On the ending note of Q being also a symbol of hope and a new "resolution", wouldn't that make Quark's name more meaningful? Junpei naming a literal baby in a desert, lost world....maybe its just wishful thinking they had a happy ending in VLR.
I feel like a damn fool for not realising sooner that Q represented 9 even outside of the q door. The Q in Building Q could be for "Question"? Since iirc that was supposed to have all the receiver children, asking Questions of the senders to get the Answer. Incidentally, after the point about Phi I was curious if Sigma had similar significance, and I noted that Sigma is the 18th letter of the Greek Alphabet - digital root of 9.
And along those lines deci means ten (and can be seen as a hint to Q and the kid being separate) which can be seen to mark a symbolic difference in purpose between it and the nonary games(9) as opposed to the deci game as nine symbolically is being tied to suffering and ten can be seen to represent perfection (I am a writer myself though personally I prefer to use the symbols of flowers, gemstones and names)
When you mentioned that the letter phi came from a needle symbol, I thought you would tie that into how she was injected with radical-6. That would be incredible if it's an intentional connection
VERNIAS??? i never expected to see you here, that really means so much to me man! i never expected you to be a zero escape fan, but it's so cool you are!
I don't know where i read this but i read a quote once the says that "the letter Q looks like a loop with a little line coming out, just like Sigma's and Phi's timeline of events" and it stuck with me. Stuck on a loop until they come out with the better end.
Some things in Zero Escape are so brilliant they got me thinking if they really were planned, or maybe we're overthinking already! Letters Phi and Q sharing their origin the same way Phi and Q (Delta) come from the same parents completely blows my mind
this whole time i was like “What about K!!” but i’m thinking maybe since K sounds like Q but isn’t actually Q, it’s a sort of imposter Q, thus leading to what we know about the character K.
15:16 - My takeaway from the series was similar ("suffering can be important and necessary, even if you don't know why at first"), so it's really cool how Q/Kyu is a stereotype of suffering itself, but ZE portrays it the _opposite_ of the stereotype. Thanks for sharing, and thanks for the great video! ZE videos are very rare. Subscribed!
This is a great video, I didn't know this series had such deep references, but I should have expected it from a game so fond of anagrams and random puzzles
So much here i didn't think about! Great vid! Also interesting that Delta in mathematics usually means "the change in ...". Could be point to him being the catalyst for changing the timelines
A Zero Escape video? Nice. There aren't many of these around the web. Life is simply unfair. I hadn't made the full connection that you talked about here, so thanks for the video.
Well, dang! I think you may be even more of a Zero Escape nerd than me, and I never thought I'd see the day! Thanks a bunch for teaching me more about my favorite franchise! You've convinced me to subscribe, so keep up the good work!
Awesome video! I love zero escape but there’s not much fandom interaction I can get out of the series or content for it on this site so it’s really cool seeing a new ze UA-camr pop up and your vids cover a lot of interesting ideas I never even considered before! Also something I thought was related to the topic of the vid tho part of it might be a coincidence (if reading the comments despite the spoiler warning on the video I’ll still spoiler this so don’t click read more if haven’t beat all the games) … The cast of 999 is supposed to have their initial personalities make them seem like stereotypical representations of the enneagram personality system (though Tbf none of them make much sense sans maybe clover who is based on type 6 according to the wiki); the enneagram system has *9* types which are based around core values and fears; akane herself is supposed to be based on type 9 (assuming the ze wiki isn’t lying) which also could be representing how she is a staple part of the series since she is the one based on the 9. It also gives her a connection to delta since he is named Q, where as akane is based on the “kyuu” of the enneagram, and she similar to delta is the zero of their respective games. Again this could be a coincidence but it’s something interesting I thought of while watching your vid. Keep up the great work 💜💜
I love your video series! I played this before and am starting both Raincode and AI Somnium Files, so seeing your videos allows me to appreciate the Nonary Games without having to replay them.
I wish this game was more popular. Besides being a very good visual novel game, I learned so many cool real life theory that was tested on Human and random fun fact. Gigantic Morphogentic Field Alien Hands Syndrome etc.
