Lurker > Giggsalot

unrequested Giggs bracket update: after going 4/4 yesterday my one-look bracket is up to 6th on the leaderboard! I'm quite certain this is my highest position ever.

posting here to enshrine it in stone before everything falls apart, starting today with the loss of Toad, one of the most baffling picks in my entire bracket (my consecutive Sora/Yoshi division winners probably ensure I won't return later).

it's been fun!
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oh hey, my instinctive two-minute bracket made it onto the leaderboard! first time this contest I think. thanks Wario!

shame I have Sora > Red, oops. at least I made it on there for a day!
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one more bump?
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ironically I actually bought the first two Danganronpas in the Steam sale yesterday! guess I'll be getting to those sometime vaguely soon.

any other recommendations in the zero escape vein?
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oh yeah, where did the CARLOOOOOOOOS! stuff come from? is it supposed to be a specific scene, or is there some meme I've missed?

and I agree with almost all of that, Lapis! having let things sink in a little more I really think this is a great game. it's clearly and badly flawed in certain regards, and there's a lot of ways that it could have been better, but I genuinely think that ZTD gave me everything I wanted from a conclusion to the series. and considering the emotional stakes and the amount of unresolved plotlines, I think that's actually pretty remarkable.

a fitting end to a fantastic trilogy!
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Purge is simply unfair
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Will keep this alive for a bit then!
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D and C are hard to separate for me, they're both great. D wins on emotional moments, but C probably pushes the plot forward more, and they're both a joy to spend time with. I'm happy to call it a tie!
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6. Sigma

speaking of Sigma! outside of the player character role here Sigma's character becomes more well defined - which is to say, it becomes unambiguous that he's not very interesting. I do like the guy, though, and I think he has a lot of his best moments here; his time with Diana and Phi really humanizes him. but his lack of prominence (and SHIFTing!) in the narrative is a tiny bit weird considering that VLR was supposed to train him to lead this thing. even Carlos takes more initiative than he does!

5. Carlos

oh hi Carlos. Carlos is great, this should not be questioned. he seems a bit overly perfect at first, with his perfect hair and endearing sister sob story, but he's a fun foil to the perpetually bickering soulmates on his team, and once the guy learns to SHIFT he's a goddamn machine. seriously, he drives the narrative forwardmore than almost anyone else in the game, and half of these guys are time gods. if Crash Keys have this guy on their team, god help that extremist.

4. Junpei
3. Akane

yeah, I'll take these guys together. they were just lovely in this game. Junpei was a bit overtly edgy at the beginning, but his utter bemusement at everything around him made him a pretty great player proxy at times, and his arc over the course of the game, culminating in the proposal scene, was fantastic. Akane, meanwhile, was pretty much great the whole way through. she's still hard to completely relate to, considering she's essentially spacetime Jesus, but this is maybe my favourite version of her character - aware of and more than willing to use her messiah powers, but still uncertain and emotional at her core. Junpei and Akane are the best, and the game did a superb job of closing their relationship arc which has been so central to the series.

2. Phi
1. Diana

I'm gonna take these two together too. god, these two just murdered me. Phi was great in VLR, but the game focused so much on making her enigmatic and mysterious that it was unable to make her seem like an actual person. but her moments of weakness and her apparent embrace of human emotion here rounded off her character in a way that genuinely moved me. the incinerator scene, the family reunion, so many of the most emotionally crushing moments in this game revolved around Phi, which is something I never expected.

and Diana, fuck. her whole story was just utterly heart-shattering for me. I can't even explain why, maybe I'm drawn to slightly damaged people, but I just spent the entire game wanting to give her a big hug and tell her everything was going to be okay. she was the perfect mix of fragile and resilient - smart enough to figure out the secret of the wards entirely on her own, brave enough to survive an entire pregnancy in the facility, but her grip on composure and sanity in that nightmarish hellscape was brittle in all of the most believable and sympathetic ways. she was probably the most relatable character in a game full of lunatics and gods, and I don't think I cared more about the welfare of any other character in the whole series. I can't even really articulate it, but after I finished the game my only real wish was that she found contentment somewhere. video games shouldn't do that to me.
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so, where to begin?

I liked this game a lot! I feel like the returning characters gave it a sense of emotional stakes and genuine danger that VLR somewhat lacked, and I think the overall concept and scenario writing was very effective and at time powerful. the game clearly suffered in terms of animations, script and a lack of a nice concluding epilogue, but overall I found it hugely enjoyable. my sole real life friend who has played the series (initially at my recommendation, though he ironically finished ZTD before me) is of the school of thought that Delta's motives were unconvincing, and that the returning characters seemed off somehow, but even those common critiques don't really feel right to me. it's very very hard to separate the three games in the series for me, to the point that I feel it's a pointless endeavor. if Diana put a gun to my head, I might say 999 > ZTD > VLR, but they're all in the 8-9/10 range. taken as a series, I think the trilogy is super consistent and one of the best gaming experiences I've had in years.

character rankings and thoughts:

10. Eric

yeah I mean, no shit. Eric is frequently exceptionally annoying, and it's hard to put him anywhere but here, but he does become marginally more tolerable and sympathetic as the plot unfolds and his backstory is revealed. despite his horrific past, he's the closest thing to a "regular dude" in the game, and the way the plot treats that towards the end is quite amusing.

