To loop back to the Temmyouji mention earlier, it took me half the game to work out that this troubled, burdened old man was Junpei. It’s a very well-protected secret, I have to say, as there was a nagging feeling at the back my mind that perhaps he was Santa. Either way, he’s the most relatable of the bunch. Luna is also present, filling the loving gentle feminine void left by last game’s Akane. The game was very good at casting doubts on her. That’s indeed how subversion of expectations work. I went the entire game (up until the end of her route) being suspicious of Luna. That moment when it was revealed that the old woman’s corpse was found in her AB room, I found myself craning a hard eyebrow. That was strange, I thought. It was unfair, I thought. Usually this sort of reveal comes with some premonition, but this one didn’t. Turns out, I was tricked. Well played.

Overall, I’d say that this game’s supporting cast was more hit or miss than the last. You may have noticed my not mentioning Dio, so here it is. His character is rather egregious in its portrayal. He’s an asshole. He remains an asshole, forever. It’s bland; it’s boring. Him and Quark are definitely the low points of the game for me, one being the ultimate virtue of heart-tugging innocence, the other that of peerless inhumanity. I still resonate with a lot of the others’ struggles, however, and frankly they were very enjoyable still. Akane appears here somewhere, but she’s more or less an information-dumping billboard so I’ll ignore her. They did everything they could in 999 already, and I could let that slide.

As for the main characters, they’re certainly refreshing in a way. Phi doesn’t ever grow out of your typical hyper-capable bratty female sidekick (the word tsundere would fit here if I didn’t feel like beating out my own teeth), but Sigma was a treat. The man, unlike Junpei, was definitely not the same archetype. He’s still someone with a blank slate to fill, but he has an actual character, shown in his words and action. He’s assertive, intensely heterosexual, and unapologetic in his decisions, to the capacity of a human. He’s not your usual meek Japanese boy, and that’s good. It means that there’s actually conflict between the main characters and their directions. In 999, Akane was too agreeable, and Junpei was too passive. Sigma and Phi, on the other hand, were active, playful, and they bounce off each other extremely well. There was also no romance between them, thankfully, as that was a very distracting aspect of 999.

For all of the new high marks, there were some new low ones as well. The endings in VLR became very tiresome occasionally. There were times when Sigma actually escapes, but the narrative is cut short just because. It’s heavy-handed and infuriating. It forces you to cross reference pretty much everything, while in 999 you’re only one ending behind the true one. The plot themselves were also shaky, and I’d say far less concrete as they try to incorporate more plot points and loose ends. Radical-6’s application and cure were rather on thin ice, as the grand moon reveal at the end didn’t really apply properly to Alice and Quark, who’s been cured. It also didn’t at all explain how only Phi bothered to try, or even knew, of her seemingly gravity-defying power. Physics and science fiction also didn’t hold up too well in a lot of the interpretations, and the game bleeds from science fiction to science fantasy. There’s definitely a feeling of middle-man problem of a trilogy here, with so many things being left open, even ignoring the non-canon alternate ending.

That said, VLR was still quite a treat. It ties well enough with the previous games and leaves a decent amount of open-ended splits for the last game to follow up. There were a lot of surprises still, despite my preparations. Things still caught me off guard, and that’s great. People react like they have attractions and standards, and that’s great.

Zero Time Dilemma:

The kicker.

Aside from the drastic change in narrative style, with the fragments and all, Zero Time Dilemma (ZTD) is a very different experience from its prequels, for better or worse. This game features the least amount of new characters, and the lack of a true main character is a narrative deviation from the formula we’ve had before. Despite that, the mass return of old characters meant that the word “trope” has officially lost all of its meaning.

For what it’s worth, I appreciate the fact that old characters are relegated to a part of the supporting cast. Sigma, Phi, Akane, and Junpei all make a return. They were still very much the same, except for Junpei, who has graduated from an awkward passive boy (this is not a reference to his age), to a jaded pathological man. Akane is still a gentle soul, although her 999 psychotic personality is shown more here, which is a thankful change from the past. Sigma is still Sigma, but he doesn’t really flirt as much as he did before. Phi remains largely similar as well, except for the fact that she willingly admits her own attachments to Sigma now. That’s all well and good, and it leaves a lot of room for new characters. Unfortunately, the two for the supporting cast are doubtful at best. There’s Mira, the — you guessed it — intentionally voluptuous woman, which also happens to be a serial killer. Her reveal was quite interesting, but the moment that’s over she falters as a character, like the Dio of old. Eric, on the other hand, is like a more unhinged version of 999’s Junpei. Madly in love and traumatically abused, he never really spoke to me as someone I should be caring about. This is a direct consequence of him and Mira not being SHIFTers, and also the fact that Q team just has a lot less screen time in general. He’s crazy, like Akane, but I didn’t have two games to empathise with him. In my opinion, these new characters fell short, and that’s a damn shame.

