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This team pisses me of. They made Danganronpa 3 to be this big "FU we don't want to make the same game over and over" blaming their fans for their own inability to inovate... then they started Zero which was essentially Danganronpa but not as good and then fumbled that at the 3rd one as well? F this team lol

if falcom does not make a remake of the Sky trilogy and gives the rights to nisa, we'll never get sky on console

ZTD may be my least favorite game and I kinda hate it but your criticisms are way off from what's actually wrong with the game and story

You.... called....it

I couldve dealt with the weird animation, the stupid alien machine, Junpei and Akane acting so... off, Lunas Predecessor being an awful person, the twist of Phi and Delta, and a whole host of other issues in favor of that zero twist (his justification was weird but whatever). But the route leading to vlr was HORRENDOUS and there were SO MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS. As a last game we shouldve gotten so many more answers. Primarily the Kyle issue which was the last scene in VLR. And what happened to snake/light? I dont remember Alice/Clivers group being given enough attention either

Third game was good. That’s the comment

I think the ending sucked but with what we got at all I think is under rated. everyone dogs on ztd but it was easily one of my most fun playthroughs I've had with friends. i think ztd did poorly mostly just because chun didn't wanna fun it due to low sales in japan. I think it's a miracle we go anything at all. idk I liked it outside of the rushed end

ZTD has a weird duality. On its own, it's not a bad game. But because it's connected to two other games, it falls very short. I agree that the hiatus and the limited budget severely hampered whatever game was supposed to be made. The retcons hurt a lot (Oh yeah everyone can jump times, no big deal). Not only that, VLR proved its point with ZTD. In VLR, Junpei feels regret for chasing after Akane for so long and realizing he wasted his time because who he found wasn't who he knew. So it made me go, "oh, he's got a point, maybe he's better living his life with his grandson and being happy". Then we get ZTD and with the writing and plot as seen, it made me realize that Junpei and Akane are actually not that great together and are not good people. I think a great gamble was taken on this game for experimenting with story and it didn't pay off. The ultimate silver lining, however, is Uchikoshi took all the good and bad he learned from this trilogy and (with time and a better budget) created the AI Somnium series, which is brilliant. 999 and VLR had those twists that made me go OOOOOH! as it came together and so did the two AI games.

I’d agree that the biggest problem with the game is that you’re going between relatively random fragments of story trying to piece together where they are in the story and why. I still really liked the game but it does ruin the pacing of it. Memory loss between fragments is also why most of the characters don’t typically grow at all until the end game. It makes sense but it’s also pretty anti-narrative. I can see what they were trying to do in having the game ascend beyond the linear story choices grid, but that’s also counter to what makes narratives work. A lot of endings being pointless also slowed down some parts, like when you can decide whether or not to push a button that says don’t press it. It’s funny but doesn’t add anything to the game. Still loved it and want a sequel but they’d need to go back to their roots, or make a different kind of mechanic to continue the series based on what you find out about one of the characters and what they can do at the end of the game. Didn’t see the reason for the art style change, either, if they were making both games at the same time.

After finishing the game today, I can see why ZTD is regarded as the worst game of the trilogy. The convoluted storyline, the models, the mischaracterizations, and the fact that it was created on a low budget-it was something else. But that didn’t deter my enjoyment of the game, let alone the series.

I loved this video. I love this trilogy so much and ZTD was so sad i remember cuz i played them in real time saw a cancellation and then a revival. One thing i hated about D Team though was Phi's lack of presence. Most of their storylines happen in the reality where she burns. I think it happened too early and you didn't get to see the cool kickass Phi you grew to love in VLR because she's dead for most the game

Thank you for voicing everything that bothered me about the game, but could not quite grasp until now.

Watching this right before the release of Daybreak!!!!

