Board 8 > So, I finally got Virtue's Last Reward! [playthrough] [rabbits]

(+) Yeah! (+)

hello everyone! some of you might remember my 999 playthrough around nine (!) months ago. you know, the one where I said I'd start VLR in a few weeks.

...so, the good news is that I just started it, and I'm gonna try the same thing again! buckle down, folks, it's about to get harey.

(advance warning: rabbit jokes may rapidly multiply.)
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What system are you playing on? If it's 3DS, don't ever save in the escape rooms. One of them has a glitch that will corrupt the save, and there's been a few reports of it happening in others as well.
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oh wow, that's pretty terrible. good to know though, thanks!

first update up within the next hour
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I'm gonna give you a game to play!

I awaken within a cell, which is excellent. familiarity is a comfort in life. however, this time I have a friend! not only that: we both have greek letters for names, which neither character addresses but is by any metric profoundly weird. Phi also knows my name somehow, which is either extremely suspicious or an early indication of the continuity of themes from 999. probably both.

oh, and we both have bracelets on, but they are the same number - three. this was genuinely a surprise for me, and I applaud the game makers for it. it would have been very easy to keep the "gameplay" aspects of the storyline consistent, but this way is more creative. good job!

naturally, Zero appears at this point. he communicates through a particularly Saw-esque rabbit avatar this time, which is both fairly terrifying and slightly odd since the game box shows him in traditional gas mask form. but whatever.

we unsurprisingly learn that our new elevator home will soon plummet us to our earthly doom, and - to cut a long story short - we escape into a larger room bearing many new friends! hurray.
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Mayonesa posted...

What system are you playing on? If it's 3DS, don't ever save in the escape rooms. One of them has a glitch that will corrupt the save, and there's been a few reports of it happening in others as well.

First post best post
This glitch is nasty
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we meet and greet our new allies / sociopaths / murderers in turn, and most of them are initially painted in broad stereotypical strokes. we have the crotchety old man, the kid, the nervous girl, the angry dude, the ancient Egyptian priestess called Alic- hey, wait a second!

after our initial speed dating introduction, our final two companions show up - Clover (!) and the steel fucking samurai, who conveniently has complete amnesia. embarrassing early theory #1: this is Snake, and those two have organised this somehow. I mean, it makes no sense, but this is all a bit silly so far so hey.

Zero then explains the game to us. it's different from last time (cool), and if you're reading this topic presumably you understand it better than me so I will refrain from explaining further. he also decides to drop the bombshell that Zero is one of us half an hour into the game, which is super clever to throw off returning 999 fans like myself. it's entirely possible that this time Zero is bullshitting us to sow discontent, but it's a really cool curveball regardless.

we first need to split into three groups of three, and I make the executive decision to join Phi and Alice behind the Cyan Door. partially because the inverse colour concept made it seem like the wildcard option but mainly because I wanna talk more to the mythical fucking pharoah lady who just happens to be among us. I arrive in the crew quarters and am invited to escape #2.

Seek a way out!

I quite enjoyed this escape room right until the last second. everything was super logically designed and flowed really well - it wasn't too challenging, but it made me feel clever for thinking that - but then that last puzzle was just absurd. after I got the gold primer from the safe, the game gave me no indication whatsoever that I should go back to the room #1 locker, nor what code I should use to open it. not only that, but the final solution was so dumb that even the spoiler-free walkthrough that I eventually consulted described it like this: "I am not sure why they decided to do this. I didn’t find any hints that would point you towards flipping the numbers over, but it is what it is."

...yeah, screw that.

other than that, this game is a lot of fun so far! the weird easter eggs in the gold primer were super atmosphere-enhancing, and the premise is much more intriguing than I had expected at this stage. I also like the idea of apparently being able to freely explore successfully cleared rooms, but I guess the narrative will crush that freedom soon enough. one minor complaint would be that I've interacted significantly less with the characters in my escape rooms so far than I had at the equivalent stage of 999 (all I really know is that Phi is super clever and apparently a goddamn ninja), but I guess that will change in time.

...we regroup with the gang, and are faced with new doors of green, red and blue, with the promise of loads more creepy fun to come!
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so, question time!