9. Mira

Mira is a lot of fun, and I'd definitely take her over Dio in the battle of the wildcard killers. the fact that she's so utterly emotionless makes it fairly hard to develop any kind of connection to her, though, and while she has a lot of memorable scenes early on, by the end of the game she's ultimately probably as irrelevant as Eric.

8. Delta

this is a weird one. the reveal of Delta - the game's major slam dunk moment - felt quite contrived to me even after I semi-guessed it with help from the Perceptive End (which I didn't mind, by the way - as soon as Delta's name came up I was sure he must be involved heavily somehow), and it's still the biggest issue I have with the game's plot. it feels like cheating to me somehow. Delta's actions post-reveal are pretty cool, and unlike my friend I enjoy his overall role in the game. but there are several issues here. his characterization and motivations are entirely inconsistent with the descriptions of Brother from VLR. he has almost no meaningful interactions with Diana or Sigma to humanize him so he comes across as ice queen Akane on steroids. and most importantly, his dialogue as Zero is so mind-numbingly boring and repetitive that I amazingly found myself tuning it out. he's Zero, this shouldn't happen! overall, Delta is fine as a character but he definitely could have been executed better.

7. Sean

Sean's cool. I can't imagine anyone would disagree with that. his design is great, and he's genuinely knowledgeable and skilled in the same way Phi is, which brings out a lot of good dialogue. Sean's "happy ending" was a low-key lovely moment in a very bleak game, and I definitely built up a connection with the guy. I hope Sigma builds him a real head or something.
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strange stuff.

sorry guys, today got away from me again. will try and post some wrap-up thoughts tomorrow!
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there's no Sigma/Phi/Diana epilogues, right? that's a curious omission
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Xiahou Shake posted...

Ah man, these topics have been so much fun.~

And now I can finally post this!

Looking forward to final thoughts.

hahaha wow, to think if I might have never witnessed such beauty and grace if I hadn't made this topic. one solitary snail...

thanks for following this guys! it's been a huge amount of fun, doing this whole trilogy over a very long two years or so, and it would have been a pale shadow of the experience without all of your contributions. it's late here, so I'm going to let my thoughts on everything stew overnight a little, and try to give some more thorough concluding thoughts tomorrow.

in the meantime, please continue to bombard me with ridiculous memes / easily missed Q hints / general ZTD ephemera that I might enjoy! I already made a point to read the post-payoff epilogue notes, and I'll go back to read the spoilery discussion from earlier in the topic too, but anything else is welcome. this has been loads of fun and I want to take everything in while I'm still as hyped on this.
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FFnut posted...

Sigma is a jackass in this segment, by the way (and Akane might be too, I don't remember which decision she supported). They're both former Zeroes. They both abandoned who knows how many alternate versions of themselves in other histories, some if which had no reason to even be in that situation.

Where the hell does Sigma get off on campaigning for alternate history self rights? Did he try to save the Sigma who ended up sealed in Rhizome 9 with a dead robot Luna while "our" Sigma jumped to the bomb timeline with the knowledge of where Dio hides stuff? Did he give a shit about the Sigmas that got shoved into his Radical-6 infested body moments before he committed suicide?

Sigma is probably the last person who should be complaining how unfair it is to swap with the "selves" who didn't do anything wrong.

Akane seemed fairly happy with either option, but yeah, Sigma and Carlos both being anti-SHIFTing after the events of the last two games was mildly baffling.
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Payoff 2

the team decide to shift. why not? it's not like the moral ambiguities have stopped us before! and we have a world to save!

the team crashland in their bodies in the desert, outside the facility. they begin to hesitantly congratulate themselves on a job well done, when they turn around and come face to face with Delta, who naturally did not die in this history either.

the team threatens to call the police, but Delta points out that he has killed no one in this world. as a matter of fact, he's a different person than the one they were mercilessly toyed with and murdered by in all those other histories. and he's brought about a history where Phi and he were born, no one died, and Radical-6 will never spread. is that not, indeed, a happy ending?

the team bring up Delta's prophecies of doom - that mankind will cease to exist without Radical-6 to bring down the religious fanatic who brings about the apocalypse - but quickly resolve to work together to devote their lives to opposing him. in this way, Delta claims, his aims are fully realized - who could stop a team like this from achieving their goals?

