So I've just completed this marvellous game and was asked by a GAF user to do a LTTP so they could read my reaction to this rollercoaster of a game.
There will be spoilers for both 999 & Virtue's Last Reward obviously!
My brain is an absolute mess at the moment. This happened after 999 and it's happened again after VLR. The big reveal as to who Zero Sr was was unexpected. I just hadn't pieced it together at all! But I think I'll write down my reaction to each of the main character's story (in the order I did it).
1. Clover's Ending
I must admit, I played VLR's intro before I was advised to play 999 first. So I had seen Clover but completely forgot about her being in VLR whilst I was playing 999. I never "loved" her character but it was good to see her back in VLR. I assumed she'd be one of the main plot points of the game but she really wasn't.
I was glad that Clover and Snake managed to settle down and enjoy life before it was disrupted by Alice (for good reasons).
Her ending was intentionally similar to the Submarine ending with the majority of the characters dying. I wasn't too surprised with it tbh and although it would seem shocking to someone new to the series, I was more interested in moving onto the other character endings.
2. Dio's Ending
This is where stuff starts to get interesting. I was surprised that the bad character of the game was outed so quickly after finding out this game would have more than 20 endings. I guess it was pretty obvious he'd end up being the bad one but I did enjoy the mystery behind it in 999 and when you finally piece together that it was Ace who was the cause of the Nonary games.
His ending didn't make too much sense with Phi acting like she had prior knowledge of what was going on (which is the first time I think you get an inkling of the over-arching purpose of the AB project).
3. Tenmyouji's Ending
This was my first "Holy Shit" moment of the game! I never saw it coming at all. With Clover being her normal age, it never crossed my mind that Tenmyouji would in fact be Junpei. But somehow it was him and the reveal was beautiful. He had kept the picture of Akane, the person who put him through hell and back to save herself and had abandoned him because she was too ashamed to face him after what she had done. He stilled loved her.
Even after all this time? Always.
4. Alice's Ending
This ending added a lot more information to the story. We learn a lot more about the Myrmidons and her and Clover's plans to stop them. Her character interested me the most initially because of the ending of 999 and the fact that we had so many hints that woman made from Ice-9 was alive and was the person that we saw at the end of the game. It was a bit of a shame that it ended up that Alice was just a "normal person". I still wouldn't be surprised though if there's a twist in future game(s) where it turns out she is somehow the Egyptian princess.
5. Sigma's Ending
This was the second big reveal. Luna hinting at you being a robot was definitely unnerving and I felt that at this point, it was Luna who was in fact Zero. This was the first time where I had some confidence in that mental accusation. But for some reason, it was only your arms that were robotic which explained all the weird things happening during this timeline. It was a relief to know that I wasn't a robot but there was so many questions at this point regarding as to why I had them. Had Zero Sr sadistically cut off my arms and replaced them with robot ones? Was there a reason as to why I had robotic arms? Was Luna lying to me about my diagnosis?
6. Quark's Ending
This was the third "OMG" moment. I once again was completely oblivious about who the old person was. I never even thought to question her identity even after finding out Tenmyouji was Junpei. But lo and behold, the old woman was none other than Akane Kurashiki. But why was she here? Was she staging another cruel Nonary Games? Had something not gone to plan? I was just waiting for Sigma to show the card to Tenmyouji but the story abruptly ended... Noooooo!
7. K's Ending
I'd never suspected K was Zero Sr. It just seemed too obvious. The guy in the suit who's face we never see would be far too convenient to be Zero Sr. It had to be someone else, someone we knew. The links to 999 were very strong so I immediately assumed that K could potentially be Ace. They had a similar build and because there was no voices in 999, it was entirely plausible. It could've also been Snake, Seven or even Santa. After all, K's memory was completely gone.
