Topic: Zero Escape story (spoilers!)

Has anyone here finished Zero Escape? Just like with 999 it's taking a little time to wrap my head around the ending. I found the creator's interview Q&A for 999 last year and that helped me with the storyline and the paradoxes a lot, but I haven't found anything as helpful for Virtue's Last Reward yet.

Spoilers:

I can wrap my head around the the idea of Sigma's old consciousness and young consciousness swapping places and rotating back and forth on a circuit and the need for it so he can go back and save the world, and I can understand the need for the game and a life and death situation and training his brain in order to develop the ability to jump back in time. What I can't understand is the very first timeline before any time jumping took place. The world went to hell and Sigma decided to do something about it, (with the suggestion of Akane perhaps?), he goes to the moon and makes a clone and works on the AB game. But how do they accomplish the very first jump that makes Old Sigma's consciousness and Young Sigma's consciousness in the past trade places? The whole point of the AB game is to train Young Sigma to be capable of such a jump, and it has to be young sigma's consciousness playing the game and experience the life and death situation. So how do they play the very first AB game in the original timeline before any of the consciousness trading was put into effect?

I suppose this can be answered similarly to the same paradox you have to accept in 999. How did Akane survive the first Nonary game as a child? Because of the help of Junpei in the future Nonary game, which Akane helped design so that she wouldn't die in the past.  Very hard to accept, but a fun brain teaser nonetheless. I guess you can say the same thing about Virtue's Last Reward. Phi volunteers to go to the moon and play in the AB game because she did before in the future, and Young Sigma and Old Sigma switch consciousnesses in the end and start the rotation all over again in an attempt to save the world, because those events are necessary to complete the circle of the timeline, even if there is no clear starting point.

Oh yes, I've been wanting one of these. Zero Escape was easily my favorite game this year.

Shrodinger's Cat, my friend. It was the most integral aspect to the plot, when you think about it. So it makes sense for that to be the explanation.

Maybe I need to think about it more, but, to me, Schroedinger's Cat is a good explanation for 999's question "Is Akane dead or alive in the incinerator", and then by extension a passable explanation for the paradox of how is Akane able to devise the future Nonary game to get Junpei to save her life in the past.

But I don't see how Schroedinger's Cat is an explanation for Virtue's Last Reward. To me it just comes down to a circular timeline paradox that you have to accept. Old Sigma and Young Sigma's consciousnesses switch places so that Old Sigma can go back in time and devise a way for Old Sigma and Young Sigma's Consciousnesses to switch place.

A couple other thoughts:
I'm wondering what role Akane played in this whole scheme. I wish they would have given us more details about that. I assume she is the person who gassed young Sigma at the moment the consciousnesses switch. Maybe we can assume this is more or less the starting point of her plan if it's thought of as a straight timeline, and I guess I like to think of her as the mastermind of the plan.

And completely off topic but I was much more emotionally invested in 999. The relationship between Junpei and Akane as kids and clover and her brother and the detective's interest in saving the children, all of that led to a much more emotional ending in my opinion. Virtue's Last Reward left me wanting at the end. I would have obviously liked to see more between Tenmyouji and Akane or a more in depth story between Phi and Sigma. Luna's story and Tenmyouji and Quark was nice, but all in all 999's climax really blew me away with the story and the investment in the characters. Virtue's Last Reward ended and I wanted a lot more in terms of wrapping up the story and especially between Tenmyouji and Akane.

I mostly agree with you. However, when we look back on this series as a whole, maybe our opinion on the story will change? There will be more games in the story after all. Just a thought, anyways.

that's definitely true. I hope they fill in some big chunks of backstory for Virtue's Last Reward with the next game.

Yeah, hopefully the next game will fill in a few of the blanks that were present in VLR, as VLR did for 999. There are a few very minor discrepancies in the story that I spotted, such as Clover still being called by the code name she was assigned during 999 rather than her real name for no apparent reason, and the fact that Sigma's eye was not even mentioned by a single person during Phi's ending, but I don't really think we should let it detract from the story. I mean, in my honest opinion, 999 and VLR have a better story than any game, book, film, or TV show I've ever seen.

Tu Fui, Ego Eris

I love the stories too, Blaze. I'd love to watch an anime adaptation of 999. Or a graphic novel. I just want to sit back and enjoy the story somehow. I know there would be challenges to the adaptation, but I know someone creative out there could do it.

Did they mention what happened to Clover's brother during Virtue's Last Reward? or Akane? I can't remember now...

An anime would be amazing, but it's a shame that it'll probably never happen.

I can't quite remember what happens to Snake and Akane at the end of 999. I assume Snake escaped (or at least he did in the true ending) seeing as how Clover mentions him during her ending as she tells you about the organization she works for.

Akane created the Nonary game in order to save herself in the past so I guess she escaped (her appearance in VLR proves that I guess u_u) There's probably more to it than that but... yeah.

Also, while we're on the subject of 999... which of the two games did you enjoy the most? I'd honestly have to say I couldn't pick a winner. I felt story-wise they were completely even, and although VLR had the flow chart, I'd say I preferred the puzzles in 999. Music was pretty much identical between the two games, although VLR had a few extra tracks (I think), but then again I preferred 999's visual style so... yeah. D:

I prefer 999 overall. I like it better for the story and the depth of the characters and their stories and relationships. And I prefer the art style of 999 better.

I prefer the fast-forwarding/jumping feature of Virtue's Last Reward better. And I think I like the puzzles a little better too but they're both very good.

I actually prefered VLR mainly due to the fact that I found it's story to be more complete than 999.(which is pretty ironic considering it's cliffhanger ending).
While 999 introduced a lot of interesting ideas (Telepathy, Ice 9, a titanic replica, etc...) , it didn't quite link them all together quite as well as VLR did with its suicide epidemic, extremist religious organizations, robots, and quantumn physics.

Personally, I liked VLR way more. With the exception of the ending at that "twist" at the end, pretty much everything about VLR was better (although I guess one could prefer 999's more violent sense of urgency). Also, I liked the characters more in VLR.

Plus, that jumping feature alone makes it a better game. 999 would have been shorter had it been implemented, but it would have been better too. It shows how much effort went into making VLR a cohesive story considering it was about twice as long for me as 999 and had a way smoother way of going through the story.

That's a good point moomoo. 999's violent sense of urgency is one of the reasons I like it better. It was all new and more mysterious and, in my opinion, scarier. And the fact that you always had to start back from the very beginning (as tedious as it may have been) probably added to that tension instead of just bouncing around and changing your decisions quickly as if it never happened.

I'm not sure if you've already read about it but I'll leave this here anyway.

I think it's a really interesting article myself; knowing how he develops the ideas within the game has always intrigued me, and this provides quite a few answers.