Delta throws a gun to Carlos, and tells him that he can do as he will with it. he can shoot Delta dead for his machinations, or he can allow him to live. Carlos stares at the weapon, and raises it with purpose in his eyes as the credits roll.

CQD-END 2
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Final Decision (Part II)

Delta informs them that, after all their hard work, they have activated the facility's self-destruct mechanism, and it will blow to smithereens in just ten minutes. in a moment of fairly absurd villainy, he then tells them that he killed Gab with the shotgun (the true ending is the only one where Gab dies? fuck this shit), and then smarmily tells them of his ability to briefly control people's bodies with his mind hacking ability, which he promptly shows off by forcing Eric to shoot him.

in his dying breaths, he announces the final Decision Game. either we can stay here and die, or... or...

Delta dies without finishing his sentence. Akane, however, quickly realizes what he meant. the teams can survive by shifting to a history in which they all survive - the one in which they won the coin toss. this, however, means dooming their alternate universe selves to a chaotic, unexplained and violent end. the team argue over the morals of this, but it's ultimately equal. one will live and one will die. but can they kill themselves to live?

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the team decide not to shift. they can't do that to themselves. Mira stands impassively. Eric looks petrified. Sigma, Akane, Junpei and Carlos nod at each other in silent approval. by destroying Radical-6, they will accomplish their goal. the team silently gather hand in hand and close their eyes as the fire rises all around them. rest in peace, brave souls.

GAME OVER
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Final Decision

thanks to Sean's hacking and Carlos' ruse, our nine heroes finally find themselves in the same space and time. after some pleasantries and mild exposition, we are joined by our tenth companion, Delta, brandishing a shotgun and an infodump.

Delta is not a SHIFTer, but his ability to read minds allowed him to learn of multiple histories, and he became fascinated with the human power of decision making and its ability to fashion different universes. he brought about this decision game not only to ensure the occurence of Phi's and his birth, but the circumstances of it as well - without the crisis element, his mind-reading ability would fail to materialize.

at this point, Carlos interjects, asking why Delta involved those outside his immediate family in the game. Delta extols the deep and impressive complexity of his motives, but before he can elaborate Phi's rage boils over and she smashes him into a wall with one of her trademark flying kicks. Eric, unsurprisingly, is first to the shotgun, and holds Delta at gunpoint while Diana finally places the brooch and the music box into the Force Quit box.

it is only then that the alarms start ringing.
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Force Quit: D

D team awaken and find the partially opened Force Quit box and its new message. Sigma asks Diana if this means anything to her, triggering a breakdown as her memories, so much more complex than even Carlos and Q's, flood into her head. she rushes up and hugs Phi tight, and after a moment of confusion, Sigma and Phi's memories return too, and the team - no, family - join in a silent, tearful embrace.
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Force Quit: Q

Q team awaken and find the partially opened Force Quit box bearing the note about the central computer. Sean regains all his memories and takes over, unlocking the panel and his helmet, causing Eric to collapse and break down like a sissy. Sean explains everything to his half hysterical, half disinterested audience, and starts up the computer.

The Force Quit box shifts to a request for two "mother's mementos", and the televised Zero appears and informs them their time is up. two down, one to go.
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aaaaaaaaaaand go!

Force Quit: C

I awaken with team C and enter the Force Quit password, and Akane and Junpei query Carlos as to how he could possibly have known. at first, he isn't sure, but a mention of SHIFTing seems to bring all his alternate history memories back and trigger a profound transformation.

after thinking silently for upwards of an hour, Carlos breaks his silence to... begin acting like a total asshole? out of nowhere, he starts sexually harassing Akane, inciting Junpei's rage, and then allows Junpei to beat the cra out of him. he then offers to make peace by pouring them all a drink, but drops the glass on the floor and asks the others to help him clean it up. if this is a masterplan, it's all a very odd one.

the televised Zero appears and informs them their conscious time is over. one down, two to go.
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let's open some boxes tomorrow, gentlemen
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Xiahou Shake posted...

hahahaha

delta being old as fuck might actually make his cringy edge-dripping teenage nihilistic cynicism even worse

by the way, how much time (loops and paradoxes aside) should the remainder of the game take me? would be good to know if it's worth trying to fit into one session or split in two.
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yeah, Carlos seems like one of the few vaguely "regular dude" type guys in the series with the willpower and skill to be genuinely capable of helping out the series' superheroes like Akane, Junpei and the Klim clan. maybe only Snake and Seven compete in that regard.

I hope the game gives him a nice sendoff, the guy deserves some happiness!

(lol this game and happiness, who am i kidding)
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FFnut posted...

