So there I was, playing Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. I was really getting into the atmosphere of the whole thing. Quirky characters, bizarrely twisted story, eerie soundtrack and setting, complete mystery. Puzzles were fair for the most part and even ones I did a quick FAQ check-up on, I was right around where I needed to be to solve. And then it was over... but it wasn't.
I'm not even sure where to begin. VLR is a sequel to DS game 999. In poking about, I saw Jason Schreier at Kotaku thought playing the predecessor was an absolute requirement. I haven't and I probably won't. The short of it is the game is divided between its story component and escape/puzzle component. Stakes are high and mysteries unfold the further you progress.
Without giving too much away, and really, not completely understanding how the story progresses or knowing what things mean, apparently, I reached one of the game's endings without realizing it. By the time I did, days later by the way, I couldn't quite pull the screen capture I wanted. I received a "To Be Continued" screen and thought it was a good save point. When I returned to my game save, I found myself in the exact same place as I was five hours of game play previously, the beginning of the game. Wha?!
To say I was disoriented would be an understatement. To say I was disappointed would be pretty dead on. I did realize all my progress carried over. Notes and information and passcodes were all inventoried and carried through. The bigger pain was what appeared to be the repetition of dialogue. I may have mentioned it in passing in other posts, but though the voice acting is good, there is quite a bit of dialogue and character development where the "player" is reduced to button pushes to scroll through dialogue. Imagine going through twenty minutes or so of it just to get to the next "branch" of story.
I've been reading trying to figure out what can and can't be done and I'm hoping there are ways to more quickly scroll through or ultimately skip dialogue. I hope that's the case because though I do find the story intriguing and the gameplay challenging but fair, if I can't jump through repeated parts, I guess I will have found the next game to go from the Vita memory card. You know, space is at a premium and I have a purchased but undownloaded Mortal Kombat waiting for space.
I did run across this on the Zero Escape wikia:
"In Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, there are 24 endings in total composed of good and bad endings. There are 9 character endings including the true ending, 11 bad endings, 6 game overs, and 2 endings occurring after the true ending. When an ending is completed the portrait of the character appears on your flowchart and save file and on the PS Vita you earn a trophy for each one (excluding bad endings and game overs)."
Maybe part of the problem was the first ending I hit must be a bad ending. Not a good way to make me want to continue.
I'm trying to wrap my head around this one. It sounds like a very Japanese design to throw you back to the start like that.
ReplyDeleteUnless a game is completely captivating, I seldom have the endurance to pick up and start over. Persona 4 played it smart by forcing you to save before a crucial point. Though, I guess if you overwrote that save you would have been screwed with 100+ hours of gameplay jack-knifed into a terrible ending.
In Persona 4 the way you end up with a bad ending is answering some dialog choices 'wrong'. What is the case with Zero Escape? Is it incorrectly solving puzzles, or just choosing the wrong option? Or do you even have the slightest indication why you ended up where you did?
Despite this, I am still very much intrigued by this game.
There are points in each game where decisions are made... some appeared to be more important than others. So there are nine characters and after a bit of story, you are presented with options during which you select with whom you want to pair. So a lot of possibilities exist from that alone.
ReplyDeleteThe only decision that seemed to be "wrong" I thought could go either way, I certainly didn't think the game would reach a "bad ending" from it.
As far as the puzzles, I believe I solved those properly.