The Zodiac Trial

A surprisingly deep and well-written visual novel, and my introduction to Themisian's bizzare world. Sorely lacking in production value but held up by a strong story and characters. As far as the writing goes, I have only a few complaints: namely, that locked room mysteries are stupid and I hate them, and that the ending is kind of dumb. Also, I'm pretty sure some of the math in the puzzles is wrong. Still, I had a lot of fun with this game and got deeply engrossed into its story. 7/10.

A gripping story with highly memorable characters that at some points is genuinely scary. 9.3/10

Really good Zero Escape fanfiction.

Don't miss this gem

very interesting story, especially for a game with a single writer, and the zero escape inspiration is both clearly there but subtle enough that it feels like its own thing, and the ending was good too

As someone who is always hunting for a good Zero Escape-esque fix, I tend to gravitate to anything I think might scratch a similar itch. And that's what a lot of these reviews will mention: similar to the ZE series but even more visual novel focused (and much more reading) with some good puzzles. Really though, the writing is what shines in this game. I am a player who DESPISES replaying games for All The Endings because so many of them fall flat, yet I was continuously intrigued by everything The Zodiac Trial had to offer. I also really adored the Writer's Commentary option you can utilize, which made the extra routes even more interesting to read through. You get to track each character shift, turning points in their decision making, and really fun facts and quips! And I love anything that spices up dialogue I would have otherwise skipped (re-reading the intro on the 6th playthrough with the commentary was a lot of fun!). Some people may throw around "the size of the cast" or particular characters being more simplistic. And to a degree, yes, there are a couple of characters whose personal routes are not as exciting compared to others, but they still provide key information to the overall plot of the story and are worth the time investment. I think my one nitpick of the game is that I wish some character elements were not as tied to the character routes. Certain characters possess traits that are not acknowledged, utilized, or focused on for over half the routes. Which, yes, they may not be the focus of the route, but sometimes the characters can fade into obscurity or just hardly react at all when some of their most noteworthy traits should provide a little more dialogue or friction, just there's only so much space that can be spared managing the 12 person crew and keeping 1-4 people front and center. For instance, [spoiler]Ox's strong sense of justice is noted once or twice but not exactly leveraged very often, which is strange since it's his biggest character trait.[/spoiler] Overall, The Zodiac Trial is one of the more interesting, captivating, and fun death game VNs I've played lately, so I can't recommend it enough.

Honestly, this game was pretty good and i thoughtfully enjoyed it. This visual novel has a pretty low budget and no voice acting, however i believe the quality of the writing makes it worth it's price.I honestly enjoyed all the routes that the game had the offer, despite some endings being like: choose the wrong option and die(in some routes it actually reveals something cool though). Compared to other death games visual novels, this seemed the least confusing to me because they accounted for (almost all) plot holes and i love this game for it. Overall, a pretty solid game that i would recommend to any onlookers 9/10.(I love you Dog)

Surprisingly good given my initial impressions. The game was clearly made by a smaller team so to a certain extent this discrepancy between writing to arts and other graphical assets is to be expected. Price is alright, probably on the fairer size given the playtime possible. Presentation of the final mystery was a bit iffy for me, the sequence of events should have been better foreshadowed/explained. I'd suppose such issues are also due to the smaller team size. With visual and storyboard polishing the game could have punched well above its' weight, but is satisfactory as it is now.

Definitely liked it. Tiger has Yaoi hands though.

[h1] An Intriguing Deathgame Visual Novel [/h1] I've gotten all endings of The Zodiac Trial and I quite enjoyed it. Not every ending is a hit, but they do a good job showing difference facets of the characters. They all really grew on me over the course of the story. Dragon became one of my favorites even though she wasn't at first. Because there are so many endings, I feel the game could have really benefited from a flow chart. Fortunately there is a great community guide on Steam I was able to rely on to find the one or two endings that I was missing - I just couldn't remember the combinations of choices I hadn't yet explored. I really liked this game's bonus content that's unlocked after clearing the true ending. [spoiler] The interview room and bonus commentary on the main story are a real treat. I'd love to see that in more visual novels! [/spoiler] I'm looking forward to the author's future works, and I'll be checking out The Divine Deception soon. If you like the Zero Escape series and are willing to check out an ambitious indie VN inspired by it, this is worth a look.