Here's my absolute favorite one. Remember that status screen that tells you who is alive and who is dead? You probably haven't looked at it for a while because it isn't very useful. Well, on the D-END 2 path, it shows only Sigma, Diana, and Akane alive - Akane escaped the facility, and Sigma and Diana are still in there. Everyone else is marked as dead. But after the twins are born, Phi and Q are both updated back to "Alive" status, since both Phi and Delta are now alive at that moment in that history.

haha, this is fantastic. I'm sure it's like the Old Sigma thing in VLR - they can't make it too obvious for first-time players or else it would kind of ruin the whole game, but on a replay you kick yourself for not noticing the clues. I still think keeping him off-screen all game is contrived to the point of being mildly ridiculous, since there's been no unreliable narration in this series at all so far, but at least it's been entertaining.

I had forgotten that Carlos said he knew who Zero was in the coin flip win ending too, that's a fun easter egg.
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Apocalypse

for our penultimate adventure, we join Junpei and Akane, the C team's transporters, in the universe that connects to the timeline of Virtue's Last Reward. they quickly discover the rubble left from the explosion that allowed Sigma and Diana to escape. just as they figure out approximately what has transpired in this strange history, Zero appears onscreen and congratulates them on finding the history where he can tell them the truth. cue the infodump.

we learn that Delta is Brother, leader of Free the Soul. we learn that, through his psychic powers, he learned of an upcoming apocalyptic war started by the actions of one rogue individual, and decided to play the odds and kill off three quarters of humanity for the chance to save the remaining 25 %. we learn that he was sent back to 1904 along with his sister Phi. we learn the passcode for the "Pandora's Boxes" labelled with Force Quit, the direction of our final assault on time and fate.

Zero bids us farewell, and just as Junpei and Akane are resigning themselves to a life alone in the facility, Gab appears with a note of mysterious origin, which Akane uses to decode the anagram on the wall. just as Junpei begins to figure out the mystery of Q and Delta, an explosion rocks the facility, and Carlos appears in a jumpsuit to save them all. this may be a dark timeline, but maybe there are happy endings within it after all.

the credits roll, and we cut to Team C at the exit of the facility. Carlos explains that he shifted to the First Come First Saved timeline, transported back ten months, and waited in the facility. he didn't stop Zero's plan because he genuinely valued the experiences it gave him, or some fantastical nonsense like that, but he did manage to save Akane and Junpei and give the universe another chance. Akane, in brutal time queen mode, states her plan and, ignoring Junpei's pleas to join the project, stabs him with the amnesia bracelet to give him a chance of living a somewhat normal life. the fact that he doesn't take it just makes this scene even more heartbreaking. maybe there are no happy endings in this timeline after all.

Carlos stares at Akane as she walks away, wondering how the hell a nice guy like him got caught up in this psychic warfare insanity.

C-END: 1
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Q

we return to the transporter room, where Eric has just shot dead Carlos. blind to everyone else's horror, our murderous friend turns next on Sean, who proposes that perhaps removing his helmet might prove his innocence.

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he can't remember. how could he know? Eric shoots him in the chest, and Sigma and Diana break down, failing once again to notice the conspicuous lack of blood flowing from the child's corpse.

GAME OVER

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somehow, Sean remembers the code, and to the astonishment of everyone watching, his helmet falls off and rolls across the floor. avoiding other explanations for now (I guess there is a gun at his head), he points out that his mechanical nature and white blood means he couldn't be Mira's killer. Eric can't deny the logic, but somewhat reasonably points out that Q's presence in general is suddenly exceptionally suspicious. Q finally admits his role in the game and his knowledge of who the real Zero is.

Zero, he says hesitantly, is...

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"Eric." at this final taunt from the universe, Eric decides to cut his losses and murder-suicide everyone. oh well, at least Gab didn't die.

GAME OVER

(answering Sigma, Mira and Gab provided similar scenes. any other good ones to try?)

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it's come to this, has it?

The real Zero is...you, Delta!

the camera pans to a monitor-like view. Eric reacts with shock. Diana and Sigma look troubled. the screen swivels around. and old man Q stands up from his wheelchair.

where to start with what comes next? we receive explicit confirmation that Delta, our invisible, wheelchair-bound, presumed deafblind companion, is Zero, and the implicit suggestion that we've actually been watching the whole game through his eyes, thanks to his special security feed lenses. we also learn that Mira's been off the leash with regard to drug injections for the whole game just to fuck with people, which explains the random killings as well as her ability to transcend wards / chronology.

Sean reveals that the locked X Door can be reopened from the central control room, and Eric forces Delta there. we begin the process of unlocking the system, when two shotgun blasts rings out. Eric looks down in bewilderment, and finds himself thrown to the floor, with the gun pointed to his neck against his will. a third shot rings out.

Delta relinquishes his psychic grip on the dying Eric, announces he has "no more use for this history", and turns to a petrified Diana, the last woman standing.

"Mom", he says quietly, and the screen goes black.

