They actually do, however the japanese literally structure is a closed circle where the status of the characters is the same at the beginning and the end.
It's not meant to be cathartic like the greco-roman theater structure that marvel movies tend to use.
I've seen this screenshot but I never owned a bing bing wahoo console so could someone tell me the context? Was he right behind your character the whole game or something?
Yes. One of the plot twists of the games was that we were playing from his perspective the whole time. THE PLAYER WAS A CONTESTANT IN A DEATH GAME THE WHOLE TIME AND ALSO THE MAIN VILLAIN.
The plot twist is that he was just off-camera the entire game until the last half hour, and everyone knew he was there and just never brought him up in conversation.
b-but he gets mentioned a few times and if you listen closely in some cutscenes you can see his shadow and hear him!
but why wasn't his picture shown in the portrait puzzle? well.. ummm... because.... uh... the developer didn't have time to flesh out the details. that's why! XD
>and just never brought him up in conversation.
Well, he wasn't in team C or D so they wouldn't talk to him or about him as often.
And Eric sometimes talked to him, the game just cuted to Gab to make you think he was talking to the dog, which makes sense if you consider that team Q's PoV was him in first person.
>Was he right behind your character the whole game or something?
When you have to point out he mastermind it turns out it was an old man in a wheelchair that was conveniently off-camera the entire time. If you pay attention the other characters make like 2 references to him being there during the game.
… how would you know the know the main twist of the game from a screenshot that has nothing to do with it? why do you need a weird bait post to have discussion for this game?
It's supposed to be twist on whodunit by making it meta, saying that the bad guy is literally (you), the player, as indicated by the chapter's title, "Zero is You". As soon as that happens though, the old guy starts acting on his own and becomes just another character in the story, immediately turning it into a retread of VLR. Throw in some character assassination, a drastically different art style, the more interesting shit all happening off screen and more and you get the giant shit storm we got
Kodaka was way too ambitious. He wanted a fully voiced 3D adventure without the budget and experience to back it up. Game was only 1/3rd finished before release.
Of course, "life itself is an escape game that starts at birth" is exactly the sort of thing this hack would say. His "life is like a box of chocolates". Fricking prick lol
AI: The Somnium Files. It's just Zero Escape, but with dreams instead of escape rooms.
I really want to play the second Somnium Files game for what I'm assured is a classic Uchikoshi plot twist, but i don't have the patience for sit through another one of these games for it
story that tried too hard to be 2deep4u twisty like the previous games with the additional handicap of being the third game in a series that was never meant to go beyond the first one
dichotomy of limited budget + most advanced visuals of the series (animated 3D cutscenes) led to shitty visuals making the existing mess even more hilarious
>Why was ZTD so weirdly bad?
Because when Uchikoshi found out the series was more popular in the west than Japan he decided he should make it more like the Saw movies that were popular in America instead of keep doing the thing that was already working
Remember11 actually being decent surprised me after Ever17, which is complete fricking shit
i like the girl literally crushing a hamster to death in her hands though.
The plot twist is that he was just off-camera the entire game until the last half hour, and everyone knew he was there and just never brought him up in conversation.
This but also the only reason you know about him is some of the characters gave birth to him in one of the alternative timelines and they put him in an alien time machine that has zero justification for existing
>Hearing that the ending was designed to be unsatisfying on purpose
kek the ending is shit because they ran out of budget and couldn't finish the game (same reason why bad endings are pitch white)
The main issue is he designed the game to be more open ended and mainstream, ie you don't have to play the other 2 games to enjoy the 3rd title in a trilogy, but ultimately causes more harm than good given VLR was designed to build up a sequel and ZTD leaving dozens of unanswered questions, compare to 999 just about everything had its own subsequent explanation.
But beyond that there's just way too much wrong with the game, to a point where it reaches The Room quality where you stop giving a shit about the plot and just start laughing at how absurd and stupid many of the premises are. Thankfully there were a lot of threads clowning on the story at launch and if not for Ganker it would had become something hateful like Mass Effect 3 instead of the silly guilty pleasure it ended up being.
uchi didnt give a frick. he can make a game out of textual shit and homosexuals will still slurp it up. he has bethesda sickness - no matter what he makes, he will be successful and it has fueled his ego
Actually VLR was soft canceled during production but since the game is only a visual novel they could finish the game with a cut budget. That's why the game looks like total dogshit.
