It's clear to me that he simply can't write a story without timeline shifting anymore. I was so surprised and happy when I discovered that Iris had a brain tumor and all the conspiracy and parallel realities related stuff was bullshit. It was such a refreshing reveal in an Uchikoshi game! But then they ruin it completely by making only the parallel universes part true. No explanation is given and the concept isn't worked into the narrative, it just happens.
I don't even know why he included it, honestly. They had the perfect excuse already: The player got the information from other routes, sure, but Date could just remember fragments of 89's or Saito's memories! It works out so much better than Date suddenly being a shifter!
Or, just use prophetic dreams in the plot! It'd still be awkward but at least it would have some connection with what the game is actually about. Maybe go all in on collective uncounscious instead of tying back to shifting. This is just lazy writing.
Also, his route endings here are awful. You play through most of a storyline only for it to be cut short for no reason whatsoever. I understand he wants to have character endings like before, but (the majority of) those were actual endings. Here? Just because the storyline of a single character was resolved, it doesn't mean the main narrative and everything around it was. Obviously, it's because those things are being saved for other routes, but you can't just roll credits because there was a nice conversation with a single character. It's honestly frustrating. Specially because, since the story doesn't end, you haven't caught the culprit, which means in most of the endings things are going to go to shit anyway. Enjoy your one wholesome scene before the carnage starts again I guess.
Things get even worse when you think about it with Zero Escape in mind though.
We are given no explanation about Date's shifting abilities, but they seem to work in a similar way to Zero Escape, and it's the same guy writing, so I just have to assume they work the same way. Now, consider that he ruined his own shifting concept in by attaching a weak moral dilemma towards the end of ZTD: When someone shifts, they actually trade places with their selves from the other timeline.
So I'm supposed to enjoy the happy ending where everyone dances while knowing that I murdered many other Dates, as well as the fact that those timelines still happened and everyone is dying there anyway...?
Like, in 999 things worked because you find out that the game is set up so no one needs to die. All the bad endings are like worst case scenarios. Furthermore, it was all set up by someone other than the player for the greater purpose of achieving the ultimate timeline. You had no choice for most of it.
In VLR things still work somewhat. The knowledge that those crueler timelines go on is terrible, but once again, it's the result of two people (not the player) making sacrifices for a greater purpose.
ZTD is a gratuitous murderfest in which nothing works, but going into detail would take too long.
Then you have AI. There's no intentional shifting in-narrative, it all occurs due to the player. The concept is not explored or explained. There's no third party forcing you into these choices that doom so many people. Date is not aware enough about his ability to understand or question it.
Let me be clear though: The implications of assuming Zero Escape mechanics apply to AI is not a flaw in the game itself, but rather an effect caused by Uchikoshi's failure as a writer in two games. Here, due to relying on a writing clutch that really had no place in this story, and most egregiously in ZTD, by failing so hard in everything that the entire shifting system and related lore leave a bad taste in my mouth now.
And to elaborate, while the sudden use of shifting did bother me during the playthrough, these "crossover" implications only came to mind after I finished most of the game, so it's not a huge deal, but it's still something I'd like Uchikoshi to be better at.
Last but not least... Jesus Christ his comedy is worse than ever. I think it's because you have so many interactable objects, so even if some of the jokes land, there's just a lot more space for others to fail. Not to mention the fucking porn joke during actions scenes, I can't even imagine how anyone thought that was funny and worth including in the game. A tired joke that was bad from the start.
Originally Posted by I3uster
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