Q-END: 2
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shifting this topic to a universe where it won't purge soon
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haha hello guys

i will go back and read this all soon, but before i begin the process of really blowing the doors off this shit, here's some assorted thoughts that have been rattling around my head:

- so we appear to know that Delta is Zero, and that he's part of Q team somehow. what does this actually mean?

- have we been seeing the Q team segments through the eyes of an unseen fourth character who literally never speaks? if so, that's a contrivance even beyond Sigma never looking at a single reflective surface, but it's so absurd I actually kind of like it. if that's true though, what's he actually doing? is there a reason that he can't speak or act in any real way beyond player deception? and where was he at the beginning? Eric and Mira must know Delta since they never question his presence, but they also never question the fact that he apparently showed up at the start of the game despite not being present in the coin flip scene. at least, I think he wasn't present then? if this is true then, like with old Sigma, there's probably been loads of little clues so far. but as with that, I've missed them all.

- more than this, the Triangle name entry decision game seems to imply that Delta is Q - if you type Q, it says that you should enter his "real name," and nothing worked until I tried Delta. one could therefore postulate that Sean was never called Q in the first place. based on this, I tried to think back to whether people have been referring to Sean as Q, and I don't think they have been - but I'm sure that the Zero voiceover told Q he was the team captain, and Sean has been the one pressing the buttons and such. maybe I'm forgetting something, but it seems like there's a hole here.

- it also doesn't entirely add up for Delta to be Zero considering he'd be a young man, and he claimed to inherit the transporter twenty years prior (not to mention implying that he was an old man in Sean's ending). maybe he's skipping around history like we are though, and his consciousness is older. who knows.

- even if all of this is true, it's still not at all clear what Delta wants. transporting is encouraged, but SHIFTing is prohibited. he's happy to brutally murder his parents and even himself based on pure chance, yet when spoken to personally he seems forthcoming and honest. and what the shit was that coin flip at the beginning about? no matter how you look at it, this game is absurd. are his intentions evil, in a Free the Soul / Radical-6 affiliated way, as I long assumed? is he trying to alter or cancel the circumstances of his birth somehow? is he, in his own bizarre way, actually trying to save the world as we are? I don't think I can answer that yet.
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hahaha

so, uh, guys, I just returned to the Triangle Q-team standoff and entered "Delta" on a whim.

i have no idea what I just watched, but I can't help but think that I might be on to something.

"Perceptive End"

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...alright then!

(I hope that wasn't what you were chatting about in your spoiler tags, I honestly haven't read them)
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tell me about it! i'm enjoying the nonsense though.

I was actually quite turned off by the more outlandish plot twists in VLR when I first encountered them, in part because the tone of the game was so grave and it forced me to take them entirely seriously. in this one, even the characters within the game seems to realize that this shit is totally absurd, so I can actually get on board with the silliness this time.
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that's enough for tonight, I think! a few big revelations tonight, but I don't think I fully understand them yet. might be a couple of days until I can continue too, so I hope this is a vaguely reasonable place to pause.

any thoughts or questions outside of spoiler tags for the time being?
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Anthropic Principle (Part III)

HAHAHAHA.

what a bold and clever plan, Carlos. just as Evil-Q is about to land its supercharged deathblow on him, Carlos' consciousness lands back in his body, causing him to collapse to the ground. Evil-Q slams into the wall behind him, not only destroying himself but also ruining the mirage wall projections.

"You're fucking kidding me", responds Junpei. I like jaded Jumpy as a sort of player proxy, it works well. Carlos and the team run for it to the transporter room to make their escape (I'm not sure how Carlos calculated this, but we're earlier in the overall timeline than when team D did it, so the machine is still active), where they are greeted by hologram Zero. he informs us that he is no longer alive, because Carlos has already killed him in this timeline (?!), but if we go find him he'll tell us lots of exciting information.

this suggests that Zero must be in team Q, since the execution vote is the only "killing" Carlos was involved in this timeline. could Zero really be Mira or Eric? despite what I posited earlier, the thought seems so ridiculous.

Evil-Q shows up again, and Carlos urges Akane and Junpei to transport to the history in which they were executed while he holds him off. Carlos seems to know well that he can't get to that history by any established means, but he promises that he will meet them there anyway. after the two successfully transport, Carlos has a moment of inhuman willpower to overpower the doll, and damages the transporter in the process. as everything around him begins to rupture, Carlos spots an opportunity.

Light floods around him, and the machine explodes as he makes his uncertain escape.