ZTD is the hodgepot to create the new timeline. where everything deviated. Delta is literally the same as Akane. but only he is looking from a distance a detached point of view. free the soul is a weird organization which goes against its self for its self. akane being one of them. this is all for creating the Perfect world. or rather the perfect timeline. where 999 was pretty stand alone. VRL had a direct effort in to creating timelines. so that that single perfect time line could exist. ZTD is doing the same thing but 100 times more aggressively. plot wise it makes sense. but all that is swept under the rug with the ending. as it never happened in the perfect timeline. the thing is its a weird feedback of cause and effect. looping back in to a new cause and effect. how what when happen we never know. cause we never even seen the Zero`th timeline where it all started. where there was no akane, phi and delta. where humanity has been wiped out.

Xseed was so much better than NIS. They are more faithful to the original Japanese text. Aswell as adding more voice lines than the Japanese version had in English. NIS have had it's ups and downs when it comes to accurate localization and translations. Many times they add or change the context of whats said unnecessarily.

Welp, good time to see this video in recommended, huh?

honestly, ive hated this game since release and VLR is my second most favorite game ever. ZTD was just so shallow and weird compared to 999 and VLR. and there were so many things unexplained. i know its never going to happen, but i wish uchikoshi had the budget to remake the game in a more cohesive way with the rest of the trilogy :/ maybe i dislike the game so much because i really care about the series a lot..

A JRPG series I can think of that has a lot more sidequests than main quest objectives, that’s gotta be Xenoblade Chronicles-those games are LOADED with side content that actually helps fill out the world, further develop established characters, or both, I’d recommend playing Xeno 1 and 3 personally, I think they do really well with these things (Xenoblade 2 has its own host of problems that I’m not getting into here lmao)

WE MADE IT Y'ALL 🙏

:)

How does it feel to have predicted the future? *nudges mic towards you*

G FUCKING G

Here after the localization got announced

Lmao

I found out about the Trails games thanks to a sale on STEAM for Cold Steel I and II, i already play all 4 CS games, then Zero and now i'm playing Azure and it didn't ruin my experience at all, after Azure i will play Reverie and some day i will play the 3 Sky games.

No it didn't lol

The existence of Delta is such a meaningless plot twist. "Whodunnit" stories are way more interesting when the culprit can be discovered among the cast of characters. Even 999 and VLR knew that, with Akane and Sigma being the Zero of those games respectively. But in ZTD, the kidnapper is a secret 10th person the player never meets until after the reveal. It doesn't even make sense that Delta would include himself as a participant in the Decision Game. The only thing it accomplishes is preventing Mira and Eric from figuring out that Q was Zero due to his disappearance, but they're not Shifters, so they couldn't alert the other teams even if they learned the truth. The plot twist exists solely for the player, which breaks the immersion of the narrative.

They could definitely port Investigations 2 to a worldwide audience if they managed to localize TGAAC since they had way more problems. Like the racism and Sherlock Holmes.

never heard trails series until they realese kuro no kiseki

I personally think this was all budget. That's why it felt like some corners were cut, and this game only came out after a lot of requests from fan.

I think the story wraps up what is meant to be following as VLR has foretold and peaks the trilogy. But the way this story is told deviates too much from the previous visual novel format and therefore loses its immersive nature and compelling rhythm. It focuses too much on how complex and clever the plot is but not as impressively delivered. Every character's share is too equal and no real focal point like Junpei and Sigma rendered each character's performance less impressive the story significantly less immersive. Still, scheme-wise it is the most clever and complex of the trilogy and deserves to be called climax closure.

The Trails Series did dethrone Final Fantasy VII (original) from my personal list and that had no game ever done before.

The fanatic guy wasn't introduced at the end, it was revealed during Q-Team's lab escape in the form of the symbolic virus "Fanatic Bio R", which had a 100% mortality rate (just like the fanatic terrorist, killing 8 billion people), which could only countered by Radical 6 (75% mortality rate, 2 billion people saved). Also, D-team did have an epilogue, just not for the current timeline but for VLR's timeline, and it described Sigma and Diana's life in the future before she died.

LOL not at all. ZTD absolutely didn't ruin anything, it was peak Zero Escape and my favourite of the three.