The first and second game were sick, the third was a bit of a muddled mess. Nobody can convince me that Kyle Klim from the secret ending of the second game isnt the random dog in the third game lol
Thank you UA-cam recommends! I needed some more Zero Escape goodness in my life! And Thank You for the informative content dude, excellent job! I'll definitely be churning this over in my head for a while. P.S. I would love to see if you also have anything interesting to say about any other underrated series with cult followings. Maybe like Outer Wilds, NieR Automata, Soma, The Talos Principle, Return of the Obra Dinn, Disco Elysium, ooh maybe even Omori? Idk, I'm just spitballing, but I love hearing insightful things about these games and other niche titles like these whenever I can. They're all awesome games that I constantly think about whenever I'm not playing them. They make me reassess my sense of logic, philosophy, and my whole view of the world. In my opinion, they definitely drive and reaffirm the notion that "Video Games are art". And I love hearing the open dialogue and analysis of games like these.
i really really appreciate you taking the time to write this, it means a ton! i'd love to talk about more games! i will most likely be playing outer wilds this year and i'd love to do a video about it!
@@nikua_Right on! I can't wait to hear your take on it. I'll definitely turn on notifications for that! And if you haven't played it already, I highly recommend NieR Automata and would love to hear what you have to say about that as well. The box art and the trailers definitely gives off the vibe that it's going to be one of your regular Japanese story RPGs, but I can say with confidence that (ever since I've played it) it's stayed up there on my top five games of all time for a reason. I've recommended this game to friends and let them borrow a physical copy of NieR Automata and told them "if you like the game, then you can keep it". I've bought that game 9 times now. And a few versions of the soundtrack. The only 4 pieces of advice I can give you if you do decide to play it is: to complete the game, you have to get endings A B C D and most importantly E; once you get one of those endings and hit new game, do not think of it as a new game, it's a new chapter of the story, just follow along with it and you'll get new content and story to follow; you don't have to complete the side quests, but each side quest that you do will give you a little bit of lore, story elements, or pieces of information that will make the ending more impactful; you don't have to play the previous games in the story to enjoy Nier Automata, but you will understand some of the references and lore if you do. Hopefully all of that didn't dissuade you into playing it, but I hope you enjoy both Outer Wilds and/or NieR Automata!
This is mind-blowing, you are doing some lord work with your videos!!! Seriously man, I would have never come to these conclusions by myself. Been a fan of this series for a while now and can't believe such meanings in these games are what I missed. THANK YOU!!! Now I can really appreciate these games a whole lot more now
Another notable thing is the decision game on the who (deci = ten as opposed to nonary which literally links to nine (so it can be further stated that nonary/kyu/9/phi/Q represents the final role of Delta's decision game which shifts 9 to ten which can be seen to symbolize perfection and can be seen as the true nature of his plan (to shift the symbolic reality from that of 9 to ten (symbolising a perfect Reality where akane and Junpei can have there happy ending (without needing akane take on the role of Zero (it could even be seen as a symbolic breaking of a loop that whilst also successful perpetuating the loop also achives the goal of creating deci through the decision game as opposed to a nonary game which represents suffering)
(I am a writer myself though personally I prefer to use the symbols of flowers, gemstones and names(the main villains of my Current project is a group called the order of the Rose (each different colour is its own faction with complex dynamics between them and each other colour of rose (even within factions there frequently divides due to multiple symbols being associated with the same colour of rose and along with that there are hybrid roses that exist and create mini factions that go between (such as the Moonstone (white and red hybrid rose)family for an example black roses can symbolise death and rebirth separately
It's worth noting that in the Japanese version of 999 Zero directly tell everyone the rules over the speaker instead of using the note. This works with the 9 = q twist for the reason you mentioned, 9 in Japanese sounds like q in English. When 999 was being localized they had to change this to a note where q can look like 9 (Although in the DS version the symbol in the dialogue is quite clearly a 9 not a q), however they forgot to change a few later scenes that flashback to the rules where the speaker is shown and Zero is saying the rules. Edit: And once again I explain in detail something that gets brought up seconds after I stopped to comment.
A couple of nits to pick: While Zero's note in 999 may well refer to [q] rather than [9], they do still need to find a [9] door in order to escape - the door in the Chapel. While Zero Time Dilemma did have some subtle foreshadowing of Delta's presence, it also had times where if Delta was actually present, the game was actively lying in order to conceal him. It's been a while since I last played through, but I still remember on my first playthrough picking up some of the hints, then discarding them because the game presented convincing evidence that the hints were irrelevant coincidences. The game does not get credit for foreshadowing the twist when it was also lying to conceal the twist.