To be continued
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Get Back

Eric fairly reasonably asserts that for all Diana's excellent deductions, all she's done is blown everyone's geographical alibis away. Carlos, Sigma and Diana assert their innocence in the most ridiculously sci-fi way possible, and Eric's anger only grows. he threatens to shoot Carlos, and Carlos tells him he should so that he can SHIFT back to save Akane and Junpei. I have no idea what he's learned from this history that can help him, but I hope he got something, because Eric shoots him in the chest anyway. what a psychopath.
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Door of Truth (Part II)

armed with the Twins' birthday (even if Sigma shouldn't have any idea about that clue), I return to the timeline where Diana and Sigma transported away from their fates, and open the Door of Truth. I find myself, unsurprisingly, in the ward Q pod room, and more surprisingly, find the three members of Team Q trapped in the titular pods. nice to see some face-to-face interaction!

amnesiac Eric understandably freaks out once again upon the rediscovery of Mira's strangled corpse, but it gets worse. Akane's bloody body and the dismembered remains of Junpei are also in the later pods, as are the cadavers of this timeline's Diana, Sigma and Phi, executed due to the 13:30 vote.

just as Diana and Sigma despair at all of their attempts at finding a timeline with Phi being for naught, Zero helpfully beams in a video of Carlos killing Akane, and reveals six X-Passes! apparently transportation is allowed, even if SHIFTing isn't. the team runs for the X-Door, where they meet Carlos (how the hell did he get there?), and after a brief confrontation, they discover the passcode entering device is blown to pieces.

psychotic Eric shows up brandishing his shotgun, and demands to know who killed Mira. after the standoff devolves into Sigma and Carlos nerding out over SHIFTing and Eric gets understandably irritated, Diana has a brainwave about the ward setup and asks him to shoot the wall.

the colour from the walls immediately fades, the projection broken. Diana then goes on to prove the secret of the warehouse - the three teams have been sharing a common space, and they have been waking up sequentially, not simultaneously. this feels like a huge revelation, but I'm not actually sure what the significance of that is yet. so people can in principle move between rooms easily? Zero can set up each segment in turn? none of those feel too shocking to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

Sigma and Diana then avoid their scheduled sleep by tampering with their bracelets (Akane's Zero would never have allowed for that), and the story goes on...

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side note: whoa, my flowchart got all chronological! that's a nice touch.
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ha, that is pretty amusing. I wonder how much of the ZTD plot was planned out pre-VLR?

I'm actually enjoying the mad plot twists here a lot (maybe even more so than VLR) but a lot of it doesn't strike me as being perfectly thought out.
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yay, progress.

side note: the origin of Phi's locket is a total time loop paradox, right? Phi gives it to Diana, who gives it to Phi.
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so where does that leave us? this felt like the first ending of real significance, but it's really hard to say what it actually means at this point. this will be a thinking out loud post.

1) the obvious suggestion is that baby Phi, sent back in time, turns out to be actual Phi. the ages, personalities and stories line up perfectly. it's actually kind of beautiful. on the other hand, this is not the historical timeline that led to the events of Virtue's Last Reward, and Phi still ended up there. I guess we've already had evidence that histories that "don't happen" can still impact those that do, though, so maybe that's not a contradiction.

2) if Phi is indeed Phi, so to speak, then Delta immediately becomes of vital importance. who is he, and why have we not heard his name so far (to my recollection)? there are two characters of incredible significance in this universe who go by aliases: Zero and Brother. unless we're being misled, Delta can't be Zero, because Zero has indirectly suggested he's an older person, and directly said that he came into possession of the transporter in 2009, when Delta would only be a child. but could Delta be Brother? it seems distinctly possible.

3) it would be a very Zero Escape-style plot for Delta to somehow mastermind the Nonary Game in order to try and stop himself being born - either out of sheer misanthropy if he's Brother, or if he felt like his birth indirectly led to the release of Radical-6 if he's not. but the VLR timeline implies that Phi and Delta are born regardless of which history transpires, and in any case Zero specifically instructed Sigma and Diana to use the transporter and start this sequence, so maybe that's illogical. this sequence would really seem to raise more questions than it did answers, which I guess shouldn't be surprising.

4) Phi's life is so wild. she's born, sent back in time, lives for twenty years, gets sent to the future to save the world, gets sent back to her own time to finish saving the world, dies, and nine months later is reborn and sent back in time to repeat the loop. it's too late for me to work out if any of this makes any sense whatsoever.

5) the last few scenes of that segment felt very biblical. if Sigma and Diana are Adam and Eve, does that make Phi and Delta Cain and Abel? it's bizarre how many messianic figures this series manages to maintain simultaneously.
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Transporter (Part II)

uh, wow. where to begin?

we return to Sigma and Diana, who started all this mess at Zero's instruction by activating the transporter device. over the course of a harrowingly slow cinematic sequence, the Sigma and Diana left behind in this cruel history slowly adapt to life in the permanently locked D-COM warehouse. over time, the two fall into despair and near madness, but from that precipice love and hope blooms. nine months later, just as the food supply is fading, Diana gives birth to twins, and the stranded pair choose to transport the twins, Delta and Phi, more than 20 years back in time to give them a chance of survival.

