Virtue's Last Reward Intro (2015, Aksys/Spike Chunsoft/Rising Star Games)
11Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward is a visual novel adventure video game developed by Chunsoft. Developed for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita, it was released in Japan on February 16, 2012, and in North America and Europe later that year. It is the second installment in the Zero Escape series, and a sequel to the 2009 game Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors.
The story follows the player character Sigma, a man who is abducted and forced along with eight other individuals to play the Nonary Game, which puts its participants in a life-or-death situation. As the story progresses, the characters begin to unravel the secrets behind the Nonary Game, as well as its true purpose. The gameplay alternates between two types of sections: Escape sections, where the player completes puzzles in escape-the-room scenarios; and Novel sections, where the player reads the game's narrative and makes decisions that influence the story, making it branch into 24 different endings.
While Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors was originally released as a stand-alone title, its unexpected success in North America prompted game director Kotaro Uchikoshi to continue the series with a sequel. When writing the script for Virtue's Last Reward, Uchikoshi began by creating a basic story, after which he designed the characters he felt would compliment the story. Aksys Games and Rising Star Games localized and published the game for their respective regions.
Virtue's Last Reward received positive reviews from critics, with praise directed toward the story, characters, and voice acting, but with some criticism towards the Escape sections.
Virtue's Last Reward is a visual novel adventure video game in which the player assumes the role of a man named Sigma. The gameplay is divided into two sections: Novel and Escape. In Novel sections, the player progresses through the storyline and converses with the non-playable characters. These sections require little interaction from the player other than reading the dialogue and other text that appears on the screen. During Novel sections, the player will sometimes be presented with decision options that affect the course of the game. One recurring decision option is a prisoner's dilemma type of choice where the player must choose to "ally" or "betray" the character or pair of characters they are pitted against, with different results depending on what choices the two parties picked.
In between Novel sections are sixteen Escape sections, which occur when the player finds themselves in a room from which they need to find a means of escape. These are presented from a first-person perspective, with the player being able to move between different predetermined positions in each room. To escape, the player is tasked with finding various items and solving puzzles, reminiscent of escape-the-room games, within the room.
Similar to its predecessor, Virtue's Last Reward features nine main characters who are kidnapped by an unknown individual called "Zero". The player-controlled Sigma is joined by Phi, a girl with a "no-nonsense attitude"; Dio, a rude and insensitive man; Tenmyouji, an elderly man; Quark, an energetic child; Luna, a kind and quiet woman; Clover, an unpredictable girl who also appeared in Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors;[6] Alice, a powerful and focused woman; and K, a man who wears an irremovable, full-body, suit of armor. Along with the nine participants, Zero III, an artificial intelligence who appears in the form of a CGI rabbit, controls the Nonary Game. Zero III is nicknamed "Zero Jr." by the participants to distinguish the entity from the human Zero, who is in turn nicknamed "Zero Sr." Aside from Sigma, each character is fully voice acted in both Japanese and English.