Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (sequel to 999)

johnny_ultimate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4bidOzjSTg

Apologies if there's a thread already, but couldn't find it!

So this is due out at the end of November on Vita and 3DS, courtesy of our friends at Rising Star Games.

For anyone who hasn't played 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (Japan: always with the unwieldy names) it's a visual novel of sorts concerning nine people stuck in a ship and forced to play a demented game by a seemingly psychotic gamesmaster. It was a well-written and very unusual game, although never got a full EU release. Luckily, its sequel will, although I've heard talk that you probably shouldn't play the sequel without being familiar with the story of the first (praise be to the region free DS!).

Anyway, Virtue's Last Reward has been receiving hugely enthusiastic reviews, and by all accounts seems to be one of the busy season's must distinctive, worthwhile games. Hopefully it won't get lost in the avalanche of new releases, although given the cult success of 999 should certainly find its niche.

richymcdermott

Ign gave a great detail between the 3ds and vita versions.

Vita apparently has better sound and visuals but the 3ds version is alot better with the stylus. They also went onto say either version you pick up wont take away the game experience from you as both games are great

johnny_ultimate

Anyone else playing this?

Really enjoying the story, but just suffered a game breaking save corruption bug on the 3DS version It occurs if you save during the PEC room puzzle, which is the one if you choose to pair with Tenmyouji twice. It seems to be a widespread issue, so be really careful when saving during puzzles. Real pain - I managed to catch up to where I was on that specific track after an hour of frantic clicking and much easier puzzle solving. I had only gotten to a lock point on one other story track, and will be able to skip back there quickly enough when I need to, but would've been a real irritant if I was any further into it.

Otherwise it's a smart, engaging tale - with a lesser game the bug would surely have caused me to throw away the cartridge, but this I really want to know what happens. Fingers crossed it's smooth sailing from here onwards.

richymcdermott

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Anyone else playing this?

Really enjoying the story, but just suffered a game breaking save corruption bug on the 3DS version It occurs if you save during the PEC room puzzle, which is the one if you choose to pair with Tenmyouji twice. It seems to be a widespread issue, so be really careful when saving during puzzles. Real pain - I managed to catch up to where I was on that specific track after an hour of frantic clicking and much easier puzzle solving. I had only gotten to a lock point on one other story track, and will be able to skip back there quickly enough when I need to, but would've been a real irritant if I was any further into it.

Otherwise it's a smart, engaging tale - with a lesser game the bug would surely have caused me to throw away the cartridge, but this I really want to know what happens. Fingers crossed it's smooth sailing from here onwards.

bet the game when i got the vita for christmas , its genius prob one of the best games of 2012 for me

o1s1n

Great game, but I'm stuck on a puzzle and it's ruining my enjoyment somewhat!

GTR63

Thinking of getting this game for ages seemingly, should I play 999 first, Virtues is £32 on amazon last I checked, quite steep for all the talk of cheaper prices on there.

Wolverine359

GTR63 wrote: »

Thinking of getting this game for ages seemingly, should I play 999 first, Virtues is £32 on amazon last I checked, quite steep for all the talk of cheaper prices on there.

It's actually £22.99 for Vita and only £19.99 for 3DS at the moment.

johnny_ultimate

GTR63 wrote: »

should I play 999 first

Hard to say. I played 999, but only through one or two of the story paths, never got the true ending. I caught up on the major plot points online before playing this, which just about did the job, but the overarching plot of the series is quite dense. I've definitely come across a few points in VLR where a knowledge of 999 would significantly help an understanding of what's going on.

Reached the end of the Tenmyouji path yesterday - this really is a game you just get addicted to and hours can pass before you even realise it Definitely going to aim for all the different endings this time around.

richymcdermott

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Hard to say. I played 999, but only through one or two of the story paths, never got the true ending. I caught up on the major plot points online before playing this, which just about did the job, but the overarching plot of the series is quite dense. I've definitely come across a few points in VLR where a knowledge of 999 would significantly help an understanding of what's going on.

Reached the end of the Tenmyouji path yesterday - this really is a game you just get addicted to and hours can pass before you even realise it Definitely going to aim for all the different endings this time around.

You better :P

johnny_ultimate

And done! A big, long game but it's worth it. It's one of the most insane, twisty sci-fi stories I've encountered - and while much of it is absolutely ridiculous, it all comes together rather beautifully. It's a game that not only comments on the inherent oddness of 'interactive novels', but then builds its entire game structure and narrative around said deconstruction. The fourth wall is knocked down early and

towards the end basically implicates you the player as a character and major part of events

. The satisfying mix of whodunnit (with mostly well-drawn characters), game theory, quantum science (!) and straight-up madcap sci-fi makes it one of the most engaging and distinctive stories any game has ever offered.

