So, I've been playing Zero Escape: VLR and... I wanted to make a corkboard of crazy. But I do not possess a corkboard. So Tumblr it is, I wanted to share my theories because I am losing my marbles.
If youare considering VLR blind... Which I highly recommend you do. Play Zero Escape. Do not read this post, ignore it completely... I just wanna spew theories and they have to do wih routes I may have passed, but you don't knows the contents of. Similarly, people who have played and know the story... Don't spoil, please. I know this is a 10+ year old game but when it launched I was unable to play it for a myriad of reasons... Besides, people get into games at many different stages in life, so...
And in case my theory's right, I don't wanna spoil anybody, so tear away ZE current players.
Spoilers and my crackpot theory below.
My Tree of Time/Flow Chart currently looks like this:
I'm in the laboratory right now, and I just wanna scream into the void:
Oh Sigma's a GAULEM, Sigma's a GAULEM so bad it's not even funny. This man is not human I assure you.
He surpasses the last game's infodump and K's crown of random ass knowledge in a way that is not natural to this series. I don't know how to explain it, but how he presents knowledge is weird. And how much he remembers stuff. The "My memory's good" comments, him memorizing stuff in a matter of seconds in a way even Clover is impressed... THE UI OF THE GAME.
First of all, this man isn't voice acted, not once thus far. Which, no joke, made me search for the options menu thinking something was wrong with my game, but then Phi spoke and all that went to the floor. Junpei was voice acted last game, I know that VLR was the first voice acted part of the series all those years ago, so... Why did they voice act Junpei in 2017? I got confused, but apparently according to other players Sigma is just not voice acted at all, so I let it slide.
Then he didn't appear in the group CG when they were speaking to Zero III. There was't a speck of the college guy which I thought was wearing a stylized police uniform anywhere. Not in any CG, at max his hands, very different from Junpei, which we saw everywhere in 999. I took note of that and moved on. I thought I took a picture, but I didn't, but you can check for yourself.
Now something that made it click after the G-OLM encounter on what I can only describe as the submarine route of this game(?): The zoom mechanic in escape sections. I gotta be honest, it bothered me a shitton when I first booted the game up.
These...Corner specks? The Zoom text? It just looked like too much information in my eyes, especially when compared to the clean zooms from 999. I thought it was a stylistic choice, I'd deal with it and learnt to ignore it, especially since the ZE series is so acclaimed for its stories. I played AI:SF before, these games are worth it, and sometime later the zoom stopped bothering me.
Then I realized 30 minutes ago the entire game screen is hardware.
The dialogue screens are silver lined, with a kind of cog like shape at the end of phrases. Character's speaking appear in small screens, like they are being recorded, or being simulated into Sigma's mind. The Menu screen is a panel with buttons.
The Archive screen is full of batteries, files and cables. The memo function looks like a translucent screen panel. I may be reaching far, but even save data are slots for memory chips, which I forgot the technical name of.
G-OLM himself told us that GAULEMS can look like humans with enough ABT sculpted/put into them.
Am I crazy or something? The only time we see a CG/3D model of Sigma is when K punches him and Phi to put them in the chromatic door, and still we never see this bastard's face(Sigma, not K). It looks much more like a mop of white hair than the black we've been led to believe the entire game with the 2D CGs.
Besides, the guy with black hair only appears in the past, 2D drawn. There's never a 3D model of this man.
And just for jokes, I don't know how a human would be able to bear hug K, with his armor, successfully. And yet Sigma kind of does it???? Sure, it's not incredibly efficient, but whatever.
This is my insanity. I'm not even gonna delve on how I think Phi functions like a player, jumping through timelines, or is incredibly connected to the morphogenetic field, or both.
