/tg/Station 13

The first half of the game was a grind. The lack of a continuity really removed any real attachment I had to the characters and removed all tension and weight behind all of your decisions. Writing was weak, disjointed and often re-treaded ground already covered in previous games without adding anything new. They even had a callback to VLR's AB game, but it only served as a reminder how much better Zero Escape used to be.

The non-linearity of most of the game also meant that characters often had to re-explain things already known to the player over and over again just to cover all the cases where it would have been the first segment the player picked.

The violence was turned up from VLR, but I found them to be pointlessly gratuitous, as opposed to 999's far more tasteful and impactful use.

The latter half was sort of neat, but there were a lot of ass-pull moments, like the first time Zero is revealed. Like seriously, the villain just materialized out of thin air. They really jumped the shark this time, too, introducing literal time machines and aliens. VLR gets a pass on a lot of their stuff because they have the excuse of being far in the future.

The ending was also anticlimactic and a huge letdown, especially compared to the last two games. I think the only thing I actually enjoyed was the whole Greek Alphabet family arc, especially how they showed how they spent their 10+ months losing their minds in the shelter. That was gold.