Getting to know your villagers is one of the best parts of any Animal Crossing game. Players will often form pretty elaborate relationships to their neighbors, gifting them clothes and trading letters back and forth. So it was understandable that people were worried when a gravestone popped up in the background of the Animal Crossing Direct. Did one of the villagers die? The old turtle mayor Tortimer was getting on in years, had his time finally come?
Anyway, as usual to ignore the topic altogether: you all should seriously consider using whatever free time you have to play the Zero Escape games. All of them. Patrick says only 999 is the good one, they’re all great. The second one is actually the best one. The third one isn’t as good but it’s got really impressive moments, specifically with Diana.
But all this depends on how much tolerance you have for utterly batshit insane twists. If you’re down for that, these are fantastic games, one of my favorite franchises of the last decade.
I’m using my time right now to go through Danganronpa which isn’t as good, but yeah, kinda scratching similar itches.
I coincidentally happened to start playing through the Zero Escape games after sitting on them for about a year after I bounced off of Nine Hours, Nine persons, Nine Doors because I couldn’t figure out how to get past the first puzzle.
For two nights in a row I’ve been playing through 999 and getting to what I believed to be the final ending only to have the questions and mysteries continue to pile up an unfurl. It’s really something.
Kinda spooky to have it pop up unannounced on the podcast given some of the ideas presented in 999 too.
Zero Time Dilemma’s story and twists didn’t work for me, especially the Diana part. But the puzzles were great, more immersive than in the previous games, and the structure was interesting.
Danganronpa V3 is the one I really like in the series (with a lot of caveats still), but you need to have played the previous ones to appreciate it properly. I would recommend the free game Your Turn to Die to Zero Escape and Danganronpa fans though. It has better writing than DR while sharing the survival game premise, the debates are super chaotic and the big moments land really well.
Hopkins - with a rear shot to show the problem. From his pocket camp profile “Just a heads-up: Hopkins is not to be trusted.”
This is keeping aside special characters, of whom one is literally someone(?) wearing an animal costume, and e-reader exclusives, from where this nightmare was spawned:
Seriously this looks like one of those haunted videogame creepypastas not an actual character
A ram goes to doctor, and says that he’s depressed, that life seems harsh and cruel, that he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. The doctor says, “Treatment is simple. The Great Clown Pietro is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.” The ram bursts into tears. The ram says, “But doctor… I am Pietro.”
So, I just learned that you are forced to recruit the first villager who arrives at your campsite, or else they will sit inside the tent there forever. I learned this, because my first campsite villager is Pietro.