I do confess some of the more obtuse puzzles did lead me to FAQs. Some work really well and are a joy to decipher on one's own, others are just a pain in the hole with bizarre, unpredictable solutions. The controls in those sections are consistently unwieldy too.

Still, even in the less satisfying moments - there's also a few repetitious story beats as you revisit sections, and you spend way too long looking at a dot moving through a map at times - you'll want to persevere, because the payoffs are genuinely worth it. The fiction offers some genuinely fascinating, brilliant twists & turns, and it's all in order to curiously explore grander themes.

It would help to know 999 beforehand - many later twists are based around a basic knowledge of VLR's predecessor. And you'll finish the game wanting a sequel -

the 'true endings', promising a world-saving mission yet to play out, tease a whole lot more to come

.

Mr E

I'm half way through 999 at the moment. Crazy game, I've never played anything like it.

Corcs001

Finished this a few days ago. Really enjoyed it and hoping for a sequel soon. It's a very addictive game and is hard to put down as I always wanted to play that little bit longer to see what happens next. There are a few repetitive moments but nothing that spoiled my enjoyment.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I do confess some of the more obtuse puzzles did lead me to FAQs. Some work really well and are a joy to decipher on one's own, others are just a pain in the hole with bizarre, unpredictable solutions. The controls in those sections are consistently unwieldy too.

I have to confess I did the same, a few sections I just couldn't get my head around or was just too impatient to keep trying.

johnny_ultimate

Corcs001 wrote: »

I have to confess I did the same, a few sections I just couldn't get my head around or was just too impatient to keep trying.

In many games when you reluctantly look up a solution you kick yourself for not seeing something so obvious. In this quite a few made me go "**** off, I'd never have figured that out!" :pac: And yeah a few of the ones had an obvious solution but required fidgety execution - the redux dice puzzle in the very last puzzle room stands out, or counting the eyes in the GALEM Bay.

Club_Shrimp

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

towards the end basically implicates you the player as a character and major part of events

.

Er no I don't think that's true. In some of the bad endings where you pick betray for no reason it sort of suggests this, but I don't player involvement actually has anything to do with the main plot and it's ending. Unless they bring this into the sequel.

The "uncontrolled variable" that gets mentioned seems to refer more to the
unknown consciousness who can move freely across time and
space occupying Kyle's body (who I think is a character from 999, possibly
Aoi), and Phi in general for an unknown reason, though it DEFINITELY has something to do with the Golden Ratio.

johnny_ultimate

Club_Shrimp wrote: »

Er no I don't think that's true. In some of the bad endings where you pick betray for no reason it sort of suggests this, but I don't player involvement actually has anything to do with the main plot and it's ending. Unless they bring this into the sequel.

The "uncontrolled variable" that gets mentioned seems to refer more to the
unknown consciousness who can move freely across time and
space occupying Kyle's body (who I think is a character from 999, possibly
Aoi), and Phi in general for an unknown reason, though it DEFINITELY has something to do with the Golden Ratio.

Well the game is consistently breaking the fourth wall, referencing the artificiality of the storytelling and gameplay. Obviously there are strong narrative justifications for this, but I think in that 'true ending' the author finally addresses the player relatively directly. Of course, this is a double meaning reading - there's no doubt it also serves as said omnipotent being. But as the player we are also intimately aware of how this is all working - arguably also influencing events, within the game's predetermined limits - and in a sequel we will experience the rest of this tale.

Again, this is all a bit subtextual, but I certainly think it has been planted there intentionally. It's not something to read that much into, but a fun and clever final shattering of the fourth wall at the end of a game that has an endearing habit of playing cheeky tricks on the player.

Club_Shrimp

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Well the game is consistently breaking the fourth wall, referencing the artificiality of the storytelling and gameplay. Obviously there are strong narrative justifications for this, but I think in that 'true ending' the author finally addresses the player relatively directly. Of course, this is a double meaning reading - there's no doubt it also serves as said omnipotent being. But as the player we are also intimately aware of how this is all working - arguably also influencing events, within the game's predetermined limits - and in a sequel we will experience the rest of this tale.

Again, this is all a bit subtextual, but I certainly think it has been planted there intentionally. It's not something to read that much into, but a fun and clever final shattering of the fourth wall at the end of a game that has an endearing habit of playing cheeky tricks on the player.

Haha this barely looks like a conversation anymore.