As someone who started ZTD, played 1 hour (got the toss coin endings), stopped and picked up the game months later to finish it, i totally forgot Sean was not with everyone at the start of the game, so when i had the reveal of Delta/Q being there with Q-team i was just completly confused? when sean pointed the crossbow at the camera I was persuaded he was talking to me/the player and he was breaking the 4th wall LMAO and then delta/zero talked and the game just assumed i knew there was 4 people in Q-team since the beginning and it was so hard to understand what was happening. Same goes for the ending where Sean, Eric, Diana, Sigma and Carlos are all together and they turn to Q/Delta and say 'hey you're zero' and you see an old man pop from nowhere and I was ????????????? who is that!!!! why is there an old man where does he comes from! am i supposed to know who that is ? i guess if you followed the plot enough you would be like oh so it was the offscreen handicapped man all along! but for me i didnt even know he was supposed to be deaf, paraplegic etc it was just some random man popping from nowhere LMAOO ngl i played the ZE trilogy for the puzzles more than the story, i really liked 999 but kind of hated VLR, the puzzles were bad and the story did not appeal to me, the revelations at the end were soooooo out there that i couldnt take the game seriously. for ZTD, the game is bad but it's so bad that it's good ? the game made me laugh from start to finish with it's bad animations and dialogues that makes every tense moment just stupid? the plot twist of phi being diana and sigma's daughter made me scream really hard, and the puzzles were actually better than VLR! the ending is shitty but i didnt like VLR either so i knew i wouldnt like this one. i agree with you that the fragments system made things overly confusing, there is sooo many things that fell flat bc they were kind of hinted in other fragments you unfortunately did before. the decision game is totally useless! no tense moments bc every choice is kind of obvious and bc of how fragmented the story is i just made random choices knowing i could go back at that point really easily in like 5 mins.

34:50 Actually, I would argue that the main antagonist in all the games are masterminds who at the end of the day had not unreasonable motivations for what they did. 999: Akane might have locked 9 people in a situation of life and death but that was only because she knew that would be the only way for her to survive and because the only people that would die were people that had done the same thing. VLR: Sigma might have locked 9 people in a situation of life and death but that was only because it was needed to stop the end of humanity. ZTD: Delta: might have locked 9 people in a situation of life and death but that was only because it was needed to stop an even worse viral outbreak. That final piece of characterization is incidentally one of the weaker aspects of the game: not only is it thrown in in the last second leading us to question if there was any truth to it, not only is it a repeat of the previous main villains having good reasons, it also can be read as a sequel tease leaving the game not feeling like it is complete. Maybe Uchikoshi sympathizes too much with the characters that set up this whole scenario and therefore is more willing to give them some nuance?

I actually really loved this game when it came out, but you also get the sense that it feels disconnected from the other two titles. Even the quirky toned down anime style of the characters is absent-not that it's required, but it feels like the plot to another game at points. I will say that the gruesome ways in which they die in most cases feels like rejected Itchy and Scratchy skits

amazing recap of the localization history! I didn't know there were that many issues back then :/ I'm also very grateful about the amount of love the series is getting now with amazing ports. And I think NIS is doing well with the translations now, even though there were some issues with Ys VIII. Only 2 months left for Kuro/Daybreak :)

What are each of the games called? I've only seen one

Nice video. Always fun to hear someone explain thoughts on these games, even when I really like ZTD, ending and all. Been a bit since I finished, but my take was Delta's perception really made the meta text the main text, and in a 999 like moment where the twist revealing itself initially comes across like "I knew" the player themselves, then its actually Akane. In VLR I think it really is the player. We see. We pick options, and to avoid a Schrödingers car type paradox "we" cannot see the ending. Head cannon Carlos could just lower the gun, and the non-player perceived post game where D team prevent the deaths is specifically why they don't get a post text. We can't see it. My thoughts anyway. Love this series!

literally the one problem i have with the first two games is theres like no fucking deaths in the canon endings (ive not played ztd yet)

22:36 Didn't know that Tio is a practitioner of 8 leaves 1 blade school

Garbage woke translations, don't care.

