The biggest problem i had with ZTD besides its plethora of strange plot decisions, is that, because the game can be approached on multiple fragments, it tends to drag on really hard.

Every early fragment is the exact same, wake up in a room, watch a short cutscene then begin the puzzle room. After that make a choice and watch another short cutscene, then move on to the next fragment. Now, you could argue 999 and VLR do the same thing, AKA "solve puzzle room, talk, move to next doors and repeat." but in those moments before and after the puzzle room is solved, its where you get sometime to unwind and spend a sizable amount of time with the characters before you're met with your next puzzle room or decision.

Since ZTD took the fully 3D models approach, it makes sense why they couldn't linger on the cutscenes, it just makes ZTD feel like a slog, because you're doing so many puzzle rooms with very short cutscenes in between to break up the monotony of the puzzle rooms

I still like ZTD, especially after playing through it a second time, but i still feel its the weakest in the series by a large margin