Great video! I never realized the letter could symbolize that. I always thought It being representative of quantum physics (apologies if I got this wrong) but like if I didnt underatand them wrong they represent a lot of values that Could exist or not, the same way Delta, Akane and the whole vlr timeline work in these games, they are there but their existence depends on " Chance" Of course is a lot more interesting to read in the way the video said tough
Here is some more food for thought, read up on Quantum Immortality, postulated in 1956 and you will understand a lot more about why SHIFT would exist in the series.
the letter Q also looks like a snail lol
War- I mean ztd flashbacks 😵💫
Wow
there is a criminally low amount of zero escape videos on yt so i thank you for the content
i wrote a ZTD, VLR + 999 inspired mystery story. and i'll release it in a few weeks :)
@nikua would you like to review it?
Where is it bro @@HoD999x
link? @@HoD999x
Massive shoutout to the localization team behind this game, everything you shared just makes me appreciate their work even more
On the ending note of Q being also a symbol of hope and a new "resolution", wouldn't that make Quark's name more meaningful? Junpei naming a literal baby in a desert, lost world....maybe its just wishful thinking they had a happy ending in VLR.
I feel like a damn fool for not realising sooner that Q represented 9 even outside of the q door.
The Q in Building Q could be for "Question"? Since iirc that was supposed to have all the receiver children, asking Questions of the senders to get the Answer.
Incidentally, after the point about Phi I was curious if Sigma had similar significance, and I noted that Sigma is the 18th letter of the Greek Alphabet - digital root of 9.
And along those lines deci means ten (and can be seen as a hint to Q and the kid being separate) which can be seen to mark a symbolic difference in purpose between it and the nonary games(9) as opposed to the deci game as nine symbolically is being tied to suffering and ten can be seen to represent perfection
(I am a writer myself though personally I prefer to use the symbols of flowers, gemstones and names)
When you mentioned that the letter phi came from a needle symbol, I thought you would tie that into how she was injected with radical-6. That would be incredible if it's an intentional connection
the thought didn’t even cross my mind, great connection!
You blew my mind with how to connected everything like that. I am now terrified of the letter Q, amazing video!
VERNIAS??? i never expected to see you here, that really means so much to me man! i never expected you to be a zero escape fan, but it's so cool you are!
THE VERNATION IS EVERYWHERE
Vernias????? This is literally the last person i'd ever expect to see on a zero escape video
I don't know where i read this but i read a quote once the says that "the letter Q looks like a loop with a little line coming out, just like Sigma's and Phi's timeline of events" and it stuck with me. Stuck on a loop until they come out with the better end.
Some things in Zero Escape are so brilliant they got me thinking if they really were planned, or maybe we're overthinking already!
Letters Phi and Q sharing their origin the same way Phi and Q (Delta) come from the same parents completely blows my mind
Wow, any other franchise and it’d feel like grasping at straws, but god, this makes a ridiculous amount of sense
this whole time i was like “What about K!!” but i’m thinking maybe since K sounds like Q but isn’t actually Q, it’s a sort of imposter Q, thus leading to what we know about the character K.
15:16 - My takeaway from the series was similar ("suffering can be important and necessary, even if you don't know why at first"), so it's really cool how Q/Kyu is a stereotype of suffering itself, but ZE portrays it the _opposite_ of the stereotype.
Thanks for sharing, and thanks for the great video! ZE videos are very rare. Subscribed!
I appreciate that this video goes deeper than simply the pronunciation of 9 [kyuu] in Japanese. Thanks for great Zero Escape content
So if we have 94/49 in Japanese it's doubling down on both aspects Suffering and Death? That's super intriguing
94 is worse because it could be interpreted as "nine deaths" or "terminal death"
Thanks for telling me this while I'm working on these sudoku puzzles, I'm sure it's not going to be thematically relevant in the coming days.
This is a great video, I didn't know this series had such deep references, but I should have expected it from a game so fond of anagrams and random puzzles
So much here i didn't think about! Great vid! Also interesting that Delta in mathematics usually means "the change in ...". Could be point to him being the catalyst for changing the timelines
A Zero Escape video? Nice. There aren't many of these around the web. Life is simply unfair. I hadn't made the full connection that you talked about here, so thanks for the video.
Uchikoshi and the insane deep connections
Man, i really wish i forgot the plot about this game so i can play it again. The fact that the 9 is actually q is mind-blowing.