great video! for the most part i agree with everything you’ve said. i just finished the series very recently. as in like a week ago almost. bought them when they were on sale on steam and binged it for majority of march+the first few days of april. before playing ZTD i already vaguely knew about its ..poor reputation, mostly from my friend who was already a part of the fanbase, and so i went into it just really trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. how bad can it really be? that’s what i thought. and .. well. i certainly think that the high expectations fans had played a big part in how negatively they view the game, and that’s completely fair. but even still..for me, the thing that stood out to me the most was how much nothing i felt at the end. it’s hard to explain. but.. with both previous games, they made me feel so intensely that finishing gave me such a strong wave of emotions. from sadness to intrigue to joy and everything in between. but i had none of that with ztd. i was hyped up in the moment, hoping they’d let me choose to shoot delta because he’d been annoying me, and then credits rolled and i was just like…… that’s it? after learning about the circumstances around the games release, i am more grateful. the fact we got a ze3 at ALL feels like a miracle. it IS a miracle. but it doesn’t get rid of that feeling of just.. i wish we’d gotten something better. i’ve only known it for a month and yet already this is such a deeply cherished series to me, and i wish that it got a more fitting end like it deserves. because this game really felt like a massive let down compared to those before it. all we can do now is hope there’s a billionaire zero escape fan out there who can fund a zero escape 3 remake i suppose😭

Q-Team was uniquely awful and should have been removed from the game, and this is excluding the fourth hidden member of Q-Team and all of the baggage associated with THAT character and the associated twist. I'd rather they be replaced by Alice and Clover (through time travel bullshit or some other contrivance aside) who were built up over the course of the prior game(s), and have a unique stake in stopping Delta and his schemes. Them being so dead set on stopping Delta only to unwittingly release the Radical-6 plague in the bad-end (VLR connecting) route would have been more tragic because we at least have been following those characters throughout the series prior to ZTD. Carlos was surprisingly good, but I maintain that his visual similarity to Dio and the rest of the Myrmidons should have been expanded upon, either with the reveal of him being a clone of Delta or an unwilling genetic progenitor/template for the rest of the cult by the time VLR picks up. Alien fax machines are dumb and will never not be dumb. If left between an unsolved/unexplained mystery on how body jumping/the kooky shit in this series works and a poor explanation to those mysteries, I'd prefer the former. The whole plotline about a fanatic determined to wipe out all of humanity rather than the slaughter we see from Radical 6 is dumb and stinks of sequel bait, which is horrible since most fans expected ZTD to be the final game in the series. I'm glad Uchi went onto other projects, but ZTD burnt me on following the rest of his work.

i like the nissan 350z

Just finished the zero escape series myself, and i basically agreed with almost all of this video. These are the things that really bugged me the most: Overall, I really hate that Santa just stopped existing in terms of the main plot after 999. He was a crucial part of 999’s plot, being one of the two people behind the second Nonary Game along side Akane, and then just not being involved with the rest of the story???? Next complain I have is Clover and Alice. What the hell were they yapping about in the alternate ending of VLR????? Then we get to ZTD, which I will admit I kinda had to force myself to play due to how much I hated the animations. I know that they had really big production issues and that the game was barely made, it just still sucked. I also just really don’t like ZTD’s characters, outside of D-team and Carlos. Akane is “Boy oh boy Junpei you changed a lot. Also WHO HURT MY JUNPEI RAH!!!!” Junpei is “You should really just kill everyone. They are obviously going to betray us at any chance they get. Also I only care for Akane now.” And I’m not even gonna mention Q team.

The localization on the entire Trails series is a travesty. The XSEED localizations injected dialogue, personality or slant all over the place, where it didn't exist, often changing the tone or meaning of entire exchanges. Estelle is almost cringeworthy to read in English. NISA additionally can't even speak or write correct English, apparently. And GeoFront... "motorboat them titties"...

People keep complaining about official translation, but I am sorry to say fantranslation is just as bad. Like when I can hear in the Japanese in a voiced line that they call Goddess by the name specifically and the translation says Goddess, then I will call it shit. So in short all I can say is, shut the fuck up, I don't care.

The one thing the game sets up perfectly with all gameplay, story, writing even production is the main slogan. "Life is unfair, don't you think?". If they rewrote the story to match that line i personally think they succeeded.