1) I hear this game has 24 endings, which strikes me as absurd and genuinely off-putting. how many of these are actually worth seeing? I saw all of the 999 endings besides the cliff-hanger Safe one, but the Knife ending probably wasn't strictly necessary in retrospect. and there's no way in hell I'm playing this game 24 times.

2) how much (if at all) should I care about the easy/hard mode distinction and the silver/gold primers on first playthrough?

unresolved mysteries / loose thoughts

1) what / where / when / who / why?
--- the nonary game, I guess. but different.
--- unknown. probably not super plot-vital, but who knows.
--- judging by Clover, probably not all that long after the first one. five years, maybe?
--- the central mysteries of the game, I would assume. ask again later

2) who on earth is the steel samurai dude and why is he so absurdly costumed?
3) what does Clover know?
4) is Alice's character a winking reference, a massive plot-point, or somewhere in between?
5) what's the deal with Phi, and why is she featured so prominently on the front cover alongside Sigma, when 999 showed everyone?

don't answer these of course, I'm just thought-dumping!
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It doesn't really work like 999, you can literally jump around on the flowchart to any chapter. So if you choose to go left and it gets you one ending, feel free to go right and see what happens
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I'm not sure about this, seeing as it's been like 4 years since I played it, but isn't there a weird thing about one of the golden primers spoiling a twist you haven't necessarily seen yet?
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DeathChicken posted...

It doesn't really work like 999, you can literally jump around on the flowchart to any chapter. So if you choose to go left and it gets you one ending, feel free to go right and see what happens

oh, that's neat! definitely a significant improvement.

doesn't entirely answer the question though - are all 24 actually worth even that small amount of effort?
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IIRC all 24 are required unless you want to skip the 'true' ending for w/e reason

Um..... well, this game's endings are different from 999's. It's more of a tagline they can put on the box. Not sure how much you want me to clarify this for you, as this is a fairly minor spoiler, but I'll tag it anyway.

There's only one real ending.
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ah, thanks for the clarification (and the spoiler sensitivity) guys. that was my assumption anyway, MSG. same was true for 999, right?

good to know you need to see all of them to catch the true ending though! that leaves things clear.
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A lot of the "endings" are very short bad ends (they take like five minutes from an incorrect choice and then you can just jump back and make the other one). There's no real danger of wasting a ton of time like in 999.
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Tag'd.

GOG that flowchart was such a welcome addition.

On an unrelated note, I just noticed the Alice in Wonderland reference. Perhaps I should play thru it again to see if I spot any more...
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Tag, so hyped. And I can't believe it's been almost a year ago.
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Don't even worry about the endings thing, eject that concern from your brain now

And uh, I think you want to get all the gold things for something? I'm not 100% sure

The gold files are kind of dumb in that some of them are interesting, and some of them just up and spoil stuff that hasn't happened yet in the story for no particular reason at all
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Yeah there are a few gold files that are outright spoilers.

It's a shame, because they tend to be very interesting otherwise.

Giggsalot posted...

4) is Alice's character a winking reference, a massive plot-point, or somewhere in between?

I'm going to put this in spoilers just in case but personally it's something I would have liked to know going into it.

it's somewhere in-between leaning more towards winking reference and you're never going to get a satisfying answer on it. The third game doesn't even acknowledge her at all. For me it's one of the biggest disappointments of the series because it had so much potential and they do nothing with it.
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what the hell don't click that spoiler tag

noted! thanks.
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[Boom.]

we return to the warehouse, en route learning that Qwark is probably the old pervert's grandson, and are introduced to the Ambidex game. this, in essence, makes us choose between "Ally", which depends on mutual trust and ultimately benefits the group as a whole, versus "Betray," which ensures our personal safety but punishes our colleagues to do so.

Sigma also chooses a convenient time to have a potentially premonitory hallucination of his final moments with Phi before the compound blows up. Phi's line about us trying to save everyone prior to the explosion is probably a sign that choosing to "Ally" isn't foolproof, and the game plays a sneaky trick by having our player character promise Phi to choose "Betray" before we have a choice, meaning that we're betraying someone either way.

sneaky, sneaky stuff, game.

