Zero Time Dilemma Reviews
Zero Time Dilemma is an amazing ending for the superb trilogy… although the price should be cut in half.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Despite having dozens of questions early on, by the end of the long twisted journey, I found everything to be resolved—or even left unresolved—in an extremely satisfying way.
It lacks the charm and wit of Danganronpa, but Zero Time Dilemma, like its prequels, is still valuable, smart, and stimulating. Its presentation really badly hurts it, but once you push past that distaste, what you're left with is an intense, engaging and intelligent narrative with some thoughtful and well-designed puzzle rooms to sort through.
As a story, Zero Time Dilemma matches up to the ambition of its predecessors, with some missteps. As a game, it’s significantly less polished, with ideas and changes that nearly always step backward.
Despite a slew of problems, Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma uses complex story techniques in a suspenseful tale about human nature.
Final chapter in intriguing narrative adventure series brings back favourite characters, but fails to go out with a bang
Make no mistake about it, Zero Time Dilemma is a disappointment, but it's mainly because fans of the franchise are such devoted ones. Taken on its own merits, without looking back to how the series was, it is certainly not a bad game, and has some excellent qualities that leave it an overall good experience, and definitely not a bad one.
Zero Time Dilemma is the weakest game in the trilogy, yet it's an unmissable piece of the puzzle that every Zero Escape fan needs to play. It isn't the satisfying conclusion hoped for, it has some uninteresting characters, and the pacing is off, but even with the unanswered questions, there is still a story here that warrants playing through, especially as it develops and wraps up the arcs of the familiar, better and more important characters in the overall narrative.
Zero Time Dilemma is an adventure that constitutes the final ending to Zero Escape, a long-running saga that combines philosophical elements, science fiction and a series of plot twists that leave no one indifferent.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Sadly, despite an attempt to include in-depth story threads and bring in intriguing puzzles, Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma falls down on too many occasions. Be it the convoluted yarns that do not tie things together well enough, puzzles that fluctuate in difficulty and interest levels far too much, as well as a poorly thought out flowchart system that leads players into numerous dead ends, either requiring sheer guesswork and random replaying of certain scenarios, or caving in and using online guides.
Zero Time Dilemma is a hugely flawed game that, despite moments of brilliance (such as the coin toss at the start of the game), fails to come together. A game that can hold my attention for twelve hours in a single day should review well, but sadly too many of those hours were spent silently cursing at the ludicrous nature of the story, and basically begging for it to all pay off and it never did. At least Virtue's Last Reward, which I previously criticised for leaving so much up in the air, was asking interesting questions. Zero Time Dilemma failed to do even that.
Zero Time Dilemma seems to be brimming with good ideas. Unfortunately, between the increasingly insane, shark jumping, plot revelations, and the never-ending dialogue strands, someone forgot to put a video game here. When the player does get to do something aside from making decisions, the game improves markedly but since the design of the game can make even these sections few and far between, it becomes harder and harder to forgive as the run time of the game continues to tick along.
The amount you enjoy Zero Time Dilemma rests solely on how much you enjoy watching cutscenes. Get over that, and it's awesome.
No other game can f*** with your head quite this much
With a game that shrouds so many truths in mystery, it's definitely hard to lose interest in the plot—especially if you've been a fan of the series since 999 and never thought this final installment would even be a possibility.
It’s by no means the best Zero Escape game, but it’s a fitting end to the trilogy’s story arc and – animation aside – it’s an excellent way to spend a few evenings.
If you have any intention of playing the other two games then I’d strongly suggest you do so before playing this, considering that four of the characters return from those titles and subtle spoilers abound in the opening hour. If not, then I’m not convinced the full overarching plot will make total sense, but you might be able to get on board. I’d have to finish it to say for sure, though.
All in all, I really enjoyed Zero Time Dilemma. It feels like a fitting conclusion to the series, and gives a number of characters a pleasing amount of closure — even if it is in alternative timelines in some cases! It also features some of the series’ most truly horrifying bad endings, so if you enjoy that sort of thing you’ll have a good time. And, of course, most importantly, if you enjoy Uchikoshi playing with narrative conventions and structure, you’ll definitely have a blast here.
Zero Time stands as the weakest of the trilogy, but still a satisfactory visual novel in its own right.