Having been a big fan of the first Zero Escape, learning there be a new one had me ecstatic! The only problem was money issues, and by the time I did have money for it, it was well out of stock where I lived. This wasn’t much of a problem though, as I knew I go to Anime Expo this year, and Aksys tends to have a booth were they sell their games, and I’d figure I could wait till then. Thankfully my waiting paid off and I got myself a new watch in the process, and the game is generally what I hoped it to be.
The game is very out there, and in all honesty comparing it to 999, it jumped the shark on more than one occasion. The fact that this game doesn’t really dive deep into details, and relies more on cutscenes than actually telling the story also makes less of an impact on the player. I’m not sure how else to describe it, but I suppose adding voices, cutscenes, and everything else helped me distance myself from it compared to how 999 laid itself out. In 999, I constantly felt like I was apart of the story with the way it was written and detailed throughout, but comparing the writing in Virtue’s Last Reward, well I’m more of an observer than anything else. This doesn’t ruin VLR though, it just makes the whole story and characters have less impact on the player compared to the way 999 did it. Its just not as involving, but the story itself is perhaps more engaging. To say the least, VLR is a constant spiral of twists and turns and really makes you think what might actually happen next. If I had to really had to compare it to something I’d say VLR is very much like the experiment Schrodinger’s cat. You never quite know the outcome till after the fact and even then it may still surprise you what happens. The multiple paths also give it a lot of content to go through, but also gives you the chance to skip some large portions of it by simply jumping to a certain point of time you want. While this does give a lot of convenience for the player, it can also take away the impact of bad choices you make throughout the game. Basically the game is laid out to the point that game overs are rather pointless in the long run.
As for the other side of this visual novel, the puzzles in this game can be a bit, trying. I’m trying to mean this in the nicest way possible, but some of these puzzles just go on for too long. It’s ridiculous how some of these puzzles keep adding more and more steps to them, and even then it might not be enough to actually solve the puzzle. Sometimes the puzzles have sort of hidden factor to them that the game just never tells you about, and it gets really annoying trying to over think a puzzle when it could have just been very simple. Sometimes the puzzles will be fairly simple though, and you just end up over thinking it. In a lot of ways the puzzles don’t let you stop thinking or give you a limit on how much you should think so it’s very easy to get stuck because there are just too many options sometimes. This issue is further provoked by a 2nd secret code that is given in each puzzle room. Sometime it becomes maddening trying to figure out these codes, and other times you will find them out before you get the escape code for the room. This feature is put in check through the use of the hard and easy modes, but I never personally witness how the hint system works in easy mode.
Has a side note I also like to say that the 3DS version is inferior to the Vita version for the simple fact that there is a game breaking glitch in the 3DS version. Basically the PEC room and sometimes other escape rooms, will not let you continue if you save in them. The file becomes corrupted and you only face a black screen each time you try to restart your file. This glitch caused me to lose 18hrs. of data simply because I saved in the pantry because I wanted to go to sleep. I’m still mad about it, and frankly wonder why Aksys still hasn’t solved/patch the issue, although they addressed it.
Final Thoughts:
To put it bluntly, I don’t think Virtue’s Last Reward is as great as 999 was. 999 was simply a more engrossing game to the player compared to VLR, and the characters and story really stood out because of it. Although for what VLR is, I think it delivers. It still has an engaging story, and often I found myself playing it for hours on end to find out all the twist and turns it gave throughout. And the puzzles were also a great challenge too, despite being tedious, or furiously hard sometimes. The only clear drawback I have for this game though, is the 3DS game breaking glitch that happens when you save in escape rooms. And as long as you’re cautious about your saving this is a great game to experience.