Zero Escape and Replayability

Zero's Escape

One of my favorite games on the DS, 999 was a mystery game that placed 9 people on a cruise ship to solve Saw-type puzzles. If you could stand to read lots of text, it proved to be a gripping, heart-pounding visual novel that really knew how to tease your brain. Zero Escape, its sequel, is no different, and in many ways might be better than the original.

As I’ve been playing Zero Escape, however, I’m noticing something about myself as a gamer these days. You see, one of 999’s faults was that it had a plethora of endings. However, you had to replay the entire game up to certain choices to see those endings. Sure, you could fast forward through dialogue, but you had to go through the motions every time you hit one of the game’s puzzles. Zero Escape fixes this issue by allowing you to skip straight into the scene where the timeline branches due to your decision.

While it’s a welcome touch, I’m still finding myself a bit put out by the tedium of constantly replaying similar sections of the game. I’ve seen a handful of the game’s endings in 10 hours of play, but I’ve only covered maybe one fourth of all the scenarios. The version of Eddy that’s playing Zero Escape is one that doesn’t have the patience for this kind of thing any longer, it seems. I’m not sure where my willingness to replay games went off to, but I’m guessing it has something to do with a toddler needing the majority of my attention. I used to love to replay games again and again, mining them for all their secrets, watching different paths unfold and collecting different endings. But that another time, I suppose.

What about you guys? How do you feel about replaying games to get everything possible out of them? Go!

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I write about samurai girls and space marines. Writer for Smooth Few Films. Rooster Teeth Freelancer. Author of Red vs. Blue, The Ultimate Fan Guide, out NOW!

4 thoughts on “Zero Escape and Replayability”

  1. Once I had the money to buy more games, my desire to replay games over and over went out the window. It was something born of necessity and once I didn’t have to do it, I didn’t.

    That doesn’t mean there aren’t games I hold on to and wish to play again. It just means I don’t spend more time on a game than I have/want to.

  2. Hell I’m in college and I rarely have time to replay games. The ones that I do are usually for achievement purposes, and I save those games for the summer or holidays. But everything else… pretty much I’m done when the credits roll. Like Anthony said I think that it’s a habit born from having to spend months to save up to purchase one game as a kid.

  3. 100% Achievement is there for me along with Legendary Playthrough when I’m starving for games. However, come Christmas with some Christmas Gifts I’m roaring to get through the campaigns as fast I can.

    Haha. If I had to compare it to the Prohibition,
    When Its Dry, You’d Drink the Nasty Home-Made Gin to the last Sip.
    When the 21st Amendment gets Repealed, I’m all classy and choosing between Sherry or Bourbon. Then I just go get smashed on Vodka and Soda.

  4. Man, I find myself not even finishing most games lately. But in the game you described, it sounds like multiple endings is sort of the whole idea. I can’t imagine playing The Stanley Parable once through and thinking “Yeah, that was the right ending” so of course that game was played over and over. I’m currently doing a completely evil female playthrough of FO: New Vegas to see some of the scenarios play out and watch the ending summary and see how different the endings are.

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