However, it took a different turn and his reveal was certainly "shocking". K's story definitely hinted at Junpei being his father for me. This was made even more plausible when an old woman appeared out of the blue and was a good friend to K's father. I immediately thought it could've been Junpei and Akane's child. They had somehow found each other again and had a child (I may have misunderstood the story but this is how it sounded like). But the fact that K and his father was so distant was the only thing that made me question my theory. Junpei would've never done that, especially considering his relationship with Quark. But K killing Dio because he had killed Akane then confirmed my (misguided) suspicions. I was sure he was their child until his mask was removed... He was me! I was so confused. How? The story had already hinted at jumping between timelines so my only clue was that the Sigma in the suit was from a different timeline. However, there was also the stuff about the Myrmidons and how they had an army of clones. Could Sigma have been a clone?
8. Luna's Ending
My mind was a mess at this point. Nothing was making any sense and Luna's ending compounded it all. Her big reveal was another shocking moment. This had been the 5th time now where I was grinning at the brilliance of the reveal. She was in fact a robot. She had almost convinced me that I was a robot in another time line and yet, she was the one that had to obey the 3 laws of robotics, not me. Her appearance just before the 3rd round of voting was very creepy after the story was slowly pushing the idea that she was the killer. Sigma could've left the facility with Phi and Quark but went back for Luna. I loved that. Luna was never an evil character, she had never picked betray in any of the games. She was the only character in the whole game that showed compassion, love and trust. She had the most humanity of them all. She confirmed some key story elements about Akane and Zero Sr but their motives was still a mystery. Her death had me choked up :'(
9. Phi's Ending
This was it. It had all lead to this. The idea of timeline jumping was fully confirmed in this timeline and Phi's betrayal in round 1 was a crucial part to that. We finally understood that Sigma and Phi could somehow jump between timelines. All the little tidbits of information that we had accrued from Schrodinger's cat to the astronomy article were going to come together. We finally have enough information to defuse all 4 bombs and do so with seconds to spare. This was actually a pretty tense moment as I'd only learnt which codes was for bomb 2. I was scared if I got one of the codes wrong for the other bombs, it'd be game over. Luckily that wasn't the case and it wouldn't have done much thanks to the ability to jump to areas in the flow chart.
After diffusing, we play the ultimate puzzle and this starts the ultimate reveal. I entered the wrong IDs and passwords a few times. But then I remembered Akane's ID. I had noted down Jumpydoll but not Kurashiki. I entered both and it worked! She still loved Junpei! Anyway, her hologram appears and I'm pretty confused at what she's telling me but what's important is that she can now be saved in another time line. We manage to save her and then return to the current time line.
We are able to finally escape the facility. Everyone was working together. It was all coming up millhouse. But I spoke too soon and once we were on the outside, Tenmyouji reveals that we have been in a cold sleep for 45 years aside from him, Quark and of course Luna. And we weren't on Earth, we were in fact, on the moon. I was taken aback by the news. This just added more questions. It turns out that almost the entire population of Earth gets wiped out as a result of Radical-6. And yet, somehow Junpei survived it all. I tell myself it was because he was spurred on by the possibility of meeting Akane again. It must've been.
Anyway, we go back to the garden to find Akane as she didn't get killed by Dio. K finally remembers everything and tells us that Phi and Sigma were made to learn how to jump between timelines in order to prevent the leak of Radical-6. We finally opened the pod, Akane wasn't in there, it was me! I was as confused as Sigma was until Akane jumped out of K's suit. The Sigma in the pod was actually my clone called Kyle and everyone had never seen his face before. How was that possible? He had the same face as me. And then Sigma checks his face in the stream... He is 67 years old, has a bionic eye and robotic arms. And it is revealed that I am in fact Zero Sr!!! God dammit Chunsoft, you've done it again. My mouth was agape. How could they have managed this a second time? I was dumbfounded. I was Zero. I had created the Nonary games.
And now, I was given a load of time travel information to take in that essentially fried my brains but I had the gist of it. I must go back in time and infiltrate the experiment on Earth and prevent the outbreak of Radical-6.
The game properly ends on a cliffhanger. Somehow, every single bit of VLR made sense. It was amazing how I was absolutely clueless as to what was going on going into the last playthrough and it just all came together in the end. You have to applaud the brilliant story and intricacy of it all.