I can't help myself, I'm an idealist. I choose ALLY. luckily, Phi doesn't act too betrayed by my slightly shitty actions.

the doors open, and we rush to the projection screen to see the results. We were betrayed.
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Alice wasn't alone. K and Clover chose to betray Tenmyouji too, which is curious considering what we know about Clover (assuming she's the same person, which is far from certain). sure, she's liable to lose her shit a little in these situations - don't think I forgot about that time you axe murdered me, bitch! - but you might think she of all people would focus on the common good here.

that said, the game did well to remind me that there essentially is no common good this time. 999's Nonary Game at least maintained the facade of requiring teamwork; this one is every man for themselves, utterly and completely. forgetting that aspect might have influenced my decision before, but I can't honestly claim it would have changed much.

what is virtue's last reward anyway? death?

we move on.
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Giggsalot posted...

what is virtue's last reward anyway? death?

Yeah, the JP subtitle for this game is literally "Good People Die"
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tag
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Zyxyz0 posted...

Giggsalot posted...

what is virtue's last reward anyway? death?

Yeah, the JP subtitle for this game is literally "Good People Die"

ha, that's great. the japanese are so eloquent sometimes.


Have a nice tragedy!

Zero continues to be really clever by openly revealing yet another fact that 999 veterans already know - that dead people's bracelets continue to operate, and can be used to continue playing the game after their owner's demise.

the game surprises me yet again by completely flipping our pairs - I really expected me to be with Phi the whole time, but this way makes more sense in that Phi and I would have absolutely no reason not to BETRAY in the next Ambidex round. I'm also beginning to understand the Phi/Alice perspective on the game a lot more - it's kind of hard to imagine why anyone would choose ALLY late on in the game, when suspicions are high. but if that happens, no one gets anywhere.

this shit is devious.

Sigma wisely spends a bit of time giving me some backstory, which is largely fairly generic and Jumpei-esque, but builds his character endearingly nonetheless. I then finally get my ass up and start exploring for a bit before the chromatic doors close.

I meet up with Phi, Luna and Clover in the Lounge, and we discuss our similar ailments and vague out-of-body feeling. Moving to the infirmary brings me to Alice, Tenmyouji and Dio. Alice continues to tease, revealing that her father was murdered and she met Clover in "the middle of a desert." we learn a little about the other characters here, but most fail to emerge from their archetype shells. the game makes a point of telling me that Phi is SUPER MYSTERIOUS and suspicious. this gives her almost the exact opposite characterization of her 999 counterpart June, who turned out to be Zero. I feel like this game is too clever to do the same thing twice, but it's done such a good job of confounding my expectations that I can't rule out a double bluff here. yay spectulation!

passing by the Crew Quarters leads us to likely wunderkind Quark and Kafka fan / steel samurai K, who give us some cool mythology stuff about lunar eclipses and fictional pandemics. Clover interrupts us all to reveal the bomb from Sigma's vision, staring at us on a crew quarter bed. in the ensuing panic, Clover nearly mentions something about her "training," which causes noted-suspicious-individual Alice to quickly quiet her. we calmly discuss the fact that there's a goddamn antimatter bomb five metres away, and in the process we discover that at least three of our team are hard science / mathematics geniuses. that's a pretty low ratio for a zero escape game actually, even 999's LVP Lotus was essentially a genius in a bikini.

the game does another really clever thing in presenting Sigma as suspicious in the planting of the bomb, something else that 999 never did. the idea of Sigma being Zero seems a bit crazy at first, but there's only so many Zero Escape scenarios one can devise before one comes to the idea of making the player character an amnesiac or unreliable Zero, right?

in yet another intriguing narrative choice, I'm not even given a choice at the next set of doors, and follow Luna and Alice into the Blue Door. and that's where I'll stop for today!
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also, apparently, no more rabbits from here on! somehow i find that hare to believe
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Giggsalot posted...

Alice wasn't alone. K and Clover chose to betray Tenmyouji too, which is curious considering what we know about Clover (assuming she's the same person, which is far from certain). sure, she's liable to lose her shit a little in these situations - don't think I forgot about that time you axe murdered me, bitch! - but you might think she of all people would focus on the common good here.

