This was one I really had to digest for a while after beating it. This is maybe the most exhausting game I have ever played and thought about. There is so much info, so much sci-fi nonsense, so many twists, that after playing I didn't think I liked it very much. Now that it has sat with me, I have an unbelievable amount of respect for this game, and all the crazy ideas it had, even if there are plenty of plot holes and weak justifications. This game makes 999 seem like a grounded, realistic story

Started on the 3DS but had to switch to the Vita version because I ran into the legendary game-breaking bug. Unfortunately, I have to admit that I didn't like this game nearly as much as its predecessor. It started off really strong, I liked the initial situation, the characters, the voice acting. I was also very impressed by the puzzle rooms. Unfortunately, the story became a bit too wild and nonsensical for me towards the end. In 999, I had the feeling that I could enjoy the story because it didn't get too stupid. There was a "supernatural" element there too, but I could accept that more than here. Unfortunately, this game got very, very stupid in the last third :D That's a shame, I had high expectations for the game because I liked the predecessor so much.

Virtue's Last Reward é piiiiica. Em termos de história, ele compensa a falta de um plot twist tão maneiro quando a do 999 no DS com vários plot twists que não são tão fora da caixa como o do 999, mas que ainda assim geram muita surpresa. Novamente comparando com o 999, os puzzles não são taaao legais assim. Se baseiam muito em ficar olhando e tentando memorias os arquivos e aplicar eles no puzzle em si. E o final é meio longo demais e o final final final mesmo achei meio anticlimático, ainda mais novamente comparado a delicia que é o final do 999.
No fim das contas o Virtue's Last Reward ainda vive muito na sombra do original, mas a grande escala da historia e os novos plot twists sustentam muito bem

It feels mean to compare this to its predecessor but Virtue's Last Reward just doesn't have the sheer joy and thrill that Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors had. Its lore simultaneously wants to develop and exacerbate the insanity that 999 spent slowly unspooling, but it doesn't want to approach that level of multifaceted storytelling with nearly the same drama or heightened sense of panic. When I learned of a new element within the story, I didn't feel as strong of a sense of bewilderment or clairvoyance-level realization, but rather a sense of mild satisfaction. That's the thing that gets me about this game, I suppose: It works, but it doesn't tug at my emotions as much as 999 did. The chaos is ramped up but it just doesn't feel as urgent or interesting.

The character drama in particular is maybe my biggest gripe with the game overall. Every conversation is considerably longer and more quippy at the cost of information density, there's this sense of irreverence that feels extremely out of place. Of course, you could blame this on the advent of the Danganronpa franchise and its mockery in the face of certain death, but that series has its moments to refrain from indulging in its hypersexuality and humor in service of a bigger idea that climbs towards a hostile thriller screenplay. Additionally, the irreverence is used to help build onto the dread—were it not for Monokuma's complete and utter disregard for his subjects' lives, there'd be less panic among them.

The characters in VLR, on the other hand, are poised to joke and shove corny banter in nearly every conversation given enough time, such that it stands to kill a lot of the intensity that the holistic story builds. I would much rather a short, important conversation than a long one that stands to remove any given amount goodwill I have for the main characters. This lack of brevity is also not helped by the gargantuan amount of time that it takes between various novel segments, showcasing a very annoying dot moving across the map for every single possible migration of the characters. At a certain point in my playthrough, I started scheduling for these intermissions and texting friends over actually trying to remain immersed with a medium that ejected me from immersion to begin with.

That's not to say it's a bad game, far from it—once again in no small part to the thoughtful escape room design employed with a similar (but not exact same) grace as its predecessor. The increase in difficulty is something I rather appreciate, even if it comes at the cost of breaking immersion sometimes. I especially appreciate the safe system, though it has its drawbacks with certain room-end puzzles. The broader story itself, divorced from being attached to the game and the individual writing choices I dislike, is excellent scaffolding around the original lore that 999 set up. It's just a shame that this story had to shake out this way, because as a game it fails to excite me beyond its lore and individual chambers.

EDIT, 23-MARCH-2024:

My neglect to mention the very casual misogyny present in this game is starting to bug me greatly, so allow me to comment on the reality that Sigma and the rest of the characters either are victims or enablers of horrific womanizing. In a shocking departure from 999's relatively minute jokes about sexuality that are unimportant, minor facets of individual characters only appearing once or twice, Virtue's Last Reward takes the bold move to make Sigma a sexual harasser. In every possible route, he is poised to interact with at least one of the female characters with a variety of dehumanizing and, frankly, horrible sex pestery. He even remarks that Clover (who in VLR is small and skinny but an adult) is seemingly jailbait.

Misogynist characters are not inherently detrimental to a story if it is done with the tact and angling that it deserves. I hold the idea that depiction is not necessarily endorsement of the depicted. However, VLR's main character being an incessantly horny poon-hound who can be led to do just about anything with the promise of someone's panties getting stripped off is so irritating after 20 hours of playing the game that it ceases to be worthwhile as a facet of a character worth exploring. There is no benefit to it in this story.

