Current Events > Playing Virtue's Last Reward (999 sequel) on Vita

(+) Yeah! (+)

CyricZ posted...

I think what the game is telling you with this is that it's easy for a passive observer from outside to say "it'd be easy", but when you stack on the following:
* Very few people know each other
* There's a legitimate threat to the players' lives
* There's no guarantee that the game will allow enough rounds for everyone to escape. Zero III was specifically cagey about that.
It's not hard for a desperate person to come to the conclusion that the best thing to do is both protect themselves from losing points and attempt to get out as quickly as possible.

Also remember that the exit only opens once when someone who has enough points wants to leave, and seals everybody else in forever. All it takes is one bad Samaritan to screw over everyone else.

What endings have you gotten?

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Oh my god I was right, he really is a robot? Well you throw a bunch of darts you'll eventually hit something.

The silly cat puns thing seemed too obvious a design rather than something an actual person would have so I thought it was a double blind red herring...
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But honestly, I'm so confused now, I've just been jumping through routes to complete what I hadn't yet and I'm so lost over what this version of characters know or don't know.

Eg whether it's Alice being infected by Rad-6, or finding the bomb in the garden/crew quarters, or whatever.

I don't want to read all the text again but I just want a quick summation of what happened in this route up to the point I jumped to.
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Sigma is so horny, cum flows through his veins

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saspa posted...

In the 999 port on vita junpei is voiced. But Sigma isn't voiced in VLR? Just wondering (In general I've felt that VLR's va sounds a lot better than 999)

In the original 999 there were no voices. Interesting you think VLR's recording is better, because 999 was voice recorded much later.

I adore Karen Strassman as Phi. She's my out and out favorite.

saspa posted...

I don't want to read all the text again but I just want a quick summation of what happened in this route up to the point I jumped to.

Yeah I can respect that. Just a quick summation or something. For the most part, not a whole lot changes apart from "person missing" or "person in infirmary" or "person dead".

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With 999 I guess I was more used to the voices "in my head" if that makes sense so I didn't bother listening to the voice acting for the vita collection after the first few min. With VLR it's a fresh start so I was more willing to give it a chance and ultimately I've ended up liking the va so far. There's actual nuance and proper delivery given, which is a nice surprise because I wasn't sure if these small studios could afford good va. Especially for localization.
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saspa posted...

With 999 I guess I was more used to the voices "in my head" if that makes sense so I didn't bother listening to the voice acting for the vita collection after the first few min. With VLR it's a fresh start so I was more willing to give it a chance and ultimately I've ended up liking the va so far. There's actual nuance and proper delivery given, which is a nice surprise because I wasn't sure if these small studios could afford good va. Especially for localization.

Yeah, there are some very good performances. Luna, Phi, and Tenmyouji stand out.

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Garioshi posted...

What endings have you gotten?

At first I thought you meant all the game overs I kept getting but now is it endings with character portraits? Because I got one for Dio, and Tenmyouji... This must meas that all those question marks when I load a save file represent the various endings for each character. I can't wait to see Alice, or Luna. I keep waiting for her to be revealed as a villain.

In the route I'm currently playing, why the heck did Dio choose ally when it was Dio+Quark vs Luna. Why didn't he choose betray, like he's prone to do. I'm starting to suspect something.
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saspa posted...

At first I thought you meant all the game overs I kept getting but now is it endings with character portraits? Because I got one for Dio, and Tenmyouji... This must meas that all those question marks when I load a save file represent the various endings for each character. I can't wait to see Alice, or Luna. I keep waiting for her to be revealed as a villain.

Yep, each character has an associated ending.

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Can we talk about Alice once again? I mean... what is she wearing? Is that a metal... necklace thing she's wearing? That's functioning as a shirt? I mean even Lotus wasn't this bad. I'm so confused, isn't it heavy to wear.
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I keep trying to find loopholes to the game but to no avail. If siggy really is a robot then the injections shouldn't even work on him! Unless he's injected with something besides sop b and tuberculosis.

I had the idea of everyone abstaining from voting in the ab game, and then I get a letter from zero jr jr saying that we get penalized if we do that.