I recommend remembering this. I think it'll become more amusing later.
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ha, alright! Clover's definitely attracted my suspicions, in that she's the only character who most obviously knows more than she is saying.

just for future giggles (and because I can't sleep), let's start a way-too-early-to-make-any-real-deductions WHO IS ZERO ranking?

most likely
1. Clover (see above)
2. Phi (I mean, she's clearly suspicious as fuck right now. clearly pivotal to the game somehow. would seem a bit too obvious though)
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3. Someone else (would sort of go against the principle of the game, but I don't trust Zero telling us anything, especially stuff intentionally designed to sow mistrust. will likely move down the list as time goes on)
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4. Alice (almost too outright devious and snarky to be an actual villain, but I could easily see her as an accomplice)
5. Tenmyouji (this high solely because old white men are suspicious in this universe. he's either complete comic relief - an archetype missing from 999 - or hiding something big.)
6. K (would be kind of a double bluff, I guess. his whole existence is just too weird to compute thus far.)
7. Sigma (I really doubt it, but it would be a hell of a plot twist)
8. Dio (unabashed asshole. until he gets humanized a bit, too one-dimensional to be the villain)
9. Quark (literally a kid. could be an accomplice/motivational factor of sorts, but mastermind? would be a bit silly, really.)
10. Luna (very June-ish in character. don't think they would do this twice)
least likely
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Looking at that list, I just got reminded of how Tenmyouji's name is so unwieldy.
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All of humanity is going to die!

I enter the Garden, which is a nice change of pace. Even the puzzles feel nice and pastoral, and I emerge with little issue, gold primer in hand. We also get a few intriguing scraps of paper referencing immunoglobulins and the Arizona Test Center of 999, but it's probably too early to piece together theories on those. We meet up with team green (Dio, Tenmy and Phi), who give us a tour of the Treatment Center, where apparently three people were frozen in deep sleep until eight hours ago. [embarrassing early theory #2: Clover, Alice and K]

Tenmy then out of nowhere accuses Alice of being an Ice-9 being, having reportedly heard it from Clover. Alice then quickly recounts the backstory, and presents a fairly decent counterargument as to why she is not an ancient Egyptian priestess. which should in fairness be quite easy, since that would be absolutely ludicrous after all.

we return to the initial warehouse, where we learn Quark has collapsed, infected with Radical-6 virus. after a profoundly disturbing scene where he tries to kill himself in an apparent possessed rage, we are able to anaesthetize him with (what else) Soporil-beta.

Alice then promptly loses her shit completely, screaming about the impending pandemic apocalypse and running away, scalpel in hand. we split up to look for her, and Phi and I find her unconscious in the Garden. we return with her to the infirmary, where we discover Quark had hidden a dose of the antiviral treatment.

but only one.
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I think that's me done for the evening, but the game granted me a proper look at the flowchart for the first time. I don't think I can get any kind of good ending (there's surely no way I can reach 9 points), but one of my potential timeline forks does last for quite a while yet.

let's see how this goes - you never forget your first death!
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I love the music from the Garden. Back when I was playing I left that running just to fall asleep to it
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So I just turned the game back on to play, and the game restarted! After a minute panicking about glitches, I realised the significance of the TO BE CONTINUED that concluded my play last night.

Oh well, that's kinda lame! Not super motivated to start over tonight, so for now a poll: which initial Chromatic door should I choose this time - magenta or yellow? No explanations (or even reasons!) needed, but I really don't mind so I'm happy to follow you guys.
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You don't play from the beginning (unless you really want to). You select a branch point and pick a different option.
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that's been mentioned, thanks! seems like an awesome addition, assuming it doesn't disrupt the overall narrative too much; even now, I could probably escape the first 999 room in my sleep from replaying it so much last year.
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and even then, you can fastforward text the game's already played before
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I'll go with Magenta
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Yeah, a neat feature is that if you hit fast forward, it'll automatically go through any text you've hit already. But it'll stop itself if you land on anything new
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My vote is to jump back to the Alice vote

oh, that's an appealing option! any other votes/thoughts?
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I'm a fan of going back as little as possible, which would be the Alice vote in this case

excellent, on we go!