Hmmm, I'm pretty sure that in the ending with Kyle, the person occupying his
body is a character that'll crop up in the sequel. It's not that the
characters are talking to you the player. It explicitly says that Kyle's
consciousness has gone into a body at point A at the 25th of December
2028, meaning the consciousness occupying his body in the true ending belongs to
that body at point A. It's a character, not the player.

I suppose you
could argue that the reason the consciousness (in Kyle's body) knows
all about the events that have occured is because it IS the player, but
that doesn't really make sense. Why would they send the one who knows everything
forward to a point in time where it's not necessary, and send Kyle's
ignorant consciousness back to a point in time at which the whole point is that
the characters need to have accrued enough information to change the past.





If the "player's" consciousness is now in Kyle's body at point c in January
27th 2074, what good is it there? Presumably in the sequel, the game's events
will take place a little before point E and the nevada crisis, with
young Sigma (occupied by his older consciousness who played the AB game
again) and Phi having learned enough to have a crack at stopping the
outbreak. But if the player's consciousness is now in some useless time period,
how does this enable them to participate in the events of the sequel?

The
point seems to me that Kyle's consciousness has occupied an
unrevealed person's body in the past, who is probably someone we'll
recognize. It wouldn't make sense if that body was the player's, because
when we ourselves start playing the sequel we'll know about all the
events of the previous game, i.e. WE won't be occupied by KYLE'S consciousness
haha (who was asleep and doesn't know what's going on.) For what
purpose they've done this though I'm not sure, but remember that Old Sigma
cloned himself as Kyle as a contingency, and there's also the hint that Akane
knows how to transport the body through time without incurring a paradox, (two
of the same conscious people occupying the same time period) so those things are
possibly connected.





Bottom line, I know what you're saying about the fourth wall stuff, but I
think any teased player involvement doesn't actually have much bearing on the
plot, unless the game wants to suggest that beyond quantum reality is a "player"
like puppetmaster, but I'm not sure it'll fall back on as simple a twist as
that. I think you're right that the game is very self referential. I mean you
play a game as characters playing a game, you share in their jubilation
when you crack open a safe and are rewarded etc. When you choose betray
irrationally, Sigma's thoughts reflect your own when he says stuff like
(paraphrasing) "I don't know why I did it, I guess I just wanted to see what
happened" as if he was possessed by you the player. There's also
that the actual structure of the game was based on game theory so that's
something too.

I think it teases player involvement, but I don't think it's the point of the game. I think they're just little cues to remind you you're playing a game, but they never actually fit neatly into the plot or anything. I don't know though, it's possible Kotaro Uchikoshi will find or has found some really clever way to figure the player into the plot, but I guess we'll have to wait.

super_furry

This is coming free in April's PSP+ offerings. Would I have to play 999 before this?

johnny_ultimate

Club_Shrimp wrote: »

I think it teases player involvement, but I don't think it's the point of the game. I think they're just little cues to remind you you're playing a game, but they never actually fit neatly into the plot or anything. I don't know though, it's possible Kotaro Uchikoshi will find or has found some really clever way to figure the player into the plot, but I guess we'll have to wait.

Again, I don't expect the big twist in Zero Escape 3 to be a cheesy

"It was YOU all along!"

sort of thing. The actual shall we say 'literal' narrative of the game is perfectly serviceable and self-contained without it all relying on some sort of uber-metatextual reveal. I look forward to seeing where the game's characters go and how

Phi and Sigma resolve the weighty apocalypse halting mission entrusted to them at the end of this game

in a theoretical sequel (wasn't there a bit of uncertainty whether the game sold enough to get one? Hopefully Uchikoshi will follow through though!). My point with the player involvement angle, and one you address well in the last few paragraphs of your post, is that it simply adds a really interesting extra layer to everything. The mad, convoluted narrative is working away, but given the game's I would say obsession with game theory and structure the initial response I had to the very final sequence in the game was that there were several subtexts being presented, and given the various theoretical groundings of the game I personally don't think they were accidental. Of course it would be impossible to fully implicate the player in events, and wouldn't make any sense really, but it adds that extra layer of insight and intelligence to help propel the game's plot into something very special.

If I was to use one comparison, it would be Bioshock. Again, you have a nice self-contained world and story. But the narrative also comments on your agency (or lack thereof) in events - how you blindly follow that friendly voice in your ear or the constant disconnect between player choice and authorial control. Like Virtue's Last Reward, it significantly enhances but doesn't overwhelm the game's fiction

super_furry wrote: »

This is coming free in April's PSP+ offerings. Would I have to play 999 before this?

