We have seen in the last 10-15 years games that are trying to hold the middle ground with some other entertainment industries like the Uncharted series, which is a convergence point with movies and Quantum break with TV series. But what we will get if we mixed video games with a well-written anime? The answer will be Zero Escape series with its last member in the franchise Zero Time Dilemma.

Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma is a puzzle solving/ psychological horror/escape visual novel game that was developed by Spike Chunsoft and published by Aksys Games. It is considered as a sequel to 999 and a prequel to VLR but you won’t understand the story of the game perfectly unless you play the first two. The game is available on PC, Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita for around $40.

The Story

I really don’t want to spoil the story for you so I am going to state the headlines of the story and you should decide if the game is intriguing enough for you. I also strongly advise you to play the first two parts first as this game is considered to be the conclusion to the story of the previous two games – 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward.

“Fate and the dooming gods are deaf to tears.”

The year is 2028, Dwelling for the Cohabitation of Mars or Dcom is a non-government facility located in Nevada Desert where a group of 8 people are held in the facility to perform an experiment in it.

Of course, the experiment went to hell with the group being captured by the main villain Second Zero who just wants to play a game. With a coin flip you determine the fate of 9 persons – 8 from Dcom plus a weird kid wearing some kind of doom above his head- if you choose correctly Zero will inject you with an amnesia drug and set you free, if not you will be hostages

and forced to play his game until at least 6 of you die. The events of this game will not only determine the lives of these nine but also the lives of 6 billion people on Earth and reshape the entire future of the human race.

Very neat setup if you ask me but this is only the beginning and I can’t spoil any more for you. Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma is best experienced with very little information, also the story may start a little slow but the last hours of the game will melt your brain and you should consider that your actions will have consequences that may change the flow of history.

The Performance and Gameplay

The game has some technical issues1 but nothing too serious – most of them are solvable by going to the menu and coming back, and it has a steady frame rate. Now to the important part the gameplay, the game has three phases: cut-scenes, escape rooms and decision games.

First the cut-scenes, they are the method the game chooses to deliver its story with, I guess there is no real gameplay here but they are an important part of the game and without them, the game is random meaningless puzzles. You should expect to spend a few hours watching them.

The escape part is what to be considered as the main gameplay here. If you never played an escape game before it goes like this: consider yourself to be standing on a point or a vertex with the ability to rotate 360 degrees, then you will start to collect items and use them solving puzzles in order to escape from this particular room or situation. There is a wide range of rooms with unique and varied puzzles to solve.

Finally, my favorite by far, the decision games, these are simply what would you do in a situation like this: How would the character you are controlling react? Would you push the button or not? Would you pull the trigger or not? These games refresh the game and open multiples paths with your choices in a different time flow and there is no real risk as you can jump to any event to change your decision and see another timeline.

The Music and Voice acting

The music came suitable for the situation. It’s not great but not bad either. It gives you the sense of tension and the need to hurry but it gets repetitive after a while and becomes frustrating, especially if you are stuck in a level. The voice acting is good and I got the feeling that the Japanese version was better than the English but that might be because I don’t understand Japanese.

The Flaws

The game has a handful of problems, luckily most of them can be solved easily. The biggest problem for me was the 1D emotionless characters and while some of them have a good reason to act like this, most of them don’t. the character animations are terrible and ugly as if some ghouls are brought to act. Actually in terms of animation, I think 99% of the animations go directly to Mira’s boobies so I can’t really complain about that. Some of the cut-scenes are very long, with repeated information. Luckily there is a skip button and if there is a complex scene the camera will shoot the roof while you hear only the voices. This isn’t a bug; this is the game handling situations that require the animator to make an effort. Also, like any escape game, you need to act and solve the puzzles in a very specific way so if you missed a small item you will be stuck in the room until you find it, which seems disappointing and kills the creativity of the player. On the other hand, the game will give you hints on the tongue of the characters so that you need to know what to do and if you miss something the game will suggest to search more. It won’t give you the answer but won’t leave you by yourself.

This might seem harsh to criticize the game like that, and you might think that it is a bad game but in fact, it isn’t. The game is good and I have tons of fun with it and none of its issues affected me in a way that prevented me from having fun with it. I want to state that I came here for the story and they delivered it.

This is a great game with a great story and if you are willing to look away from its shortcomings you will have an amazing time playing it.