Zero Context 5: riding into the sunset

Content warning: brief mention of animal cruelty from 32:05-32:30; brief mention of incest from 1:11:19-1:11:52.

We emerge from the gaming mines into the Nevada desert. It’s over. We’ve finished 999. As we depart in our Zero Escape promotional SUV, we reflect on our experience playing and replaying the game, now able to see it in totality. Did the mystery payoff? Is Zero morally justified? Did Nathalie get any predictions right? Next time we meet the snow will have fallen, our hair will have grown, and we will have have shed our tattered socks. But know this, listener: I will never forget you.

Next Time on Zero Context
Holiday special while we figure out how the hell to structure Virtue’s Last Reward

Things Discussed
- Living in a Saw society
- Morality free death gaming
- Mysteries are more fun without answers
- Umineko and puzzle box conclusions
- 999 as a big experiment game
- Being an english major makes videogames bad
- Uchikoshi’s metaphysics bibliography
- Ever17‘s formal parallels to 999
- Getting owned by release dates
- “What makes a Japanese dating sim/adventure game/novel game?” by @iiotenki
- How games struggle to synthesize mechanics and systems with narrative themes
- This whole enterprise hinging on a sudoku puzzle
- The baffling formal changes in the PC/console port
- Games engaging with the console as a physical object
- Inventing the ideal 999 play environment
- Nathalie’s extremely correct and good predictions

Intro: “Morphogenetic Sorrow” by Shinji Hosoe
Outro: “9years” by Shinji Hosoe

Transcripts will (hopefully) be available for future episodes.

Produced by Axe (@wing_blade_) with cover art by Nathalie (@BOOitsnathalie).

Subscribe on Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get podcasts. You can support Axe and Nathalie on their respective Ko-Fi pages.

Send your questions/comments/complaints to questions@kritiqal.com.