Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - PS Vita Review (and my thoughts on the sequel)

NOTE:  You ABSOLUTELY MUST play 999 before playing Virtue's Last Reward. 

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward is an amazing sequel to 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors which improves on everything that made the first game so amazing.

Zero Escape: VLR starts similarly to 999 with your character, Sigma, waking up in a room after being kidnapped by the mysterious antagonist Zero. This time though you are not alone as you share this room with a white haired girl named Phi. After solving the initial puzzle to escape the room you meet up with the other captors, which include a man in a robot armor, a circus ring master, a giant breasted Egyptian woman, and a character from the previous game, to name a few.

A computer AI in the form of a talking rabbit called Zero III informs you that you all are a part of "Nonary Game: Ambidex Edition". While this is similar to the first game with you teaming up and traveling across various rooms solving puzzles to eventually exit through the "9" door, it differs in one important aspect which is the point system.

Now the wristwatches worn by the participants have a point counter on them where points are gained or lost depending on a voting system placed between each round of rooms. Teams are initially joined up by complimenting watch digit colors. After the room is solved the teams are split up and sent to private rooms to vote "betray" or "ally". If both teams choose to ally, both are rewarded 2 points. Two votes of betrayal result in 0 points for both. If one votes to betray while the other allies, then the betrayer gets 3 points while the other has 2 points taken away. Getting 9 points allows you to leave while slipping below 0 results in the watch injecting poison into your bloodstream, killing you.

The first time this happened the character Phi explained to me that picking betray was the logical choice but I still had a hard time understanding. After figuring it out, here's my explanation of why betraying would be the best choice:

There is a game show from England called "Golden Balls" whose final round consists of basically the same dilemma. Split or Steal the money. Check out this awesome example:

Amazing. So this is how it works. Choosing to split the money can only result in less money or no money, whereas stealing can result in ALL the money or no money. So the smart choice would be to steal.

The presentation of the game has been upgraded from the original Nintendo DS game. Characters are now fully voiced with with memorable performances (although some tend to stray too far into cheesy territory) and there is an option to use both English and Japanese audio tracks. The voice actors deliver the lines with good expression suitable for each character and while I tend to skip over spoken dialogue in games after I have read the subtitle, I found myself letting the speech play out to hear the mannerisms come through. The characters are now rendered as 3D models but their range of motion is quite limited. This is not surprising considering the visual novel style of the game. Music is also suspenseful and never got tiring to listen to.

As for the puzzles in the game, they are your basic "room escape" scenarios with you tapping around to search for items and clues. One notable problem I had with the puzzles this time was the reliance on math.

I am absolutely horrendous at math. I can barely add two numbers in my head and I'm pretty sure it's some kind of learning disability. So while in the first game I was able to solve all the problems by simply thinking them through, in this sequel I had to resort to looking at a guide several times because I didn't want to spend 4 hours adding columns of numbers together.

What the fuck am I supposed to do here?

On a positive note, a huge improvement in the gameplay over 999 has to be the branching tree system. In the first game you had to play multiple times to achieve the "True" ending. This allowed you to skip over previously read dialogue by holding right on the D-Pad, but there were still several parts that you would have to continuously go over again. This time, VLR solves this problem by graphically representing the choices in a large branching tree.

So many paths to see

You are able to jump between nodes on the tree directly to points prior to major decisions. At first I thought this was simple a mechanic put in place for the sake of convenience, but without spoiling too much, this plays a much bigger role in the overall story of the game.

Another aspect of the game which has been improved is the story. Characters, while being taken to extreme levels of zaniness, do so to make them much more memorable than those in 999. Also, much more emphasis is put on the characters' back stories with many of the "bad" ending branches leading you to find out some kind of major revelation about a player's past.

The story of VLR is the biggest draw here. The first game dealt with interesting themes of communication and free will and likewise, VLR goes all out with topics such as identity, time travel, and loyalty. Not only are these topics interesting to experience they are integrated so well into the gameplay. Not a single idea is wasted, unlike the first game which occasionally had moments of "Here's a quirky fact. Now let's never speak of it again". Every new section of the game presented an interesting twist that kept me playing every single night for weeks until 5AM. I completed the game with a 25 Hour 46 Minute playtime to get a Platinum Trophy and loved every second of it. It's truly one of the most entertaining stories told in a game.

Bottom Line:
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward is a game that must be experienced along with it's predecessor 999 by anyone who is a fan of great storytelling. While some of the puzzles can be frustrating, almost every other aspect of the game has been improved upon.

Pros:
Excellent story
Much better replay system

Cons:
Too many math based puzzles

9/10

My Thoughts On A Sequel

VLR ends on a spectacular cliff hanger. When the game was first announced the creator, Kotaro Uchikoshi, stated that this would be the the third part of a trilogy with 999 being the first. This seemed confusing at first, but once I completed the game it all made sense and I was hungry to play the middle chapter.

But then a few weeks ago via his Twitter Account, Uchikoshi announced that he was not able to secure funding for a third game. Fans of the first two games were understandably devastated and a Facebook Group called "Operation Bluebird" has been set up to show support for a sequel.

While I would love to see a sequel I'm not sure if this can happen. Although fans of the games are absolutely devoted to the cause there is just realistically not that many. Sales were small in the US and apparently even smaller in Japan (which it would seem, is the reason for the lack of funding).
From what sales data I could find it seems that the sequel barely sold over 15,000 copies over both platforms in Japan. This is nowhere near enough for a publisher to justify a new game.