Kotaro knew full well that ZE3 wasn't gonna be made when he made those Q&A for VLR and likely didn't have an actual plan to actually resolve the story. ZTD was only ever put in production because Aksys Games, the localization company who worked with 999 and VLR helped fund ZTD.
Uchi literally explained all of this
You are a bona fide moron
5 months ago
Anonymous
>"I’m so sad, but all the companies exist for profit-making purposes. If the profits can’t be expected, naturally, the project isn’t approved."
Uchi on why the sequel didn't get approved. > When Uchikoshi was developing the second and third games simultaneously, he had the plot skeleton for the third game which was left intact, but the rest of the game became totally different. It’s because when he was writing the plot, he already knew what the outcome was going to be, so he might end up getting bored in writing the scenario. In order to avoid that, he had a suggestion to ‘surprise himself even more’, which resulted in the story getting changed.
In an interview about ZTD.
5 months ago
Anonymous
Uchi being a hack has nothing to do with what we were talking about
5 months ago
Anonymous
It literally does.
5 months ago
Anonymous
You had ample time to explain how, yet you neglected to at every opportunity.
I do no longer consider you worth my time.
5 months ago
Anonymous
You had ample time to explain how, yet you neglected to at every opportunity.
I do no longer consider you worth my time.
boys boys boys
shut the frick up okay
this guy
Actually VLR was soft canceled during production but since the game is only a visual novel they could finish the game with a cut budget. That's why the game looks like total dogshit.
Kotaro knew full well that ZE3 wasn't gonna be made when he made those Q&A for VLR and likely didn't have an actual plan to actually resolve the story. ZTD was only ever put in production because Aksys Games, the localization company who worked with 999 and VLR helped fund ZTD.
claimed that vlr got soft canceled during development without any proof and that is the only point of contention, if he provides proof it's all fine
5 months ago
Anonymous
>no i don't care about your "measurements", unless the sun personally hands me a note that says that the surface is cooler than the atmosphere, it just isn't true
5 months ago
Anonymous
Is it that hard to just provide citation to the "VLR got soft cancelled" claim?
birth me code and head as code were surprisingly great, lots of mindfricks and theorycrafting and plot twists/reveals. two short titles with the third and last out this year. they're EVNs but if you're hunting more mystery titles and stories like the older infinity games then it shouldn't bother you.
Because Uchikoshi and and the team developing this game probably encountered an issue and didn't backup the original script, so they had to rewrite everything. They pretended to make the game more welcoming for newcomers to damage control, as a marketing stunt. Only the D-team script wasn't completely lost, that's why it has the best scenes.
No, they fricking werent.
Lunas death scene with blue birds lamentation playing in the background MOGS the sending of the twins to the past.
And that is the best drama ZTD has.
nah ZTD best drama was akane going kurazyyy and killing junpei or seeing junpeis head getting cut off. but no seriously I think Sean and Eric backstory was pretty good. but nothing made me grin like a motherfricker in the melting scene or the head exploding scenes hehehe
It proved beyond a shadow of a doubt we weren't ever going to get answers to important questions already posed by the series. Just new bullshit piled onto the heap. Also, the fear of making anyone a truly bad person prevents any conclusions, just another wild goose chase that may or may not result in another sequel.
I hate ZTD with all my soul.
It killed a series that I loved, 999 and VLR where some of the most soulful games that I have ever played.
And now I miss games with puzles that aren't kiddy shit (Layton) or moronic (Danganropa).
And no ever17 and remember11 don't scratch that itch.
I fricking hate Visual Novels.
The hiatus giving him time to become a moron was a big contributor. He had a most likely better script already laid out and scrapped it, letting others come in and write the scenarios for every team but D. This also marked the start of his moronic trend of designing sequels that people who had never played the prequels could jump right into, made obvious by the fact he switched to gaudy 3d models he thought would be more appealing like the walking dead tell tale games. The long and short is he just didn't try. He had all the talent to make this game as good as 999 and VLR and he simply didn't. Instead of writing out intriguing science fiction backed by real world research, he came up with asspulls. It saddens me to think we'll never get a game from him again that's as good as 999 was.
