The new Zero Excape game!

Warning SPOILERS http://www.siliconera.com/2016/03/17/zero-time-dilemma-neat-trick-block-spoilers/ SPOILERS The results of the events are definitely randomized according to the article above. I've been doing my research and this does potiential cheat us out of good endings. Even if we choose the 'right' choice, that doesn't mean that we'll be getting the result we hope to get. I very much disagree with that notion, especially since the previous entries were text-based. Only during Virtue's Last Reward did it start getting voiced but even then it was text heavy. To say that people don't like reading when no one has had a problem before is quite ignorant. If people are turned off by reading, then they came to the wrong series when your last entries have been visual novels. "if a player encounters a long wall of text he or she is no longer playing a game, but reading." And by that logic, a player watching a long cutscene is no longer playing a game but watching a movie. But no one makes that argument about the Metal Gear Solid series, except 4. Part of the charm of the series was how it was presented as a visual novel. Similar to the success of the Phoenix Wright/Ace Attorney series. Gamers, especially those from the older days are perfectly okay with reading. Honestly, I'm sick of the Telltale games and while they have been successful, very few of them actually have substance in them. The first Walking Dead was fine but after that...eh.... And western games have no bearing on Japanese development, western fans yes, but not the games. THAT'S why this game is happening AND is coming out before Japan. But I will agree with the last part of your post. The gore and violence was part of the charm of 999 and really helped in the setting of the game, it seemed like you could die at any second with one wrong move and the bad endings were just haunting. I didn't get the same feeling in the sequel and it was more of a mystery setting and the horror very much downplayed. Glad to see it make a return.

Yeah, it does appear randomized. I don't think it's that big of a deal though. It seems like it's going to be very easy to jump back and fourth in the timeline to get the events you want. In this particular scenario I can see it as troublesome but it might be fun in non-life or death events. "to say people don't like reading when no one has had a problem before is quite ignorant" I disagree with this. I tried to get my friends into this game, and all of them lost interest because it was text heavy. They were asking when they could actually do something. Not that it makes the game bad, it's just that people are used to interacting with a game and are not familiar with the concept of a visual novel. Kotaro Uchikoshi saw this and wondered if the game had to be in a visual novel format, which limited the perspective audience. Rather than telling perspective players to f off if they don't like a lot of reading, he changed the formula. On your next concerning metal gear solid, that series had enough production money pumped into it to be very entertaining. Besides that, the director is probably one of the best video game directors of all time. For every text-heavy or cut-scene-heavy game that was commercially very successful, I can count a hundred that were not. Not really a fair comparison. When you are working on a budget the size of a thimbleful compared to the MG series, you better hope your ass that you hook the player in on your story the first 10 minutes and get them to long periods of reading or you lost the player for good. By presenting the game in a strict visual-novel style format he was putting his game into a niche. Anybody in the game design industry will tell you that's a risky place to stay in. Dude, of course western games have influence on Japanese development. Especially if your primary market is westerners. Maybe I didn't understand your wording? I can't make any judgments on why he decided to change the formula. Maybe the game mechanics he is going to introduce called for it. Who knows. I'm going to have to just play the game and see.

Considering the type of setting that this is, it's most likely going to be in plenty of life or death events. The random factor would be fine if it didn't hinge on trying to get all the endings but in this case, it means life or death for characters. That's what I have a problem with. Okay but that's your friends and that means the series was clearly not for them. Looking at the comments from the articles, it's clear that people are very disappointed by this decision of moving away from the visual novel format. And considering how the creator's previous games were visual novels and had such highly praised feedback from the fans, yes the fans wanted it to stay as a visual novel. So why go out of your way when it's clearly these fans that loved your games and helped you to get this next game off the ground? When you try to expand your audience, you run the risk of losing your previous fans and not getting enough new ones to make up for that. In case you haven't noticed lately, more and more visual novels have been coming out and gaining steam in well, Steam. There has been a growing market for visual novels in the west. Except this series,Zero Escape, has had two successful titles in your so called niche market which is why people asked and pleaded for yet another entry. And here we are on the verge of seeing the new third title. Going back to Metal Gear, that title wasn't as well received as the others, heck, I barely hear anything good about 4. Hideo Kojima is indeed one of the best video game directors of all time but even he realized that he didn't need to pander to western audiences or any audiences to make great games. Long story short, the fanbase had already been created and clearly wanted more of what the first game, 999, had to offer. So there was nothing risky at all. Okay well then tell me how? Western games are either too easy, too ugly or too boring. The Japanese game design is much more varied and even their take on western games are better when you look at something like Dark Souls or hey, what I mentioned earlier, Metal Gear. And they do what they want, not letting money or bad press influence their decisions. Which unfortunately leads the west to censor our games from time to time. Because apparently we need big brother to look after us. At this point I think it's fair to assume that we're just going to disagree on these things concerning the game. But even so, my eyes are still on it and I want to see how this ends.

Yeah, it's fair to say that we will always disagree on this. I'm a fan of both western and eastern games and I don't have a bias here. Even though visual novels are a growing market in the west, they are still extremely niche. If you are going to make a game that you know is not going to be very popular in japan, but focused on a western market, you'd be an idiot not to see what story-based games are trending in the U.S. market. I'm sure he was aware about what was going on in the U.S. I think he used this information in a pitch to get the third game green-lit. You and others might be mad that it's not the same visual novel format as the last two games, but there are always reasons that go on behind the scenes.

Despite butting heads, I still support this thread and any and all people who are interested. New trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etz9m5RApxo