Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma

I heard the third Zero Escape game is the worst out of all three, but I don’t think I was prepared for just HOW BAD it was going to be. For starters, the developers decided the usual visual novel format with the dialogue box is beneath them, so now everything is a cutscene. That is right, you are expected to sit and watch at least 10 hours of cutscenes with occasional puzzle time. This format is REALLY not for me. At this point, I am really trying here, I am invested in the series and I really want to finish this, but this is the seventh time I caught myself grabbing my phone. And then on top of everything the story is not told in separate timelines, it is presented in fragments, meaning I have no idea what decisions were made up to that point and I am so unbelievably lost it frustrates me. So I’m calling it less than 3 hours in. I am not even going to talk about the quality of the animation - which would not be a problem had they not decided to permanently plaster it in my fac...

Truly was not my vibe. I understand that the game was made under less than favorable conditions. But it was simply unsatisfying. The escape rooms are incredibly short, have very little to them, and rarely took more than 10-15 minutes to solve. There aren't very many of them, either, and they're sandwiched between long, long cutscenes that take forever to get through. The new format of cutscene over textboxes was simply a slog. Very few of the characters are likable, even the legacy characters. While some of their characterizations made sense, it just wasn't fun or nice to see them again in this context where most of them were acting like total douchebags. All over, the game just feels incredibly meanspirited in comparison to the last two games' mood. There are a lot of really brutal death scenes that simply weren't as prominent in previous games, and a bunch of scenes where I felt like the shock value was the point, which felt really out of line with the last two games. I just felt ...

Please read the entire comment Zero Time Dilemma is the third game in the Zero Escape series. If you're new to the franchise, I highly recommend starting with The Nonary Games, which includes the first two titles. If you’ve already played them, then yes — you should play this one too, since it wraps up a lot of the mysteries that were left open in the previous game. BUT... and it’s a big but — you’re going to need a lot of patience. The 3D character animations are rough. Like, really rough. And that’s where most of the negative reviews come from — and honestly, I get it. In Virtue’s Last Reward (the second game), they started using 3D models, but still kept the visual novel format: a short character animation, then dialogue in a text box. It worked fine because you stayed engaged with the story and could mostly ignore the janky animations. Here in Zero Time Dilemma, they ditched that format and went full-on with fully animated cutscenes... with very low-b...

This is the third game in the Zero Escape Arc. I would very highly suggest you play through both 999 and Virtues Last Reward first before you play this. This game can technically be played without any prior knowledge of the series, but a lot of the Time jumping concepts will be way out of left field if you haven't already been exposed to the science they are using here. In addition, you will miss out on half of the story context by not knowing what happened in the two previous games. Just like the previous two titles this game has a completely different graphical style and engine. 999 was all static backgrounds and hand drawn characters. VLR was cheesy early 3D graphics designed for the Nintendo 3DS. This game feels like it was made in a Telltale game as it has the same design and art style. Overall I enjoyed it the most out of the 3 games and thought the puzzles were a bit easier to interact with as well. The game itself follows in the tradition of an Escape Room puzzle ga...

While this being the weakest of the franchise, I still recommend playing this to at least finish the series and to understand some loose ends from VLR. While it was nice to see the past characters in this game, some of the other new ones felt flat. The puzzles were noticeably easier than VLR and quite creative for some rooms. Some reviewers disliked immensely the 3d animation but to me I didn't really care and it didn't change the story impact. Now, this game has this strange fragment selection because of the way that this zero game works. I understand it but I disliked it because some ended up spoiling or straight up confusing you (which I get is the point but to me, it took away from the story and made it harder to remember things). I highly recommend looking up a spoiler free guide because it helped a lot to not make me lose focus. In fact, I think some people that disliked the game probably would have enjoyed it if they had used a guide because they simply lost interest in try...

Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma is the third entry in the cult-classic Zero Escape series, developed by Spike Chunsoft and directed by Kotaro Uchikoshi. It continues the franchise’s signature blend of high-stakes narrative, philosophical undertones, and brutally challenging puzzle-solving. Set within a grim, locked-down facility where nine characters must participate in a deadly game to escape, Zero Time Dilemma builds on the foundations of its predecessors, 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward, while introducing new narrative structures and visual presentation. The result is an ambitious but uneven experience that both deepens the lore of the series and risks alienating some fans with its bold stylistic shifts. The game opens with three teams—C-Team, D-Team, and Q-Team—trapped inside an underground compound, forced to play the “Decision Game” under the watch of a masked figure named Zero. The characters are a mix of returning protagonists and new faces, each with their own motivat...

not really good specially when comparing to 999/vlr but its better than zero escape not having an ending at all i guess

My motivates are...complex....

I tried. I really did try to play through this but I can't. The gameplay is just you watching cutscenes rather than the first two's visual novel style which is fine but your pacing is controlled by the cutscenes. I read fast so unfortunately, the gameplay killed whatever intention I have wanting to finish the series. You cannot even quickread the dialogue and skip each line without inevitably skipping a few more lines in this game which just irritates me. If there's some sort of method to go through each cutscene VN-style, I'd be happy to recommend this even if the animation was questionable. Otherwise, I think this goes in my DNF.

"My motives are... complex."