I've only played 999 with all the endings. Is it worth playing VLR still with how apparently bad ZTD is or would I just be setting myself up for disappointment?
at some point his games turn into "its so bad its good" just looking forward how moronic twists can get
if u expect serious mystery that respects you then no
I only played 999 and VLR, but writer of this series just can't write endings
He tries to make plot twist, then corners himself with that plot twist, then asspulls, then corners himself again, then asspulls, repeat that 10 times
Writer is definition of being a hack.
No way gay
Only reason i played 999 and VLR was because i got it gifted
And even then, it took me long break to start VLR after 999, that bad i felt after playing that shit 999(i actually don't mind VLR other than Phi and Luna routes, writer is moronic if he thinks that making hour long essay explaining basic things will make him look like not a hack, but 999 is pure garbage with meaningless asspulls, like changing numbers on bracelet, or not Snake not dying to 5 revolver shots in head, and so on. I wish i could forget this shit)
it makes sense why those moments are unskippable on weak systems like the Vita and the 3DS since its basically a way to hide loading time but its dumb that its not skippable on the console and PC ports
Uchikoshi hasn’t made a good game since the first 999 game. Literally EVERY one of them just HAS to have an absolutely moronic twist thrown into it that comes out of nowhere and blatantly does not hold up to scrutiny. >yeah uhhhhh you were actually on a moon base the hole time and uhh a virus from a cult makes people kill people and themselves!!! also you were body swapped with an old guy who has a weird looking monocle, but everyone in the story makes absolutely zero (aside from one comment about a kid calling you “old” in the beginning) comment about, despite everyone commenting about how suspicious other people are based off of theirs looks (“wow, that robot guy is weird,” “huh, that cowboy guy looks strange,”) >EVERYONE CONVENIENTLY doesn’t talk about the weird looking old guy who had forearms that look younger than every part of his body >this game also FORCES you to look at multiple REFLECTIVE SURFACES to progress, SURFACES which people mention being able to see themselves on, AND YOUR PROTAGONIST NEVER FRICKING NOTICES THAT THEY ARE AN OLD ASS BALDING DUDE INSTEAD OF A COLLEGE AGED GUY
Somnium files was the same story. >oh teehee the killer can body swap people using a machine in a random warehouse xD
Because it's Japanese. They don't know how to tell a proper story. They have no literary tradition.
>They have no literary tradition.
Except they have the oldest novel ever written. Can white people stop feeling inferior all the time lol
>oldest novel ever written
Plot twist: Petronius and Apuleius were Japanese.
while that guy is a goober, his point remains: they have a literary tradition.
They actually do, however the japanese literally structure is a closed circle where the status of the characters is the same at the beginning and the end.
It's not meant to be cathartic like the greco-roman theater structure that marvel movies tend to use.
I've seen this screenshot but I never owned a bing bing wahoo console so could someone tell me the context? Was he right behind your character the whole game or something?
Yes. One of the plot twists of the games was that we were playing from his perspective the whole time. THE PLAYER WAS A CONTESTANT IN A DEATH GAME THE WHOLE TIME AND ALSO THE MAIN VILLAIN.
The plot twist is that he was just off-camera the entire game until the last half hour, and everyone knew he was there and just never brought him up in conversation.
b-but he gets mentioned a few times and if you listen closely in some cutscenes you can see his shadow and hear him!
but why wasn't his picture shown in the portrait puzzle? well.. ummm... because.... uh... the developer didn't have time to flesh out the details. that's why! XD
>and just never brought him up in conversation.
Well, he wasn't in team C or D so they wouldn't talk to him or about him as often.
And Eric sometimes talked to him, the game just cuted to Gab to make you think he was talking to the dog, which makes sense if you consider that team Q's PoV was him in first person.
Why wouldn't you talk about the one guy suspiciously missing during Zero's only live appearance?
because they don't remember that live appearance since the bracelets made them forget stuff
They don't ask about Q DURING this scene.
>start the game
>coin flip scene
ITS THAT OLD FRICK WHOS BEHIND THIS ISNT IT. ONCE I WAKE UP IM GONNA KILL YOU
>camera points at the dog
it would've been funny as frick.
that's true but in the timeline where they win the coin toss Carlos says
>I know... You're...
to Zero just before he passes out
And outside they keep ignoring the missing mute, deaf and blind cripple, who's supposed to be with them.
that one I can't explain, its just a shitty twist that relies on hiding information from the player
Unfair solutions to mysteries. Just so nobody can possibly see a twist coming.
Like this!
>Was he right behind your character the whole game or something?