Well, dang! I think you may be even more of a Zero Escape nerd than me, and I never thought I'd see the day! Thanks a bunch for teaching me more about my favorite franchise! You've convinced me to subscribe, so keep up the good work!
Thank Kyu for this beautiful video. And here I thought I had already known all there was to know about these games...
I love how this is beyond structured like how they do their metaphysics discussions of the series.
can’t believe i didn’t realize the phi and q thing sooner that’s so cool
Awesome video! I love zero escape but there’s not much fandom interaction I can get out of the series or content for it on this site so it’s really cool seeing a new ze UA-camr pop up and your vids cover a lot of interesting ideas I never even considered before!
Also something I thought was related to the topic of the vid tho part of it might be a coincidence (if reading the comments despite the spoiler warning on the video I’ll still spoiler this so don’t click read more if haven’t beat all the games)
…
The cast of 999 is supposed to have their initial personalities make them seem like stereotypical representations of the enneagram personality system (though Tbf none of them make much sense sans maybe clover who is based on type 6 according to the wiki); the enneagram system has *9* types which are based around core values and fears; akane herself is supposed to be based on type 9 (assuming the ze wiki isn’t lying) which also could be representing how she is a staple part of the series since she is the one based on the 9. It also gives her a connection to delta since he is named Q, where as akane is based on the “kyuu” of the enneagram, and she similar to delta is the zero of their respective games. Again this could be a coincidence but it’s something interesting I thought of while watching your vid. Keep up the great work 💜💜
I love your video series! I played this before and am starting both Raincode and AI Somnium Files, so seeing your videos allows me to appreciate the Nonary Games without having to replay them.
Excellent video! Not nearly enough thoughtful Zero Escape content on the platform. Glad to see you're changing that
I wish this game was more popular. Besides being a very good visual novel game, I learned so many cool real life theory that was tested on Human and random fun fact.
Gigantic
Morphogentic Field
Alien Hands Syndrome
etc.
BANGER VIDEO NIKUA!!!
This is a great improvement over the already amazing Ryuki: Diverge video essay! The editing quality is off the charts. Great job!
sick video, nikua! love how detailed you were here!
I really should’ve picked up on the Q = 9 symbolism sooner. That Phi also represents Q is really cool too. Great video!
10:19 - As you said at 1:16, "Ku" means "despair", and that makes sense here.
I still get flashbacks when I see dice.
The first and second game were sick, the third was a bit of a muddled mess. Nobody can convince me that Kyle Klim from the secret ending of the second game isnt the random dog in the third game lol
This all flew way over my head, thank you for this video essay! succinct and very cool
Thank you UA-cam recommends! I needed some more Zero Escape goodness in my life! And Thank You for the informative content dude, excellent job! I'll definitely be churning this over in my head for a while.
P.S. I would love to see if you also have anything interesting to say about any other underrated series with cult followings. Maybe like Outer Wilds, NieR Automata, Soma, The Talos Principle, Return of the Obra Dinn, Disco Elysium, ooh maybe even Omori? Idk, I'm just spitballing, but I love hearing insightful things about these games and other niche titles like these whenever I can. They're all awesome games that I constantly think about whenever I'm not playing them. They make me reassess my sense of logic, philosophy, and my whole view of the world. In my opinion, they definitely drive and reaffirm the notion that "Video Games are art". And I love hearing the open dialogue and analysis of games like these.
i really really appreciate you taking the time to write this, it means a ton! i'd love to talk about more games! i will most likely be playing outer wilds this year and i'd love to do a video about it!
@@nikua_Right on! I can't wait to hear your take on it. I'll definitely turn on notifications for that!
And if you haven't played it already, I highly recommend NieR Automata and would love to hear what you have to say about that as well. The box art and the trailers definitely gives off the vibe that it's going to be one of your regular Japanese story RPGs, but I can say with confidence that (ever since I've played it) it's stayed up there on my top five games of all time for a reason. I've recommended this game to friends and let them borrow a physical copy of NieR Automata and told them "if you like the game, then you can keep it". I've bought that game 9 times now. And a few versions of the soundtrack.
The only 4 pieces of advice I can give you if you do decide to play it is: to complete the game, you have to get endings A B C D and most importantly E; once you get one of those endings and hit new game, do not think of it as a new game, it's a new chapter of the story, just follow along with it and you'll get new content and story to follow; you don't have to complete the side quests, but each side quest that you do will give you a little bit of lore, story elements, or pieces of information that will make the ending more impactful; you don't have to play the previous games in the story to enjoy Nier Automata, but you will understand some of the references and lore if you do.