D END: 2

christ. big long thought post coming up.
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Anthropic Principle (Part II)

C team jumps back into their bodies in the 99.54% reality, and the gatling guns patiently wait for Junpei to unveil his plan before gunning them down. against Akane's wishes, Junpei and Carlos shield her from the bullets, while she survives and learns the X-Passes. all three then shift to the 0.46% timeline, new knowledge in hand. cheaters never prosper, guys!

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X-Passes from alternate timelines... are not applicable

in the 0.46% timeline, Akane breaks down and castigates Junpei for putting her through such trauma, and it slowly turns into a touching scene where Junpei essentially... proposes to her? d'awww. seeing Carlos with a quiet smile on his face on the other side of the room was a nice touch too.

the team approaches the X-Door with their newly acquired passcodes, and speculate that their presence together in the game is highly suspicious - maybe Zero had wanted them to do this, somehow? the team mutually agree that they don't care what Zero wants so long as they can escape - a sure sign of an uninsightful ending to come - but things don't get that far. Carlos enters Akane's X-Passes, and the door refuses to budge.

the voiceover kindly tells us that passcodes from alternate histories won't work, and Junpei hits a wall. he runs off in search of a method to kill himself so that Akane and Carlos can still escape, but his path is blocked by a demented Q clone. we have invoked a rule violation, we are informed, and we must be punished. with freakish strength, the clone takes down the whole team. just as Carlos is about to meet his end, however, he gets a vision of Q team, and frantically SHIFTs wherever he can, determined to return with a plan to save his team.

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Suspicion (Part II)

Carlos crashlands in a history where he has just killed Akane, driven mad by the loss of Junpei. putting his grief and guilt to one side, he bandages up his severed wrist, driven by willpower alone, and sets about warning Q team and trying to discover who the Q clones are.

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Pop Off (Part II)

just as Eric has narrowly decided against shooting a child in the face, Gab arrives, bearing Carlos' note. the two remaining Q team members run off to inspect the family portrait as Carlos instructed. they find a hidden golden door (of truth?!), inscribed only with the words "Twins' birthday", and upon inspection of Mira's body, find clues that she was killed not while asleep, but while able to put up a resistance - two clues which don't mean much to me now, but will undoubtedly fold into something larger very soon.

To be continued
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keeping this alive
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Team Rocket Elite posted...

Giggsalot posted...

I return to this impossibly fair setup, roll the dice, and... get three ones on my first try. Funny that!

You mean in total you only failed that once? You got that on your second roll ever?

I think I tried it twice back when I first played the segment, but... yeah, first time tonight. you're not seriously telling me this was a legit 1/216 chance, are you?
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Ambidex

this intriguingly titled segment dumps us straight into the middle of a conversation, with team C locked in the nuclear reactor (?!) as the new year hits. after a nice awkward Akane/Junpei moment (it's been a while!), we solve the puzzle, which reveals that Zero is quite comfortable modifying a fucking nuclear reactor core mainframe with sliding block puzzles.

the decision game this time comes in throwback (or throwforward?) form, with the AB game making a reappearance! this time, it's a straight shootout between Carlos and Junpei, with Diana and Sigma's fate tied to Carlos and Akane and Phi's to Junpei. after another tender moment between Junpei and an unconscious Akane and a pep talk from Carlos, we enter the ambidex room and cast our votes.

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Assume everyone you meet is a thief

Carlos picks ALLY, of course. and he is betrayed. Junpei explains himself, as the betrayers always do, but it matters not for Carlos, as he falls to his lovely, peaceful end.

GAME OVER

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You're the one who killed me first!

Carlos picks BETRAY. he has to, right? Junpei's about to betray him! of course, in true Zero Escape style, he doesn't this time, and Carlos' appeal to morphogenetics doesn't make Junpei feel all that much better in his final moments (especially considering Junpei's fairly inexplicable apparent ignorance about all that stuff, despite 999). Carlos then stops in this fine moment to consider all that he's going through, just in time for Akane to sneak up behind him and bludgeon him to death with a fire extinguisher in a scene which is uncomfortably long to say the least. she then manages to make her way to Junpei before her own poison kicks in, leaving team D as a very shakespearean pile of corpses. hurray!

GAME OVER

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Junpei, if we die, I'm gonna kill you!

Carlos, quite hilariously, jumps back in time right in time to interrupt Junpei's emotional monologue. he then creeps him the fuck out by quoting Junpei's own story back to him. Akane wakes up, and decides to get weirdly meta and talk about her love of Back to the Future to explain the concept of SHIFTing and multiple universes.

after a long expository chat, Akane reaches her conclusion: team C, as a bunch of shifty individuals, should completely skip the issue of the AB game, and jump to another history that's much nicer. that's surely kind of cheating, but this game is fairly nuts, so I'll allow it. hopefully for these guys they end up in the nice universe where we won the coin flip at the beginning, but I doubt that somehow.