Thoughts on gameplay:
I loved it. It was even more challenging than 999 (sometimes a bit too challenging with a bit too much emphasis on guessing or out of the box thinking). There was a lot more to solving a room this time round and I feel like there was more content overall.
Thoughts on story:
Sensational. I loved it. There was so much going on and each ending just brought more questions than answers. Only in the final two playthroughs do you start to understand what's going on. You have to credit the writers for keeping you gripped even when they drip feed you information.
VLR vs 999:
I personally feel 999 was slightly better. I attribute this to the fact that I played 999 first. I had never really delved into this genre before and it was frankly a revolutionary experience. It immediately jumped into my GOAT games because of how well the story and gameplay was intertwined. I also liked the love story between Junpei and Akane. There was a darker theme in 999 with more brutal deaths and the abduction of children who were forced to partake in this cruel Nonary Games. Akane ending up being Zero and the fact that the DS was showing the perspective of both Junpei and young Akane was absolutely mindblowing. I doubt that will ever happen again in gaming for me.
Problems with VLR?
The inconsistency found in time travel. It is always extremely difficult to portray this without the logic faltering. It's just the nature of the concept. The time travel itself makes sense but I hate that there is this concept of infinite timelines. So anything you change in the past will not affect the future as it will create a new timeline. But then you have to wonder, what is the point? What is the point of putting all these resources into changing the past if it will only affect one of the infinite timelines? Especially as you won't be able to experience it.
What after VLR?
It seems like Aksys are going to tease the next installment of this great franchise and I'm glad they're making it. It's going to be difficult to add an element of surprise with the story of the game seemingly only going in one way. Maybe Chunsoft will manage to shock us once again. I wouldn't put it past them. I just hope that Junpei and Akane actually end up together. If it somehow ends up with Sigma and Akane, I will riot!
This has been a very long write up. Sorry if some of the info is inaccurate or if there are mistakes. I'm mentally exhausted with all the work I did today and finishing VLR just completely fried my brains. But I had to vent and hopefully someone will enjoy this write up ^^
There will be spoilers for both 999 & Virtue's Last Reward obviously!
My brain is an absolute mess at the moment. This happened after 999 and it's happened again after VLR. The big reveal as to who Zero Sr was was unexpected. I just hadn't pieced it together at all! But I think I'll write down my reaction to each of the main character's story (in the order I did it).
1. Clover's Ending
I must admit, I played VLR's intro before I was advised to play 999 first. So I had seen Clover but completely forgot about her being in VLR whilst I was playing 999. I never "loved" her character but it was good to see her back in VLR. I assumed she'd be one of the main plot points of the game but she really wasn't.
I was glad that Clover and Snake managed to settle down and enjoy life before it was disrupted by Alice (for good reasons).
Her ending was intentionally similar to the Submarine ending with the majority of the characters dying. I wasn't too surprised with it tbh and although it would seem shocking to someone new to the series, I was more interested in moving onto the other character endings.
2. Dio's Ending
This is where stuff starts to get interesting. I was surprised that the bad character of the game was outed so quickly after finding out this game would have more than 20 endings. I guess it was pretty obvious he'd end up being the bad one but I did enjoy the mystery behind it in 999 and when you finally piece together that it was Ace who was the cause of the Nonary games.
His ending didn't make too much sense with Phi acting like she had prior knowledge of what was going on (which is the first time I think you get an inkling of the over-arching purpose of the AB project).
3. Tenmyouji's Ending
This was my first "Holy Shit" moment of the game! I never saw it coming at all. With Clover being her normal age, it never crossed my mind that Tenmyouji would in fact be Junpei. But somehow it was him and the reveal was beautiful. He had kept the picture of Akane, the person who put him through hell and back to save herself and had abandoned him because she was too ashamed to face him after what she had done. He stilled loved her.
Even after all this time? Always.
