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Zero Escape Spoilers, light 25th ward spoiler, light Hundred Line spoiler

Since initially making this post, I have played a lot more games, and new games by some of the developers mentioned have been released. First, I would like to mention that after replaying 999: Zero Escape, I have some new thoughts on it. In the remaster of 999, they changed the final puzzle of the game. The original puzzle, like I mentioned, was sudoku. However, in the remaster, they changed the puzzle to this weird set of buttons that change depending on what you press.

You’re supposed to figure out that it’s trying to spell the word “password” using a mix of numbers and letters. However, there’s almost no way you can figure this out on your own. Almost. My theory is that you’re supposed to look up the answer on the internet. However, I also believe that you could figure it out on your own by having a sort of epiphany. The whole theme of the game and a central topic throughout the plot is the idea of the morphogenetic field. This is the concept that ideas can be shared through an invisible field or collective consciousness. When receiving an idea, it comes to you in a flash, like an epiphany. Therefore, my theory is that the developers changed the final puzzle either because they wanted to condition the player into having an epiphany on their own after randomly trying different combinations, or they wanted to imply that the real life morphogenetic field now takes the form of the internet. In my opinion, this is a much better final puzzle for the game and definitely communicates the point of the game much better. Secondly, I would like to mention that on April 24, 2025, the game The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- was released. This was a collaboration project between Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi, the writers of Danganronpa and Zero Escape, respectively. The game actually includes 12 different writers. The others include several light novel authors, Tokyo Chronos writers, Rain Code writers, and a Persona series writer. 

Kaztaka Kodaka took inspiration from The 25th Ward: The Silver Case’s 100 different endings, and decided to make a game that also includes 100 endings. However, this time, he wanted each ending to be fully fleshed out. He wanted any of the endings to be considered to be a “true” ending. To access the choices, you must play through the game once without making decisions yourself, until the protagonist gains the power to go back in time and make choices to avoid the mediocre future he encountered. This, again, connects back to Kamaitachi no Yoru, as well as every other game I mentioned. The game is pretty long, as I have completed 6 endings as of writing this and have about 70 hours of the game so far. However, I will probably have more thoughts on this game after completing the rest of the endings and learning the full story.