When you have to point out he mastermind it turns out it was an old man in a wheelchair that was conveniently off-camera the entire time. If you pay attention the other characters make like 2 references to him being there during the game.
… how would you know the know the main twist of the game from a screenshot that has nothing to do with it? why do you need a weird bait post to have discussion for this game?
I'm not the op moron, I've just seen this screenshot posted several times with the thread stating "I was here the whole time" and got curious.
Who are you fooling?
It's supposed to be twist on whodunit by making it meta, saying that the bad guy is literally (you), the player, as indicated by the chapter's title, "Zero is You". As soon as that happens though, the old guy starts acting on his own and becomes just another character in the story, immediately turning it into a retread of VLR. Throw in some character assassination, a drastically different art style, the more interesting shit all happening off screen and more and you get the giant shit storm we got
There should have been two deltas, one good and one bad. You are mindhacking everyone to save the world but he is mindhacking to destroy it. Complex
Ehh, the Zero Escape series in its entirety is on Steam, my dude.
>I never owned a bing bing wahoo console
The games are on Steam
Kodaka was way too ambitious. He wanted a fully voiced 3D adventure without the budget and experience to back it up. Game was only 1/3rd finished before release.
Kodaka didn't make this game you moron
Uchikoshi is Kodaka's pen name. They're the same person.
The other way around. Kotaro Uchikoshi is his literal name, Kodaka is his pen name
explain THIS!
Of course, "life itself is an escape game that starts at birth" is exactly the sort of thing this hack would say. His "life is like a box of chocolates". Fricking prick lol
I really want to play the second Somnium Files game for what I'm assured is a classic Uchikoshi plot twist, but i don't have the patience for sit through another one of these games for it
story that tried too hard to be 2deep4u twisty like the previous games with the additional handicap of being the third game in a series that was never meant to go beyond the first one
dichotomy of limited budget + most advanced visuals of the series (animated 3D cutscenes) led to shitty visuals making the existing mess even more hilarious
You better push that button.
why does the creator hate big breasted woman so much?
BIG BREAST = SERIAL KILLER/SELFISH
SMALL BREASTS = SMART, SNARKY AND PURE
?????
Danganronpa doesn't follow any patterns on that front.
He drank the Twitter koolaid
>Why was ZTD so weirdly bad?
Because when Uchikoshi found out the series was more popular in the west than Japan he decided he should make it more like the Saw movies that were popular in America instead of keep doing the thing that was already working
Because Uchikoshi is a hack. He also wanted a full third route for Remember11 to oberexplain everhthing, thank god he got vetoed on that for time.
Remember11 actually being decent surprised me after Ever17, which is complete fricking shit
i like the girl literally crushing a hamster to death in her hands though.
This but also the only reason you know about him is some of the characters gave birth to him in one of the alternative timelines and they put him in an alien time machine that has zero justification for existing
I was left fairly unsatisfied by Remember 11's ending
Hearing that the ending was designed to be unsatisfying on purpose (plz believe ) did not make it good retroactively
Remember 11 just sorta ending without a conclusion did kinda suck, though the game as a whole was great.
That's largely why i said "decent", that and the excessive monologuing in the second act
The premise is interesting and the twist at the end was good, but I don't believe for a second that it was meant to end there
https://adayem.wordpress.com/2018/05/01/the-missing-self-chapter-r11-explained/
it's been confirmed in interviews they had extra stuff they cut
https://adayem.wordpress.com/2020/09/26/mages-s-special-interview-with-ex-kid-employees/
Unfinished11 is canonically unfinished.
>Hearing that the ending was designed to be unsatisfying on purpose
kek the ending is shit because they ran out of budget and couldn't finish the game (same reason why bad endings are pitch white)
It was 999 that was weirdly good for Uchikoshi
It was more fun and enjoyable than VLR.
>dude you have to keep rolling the dice until all 3 of you roll a 1
The main issue is he designed the game to be more open ended and mainstream, ie you don't have to play the other 2 games to enjoy the 3rd title in a trilogy, but ultimately causes more harm than good given VLR was designed to build up a sequel and ZTD leaving dozens of unanswered questions, compare to 999 just about everything had its own subsequent explanation.
But beyond that there's just way too much wrong with the game, to a point where it reaches The Room quality where you stop giving a shit about the plot and just start laughing at how absurd and stupid many of the premises are. Thankfully there were a lot of threads clowning on the story at launch and if not for Ganker it would had become something hateful like Mass Effect 3 instead of the silly guilty pleasure it ended up being.