Akane basically decides to blow up the reactor to help them feel in danger, a chess move that is rendered entirely sensible in comparison to Junpei's next gambit, choosing to switch to the history where they all get gunned down in the games room. as total maniacs, the team go along with this, and the temporal disruption of this nonary game reaches a whole new level.

To be continued
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Anthropic Principle

We might be in the history God abandoned...

I return to this impossibly fair setup, roll the dice, and... get three ones on my first try. Funny that! Carlos and Akane stand in silent astonishment, but Jumpei is absolutely thrilled, leaping around with a joie de vivre unseen by Akane since their grade school days. he decides to celebrate with a beer or six, but his revelry is cruelly ruined by Akane getting all philosophical about everything. of course they survived, because they had to in some universe, and Giggs wouldn't be able to complete the game if they weren't. anthropic principle, bitches!

the team learns of team Q's execution and team D's accidental murder suicide horror in the incinerator room. Junpei returns to his cynical self, and gets really excited about his team's relative good luck, but this time Akane straight up slaps him. that's more succinct than her soliloquy earlier, to be fair.
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busy couple of days, apologies! will resume dice rolling tomorrow hopefully.
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you people better be fucking with me, I swear
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And if you don't know, now you know.

Other than seemingly confirming that Zero is a tenth person, that segment seemed more interesting than actually revealing. Zero is a "senior citizen" apparently? That doesn't seem to leave too many known character possibilities. I guess it could still be Ace, but his aesthetic and personality seem very different. More importantly, his motives are still super unclear. Is he Free the Soul, trying to unleash Radical-6? Is this some kind of test for humanity, and Radical-6 gets out if we fail? Is this somehow completely unrelated to Radical-6? If Zero is a clairvoyant, does he know that half of the people in this game are here to fuck his shit up? It's anyone's guess at the moment really.

Anyway, my next move seems to be the force quit box path, even though I suspect I won't get far. I don't think I have the code yet (it was letters, not numbers, right?), but nothing else seems open at the moment. There are a few things I haven't yet done - the mysterious fourth answer in the Triangle mexican standoff, somehow rolling three 1s in Anthropic Principle - but I'm kind of at a loss as to where to go next. If anyone has any hints, I'd listen!

Current flowchart status: https://imgur.com/gallery/IP9kHi0
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Reality

Q awakens alone and frightened in the Q ward lounge, and a voiceover reveals that Mira has already escaped and every other game participant is dead. he falls to the floor in disarray, and flashbacks flood his brain of the deaths of the C and D teams, and Mira's subsequent rampage. he wonders aloud how he possibly survived, and Zero, listening as ever, appears on screen and suggests he visit the Quantum Computer Dome...

...where he comes face to face with Zero. this is a real "intake of breath" moment, which is good, because what Zero starts to say is less shocking - Q is essentially a computational human clone lacking consciousness, designed by Zero to help in his plan. Zero then lures him into one last seemingly obtuse decision game - will he choose to duplicate his data and send a copy of himself to a virtual world, or have his existence erased entirely?

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what kind of life is this? Q decides not to press the button and opts for non-existence. Zero politely obliges, and stands over the shell of Q's body as his consciousness evaporates away into the ether forever.

GAME OVER

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life or death? this isn't difficult. Sean presses the button, and his consciousness is preserved. he awakens as a human child in a hospital, his surgery a success. Sean has a happy childhood and a rich, rewarding life in his hard-boiled wonderland, and not a single thought of a strange man in an overgrown bird mask ever crosses his mind. d'awwwwww.

HAPPY END

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life or death? this isn't difficult. Q presses the button, and his consciousness is preserved. but while his identical self is living his dreams in an unseen wonderland, Q remains here. he asks Zero how this can be, and Zero tells him a tale of his human counterpart, who was the ill child caught up in one of Zero's "unfair" stories. he implies that he, a senior citizen, met Sean there, and grew attached to the boy's learnedness and stoic nature. before he walks away, he gives Q an eight digit number.

Q quickly tries it on his helmet input pad, and his helmet falls off to reveal... nothing underneath. life is unfair.

GAME OVER
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And if you don't know, now you know.

Will double check that later, thanks!
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And if you don't know, now you know.

caught the other executions earlier, not much to report there. back tomorrow for force quit boxes and a highly intriguing segment involving Q and Zero himself (?!)
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FFnut posted...

All right, since you're starting to run into dead ends, let me help you with a common, not-very-obvious stumbling block:

You need to SEE all of the execution scenes.

You voted with the note, so now you have to go back and change votes to see each team get executed.

oh, thanks for the heads up! would never have considered that. that's my first port of call tomorrow then.
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And if you don't know, now you know.