Post by GenericSoda on Mar 20, 2016 13:08:39 GMT -6
The first trailer for Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma dropped on Thursday, and I'm incredibly excited for it. It's a game Ive been anticipating for years, so it's great to finally see a conclusion to the series.
I'm sure that some people already know what Zero Escape is, but I'm also pretty sure lots of people don't. Zero Escape started with the visual novel/puzzle game Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors in 2009, releasing for the Nintendo DS. Its English release followed just under a year later in November of 2010. The curious thing about this series is that its release in Japan was kind of a flop despite good critical reception. However, despite releasing to relatively little fanfare (I didn't know the game exited until a month after its release) its first review overseas at Destructoid netted it a perfect score, and it sold better than expected. The attention 999 received overseas garnered enough attention to get a sequel for the 3DS and PS Vita called Virtue's Last Reward in 2012, being rebranded as the Zero Escape series outside of Japan. Series director and writer Kotaro Uchikoshi actually noticed the attention received overseas and developed VLR around the idea that it would be released for an international audience. The sequel sold reasonably well, but despite being created with a sequel in mind, didn't quite get the same amount of acclaim that 999 did, leaving its potential successor in limbo until 2015, when Zero Time Dilemma was finally confirmed for a summer 2016 release.
So what is Zero Escape? In general, the series follows a formula: you are (on the surface) the most boring person of a group of nine people who all wake up wearing a strange bracelet in an unfamiliar, hazardous location. The bracelet is both your enemy and your ally: it's a necessity to solve the puzzles laid out for you, but it's also the trigger to kill you should certain conditions be met before you escape. There are multiple endings depending on who you choose to work together with out of the other eight victims, and all of the endings are necessary to complete the game. There will be somebody with amnesia. There will be somebody plotting to kill everybody else. There will be somebody wearing skimpy clothes. And there will be somebody who is the true identity of Zero, the organizer of the game's events. Most of these caveats seem to apply to Zero Time Dilemma, though who knows what could happen at this point. Zero Escape is VERY good at keeping the twists coming, and also very good in tying gameplay into story. I can safely say that the Zero Escape games have no possible way of working as anything other than a video game due to the ways that their mechanics, story, and more all weave into one another.
If you've never heard of Zero Escape before and this post piques your interest, give it a shot. There are a lot of good names associated with the series, like writer Kotaro Uchikoshi, character designer Kinu Nishimura, and composer Shinji Hosoe. If you don't recognize these names, look them up and I guarantee you'll see something familiar in their list of works. Uchikoshi less so, unless you're already a fan of visual novels or Pepsiman. Even if you don't like visual novels, Zero Escape manages to be so much more that it's more than worth it to check the series out.
I'm sure that some people already know what Zero Escape is, but I'm also pretty sure lots of people don't. Zero Escape started with the visual novel/puzzle game Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors in 2009, releasing for the Nintendo DS. Its English release followed just under a year later in November of 2010. The curious thing about this series is that its release in Japan was kind of a flop despite good critical reception. However, despite releasing to relatively little fanfare (I didn't know the game exited until a month after its release) its first review overseas at Destructoid netted it a perfect score, and it sold better than expected. The attention 999 received overseas garnered enough attention to get a sequel for the 3DS and PS Vita called Virtue's Last Reward in 2012, being rebranded as the Zero Escape series outside of Japan. Series director and writer Kotaro Uchikoshi actually noticed the attention received overseas and developed VLR around the idea that it would be released for an international audience. The sequel sold reasonably well, but despite being created with a sequel in mind, didn't quite get the same amount of acclaim that 999 did, leaving its potential successor in limbo until 2015, when Zero Time Dilemma was finally confirmed for a summer 2016 release.
So what is Zero Escape? In general, the series follows a formula: you are (on the surface) the most boring person of a group of nine people who all wake up wearing a strange bracelet in an unfamiliar, hazardous location. The bracelet is both your enemy and your ally: it's a necessity to solve the puzzles laid out for you, but it's also the trigger to kill you should certain conditions be met before you escape. There are multiple endings depending on who you choose to work together with out of the other eight victims, and all of the endings are necessary to complete the game. There will be somebody with amnesia. There will be somebody plotting to kill everybody else. There will be somebody wearing skimpy clothes. And there will be somebody who is the true identity of Zero, the organizer of the game's events. Most of these caveats seem to apply to Zero Time Dilemma, though who knows what could happen at this point. Zero Escape is VERY good at keeping the twists coming, and also very good in tying gameplay into story. I can safely say that the Zero Escape games have no possible way of working as anything other than a video game due to the ways that their mechanics, story, and more all weave into one another.
If you've never heard of Zero Escape before and this post piques your interest, give it a shot. There are a lot of good names associated with the series, like writer Kotaro Uchikoshi, character designer Kinu Nishimura, and composer Shinji Hosoe. If you don't recognize these names, look them up and I guarantee you'll see something familiar in their list of works. Uchikoshi less so, unless you're already a fan of visual novels or Pepsiman. Even if you don't like visual novels, Zero Escape manages to be so much more that it's more than worth it to check the series out.
yey