4. Alice's Ending
This ending added a lot more information to the story. We learn a lot more about the Myrmidons and her and Clover's plans to stop them. Her character interested me the most initially because of the ending of 999 and the fact that we had so many hints that woman made from Ice-9 was alive and was the person that we saw at the end of the game. It was a bit of a shame that it ended up that Alice was just a "normal person". I still wouldn't be surprised though if there's a twist in future game(s) where it turns out she is somehow the Egyptian princess.
5. Sigma's Ending
This was the second big reveal. Luna hinting at you being a robot was definitely unnerving and I felt that at this point, it was Luna who was in fact Zero. This was the first time where I had some confidence in that mental accusation. But for some reason, it was only your arms that were robotic which explained all the weird things happening during this timeline. It was a relief to know that I wasn't a robot but there was so many questions at this point regarding as to why I had them. Had Zero Sr sadistically cut off my arms and replaced them with robot ones? Was there a reason as to why I had robotic arms? Was Luna lying to me about my diagnosis?
6. Quark's Ending
This was the third "OMG" moment. I once again was completely oblivious about who the old person was. I never even thought to question her identity even after finding out Tenmyouji was Junpei. But lo and behold, the old woman was none other than Akane Kurashiki. But why was she here? Was she staging another cruel Nonary Games? Had something not gone to plan? I was just waiting for Sigma to show the card to Tenmyouji but the story abruptly ended... Noooooo!
7. K's Ending
I'd never suspected K was Zero Sr. It just seemed too obvious. The guy in the suit who's face we never see would be far too convenient to be Zero Sr. It had to be someone else, someone we knew. The links to 999 were very strong so I immediately assumed that K could potentially be Ace. They had a similar build and because there was no voices in 999, it was entirely plausible. It could've also been Snake, Seven or even Santa. After all, K's memory was completely gone.
However, it took a different turn and his reveal was certainly "shocking". K's story definitely hinted at Junpei being his father for me. This was made even more plausible when an old woman appeared out of the blue and was a good friend to K's father. I immediately thought it could've been Junpei and Akane's child. They had somehow found each other again and had a child (I may have misunderstood the story but this is how it sounded like). But the fact that K and his father was so distant was the only thing that made me question my theory. Junpei would've never done that, especially considering his relationship with Quark. But K killing Dio because he had killed Akane then confirmed my (misguided) suspicions. I was sure he was their child until his mask was removed... He was me! I was so confused. How? The story had already hinted at jumping between timelines so my only clue was that the Sigma in the suit was from a different timeline. However, there was also the stuff about the Myrmidons and how they had an army of clones. Could Sigma have been a clone?
8. Luna's Ending
My mind was a mess at this point. Nothing was making any sense and Luna's ending compounded it all. Her big reveal was another shocking moment. This had been the 5th time now where I was grinning at the brilliance of the reveal. She was in fact a robot. She had almost convinced me that I was a robot in another time line and yet, she was the one that had to obey the 3 laws of robotics, not me. Her appearance just before the 3rd round of voting was very creepy after the story was slowly pushing the idea that she was the killer. Sigma could've left the facility with Phi and Quark but went back for Luna. I loved that. Luna was never an evil character, she had never picked betray in any of the games. She was the only character in the whole game that showed compassion, love and trust. She had the most humanity of them all. She confirmed some key story elements about Akane and Zero Sr but their motives was still a mystery. Her death had me choked up :'(
9. Phi's Ending
This was it. It had all lead to this. The idea of timeline jumping was fully confirmed in this timeline and Phi's betrayal in round 1 was a crucial part to that. We finally understood that Sigma and Phi could somehow jump between timelines. All the little tidbits of information that we had accrued from Schrodinger's cat to the astronomy article were going to come together. We finally have enough information to defuse all 4 bombs and do so with seconds to spare. This was actually a pretty tense moment as I'd only learnt which codes was for bomb 2. I was scared if I got one of the codes wrong for the other bombs, it'd be game over. Luckily that wasn't the case and it wouldn't have done much thanks to the ability to jump to areas in the flow chart.
