Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

^I think logic is there that since she went over the deep end, she might as well go all way in. Like she is teenager and killing two people can't be good for mental health

Okay, so after getting distracted by a few other games, I've finally started Virtue's Last Reward.

And my first impressions are unfortunately not great. 999 had a fantastic opening with Junpei being trapped in a flooding room, whereas VLR's is basically one giant Info Dump on how the new game works.

Three things immediately stuck out to me:

1. Characters are now 3D models instead of 2D illustrations. I feel like this was a poor decision. In theory, using 3D models lets the characters have more movement, but in practice, they still limit them to a handful of static poses, and since this was originally a handheld game, the quality of the models isn't particularly good. The lip-syncing is practically non-existent, and the characters' faces are very stiff (everyone seems to be smiling no matter what their tone of voice is). I feel like the switch was made to make them seem more lifelike, but it ended up having the opposite effect for me.

2. The player character, Sigma, is for some reason left unvoiced. This wouldn't bother me so much if nobody else was voiced, but the game has full voice acting for every other character! It sticks out like a sore thumb. They added voice acting for 999's remaster, why couldn't they give Sigma a voice, too? It's not like he's a blank slate, he has a backstory, he's an actual character.

3. The new Zero, or rather the A.I. Zero. Holy fuck is he annoying. He won't shut up, has an obnoxiously high-pitched voice, and is trying way too hard to be "wacky". When I got to the part where he says he's leaving and you probably won't see him again, I immediately went "oh thank god".

There are a few other things I could touch on, but these are my biggest gripes with the game so far. It's still early, so I'm not prepared to just write it off. I fully intend to finish the game, I just hope it improves from this point on. I absolutely loved the first game, and I want to like this one, too.

I had the opposite reaction. I loved Zero III to bits and was very disappointed his screentime went way down after the opening hours.

To each their own. Personally, I feel he is wildly out of place; his wacky persona and overuse of puns clash with the tone of the story. Literally nobody else even remotely acts like he does.

Anyway, now that the story has finally started to move along, it has gotten a lot better, and it's definitely starting to feel more like 999. I am worried about the questionable Sequel Escalation, but I'll see how it plays out.

I've already got one bad ending: the one where you betray Dio and K opens the 9 door.

Edited by Primis on Jan 24th 2020 at 10:13:00 AM

The reason for number 2 is an unfortunate situation the original game didn't have to address.

Edited by VeryMelon on Jan 27th 2020 at 8:45:47 AM

I've read it's because 999 got a full-on remaster, whereas VLR is just a straight-port with nothing additional done to it. I believe that, because parts of VLR were clearly designed with a touch-screen in mind. The "Memo" screen is utterly useless when you're using a PS4 controller.

I still don't get why they didn't just give Sigma a voice in the first place, though.

---

Two endings (Tenmyouji and Clover) down, seven(?) more to go.

I would have gotten Quark's ending, too, but apparently that one works like the True Ending in 999, and I have to get another ending first. The flowchart also says "Lock No.3", so there must be more than one of those.

I am enjoying the game more now, but I gotta say, the whole Nonary Game thing kinda feels tacked on this time around. The entire plot of 999 was centered around it, but here it just feels like "well, it was in the last game, so we gotta have it in this one, too". Same for the "locked" endings, that made sense in 999, but why is it here? And why are there multiple instances of it?

And then there's the Sequel Escalation... 999 was ultimately a revenge story with some minor supernatural elements that were subtly built-up throughout the game. Here, though, it's an apocalyptic viral outbreak caused by a religiously-motivated terrorist cell. Like... what...

Don't get me wrong, it is an interesting story, but what the hell does any of that have to do with what happened in 999?

It's the same problem that the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy had. Individually, each game's story is fine, but it's when you view them as one continuous story that everything kinda falls apart.

Come to think of it, XIII-2 and VLR kinda follow the same pattern: first game is a complete story on its own, second game has a Happy Ending Override and is suddenly post-apocalyptic when the first game had nothing of the sort. Funny how that works.

Hooo, boy, are you going to have a problem with Zero Time Dilemma. I can't help but agree, though. I love these games to death, but I really wish they didn't go so hard on the escalation.

Zero III’s wacky personality is likely because its inspiration is Monokuma. In the Japanese versions IIRC, the two characters share a voice too.

IIRC the author of 999 and Danganronpa are IRL friends. AI Somnium makes multiple Danganronpa references.

So I'm guessing they escalate even further in that game? Goody...

Again though, I am enjoying the game, but its writing can't hold a candle to 999's.

When will writers learn that escalating the stakes in your story does not automatically make it more compelling or interesting? In fact, it usually accomplishes the opposite.

Remember that scene in 999 when Santa is telling the story about buying Christmas presents for his sister? Scenes like that are a thousand times more compelling than, say, scenes like Dio's backstory of "This guy got really sad when his brother died, so he decided to Kill All Humans and replace them with clones of his dead brother. I'm, like, the best clone, so I'm their leader.