This time, there were three new main characters to impersonate. Carlos is your typical American hero firefighter all around good guy. He talks like Sigma. His mannerisms and build is like Sigma. The only thing separating him from being Sigma 2.0 (and it doesn’t really succeed) is that he actually has outside attachment: his sister, and so he doesn’t flirt. That sounds weird, because it is. He’s boring, and I’m forced to spend a lot of time with him. In reality, he’s the catalyst to stop Junpei and Akane from being so typically anime and get on with their lives. He’s like the representation of the audience: just shag already. Diana, on the other hand, is a different case. She’s Luna, through and through. She makes no real decisions, or has no real motivation for the majority of the game. She’s always nice, and there wasn’t much else to her. Every decision she makes is a fake choice that’s simply the deciding factor between Sigma and Phi arguing all the time. At least Carlos has beliefs. Diana’s entire personality is being nice. Niceness is boring, because there’s no conflict. That said, Sean is the worst of the bunch. He’s the Quark of this game: a child. Like most children in video games, he’s terse in terms of background, not to mention the return of amnesia, and bland in terms of virtues. He’s not responsible for anything ever, albeit there’s actually a point when he kills Eric. Even then, that’s a point of narrative branching, and you’re forced to command him to do it for the story to continue. It’s cheap, frankly. There’s a great reveal at the end, where he could end up in a virtual reality as a real boy. Ye old Pinocchio, but it’s still the children’s dilemma. Fewer children please, honestly. At least this one the game didn’t have a problem with melting away with acid.

Before I go any further, I have to comment on the visuals of the game. The layout is slick and user friendly. The Xbox prompts are annoying but largely forgiveable. The models, however, are nothing but a detrimental. While the ones in VLR were crude and blocky, they had their own charm and did well enough in portraying character emotions. I lived with it. In ZTD, however, they were atrocious. While they look decent enough at first glance, the moment these puppets moved was the moment I laugh. Any sort of action sequence lost all of its immediacy due to the complete inability of the characters to operate at a decent pace. The sound effects tried their best here, and it was admirable, but it couldn’t salvage the stiff animations, plastic facial features, and just overall low quality of the visuals the game put up. Itwas frankly immersion-breaking, which is a great shame as 999 with its hand-drawn stylistic environments and characters were very good, and even VLR didn’t force its janky models to do anything too physically taxing, although the Phi moon kick sequence was hilarious all the same.

Lastly, it’s time to tackle the plot. I’ve already alluded to the series becoming more fantastical previously, and that trend continued here. Limitations of SHIFTing was thrown out the window by the half point, and it cheapened the majority of the deaths which occurred. This, coupled with the reappearance of old friends, lessened the emotional punch that comes with each decision. This was already present before, but limited to the player side at least until the very end of VLR. The abundance of its time skip here and its acknowledgement in-universe made me a lot more detached from the characters in general, knowing fully well that even they don’t care that much about dying themselves, as evident by Carlos’ taunt towards Eric despite staring down the barrels of a shotgun. Even though there were some very interesting moral dilemmas still present, choices were never particularly hard. The only one that even approached it was the Revolver scene with team D, even then it’s just chance.

This leads me to the True Ending. Here’s the gist of it: disappointment. Those are harsh words, so let me explain. While the True Ending of both 999 and VLR left us with everyone who’s important alive, and ZTD is the same, there was a distinct lacking in the last instalment: dread. As Akane and Aoi drove off into the desert, it was completely unknown as to why they did, and Junpei was still trapped in the loop of finding his childhood friend, risking the possibility of spending his entire life chasing after her. At the end of VLR, Sigma and Phi travelled back to the past to find a ravaged planet with many dead still, and their mission were just beginning. How he received his synthetic arm and eye patch was still a mystery, and the big evil of Brother and Free the Soul, which was behind the main antagonist Dio remained hidden. At the end of ZTD, everything was resolved, and I applaud them for that, but there’s nothing left. The True Ending is the unequivocally definite good end to the story. It’s too easy. There’re no questions, no second guesses. Junpei and Akane got married. Carlos saved his sister. Sigma, Phi, and Diana united as a family. Even the serial killer Mira was allowed her redemption through no desire of her own. It was simply given. Compare that to VLR: Junpei was a redeemed but burdened old man who paid 45 years of his life chasing a ghost. Clover and Alice were stuck in a future where all of their friends and family were dead. Kyle remains as a replacement for Sigma, forever in his station and armour. The world was still burning under a pandemic, with a nuclear winter that blocked out the sun. You get my point.

Conclusion:

This was a long article, but it was also important that I wrote it. It’s better to formulate my words here than to let them be swept away by my attachment to these games, as well as my proximity to their characters. This gives me a wider and more critical, not necessarily negative, look at this series as a whole. It’s unfair, of course, as while the overarching plot was certainly alluded to by the writer since the very beginning, the deviation and mismatch of visuals between the three games are precisely because they were three games. There are limits to this sort of continuity, and while I was annoyed by some I can’t say that it left me with a sour note. I enjoyed my time, without a doubt. To loop back to the my own question at the beginning, would I consider this series great? What defines a great series? In simple terms, the answer would be yes.