Wednesday 17 April 2013

Completed: Virtues Last Reward (3DS)

hm.... i have a feeling this will mostly be story time cause i can't say much plot wise without spoilers...

so i will just say this game is really good, it's a sequel to Nine Persons Nine Hours Nine doors but it can technically be enjoyed as a stand alone title (but seriously if you have the ability to play DS games try and find 999 before you play this one... it's really good)
that being said if possible get the PSVita version of this game.
in the 3ds version there is a game breaking glitch that occurs if you save in the PEC room... it'll crash and erase/corrupt your save and this is a game with only one save file so.... that can be irritating.

it never happened to me cause i knew about it and just didn't save but it did crash on me twice, once in the archive and once in the PEC room simply cause i had been playing for too long and for some reason the 3ds version crashes if you have been playing too long.

anyways yeah... buy the game just get the vita versions.

ok i'm going to TRY to do this as spoiler free as possible.
i may not succeed.


Sigma wakes up in a elevator with a girl who seems to know his name, she can't explain why she knows... she just knows.
anyways a rabbit calling itself Zero III tells you that you may wanna solve the puzzle to get out quickly or the elevator your in is going to go crashing down killing you both.
so you solve the puzzle and get to see that maybe Zero wasn't completely telling the truth... yeah get used to that.
anyways you are thrown into a game
The Nonary game: Abidex edition.
what does that mean?
well same as 999 all the participants have bracelets that display a number, in this they also display is the person is a solo or a pair, more on that later. anyways they all start with 3 points and the goal is to get to 9 points so you can open the number 9 door.

well how do you get more points? you play the AB games.... how do you play that? you solve puzzles and get cards to open the gates.

so the game ends when someone gets to nine? no, as long as they don't open the door... see the door will only open once and only for 9 seconds.

and i fear i have already said too much so i'll stop there.

so in 999 to get through doors they needed digital routes to enter doors of a specific number.
in VLR this is based on primary colours of light (aka RGB)... and unlike 999 only 3 people may enter a room, two pairs of the same colour and a solo.

if you want to know more go get the game cause the reveal is half the fun.

now... 999 had essentially 9 endings one of them being true.
VLR has 24 'game overs' 9 of those are endings that make credits roll and 1 of those is true end with a few 'epilouges' not that it's the best term for them.

so suffice to say VLR has a tone of content... unlike 999 you never need to redo a puzzle once it's solved... you can jump to any point in the story thanks to a flow chart. every visual novel game should do this (not that i've played many...)

ok so... i've made it clear? get the game? good....

STORY TIME

about a day or two before i put the game in i was talking with my mom about vitamin k deficiency and how it was hard to get it in supplement because it's probably easier to absorb through food... so we talked about things with K in it and i was like "Bananas? no thats potassium... which is K on the periodic table" yeah we talk about really strange shit in my family.
so i play the game and one of the characters goes by K.... okay thats a little odd--- oh... Zero III nickname for hit is potassium?
...
...
...
um.... one thing i didn't mention before was this game deals with the theme of is it just a hunch or is it something more like the morphegenetic field?
so that was just a funny coincidence.

then in the lounge puzzle..... i flat out guessed the solution.
like... i was... barely into the puzzle... and i was like "well considering the game woks on colour theory... that would make" and yeah.... i got the escape code.... even though i could have screwed up the order of the solution easily enough.... somehow i just got it

goign back to 999 for a second i played through in a way that my first play through would lead to true end if i had gotten another ending first.
i did the same thing.... my first line was the path to true end but i hit what this game calls locks and had to go get the other endings.
unfortunately getting on the true end path gave me all the clues i needed to solve the plot twists.
all of them
by 5 hours into the game i knew who had done certain things, i knew one character was not what he claimed to be (though i flip flopped on this cause it made a glaring inconsistency that was alleviated when  a certain room was shown) and probably most importantly i knew who had set up the whole game.

after i got my first credit rolling ending i figured out the other half of the plot twists.

there was only one thing i didn't see coming... and it was the most blatant obvious foreshadows outright said thing in the entire game.... and it went right over my head.... so all the cryptic barely hinted at stuff i get but the one that at a point is BLATANTLY said... doesn't even register as hmmm that may be a little odd.

also... just a side note.
Dear game,
when i was younger, around 13, my dad would constantly lecture me on how i couldn't possibly be his cause i was so stupid (all said with love i promise but when i think about it how the hell was i supposed to know about the shit he was talking about... last time i heard they wern't teaching quantum mechnics to children....)
anyways he goes "i bet you don't even know about Schrodinger's cat.
No dad.... as a 13 year old i have not yet heard of this thought experiment....
however i was pissed about being called stupid so i went and i looked it up and i eventually went back to him and explained it as best as i could figure out.

so.... so game... i know my case it extremely odd (again we discuss odd things considering i'm an artist, my dads a welder and my moms and accountant) but please do not treat me like someone who hasn't heard of the damn cat... i have... i don't need you to explain it 4 or 5 different ways!

oh well that last one was just a personal gripe.

if you absolutely hate visual novels or games that use real life hypothesis and theories as gameplay mechanics then... i guess stay away from this?

i wont lie... the game is hard... you can switch it to easy but the rewards apparently aren't as good and you may miss out on one of the extra bits. (which i believe is sequel bait? not sure since i dunno is Zero Escape 3 is in the works) most of the puzzles i had to draw out (one that was like mine sweepers) or put all the text clue in a separate window on my comp cause i couldn't have my memo and archive things on at the same time (one thing i have heard for vita version is you can't just have the acrhive or memo on the top screen cause... well there is only one screen... go have fun writing) there are also codes that the game will not remember for you so have fun writing those down (sticky note function on windows you save my life!)

i did cheat one or the rooms.
After i had my first glitch out in the PEC room i didn't want to lose my file so i brought up a walkthrough and just did it as fast and i could to be able to save again. honestly other then one bit i would have been fine without the walkthrough as it's one of the easier albeit it more convoluted puzzles... i just needed to minimize going between rooms.

however i did EVERYTHING in the game
every path
every ending
ever 'epilogue'
every secret code (which i got almost all of them before the normal code... why am i so odd?)
everything
and honestly it's worth it.

i love this game... even though i figured out the majority of plot twists it was not predictable.

i will say 999 had more feeling of dread.... but that's more so because of setting then anything else.

i will also say whomever designs Alice's outfit...
um.. .that would never work
a) it would be cold
b) no support at all so it wouldn't hide the things you are trying to hide.... no amount of doublesided tape would...
c) it looks insane.

the 3d was barely there, no point to it really.

but yeah.... why are you still reading, go get the game... it's so good
hm.... maybe i should go get soul hackers... or maybe beat a game i already own.... hmmm

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