After diffusing, we play the ultimate puzzle and this starts the ultimate reveal. I entered the wrong IDs and passwords a few times. But then I remembered Akane's ID. I had noted down Jumpydoll but not Kurashiki. I entered both and it worked! She still loved Junpei! Anyway, her hologram appears and I'm pretty confused at what she's telling me but what's important is that she can now be saved in another time line. We manage to save her and then return to the current time line.
We are able to finally escape the facility. Everyone was working together. It was all coming up millhouse. But I spoke too soon and once we were on the outside, Tenmyouji reveals that we have been in a cold sleep for 45 years aside from him, Quark and of course Luna. And we weren't on Earth, we were in fact, on the moon. I was taken aback by the news. This just added more questions. It turns out that almost the entire population of Earth gets wiped out as a result of Radical-6. And yet, somehow Junpei survived it all. I tell myself it was because he was spurred on by the possibility of meeting Akane again. It must've been.
Anyway, we go back to the garden to find Akane as she didn't get killed by Dio. K finally remembers everything and tells us that Phi and Sigma were made to learn how to jump between timelines in order to prevent the leak of Radical-6. We finally opened the pod, Akane wasn't in there, it was me! I was as confused as Sigma was until Akane jumped out of K's suit. The Sigma in the pod was actually my clone called Kyle and everyone had never seen his face before. How was that possible? He had the same face as me. And then Sigma checks his face in the stream... He is 67 years old, has a bionic eye and robotic arms. And it is revealed that I am in fact Zero Sr!!! God dammit Chunsoft, you've done it again. My mouth was agape. How could they have managed this a second time? I was dumbfounded. I was Zero. I had created the Nonary games.
And now, I was given a load of time travel information to take in that essentially fried my brains but I had the gist of it. I must go back in time and infiltrate the experiment on Earth and prevent the outbreak of Radical-6.
The game properly ends on a cliffhanger. Somehow, every single bit of VLR made sense. It was amazing how I was absolutely clueless as to what was going on going into the last playthrough and it just all came together in the end. You have to applaud the brilliant story and intricacy of it all.
Thoughts on gameplay:
I loved it. It was even more challenging than 999 (sometimes a bit too challenging with a bit too much emphasis on guessing or out of the box thinking). There was a lot more to solving a room this time round and I feel like there was more content overall.
Thoughts on story:
Sensational. I loved it. There was so much going on and each ending just brought more questions than answers. Only in the final two playthroughs do you start to understand what's going on. You have to credit the writers for keeping you gripped even when they drip feed you information.
VLR vs 999:
I personally feel 999 was slightly better. I attribute this to the fact that I played 999 first. I had never really delved into this genre before and it was frankly a revolutionary experience. It immediately jumped into my GOAT games because of how well the story and gameplay was intertwined. I also liked the love story between Junpei and Akane. There was a darker theme in 999 with more brutal deaths and the abduction of children who were forced to partake in this cruel Nonary Games. Akane ending up being Zero and the fact that the DS was showing the perspective of both Junpei and young Akane was absolutely mindblowing. I doubt that will ever happen again in gaming for me.
Problems with VLR?
The inconsistency found in time travel. It is always extremely difficult to portray this without the logic faltering. It's just the nature of the concept. The time travel itself makes sense but I hate that there is this concept of infinite timelines. So anything you change in the past will not affect the future as it will create a new timeline. But then you have to wonder, what is the point? What is the point of putting all these resources into changing the past if it will only affect one of the infinite timelines? Especially as you won't be able to experience it.
What after VLR?
It seems like Aksys are going to tease the next installment of this great franchise and I'm glad they're making it. It's going to be difficult to add an element of surprise with the story of the game seemingly only going in one way. Maybe Chunsoft will manage to shock us once again. I wouldn't put it past them. I just hope that Junpei and Akane actually end up together. If it somehow ends up with Sigma and Akane, I will riot!
This has been a very long write up. Sorry if some of the info is inaccurate or if there are mistakes. I'm mentally exhausted with all the work I did today and finishing VLR just completely fried my brains. But I had to vent and hopefully someone will enjoy this write up ^^