Did I somehow change the future with my vote?

I return to the Ambidex game, and choose to BETRAY Alice. in an eye-rollingly predictable outcome, she chooses ALLY this time. but what happens next is super interesting.

Sigma not only shows clear memory of "last time," but he acknowledges this openly, and appears neither troubled nor even perplexed by this memory at all. there seems to be zero cognitive dissonance in his head regarding this warping of space-time. until there is. but still, he doesn't really question his knowledge at all.

[side question about the 9 door: once a person wielding a 9 bracelet opens it, is it only other 9 bracelet holders that can pass through, or is it anyone? I don't know if I missed this or if the game's being deliberately ambiguous.]

after skipping a whole bunch of recycled text, we reach the second set of Chromatic Doors again, and this time I have a choice! I guiltily say Yes to the idea of joining Phi and Luna behind the red door, and I indulge in a weirdly sexual argument with Phi before entering the control room.

[side question #2: does anyone know which gold primers (or "secret" titles) I shouldn't look at for spoilery reasons? I find the easter eggs super cool so I'd rather not avoid them completely if possible.]

after some fun puzzling (I really liked the electricity splitting game and the root puzzle), I crack the safe and receive some kind of label printer-looking device as my prize. thanks, Zero!

we exit to find that the Ambidex game has been activated by serial dickwipe Dio, and rush back to the rooms to discover that Quark's luck and Alice's temperament are little better in this path. I chase after Alice again and find her and Phi again in the Garden. this time, however, there's a bomb here too! hurray.

back in the infirmary, we are gently reminded that there's an Ambidex game in progress. with Quark and Alice incapacitated and Tenmy and Clover riveted to their bedsides, this creates a typically dark Zero Escape dynamic: K and Dio will both enter Ambidex rooms alone, knowing their opponent will default to ALLY. If K chooses BETRAY, Alice will die.

impressively, despite K being literally a cyborg amnesiac, Dio's incredibly obnoxious personality renders him the suspicious party. Tenmy sucker punches him and tells Clover to vote instead, implicitly placing his own life in her hands too. we rush off to the warehouse, where Phi stops us and checks that we plan to vote ALLY.

despite Phi's previous antics and general suspiciousness, I decide to do so, and naturally I am betrayed.

Phi then goes on an interesting spiel about this being revenge for my betrayal from a timeline I haven't played yet, revealing that she too can pull from alternate universes. She then makes for the 9 door, and with a flourish goes to open it-

TO BE CONTINUED
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We can't have you running around with 9 BP...

I quickly jump back to the Ambidex game, and this time choose to BETRAY, fulfilling the prophecy of the previous timeline. this is unsurprisingly an unpopular choice, and Phi decides to take things quite literally into her own hands, knocking me out to prevent me from taking advantage of my ill-gotten bracelet.

GAME OVER

yay, I finally died! that was a bit anti-climactic though, besides showing Phi as an apparent martial arts wizard I didn't really learn anything. oh well!

magenta door tomorrow? (just remembered there's probably a green door path in my fork too, i'll go do that first)
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Going with Alice and then doing each of her votes was the first thing I did in this game and I liked that outcome - I didn't want to spoil it for you but I felt like that would be the quickest way to emphasize the importance of the flowchart for you, too

Also, I know people have said that some of the gold files are spoilers, but I honestly don't recall thinking any of them are spoilers. I think the only ones that are spoilers are only spoilers in sort of oblique ways, not directly - but if someone has a good example of one that is directly spoilery they can override me on that one

The thing about the 9 door might be deliberately ambiguous, I don't really remember - it'll come up eventually so I'll leave that question alone for now

uhm, check the flowtree again where you were right now

also at least not every timeline branch has voting cheating
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Giggsalot posted...

[side question about the 9 door: once a person wielding a 9 bracelet opens it, is it only other 9 bracelet holders that can pass through, or is it anyone? I don't know if I missed this or if the game's being deliberately ambiguous.]

I believe Zero mentioned earlier that if anyone with less than 9BP goes through the 9 door, they'll die, just as if they hit 0BP.
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