Hopefully all of that didn't dissuade you into playing it, but I hope you enjoy both Outer Wilds and/or NieR Automata!
This is mind-blowing, you are doing some lord work with your videos!!! Seriously man, I would have never come to these conclusions by myself. Been a fan of this series for a while now and can't believe such meanings in these games are what I missed. THANK YOU!!! Now I can really appreciate these games a whole lot more now
Dude I got like 3 ppl into Zero Escape this year and I just keep seeing more and more Zero Escape videos from this year
love to see some Zero Escape content, thank you for this
Beautiful, Finally a Zero Escape Nerd I can Sub to! Thank You so much, my Friend
I enjoyed this a lot as a long time fan of the series
Loved the video, urge to play the trilogy again after watching
This was amazing, thank you for the Zero Escape love ♥
also i feel like it's worth noting that proto sinaitic qoph looks like an 8, the number assigned to the q door in 999
Honestly if a game was called 666 in the west it probably wouldn't sell well and create at least some controversy
Another notable thing is the decision game on the who (deci = ten as opposed to nonary which literally links to nine (so it can be further stated that nonary/kyu/9/phi/Q represents the final role of Delta's decision game which shifts 9 to ten which can be seen to symbolize perfection and can be seen as the true nature of his plan (to shift the symbolic reality from that of 9 to ten (symbolising a perfect Reality where akane and Junpei can have there happy ending (without needing akane take on the role of Zero (it could even be seen as a symbolic breaking of a loop that whilst also successful perpetuating the loop also achives the goal of creating deci through the decision game as opposed to a nonary game which represents suffering)
(I am a writer myself though personally I prefer to use the symbols of flowers, gemstones and names(the main villains of my Current project is a group called the order of the Rose (each different colour is its own faction with complex dynamics between them and each other colour of rose (even within factions there frequently divides due to multiple symbols being associated with the same colour of rose and along with that there are hybrid roses that exist and create mini factions that go between (such as the Moonstone (white and red hybrid rose)family for an example black roses can symbolise death and rebirth separately
Great video! Thanks for this!!
This blew my mind. These games are truly insanely smart.
Of course. Of course Q would be the 17th letter. It's 17's all the way down.
It's worth noting that in the Japanese version of 999 Zero directly tell everyone the rules over the speaker instead of using the note. This works with the 9 = q twist for the reason you mentioned, 9 in Japanese sounds like q in English. When 999 was being localized they had to change this to a note where q can look like 9 (Although in the DS version the symbol in the dialogue is quite clearly a 9 not a q), however they forgot to change a few later scenes that flashback to the rules where the speaker is shown and Zero is saying the rules.
Edit: And once again I explain in detail something that gets brought up seconds after I stopped to comment.
acc its not 苦 (ku) from 九 (kyu) its acc bc 9 in jp can be pronounced both ku and kyu depending on context. just adds more cheeky wordplay
A couple of nits to pick:
While Zero's note in 999 may well refer to [q] rather than [9], they do still need to find a [9] door in order to escape - the door in the Chapel.
While Zero Time Dilemma did have some subtle foreshadowing of Delta's presence, it also had times where if Delta was actually present, the game was actively lying in order to conceal him. It's been a while since I last played through, but I still remember on my first playthrough picking up some of the hints, then discarding them because the game presented convincing evidence that the hints were irrelevant coincidences. The game does not get credit for foreshadowing the twist when it was also lying to conceal the twist.
Great video! I never realized the letter could symbolize that.
I always thought It being representative of quantum physics (apologies if I got this wrong) but like if I didnt underatand them wrong they represent a lot of values that Could exist or not, the same way Delta, Akane and the whole vlr timeline work in these games, they are there but their existence depends on " Chance"
Of course is a lot more interesting to read in the way the video said tough
thank you for the content
Ngl I feel so fucking dumb,like I forgot everything
The lowercase letter delta (δ) looks like an upside down Q.
awesome vid
If he says it by the speaker then what is written on the note in the Japanese version?
I wonder there is 4th game of zero escape..soon with mind bending story..
Here is some more food for thought, read up on Quantum Immortality, postulated in 1956 and you will understand a lot more about why SHIFT would exist in the series.
I can see this video being inside the game somewhere
Q
Nah you can multiply numbers with decimals and add everything to get 9. Did it a ton in school.
Q sent me