Maybe if we could replicate the neostigma antidote to the needles, we won't have to worry anymore!
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No... no no no no no it can't be. It can't be. The old woman's ID card said kurashiki! That can't be akane no no. It's not possible. Could it be? And the old man with the eye patch Zero Sr is Santa? Could Tenmyouji actually be Junpei, and all 3 are old somehow? Tenmyouji was carrying a picture of child Akane after all.

I just can't right now, too many theories swirling in my head.
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Garioshi posted...

Yeah, there are some very good performances. Luna, Phi, and Tenmyouji stand out.

It's a shame that ZTD, at least in English, is a step down in voice acting, even with returning characters.

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So Luna was the robot after all huh... I guess Sigma just had cybernetic arms, that's all... yeah ok. Maybe they used his arm to clone k? Not unlike... what happened in Young Justice.

Still think it's ridiculous in that timeline that Dio overpowered Tenmyouji and Clover. Isn't she a government agent supposedly with training now.
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Dammit I'm stuck in a white room and for the life of me I can't even figure out what the hell I'm suppose to do with the cube and the walls, the instructions don't make any sense.

I randomly pressed and got a dartboard so far but that's it. I'd just like a better hint before I outright cheat in this section.
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Have you ever played Minesweeper? You need to find out which squares are "winning" squares by the hints from the cube then click on those on the wall.

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I have played a bit of minesweeper... what do the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3 represent in this context? Is the cube supposed to represent the wall? They don't have the same number of squares though, one is 5x7 and one is 7x7

Got a couple more from pure random luck pressing but think I'm just gonna say screw it, gonna look up the answer for this Q room. I'm on a roll with all the endings at once, and can't wait to know what happens next
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saspa posted...

No... no no no no no it can't be. It can't be. The old woman's ID card said kurashiki! That can't be akane no no. It's not possible. Could it be? And the old man with the eye patch Zero Sr is Santa? Could Tenmyouji actually be Junpei, and all 3 are old somehow? Tenmyouji was carrying a picture of child Akane after all.

I just can't right now, too many theories swirling in my head.

What about Clover, then?

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It... it was Akane V__V

That is Junpei, the hologram all but confirmed it.

I... just can't right now
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saspa posted...

It... it was Akane V__V

That is Junpei, the hologram all but confirmed it.

I... just can't right now

It gets better

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saspa posted...

It... it was Akane V__V

That is Junpei, the hologram all but confirmed it.

I... just can't right now

Good... Good.

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bump

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Hold up. They're on the moon? That's why Phi can jump, she isn't really Batman? What a switcheroo. It's like in 999 when you think they're on a sinking ship but they're really in the nevada desert, so this time in the sequel you think "oh they're in another facility in arizona" but nope, this time it was the unique location.
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SUV won't get them home this time.

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Oh fuck me. They've been asleep in some kinda chrono-stasis for 45 years?

That's it I'm done, I'm out, I am walking away. I suspected something was up with the rad 6 infection news article being after the moon eclipse but this?
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Oh. My. God.

Was I an old person the entire movie? That's BS, I know there were mirrors, wasn't there a mirror in the infirmary? I could have sworn there was one. I even remember wondering why we hadn't gotten a "look in the mirror" moment like we did in the first 5 minutes of 999 with Junpei.

I suspected something with why Sigma wasn't voiced nor shown onscreen, but... my god

OH My god! Dio... Dio called me a senile old fuck in one of the timelines! I remember thinking wtf don't you mean tenmyouji, why are you saying that to me. That's just... sneaky foreshadowing. Dammit, it all fits
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saspa posted...

wasn't there a mirror in the infirmary?

Fogged up.

saspa posted...

Dio called me a senile old fuck

There's more. Phi called him grandpa. I believe she almost commented how bad he must be at school if he's "still in college". I found a Reddit thread detailing about a dozen or so hints, but I won't post it since you're not done yet.

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Seeing adult Akane is... surreal. And perfect.

I've always wondered/thought it was creepy that Junpei is carrying around a picture of 12 year old Akane and not at the very least a picture of the 20 year old Akane he meets. It's not really as sweet as the writers think it is. At best it's kinda weird.
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Where was he going to get one?

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Wait... is it over? How do I know? There are no more question marks, the map seems filled out, and I got a portrait of adult Akane and old Akane on the flowchart.