Uchikoshi is a hack
I just wanted to know what happened to Kyle. Everything in VLR was pointless otherwise
Better than VLR
uchi didnt give a frick. he can make a game out of textual shit and homosexuals will still slurp it up. he has bethesda sickness - no matter what he makes, he will be successful and it has fueled his ego
but vlr was such a flop ztd was cancelled and then given no budget?
Actually VLR was soft canceled during production but since the game is only a visual novel they could finish the game with a cut budget. That's why the game looks like total dogshit.
Kotaro knew full well that ZE3 wasn't gonna be made when he made those Q&A for VLR and likely didn't have an actual plan to actually resolve the story. ZTD was only ever put in production because Aksys Games, the localization company who worked with 999 and VLR helped fund ZTD.
You don't need to make shit up.
He's 100% right tho
And his uncle works for Chunsoft.
Uchi literally explained all of this
You are a bona fide moron
>"I’m so sad, but all the companies exist for profit-making purposes. If the profits can’t be expected, naturally, the project isn’t approved."
Uchi on why the sequel didn't get approved.
> When Uchikoshi was developing the second and third games simultaneously, he had the plot skeleton for the third game which was left intact, but the rest of the game became totally different. It’s because when he was writing the plot, he already knew what the outcome was going to be, so he might end up getting bored in writing the scenario. In order to avoid that, he had a suggestion to ‘surprise himself even more’, which resulted in the story getting changed.
In an interview about ZTD.
Uchi being a hack has nothing to do with what we were talking about
It literally does.
You had ample time to explain how, yet you neglected to at every opportunity.
I do no longer consider you worth my time.
boys boys boys
shut the frick up okay
this guy
claimed that vlr got soft canceled during development without any proof and that is the only point of contention, if he provides proof it's all fine
>no i don't care about your "measurements", unless the sun personally hands me a note that says that the surface is cooler than the atmosphere, it just isn't true
Is it that hard to just provide citation to the "VLR got soft cancelled" claim?
I unironically liked how janky ZTD looked.
It gave it SOUL.
who funded ai:somnium, it even got a terrible sequel
>Danganronpa peons bringing up Danganronpa in a Zero Escape thead
you girls have your own thread. stay away! I don't bring up Persona in a SMT thread.
ALL ICE
is there anything new like this stuff since? I dont mind mystery games with moronic endings, I just want more new mystery games.
Rain Code
It's Danganronpa, but more focus on murder mysteries and your supporting character is Junko Enoshima.
birth me code and head as code were surprisingly great, lots of mindfricks and theorycrafting and plot twists/reveals. two short titles with the third and last out this year. they're EVNs but if you're hunting more mystery titles and stories like the older infinity games then it shouldn't bother you.
AI: The Somnium Files. It's just Zero Escape, but with dreams instead of escape rooms.
read sekimeiya
>people surprised the 3rd game was a shitshow and didnt explain anything before
>everyone forgets the second game was the exact same shit
Because Uchikoshi and and the team developing this game probably encountered an issue and didn't backup the original script, so they had to rewrite everything. They pretended to make the game more welcoming for newcomers to damage control, as a marketing stunt. Only the D-team script wasn't completely lost, that's why it has the best scenes.
It took them 6 years to release the soundtrack.
hate ZTD all you want for the dumb sci fi twist.
but the drama and horror moments were the best in the series.
No, they fricking werent.
Lunas death scene with blue birds lamentation playing in the background MOGS the sending of the twins to the past.
And that is the best drama ZTD has.
nah ZTD best drama was akane going kurazyyy and killing junpei or seeing junpeis head getting cut off. but no seriously I think Sean and Eric backstory was pretty good. but nothing made me grin like a motherfricker in the melting scene or the head exploding scenes hehehe
it wasnt THAT bad
It proved beyond a shadow of a doubt we weren't ever going to get answers to important questions already posed by the series. Just new bullshit piled onto the heap. Also, the fear of making anyone a truly bad person prevents any conclusions, just another wild goose chase that may or may not result in another sequel.
Beautiful moronic looking wife.
Sigma is one lucky guy.
I liked his dynamic with Phi better. And now I'm kind of mad.
ZTD has Carlos. Therefore, it's the best.
