Virtues Last Reward has an interesting concept but fails to deliver on most aspects.
But this is where the problems start. What is the point of having a choice when they don't really have any consequence in the end. When you are forced to try every route you it takes away the very core of deciding: In Zero Escape, all those heart-wrenching decisions have no consequences.in the end.
The game's heart and soul are the puzzles. They are very solid and it is very rewarding to figure them out on your own, gaining every secret file.
The rest of the game's gameplay is almost insultingly simplistic. Most of the time you will be watching the same animations of opening and closing doors over and over again. Plus, for some reason, the developers felt the need to show your movement in the facility with an animated, plain top-down map.
This is not skippable (and there are no options in this game either, btw.)
This has no practical use, since you are practically never allowed to move freely and you get the feeling this was just to draw out the playing-time. And its not like the graphics would justify the endless repetition. Except for one room, every part of this building looks pretty much the same: Grey walls, some sci-fi equipment and doors, doors , doors.
But all that didn't even frustrate me that much in comparison to the storyline. Even leaving aside the very lazy background story, ridiculous contrivances (supposedly smart characters being dumb as bread, when the plot needs them to be) and questionable morals - never have I been so angry at character-writers.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Almost every character is willing to betray, kill and lie to you. And for no reason. The nonary game would be the easiest game to beat in real life. If everyone just agreed to always voting "betray" (because just choosing "betray" is NOT the same as actually betraying someone) there would be no way not to win. And with that I mean everyone. All without the fake drama. The most ridiculous moment is - everytime someone gets the necessary 9 Points to escape he finds some excuse to just leave everyone behind, destroying every chance for the rest to escape as well. And noone is able to stop them, everyone stands there passively. But if you, after being betrayed for the xth time DARE to try to get out (and no, you can't choose to stay - wth?) you are immediately stopped (so a guy with robot arms can be easily captured, but little Clover-chan is too fast for a super-soldier Myrmidon?), everyone treats you like the devil, even going so far as to amputate your arm.
So to end the rambling: Just for the story and game concept's sake every character continuity gets thrown over board. In the end, I didn't care anymore for any of them because in the end they came across as being self-rightous idiots.
Final thoughts: So while I admittedly enjoyed parts of the game and could not stop until the end - this is not what I was hoping for. The contrived plot, the boring backgrounds, the endless door and map animations, and the character-continuity problems are major issues. If you are gonna make a game that is more Visual Novel then an actual game you better make sure the plot and characters are solid and that the player can enjoy the visuals - and not read about things happening because the animators were too lazy. Show, don't tell - remember?
Score: 5/10 and ONLY if you enjoy puzzles