You'd at least need to have a read over a relatively detailed synopsis if you don't think you'll have the time to play through 999. Plenty of VLR's story works on its own terms, but in the second half particularly a lot of the plot subtleties will be lost if you don't have a familiarity with what came before.

GTR63

Got this last week. Find it good enough if a bit confusing and more text heavy than I was expecting. Only about 3hrs in and I got Luigi's Mansion today so I may just restart it again down the line.

Club_Shrimp

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Again, I don't expect the big twist in Zero Escape 3 to be a cheesy

"It was YOU all along!"

sort of thing. The actual shall we say 'literal' narrative of the game is perfectly serviceable and self-contained without it all relying on some sort of uber-metatextual reveal. I look forward to seeing where the game's characters go and how

Phi and Sigma resolve the weighty apocalypse halting mission entrusted to them at the end of this game

in a theoretical sequel (wasn't there a bit of uncertainty whether the game sold enough to get one? Hopefully Uchikoshi will follow through though!). My point with the player involvement angle, and one you address well in the last few paragraphs of your post, is that it simply adds a really interesting extra layer to everything. The mad, convoluted narrative is working away, but given the game's I would say obsession with game theory and structure the initial response I had to the very final sequence in the game was that there were several subtexts being presented, and given the various theoretical groundings of the game I personally don't think they were accidental. Of course it would be impossible to fully implicate the player in events, and wouldn't make any sense really, but it adds that extra layer of insight and intelligence to help propel the game's plot into something very special.

If I was to use one comparison, it would be Bioshock. Again, you have a nice self-contained world and story. But the narrative also comments on your agency (or lack thereof) in events - how you blindly follow that friendly voice in your ear or the constant disconnect between player choice and authorial control. Like Virtue's Last Reward, it significantly enhances but doesn't overwhelm the game's fiction



You'd at least need to have a read over a relatively detailed synopsis if you don't think you'll have the time to play through 999. Plenty of VLR's story works on its own terms, but in the second half particularly a lot of the plot subtleties will be lost if you don't have a familiarity with what came before.

Ah yeah, I think we're on the same page now. As for the sequel, I'm pretty sure it's happening, only we probably won't see it for a while- I'm thinking it'll take about as much time as there was between 999's release and VLR's, though perhaps less because 999 wasn't initially written with a sequel in mind. I think it's sort of dealt with here:

http://virtueslastreward.com/media/

^^^Scroll down to interviews and read #4 if you have time. It's a fun read- big Q&A with Uchikoshi.

Club_Shrimp

super_furry wrote: »

This is coming free in April's PSP+ offerings. Would I have to play 999 before this?

I would. Not only is 999 a fantastic game (there's a lot of things I actually prefer about it over VLR), but it's also pretty delightful to catch all the little connections (not to mention the big ones) when you play VLR. Keep in mind that it is a visual novel with sort of point and click elements, so it's not exactly for everyone, both aspects of the game require concentration and patience, but by all means play both games. They really are great.

SgtBob

I played 999 a few times and thought it was fantastic. Was dead excited for Virtue, but for some reason I find myself not getting into it as much as 999.

Star Lord

Sorry for the thread resurrection, just wanted to say that I picked this up on the 3DS estore at the weekend, it's around €25, and apart from a trip to the cinema, I've been playing it almost non-stop, and loving it!

tok9

Ya I found myself in the same boat too as it came to PS+ this month. Got a platinum in it too which is nice.

I'm not going to lie though, some of the puzzles caught me way off gaurd in some of them I was just plain bored and wanted to move along the story.

So I'm actually not really sure what to say as there is a load of dialogue you have to go through, i found some of the gameplay boring, yet I really really wanted to finish it.

Star Lord

Just got my first proper ending, and hadn't seen that coming... Loving it though! Gotta branch back more now to get the others and get past some of the locks!

Managed to get around the room with the crash/save game corruption problem too (Though only on the second time, it crashed first time, but I figured out why and how to avoid that happening second time round.)

johnny_ultimate

Praise be, a sequel is coming

http://mobile.siliconera.com/home/2015-07-03-zero-escape-3-is-in-development-coming-summer-2016#1

Remembering how dense VLR was plot wise, might need a serious catch up before this hits!

Star Lord

Just read about that! Good news! Might need to get 9,9,9 first, never played it, but loved Virtue's Last Reward.

Digital Solitude

Opposite to Star Lord, loved 999, never picked up the sequel. I'll probably play it in the run up to this though

tok9

If only 999 was on Vita, I'd pick it up.