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Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward
I finished this yesterday and am torn between annoyance with the ending and wanting the next game NOW NOW NOW.
Story-ruining spoilers abound below the cut. Don't click unless you've played all the way to the true ending.
I mean, 999 didn't resolve everything, but at least it had an ending, even if it was an open one. This felt very much like a middle chapter, and I wish I'd known that going in. On the other hand, there was a lot about the game that I liked. Mechanically, I think it's superior to the first game - the flow chart, fast-forward button and ability to jump around whenever you like make it so much less painful to retrace your steps when rocks fall and everyone dies.
I think part of my frustration with the end is that I figured out most of the twists quite early on - I guessed that they were in the future, worked out that Tenmyouji was Junpei, that Luna was the robot and that Sigma was Zero and K was his clone, and that the point of the project was to send consciousness through time to prevent the Apocalypse. (Admittedly I didn't guess any of Dio's backstory, because I lucked onto his ending very early, before I'd seen any hints about it.) So the only surprises left in the true ending were that Akane was hiding in K's suit, and that Sigma was in his own future body. (I'd been expecting another clone.) Oh, and the fact that they were on the moon, I guess, but that wasn't really that important. Without a final solve-this-Sudoku-to-save-a-little-girl puzzle it felt pretty anti-climactic.
On the other hand, I liked the cast of characters as least as much as the last lot, and I was glad to see the mythology expanded. I was particularly happy with the retcon about Ace's motivations for running the first Nonary Game - 'he's part of a cult' makes a lot more sense to me than 'he has prosopagnosia' as a reason for kidnapping eighteen kids to investigate their psychic powers. Now I'm hoping that the third game explains the things that are still bugging me - what happened to Santa? Was he working on the AB project too? Who the hell is Phi, anyway?
I wonder if we'll be playing as Sigma again, or if we'll continue the pattern of the player character in one game becoming a supporting character in the next? Speaking of which, I think my favourite part of the game was that Junpei was so much more interesting once liberated from the bonds of being the Boring Shounen Protagonist. The moment I realised who the dead woman was and therefore who Tenmyouji was remains the most emotional point in the game for me. I actually cared about his romance with Akane this time around, and his relationship with Quark was touching.
Story-ruining spoilers abound below the cut. Don't click unless you've played all the way to the true ending.
I mean, 999 didn't resolve everything, but at least it had an ending, even if it was an open one. This felt very much like a middle chapter, and I wish I'd known that going in. On the other hand, there was a lot about the game that I liked. Mechanically, I think it's superior to the first game - the flow chart, fast-forward button and ability to jump around whenever you like make it so much less painful to retrace your steps when rocks fall and everyone dies.
I think part of my frustration with the end is that I figured out most of the twists quite early on - I guessed that they were in the future, worked out that Tenmyouji was Junpei, that Luna was the robot and that Sigma was Zero and K was his clone, and that the point of the project was to send consciousness through time to prevent the Apocalypse. (Admittedly I didn't guess any of Dio's backstory, because I lucked onto his ending very early, before I'd seen any hints about it.) So the only surprises left in the true ending were that Akane was hiding in K's suit, and that Sigma was in his own future body. (I'd been expecting another clone.) Oh, and the fact that they were on the moon, I guess, but that wasn't really that important. Without a final solve-this-Sudoku-to-save-a-little-girl puzzle it felt pretty anti-climactic.
On the other hand, I liked the cast of characters as least as much as the last lot, and I was glad to see the mythology expanded. I was particularly happy with the retcon about Ace's motivations for running the first Nonary Game - 'he's part of a cult' makes a lot more sense to me than 'he has prosopagnosia' as a reason for kidnapping eighteen kids to investigate their psychic powers. Now I'm hoping that the third game explains the things that are still bugging me - what happened to Santa? Was he working on the AB project too? Who the hell is Phi, anyway?
I wonder if we'll be playing as Sigma again, or if we'll continue the pattern of the player character in one game becoming a supporting character in the next? Speaking of which, I think my favourite part of the game was that Junpei was so much more interesting once liberated from the bonds of being the Boring Shounen Protagonist. The moment I realised who the dead woman was and therefore who Tenmyouji was remains the most emotional point in the game for me. I actually cared about his romance with Akane this time around, and his relationship with Quark was touching.