The last thing that happens... Suddenly this Kyle Klim whoever wakes up and is voiced? And old Akane says "are you sure you're Kyle, or are you actually... ???"
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Okay. This is complicated.

Originally, that last scene at the bottom wasn't supposed to be in the game. Right near the end of development, there was a big tragic Japanese earthquake and Uchikoshi decided he didn't want a series that he was worried wouldn't even get a third game to end on such a downer note with that previous scene.

So he wrote an additional scene to make it more uplifting.

That scene is NOT CANON. It's essentially the characters directly addressing the player.. Do NOT take any information from that scene into Zero Time Dilemma. TRUST ME.

It's not even voiced in the JP version, it was that late in development.

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I like that the game makes tenmyouji address something I immediately started wondering about: what happens to people in alternate timelines. If I change history, doesn't that erase the life people have been living? Is that right? I don't think so.

Is Temyouji/Junpei saying that he's happy with the life he's built with Quark, and as much as he wanted to see Akane again and have a happily ever after with her, he's given up on that dream and would rather go back to the life he had with Quark on the ravaged earth? Especially since he feels this hard person is not Akane, not the Akane he knows/remembers?
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CyricZ posted...

Okay. This is complicated.

Originally, that last scene at the bottom wasn't supposed to be in the game. Right near the end of development, there was a big tragic Japanese earthquake and Uchikoshi decided he didn't want a series that he was worried wouldn't even get a third game to end on such a downer note with that previous scene.

So he wrote an additional scene to make it more uplifting.

That scene is NOT CANON. It's essentially the characters directly addressing the player.. Do NOT take any information from that scene into Zero Time Dilemma. TRUST ME.

It's not even voiced in the JP version, it was that late in development.

So the last final scene is with adult Akane? Where she's wearing Zero's robes and takes it off and explains about the 3 people in the pods? And we see Sigma with robot arms?
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What we saw of June in 999... that was all an act for Junpei's benefit? The whole sweet shy innocent act? To make him what, remember his childhood puppy love and fall in love with her again and be more motivated to save her?

This isn't exactly the sequel I was hoping for, I still feel like there was stuff in 999 that hasn't been explained, and VLR explains even less and I just ended on a damn cliffhanger? I can't imagine playing this 8 years ago with no sequel in sight at the time.

What the hell was up with ice-9 in 999 if Alice is just some broad? She's not even a fable ancient egpyt mummy perfectly preserved? Why did we get all that text in 999 if it served no purpose? And Alice dressing the way she did was a complete coincidence or... ? Was that always intended when they made 999 to VLR
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saspa posted...

So the last final scene is with adult Akane? Where she's wearing Zero's robes and takes it off and explains about the 3 people in the pods? And we see Sigma with robot arms?

Correct. Take everything that happens after that as a nice little extra.

What we saw of June in 999... that was all an act for Junpei's benefit? The whole sweet shy innocent act? To make him what, remember his childhood puppy love and fall in love with her again and be more motivated to save her?

Hard to say isn't it? Could be a little bit of both?

I can't imagine playing this 8 years ago with no sequel in sight at the time.

Yeah I don't have to imagine. There's a reason everyone lost their goddamn shit when ZTD was announced.

What the hell was up with ice-9 in 999 if Alice is just some broad? She's not even a fable ancient egpyt mummy perfectly preserved? Why did we get all that text in 999 if it served no purpose? And Alice dressing the way she did was a complete coincidence or... ? Was that always intended when they made 999 to VLR

That is a straight up red herring. Alice is who she says she is, and feels her resemblance to that legend to be a cute coincidence that she sometimes plays to her advantage, but nothing more.

Or it's entirely possible Uchikoshi figured he might work it in but then realized it'd be too much, so he toned it back to what we got.

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I really, truly love ice cream

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Who is Phi, why is she important? Are we sure she's not Santa in cosplay??

Where the hell is Santa, I thought he and Akane were partners in crime or...? What happened at the end of 999 after he tells Junpei this was all for him, to rescue her?
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Jesus. Imagine if they handled this pandemic we're currently going through like they did in the game.
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Well thankfully, COVID doesn't come with the suicidal tendencies baked in.

saspa posted...

Who is Phi, why is she important?

They told you. She's an x-factor.

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