Why Zero Escape 3 should be more like 999.

[noname2200]

999 had a better atmosphere because the sense of danger was present from the get go, as you have a hard deadline (9 hours) and a sample of the penalty for not finishing (drowning and explosions). Add to that how the rules allow only a maximum of five people to pass through a door, and the sense of danger and tension is palpable from the start. The players' decisions mostly make sense (Clover's idiocy excepted): for example, it is perfectly rational for Lotus to propose you, her, and Akane team up and abandon the others, because the rules of the game appear to mandate that some people die anyways, and the clock's ticking.

By contrast, VLR's kinder, friendlier approach has you explicitly told that everyone can leave if they simply cooperate, that the game can go on for as long as the players allow, and that death will be painless. The only reason anything approaching danger exists in VLR is because the players are almost universally self-centered idiots. It doesn't really make sense for anyone to choose Betray in the beginning, and the characters' attempts to claim otherwise are all laughable.

On the other hand, the endings of VLR are actually more satisfying in the context of the game. Three of the six paths in 999 can be skipped without missing anything at all, and the submarine ending's new content is quite limited and easily skippable as well. Two of the endings (axe and coffin) are essentially middle fingers to the player: you either did the right things, but too early, or you did all but one dialogue option correctly. Either way no more game for you, go back to start, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

By contrast, each of the endings in VLR* provides you with another piece of the puzzle, while simultaneously providing new story and context. Since VLR is really nothing more than one long puzzle, this generally works out pretty well. My only real complaint is that this tends to lead to backloading the plot, especially if you're not lucky enough to get the Dio or Clover endings early on. Where Zero's identity is the key mystery in 999, it is only one of the VLR's mysteries, and I'm fine with having it held back until the true ending.


Overall, I agree that 999 had the better atmosphere and characters, and I'm hopeful we'll be getting more of that this time around since the departure in atmosphere at least appears to have been the result of executive meddling which is unlikely to pop up again. I just think you're selling VLR short. It's going for something quite different than 999, and I think it succeeded quite well at what it attempted.

*I'm excluding all but one of the bad endings, i.e. paths which end in a skull.