I haven't played Dangonronpa, but I do know someone who is a fan, and from what they've told me about that series, VLR does sound more like a Dangonronpa game than a proper sequel to 999.

---

Is it bad that I found Sigma's ending to be kinda hilarious? Every other ending has involved learning about a character's Dark and Troubled Past, but Sigma's ending is just "WTF? I have robot arms?", and then he blows up.

Edited by Primis on Feb 5th 2020 at 9:37:45 AM

Ohhhhh... Okay, I get it now...

I did realize towards the end that they never actually showed Sigma's face in the cutscenes, it's especially obvious in the scene where Sigma pins Dio down to prevent him from taking the cyanide pill, and Luna's ending. That combined with Sigma being unvoiced led me to believe that they were trying to go the Featureless Protagonist route. I never actually suspected it was going to be part of The Reveal, so props to them for that.

So yeah, I finished VLR. Needless to say, I have very mixed feelings about this game.

(Ended up with a wall of text, so I put it in a folder)

I will admit there are aspects of VLR that don’t gel especially well with Zero Time Dilemma either, though that might at least have the excuse that it took awhile for that game to get made (and there was a time where it looked like it wouldn’t be getting made at all), so perhaps things changed somewhat in development.

I will say, however, that the Nonary Game is different in Zero Time Dilemma as well, so you might want to characterize it as “nine people are in a Death Game while wearing special bracelet”. If nothing else, it helps to keep things interesting.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Feb 6th 2020 at 2:03:09 PM

Oh God! Natural light!

And here's why 999 is the only one I like.

Damn, Zero Time Dilemma is a short game. I just started and the credits are already rolling...

Yeah, they don't even call it the Nonary Game in ZTD, it really is a completely different game.

Once I started thinking of VLR as its own thing, I enjoyed it a lot more. It's just a little hard to do that when certain characters keep popping up. Not that the game doesn't have its own issues, unrelated to its supposed connection to 999.

999 is the better game, by a massive margin.

Hey, I'm happy I didn't spoil you by accident.

Its why I think Ai The Somnium Files is the better game by Uchikoshi because he knew what he wanted to do and didn't have any budget problems compared to the Zero Escape games.

Watch Symphogear

No worries there, it flew right over my head.

I might check that one out later.

---

I just realized I never posted my first impressions of ZTD. I'll just go ahead and post my thoughts after I finish it. So far, it's another mixed bag. There are some things I think it does better than VLR, and some things it does worse. Much worse.

Unless the Global Flowchart is deliberately misleading, I think I'm almost done. I only have like three or four more paths to clear. Granted, two of those are pretty long, but still.

Nothing seems to be happening, though? Like, I've completed most of the flowchart, but no clear story is emerging from these Fragments. VLR was borderline incoherent until the end, but at least I could tell some bigger picture was going on during all of it.

Edited by Primis on Feb 12th 2020 at 1:25:21 PM

So... I finished Zero Time Dilemma...

...

Hoo boy, where to even begin...

So, Virtue's Last Reward was a complete waste of time, then? Virtually nothing that happened in that game had any real significance to the overall story?

If everyone retained their memories of all the alternate histories, they should know that Mira is a serial killer, right? What's gonna happen to her? Are they just gonna let her go?

And are we just gonna gloss over the fact that they just casually introduced aliens into this story?!

Are we sure that these sequels were created by the same team as 999? Hell, are we sure that the sequels themselves were made by the same team? Because the lack of consistency in the story and the disparity in quality across all three is astounding.

Edited by Primis on Feb 13th 2020 at 8:49:45 AM

The general reaction on release was just, if not more, incredulous. But oh man, the stuff that came out of that was hilarious; legitimately made it worth the price.

If you want to dig into Uchikoshi's older visual novels, which are a bit closer in writing and atmosphere to 999, I highly recommend Remember 11 (which I found much more immediately engaging than Ever 17). And I have heard good things about his latest game, AI: The Somnium Files.

Edited by Eschaton on Feb 12th 2020 at 11:36:12 AM

I can vouch for Ai: The Somnium Files. While I haven't played it myself, I have seen a full story playthrough and I enjoyed it. My biggest problem was with the comedy and even then it was mostly fine aside from when it ruined some of the more serious scenes.

Playing the three games for the first time and just finished the first one, really enjoying it so far.

Finished Virtues Last Reward and starting Zero Time Dilemma now.

Thought Luna was a sweetheart.

Finished Zero Time Dilemma. I enjoyed the series

×4

Playing through ot myself now and really enjoying it.

Is there a thread for it?

General confusion:

So wait are aliens canon or not? :p

I'm pretty sure they are, but I haven't checked ZTD in over 5 years.