Virtue's Last Reward

[spatular]

guess i should make a thread for this instead of just using the 999 one - this is a sequel to 999 - it's basically the same idea so here is how DANGERMAN describes the gameplay from the 999 thread:

"It's a interactive novel kind of thing, you get huge lumps of text, a choice of where to go next, and puzzles. The puzzles so far have mostly been maths based, like here's how to do a digital route, use that to solve the puzzle to get in to the lock to get the key to unlock the key card to unlock the door and escape. That type of thing."

http://www.mfgamers.com/index.php?showtopic=39704

a big point of the game is how the story unravels through multiple playthroughs as you choose different options and, so see different parts of the story. it's really good.

i started a few days ago and said this:

"started VLR a few days ago, not too far in and it's really pretty similar to 999 so far. the puzzle seem more standardised, as in each one has a safe with 2 combinations - one lets you exit, the other is for bonus info - the bonus info ones have been pretty obscure (except the first one) so think i'll use a guide for those. there's also an easy mode where the other characters give you more hints - i managed to accidentally turn this on for the first puzzle. the controls seem quite poor, worse than 999 anyway, you can use the touch screen to swing the view around and it's pretty poorly implemented imo - might as well have stuck with the static screens - maybe it's ok on the ds, i'm playing on vita (because apparently the save bug isn't as bad)."

since then i've had a "to be continued" ending that apparently happens when you don't have enough info to carry on, and a really nondescript ending. there's loads more story branches and endings than 999 - and thankfully the method of skipping stuff is miles better - there's a big flow chart of all the possible routes through the game and you can skip straight to any point on the flow chart you've previously completed. so i got the nothing ending started again - skipped straight to where i made a decision that caused the ending and made another choice and carrying on the story from there.

i wish i was playing on 3ds tbh - it lets you make notes and view files, i imagine its much easier to take notes, and maybe see the notes at the same time as the main screen on the 3ds - maybe it isn't better, but it seems like it would be. although the 3ds apparently has it worse with the save bug - apparently if you never save during a puzzle its fine in both versions.

the story is pretty interesting but so far not as good as 999 for me - i have read that it starts slow and gets ace later though...

oh and free on psn+ currently, shame i'd already bought it.

[spatular]

Played about 20 hours of this now, still don't like it as much as 999. But despite not thinking the puzzles or story are as good as 999 I'm still happily playing so it is pretty good IMO. Only had 1 proper ending so far, which was fairly crazy I guess. Probably filled in near half of the flow chart thing, and done most of the puzzles. I guess I'll start getting more proper endings quite quickly now.

No one even tried is via psn+ then?

[spatular]

30+ hours and finished! Really great game, took a while to really get going, as mentioned above I did a lot of leg work in the first 20 hours, filling in a lot of the flow chart without many endings, then the last 10 hours it really kicked on, I worked out what I thought were some big twists but the plot near the end just blows that stuff out of the water, it's really cool. Although not sure I fully understood it all, the Internet cleared up most of it.

I did use a guide for some of the bonus puzzles. Also doing all the puzzles (not sure about the bonus ones) on hard gets you more of an ending.

It also points to a sequel so hopefully that happens.