Carlos is the only addition I don't hate or have mixed feelings about.
I hate ZTD with all my soul.
It killed a series that I loved, 999 and VLR where some of the most soulful games that I have ever played.
And now I miss games with puzles that aren't kiddy shit (Layton) or moronic (Danganropa).
And no ever17 and remember11 don't scratch that itch.
I fricking hate Visual Novels.
Addendum.
The threads for ZTD before the game even came out were some of the most fun threads that i remember in Ganker.
How is the localisation? Was it butchered like Danganronpa?
There was nothing to butcher.
It was made with a western public in mind.
AND IT FRICKING SHOWS.
Brainrot
post phi butt
I like how the collective cope meltdown over how shit ZTD on release was created some of the funniest discourse i've had on this board.
MIND HACK
The hiatus giving him time to become a moron was a big contributor. He had a most likely better script already laid out and scrapped it, letting others come in and write the scenarios for every team but D. This also marked the start of his moronic trend of designing sequels that people who had never played the prequels could jump right into, made obvious by the fact he switched to gaudy 3d models he thought would be more appealing like the walking dead tell tale games. The long and short is he just didn't try. He had all the talent to make this game as good as 999 and VLR and he simply didn't. Instead of writing out intriguing science fiction backed by real world research, he came up with asspulls. It saddens me to think we'll never get a game from him again that's as good as 999 was.
Ever17 is the only decent thing her wrote.
whats the best way to play it, himmel edition?
yes
It's no use
You were born a SHITTER
Every day.
I've only played 999 with all the endings. Is it worth playing VLR still with how apparently bad ZTD is or would I just be setting myself up for disappointment?
you won't set up yourself for disappointment because VLR is bad too.
at some point his games turn into "its so bad its good" just looking forward how moronic twists can get
if u expect serious mystery that respects you then no
VLR's whole story is basically setting things up for ZTD to finish it and wrap uo the loose ends, only for ZTD to release and drop the ball
VLR's bad too it just had enough mystery boxes to make you excited for what could happen in the next game
I only played 999 and VLR, but writer of this series just can't write endings
He tries to make plot twist, then corners himself with that plot twist, then asspulls, then corners himself again, then asspulls, repeat that 10 times
Writer is definition of being a hack.
play ztd it gets worse
No way gay
Only reason i played 999 and VLR was because i got it gifted
And even then, it took me long break to start VLR after 999, that bad i felt after playing that shit 999(i actually don't mind VLR other than Phi and Luna routes, writer is moronic if he thinks that making hour long essay explaining basic things will make him look like not a hack, but 999 is pure garbage with meaningless asspulls, like changing numbers on bracelet, or not Snake not dying to 5 revolver shots in head, and so on. I wish i could forget this shit)
VLR is by far the best and would be a very good adventure game if not for:
One hour of unskippable *door opening* BOP BOP BOP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
Note this is the only part of the game that you can't skip.
>Entire game is just a plot dump for next game
Nah, 999's the only one that feels like a somewhat complete experience
it makes sense why those moments are unskippable on weak systems like the Vita and the 3DS since its basically a way to hide loading time but its dumb that its not skippable on the console and PC ports
>1 hour
WHAT
>only 1 hour
yawn
Uchikoshi hasn’t made a good game since the first 999 game. Literally EVERY one of them just HAS to have an absolutely moronic twist thrown into it that comes out of nowhere and blatantly does not hold up to scrutiny.
>yeah uhhhhh you were actually on a moon base the hole time and uhh a virus from a cult makes people kill people and themselves!!! also you were body swapped with an old guy who has a weird looking monocle, but everyone in the story makes absolutely zero (aside from one comment about a kid calling you “old” in the beginning) comment about, despite everyone commenting about how suspicious other people are based off of theirs looks (“wow, that robot guy is weird,” “huh, that cowboy guy looks strange,”)
>EVERYONE CONVENIENTLY doesn’t talk about the weird looking old guy who had forearms that look younger than every part of his body
>this game also FORCES you to look at multiple REFLECTIVE SURFACES to progress, SURFACES which people mention being able to see themselves on, AND YOUR PROTAGONIST NEVER FRICKING NOTICES THAT THEY ARE AN OLD ASS BALDING DUDE INSTEAD OF A COLLEGE AGED GUY
Somnium files was the same story.
>oh teehee the killer can body swap people using a machine in a random warehouse xD