Well chalk another game off my list. This time its Zero Time Dilema. Now full disclosure, this was on the 3ds but you can buy this on the PC. my TLDR: don't bother. you're not missing out on much.
So my thoughts? When i first started playing it: "oh dear, oh dear, oh dear" by the time i finished it, my opinions of the game increased bordered between average to "what a bloody waste of time" and Seriously disappointing.
Ok so the game wasn't a total disaster but there was a lot of things wrong with it. Right from the offset Zero Time dilema was the thrilling conclusion of the previous nonary games whereby the protagonists of past 2 games enter the Dcom testing facility to take part in an experiment with attempt to stop the radical6 outbreak that kills billions of people in the future. The stakes couldn't be higher! and based on how the past 2 games were i was expecting a thrilling cracker of a story. But more about that later.
Ok lets rid of the 3ds issues. For some reason the team got lazy with the notepad feature. After implementing a decent one in virtues last reward its somewhat baffling that ZTD's one is cack. unresponsive (you can't do fullstops, dots etc), the lines are thicker and to add insult to injury they limit the amount you could write on the page! theres a bloody limited ink function! not that it matters as the screen is so tiny on the 3ds you'll run out of space before you run out of ink. But wait it gets worse, the eraser uses the ink as well! So your best bet is to just reset everything each time. Ok for non 3ds users you're going to have to use pen and paper. Which is fine.
Now, i've previously mentioned that the 3D anime graphics of Virtues last reward wasn't my cup of tea, they lacked character and 3d anime just isn't all that great. so ZTD has made quite an effort to do an even WORSE job of it. Ok, the environments and graphics are nicer which makes it even more galling that the characters aren't exactly well designed, they have a samey feel to proceedings and they're even more soulless then before. The returning cast look little like their original ones and their personality's do a 180. Whilst we have movies/FMV etc the animation is boring for the most part or just weak; mostly their mouths moving out of sync. More concerning are the slack jawed expressions the characters pull when they supposed to look shocked or express anger its unintentionally funny in a bad way. its not helped that the characters aren't all that interesting and for the most part lines are delivered lifelessly thats not to say that there weren't some good moments, but i couldn'r say i cared for them by the end.
Gameplay wise... meh its fine. there were points i thought was bloody tedious but escaping the rooms are fine....
...But lets talk about the story/Visual novel aspects of the game. The previous 2 were crackers so it had a lot to live up to. Part of the problem is the fragmented nature of the story. The incoherent nature feels like it works against the story. I understand why they did it (to create a sense of disorientation/confusion like the characters having been drugged each time) but it impacts flow significantly. You could be playing pieces of several timelines and they could be anywhere from start, middle or end. its increasingly more baffling when the make comments on certain decisions or you start scratching your head and saying "wait a sec..." a lot. Sometimes you might play a chapter whereby both options result in you dying but one is game over and the other concludes the story properly. Luckily there is a flow chart, but (whether a its a clever twist or not is up to you) that changes in structure as well so you can't rely on that until much later. Failure in the story is scripted into the game which, i suppose its possible but it sure leaves a distaste in my mouth doing it. I won't spoil it here, but some of them are just crap. Sometimes it feels like i have to willfully make the wrong decision to proceed to unlock some of the story etc or it doesn't really matter.
The story does have some plot twists but no where near as good as Virtues last reward. The story conclusion itself can be summed up as a cop out. i would love to spoil the ending just to explain why. lets just say its doesn't solve anything and just hints at another possible story. Add insult to injury the epilogue stories of the characters is viewable as a paragraph of text.