While it's absolutely painful for me to admit it, I have to reserve myself and just accept that the story will never come to a close. But, for the sake of being positive, this is how I see the best case senario working out:

Many fans have suggested to Uchikoshi to look into crowd funding options like Indiegogo. If he were to do this I could see the possibility of the third game being made, but most likely not handhelds due to the high licensing fees. The best course would be to make a PC version, include ports of the first two games, and sell it on Steam for ~$30. I know I would pick it up.

The real question is will there be enough fans to support it? I can only hope for the best but expect the worst.

Calm Time - PC Review

(SPOILER WARNING! Download the game free HERE)

Calm Time is an indie horror title that creates an interesting atmosphere with it's lo-fi graphics but fails to actually scare or provide an interesting gameplay experience.

Calm Time starts off with you holding a dinner party in your isolated mansion for several guests. After making small talk you eventually end up in the kitchen where a female guest asks you to hand her the knife located on the counter. After grabbing it and approaching her, the only action you are able to take is to thrust the knife forward, stabbing and fatally wounding her which results in those in attendance to panic and scatter around the grounds of your mansion. It then becomes clear that you have invited them here for goal of murder and you set off searching the area for the different guests to evicerate.

 

Before you are able to proceed anywhere the game tells you through text that you must first head to the basement to cut the power to the house. Here you find a previous victim of yours dead and chained to a wall. Hitting the power switch results in the games first jump scare in which the ghost of the woman in the basement materializes in front of you. Stabbing this apparition results in a full screen static effect along with the appropriate sound.

Oops! Oh well, better kill everyone now.

Here is where the "game" portion of Calm Time begins and shows off the weakest aspect of the title. First your character moves at a maddeningly slow pace. Your victims are able to speedily run past you resulting in you slowly chasing after them as they move between the various rooms of the house. While there is a thrill of being placed in the shoes of a psycho killer, stalking your hiding victims, this lasts for about a second for as soon as the first one zips past you and you have to slowly turn around to chase after them again and again. Then the game spirals into tedium.

"Yes he killed her! With a KITCHEN KNIFE! That's the important thing!"

You kill all the guests in exactly the same manner with the ghost woman appearing every so often to stare and judge you silently. The game abruptly ends when you finally kill the last person and took only about 10 minutes to complete.While the basic concept is sound, most of this time is taken up with you slowly walking in empty spaces for painfully drawn out moments where nothing happens. I understand that this is an experimental indie title, and I appreciate what it can do with such limited graphics, I just didn't have "fun" while playing it.


Bottom Line: 

Calm Time manages to succeed in the few moments where you feel you are an insane murderer but ultimately the incredibly boring gameplay brings the whole experience down.

Pros:
Interesting premise
Good atmosphere for the limited graphics and sound
Makes you feel like a psycho killer (although only for a second)

Cons:
Not scary
EXTREMELY slow and tedious play mechanics

3/10

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors - Nintendo DS Review

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is a visual novel / adventure game that combines an interesting premise with solid puzzles that will keep you engaged for hours on end.

If you've never played a visual novel before you might have seen pictures of one on the internet. They usually have a big eyed, huge breasted anime girl with a large text box taking up the bottom half of the screen with her telling you about the depraved sexual acts you are about to perform. These games are made up of mostly text with small player decisions along the way that change the outcome of the story. The main focus being the plot and characters you interact with.

Like this but with much more item hunts and much less bukkake

999 is much like this but with point and click / "escape the room" scenarios in-between the dialogue. The story of 999 follows a group of nine characters that have been kidnapped and brought to an empty ship resembling the Titanic with the goal of solving puzzles to reach the final ninth door exit.

Each character is assigned a wrist band with a number from 1 to 9 and only certain combinations of numbers are allowed to enter certain doors. This is based on a digital root system where a numbers are added together until the last digit remains 3 + 5 + 8 = 16, 1 + 6 = 7. So a team equaling 7 can go through the appropriately marked door.

Behind these doors the player will find standard point and click adventure puzzles with the main goal of opening the exit. Items will be gathered and combined and are manipulated in 3D in the inventory screen to gather more information. The player will solve puzzles ranging from finding the correct key for a lock to math based number input devices. The puzzles are for the most part interesting with the common hurdles of point and click adventures present (pixel hunting, bizarre logic), but the real draw of the game is in the story.

While the characters themselves are mostly stereotypical (the huge strong man, the pigtailed lolita) the mystery around them and why they have been brought on this ship is always able to keep you interested. Without spoiling too much, the story involves such topics as Morphogenetic Fields (fields that connect all living things allowing transfer of information), Kurt Vonnegut and philosophical paradoxes like Locke's Socks.The story is surprisingly mature and is definitely not for younger audiences, not due to the graphic content (which there is) but the themes and ideas dealt with in the game.

The way the story is presented is also quite unique. Because of the requirements of entering the doors, it would be impossible to see everything on the first play-though. The player will ultimately fail during their first attempt to finish the game, usually resulting in death. But, after getting a "Game Over" screen you return to the beginning of the game to try a different path. With six possible endings in total (the final one being the "true" ending) players are allowed to try out different puzzle rooms and interact with different characters on each play-thorough. To speed up this process, text already read in previous games can be fast-forwarded though by holding right on the D-Pad.

While this is a better solution than having to sit through story parts you have already seen, it is still very slow considering the amount of text in this game. You'll be holding the right button for upwards of five minutes to skip dialogue and some rooms (especially the first one) will have to be played over and over again.

 

Despite this, finding out new aspects of the story and seeing parts unfold where you where previously absent is extremely entertaining. There is always some new twist or revelation and, this can't be stressed enough, without giving away anything, the entire multiple play-though mechanic is integrated amazingly with the gameplay and story.

BOTTOM LINE:

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is an excellent adventure game with well thought out puzzles and one of the best stories presented on the Nintendo DS that will keep you up for hours on end to see its conclusion.

8.5/10