No es ni remotamente una obra perfecta (no sabía que era posible, pero lograron hacer una visual novel con pantallas de carga muy largas y malos controles), pero creo que sigo jugando a videojuegos por llegar a momentos en los que me sienta como me sentí al acabar Virtue's Last Reward. Por esa magnificencia pasmosa que te tiene mirando a la pantalla con la mandíbula en el suelo mientras pasan los créditos. Por la forma que se te ponen los pelos de punta al escuchar las primeras notas de un Blue Bird Lamentation desgarrador. Por Sigma, Luna, Phi y otros que no voy a decir pero que os podéis imaginar. Hay que tenerlos gordísimos para crear una obra tan inabarcablemente ambiciosa, tan bien interconectada y tan prodigiosamente hábil a la hora de sacar jugo a las posibilidades del medio, a sabiendas de que dejas tu historia a medio contar y que, quién sabe, podría acabar mal.
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Aunque obviamente ese no es el caso porque ZTD es kinardo

My main issue with the Zero Escape saga thus far is the personality of the characters: they don't have any. They live and die in a plot of intrigue where they serve only as cogs in the greater mystery.

This should not be a problem, as the games seem to be somewhat aware of the condition of those characters, so everything is directed towards conversations that seek to create enigmas, explain them (or try to) and play with ambiguities. That is, they don't so much seek to be emotional games (luckily, seeing the messy occasional attempts) as intelligent games, which is why they don't shy away from including escape rooms, puzzles and frequent scientific or philosophical references with explicitly cheeky quotes. But they are not smart games.

The deficiency in creating good riddles contained in the escape rooms is more severe, although more concealed, in the main plot. One expects the revelations to show the connections hidden under our noses all this time, but it isn’t like that, particularly in Virtue's Last Reward. Ideas simply succeed one another, none of them particularly imaginative, surprising or interesting on their own or in their cohesion and evidently discrepant when the biggest surprises are revealed, even trying to exemplify them by clarifying small forgettable enigmas without being able to avoid raising at least two major contradictions on the core plot in the process. As you understand more, you also wonder if all this is going to go anywhere. If the component of intrigue, of tension, of intelligence, of emotion, of surprise, if all this and more, has been lost, what is left?

The first installment ended with an ending that, although it came too late and too clumsy, at least achieved something, literalizing a scientific hypothesis into something convincing for its fiction. It made you want to see what more was there to say about it, what could be explored once this hypothesis had materialized, how far could it go.

In Virtue's Last Reward, it is made clear that there was nothing more to say. It tells what is already known and the little that is not, or was less obvious, such as to what extent future actions can have unexpected repercussions on this intricate temporal system, is again greatly reduced in comparison to everything else that gets in the way. Even its worsened structure is surprising. This one, at first appearance more accurate, stating when the story branches and when it reaches different places, loses completely in tension.

Some mystery was preserved in the first game when deciding which teams would go where and how they would be formed, even more so when, being a first entry, anything could still happen. There was no guarantee that a fortuitous decision could not lead to a bad end, and in fact that was often the case in the long run. The structure of Virtue's Last Reward clarifies that it's not so much about choosing as it is about exploring, yet it still feels distracted. The door decision system is both more confusing and more boring, but the final straw comes in the voting ramifications. Something that should be a total psychological confrontation is actually revealed very quickly as a simple formality, the weight that deciding one option or another may have, no matter how much it tries to insist on the supposed human burden carried, comes to nothing.

The last ace up the sleeve to justify the mediocrities that cannot stand their own weight is that the purpose of everything was to expand knowledge horizontally, hence the tree that branches more even if it was with less interesting motives and implications. However, from such an extensive tree of knowledge, ironically, once finished exploring, you come to learn nothing.

y'know, i really liked this game. i had a good time playing through all the different routes, getting to the different endings, and even had a pretty good time with most of the puzzles. i can't really think of a better way to adapt the prisoners dilemma to a videogame form. all your choices really do feel like you're making significant decisions. the ultimate conclusion of the game was insane, but enjoyable. it does make sense, even if it took me a while to understand what the fuck was happening.

the 3D models in this one are 'fine' at best. early into playing, i found them to be incredibly distracting, and the closeup prerendered shots of the 3D characters interacting just look plain,,, bad, at least on the original 3DS version. the game environments are 3D, but honestly i think it woulda been way better if they had kept the same 2D art style that 999 had that makes its character designs feel so charming. there's little usage out of the advantages of having 3D character models, outside from extremely scarce fully animated 3D segments that are never more than a few seconds long. the style of the models just feels off and as if everyone's made of plastic, and lacking in a good visual style like other 3D VN characters, such as the 3DS installments of ace attorney.

the characters and voice acting were also mostly just,,, fine. overtime, i grew to like some of the characters at least some amount, but this cast isn't all that great compared to its predecessor. there's some nice moments of interactions, and i like the most important characters to the story, but some things really bother me. there's several jokes from our main character that are just blatant sexual harassment that feel incredibly out of character, like as if they were just put in the game as a joke, but i didn't find them funny and was instead just really uncomfortable every time they came up. the voice acting ranges from actively improving the experience, usually in more unique important moments, to feeling weirdly stilted and awkward. actually listening to the way some of these characters sound in the English voice acting made me feel like "whuh" sometimes.

overall, i think i definitely still liked 999 more. 999 felt like a much more emotional experience, especially with its conclusion, that makes it feel like a much more special story to me. i think this story is cool too, no doubt, but it doesn't carry that same charge that 999 did when it had me sobbing constantly in its final act. there's so much in this game conceptually and plotwise that it does feel a little bloated at times, and i wonder if some elements could have been removed to make the rest even stronger. i will definitely be thinking about this game and its concepts for the few weeks. excited to play ZTD even if it doesn't seem like it's anywhere near on the same level as 999 and VLR.