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Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

Story Discussion Thread *Spoilers*


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You have entered a spoiler tag free zone about the game Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. This thread has been created to discuss anything The Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward related. You are permitted to discuss key plot points, boss battles and any part of the story openly without the use of SPOILER TAGS. Please note, this is not a "How do I..." thread. Any posts like this will be deleted.

 

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Edited by BreadSkin
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I thought this story was FANTASTIC. One of my all time favorite stories in a video game, and I can't wait for part 3.

 

I really wish we got to see what happened between Dec. 25 2048 and Dec. 31 2048. I have a feeling that the girl who Sigma lost his arms and right eye for was probably Phi. Maybe part 3 will explain this.

 

I saw Sigma being Zero from the very beginning, so that revelation wasn't too big for me. What was surprising was when he looked into the pool and saw himself - I was expecting young Sigma, not old. No wonder the girls looked grossed out when he made sexual, perv comments about them and swimsuits and stuff haha.

 

What I did not see was his clone, Kyle, being in K's suit.

 

I liked the Luna, Phi, and Tenmyouji endings the most.

 

Having not played 999, all the recurring characters didn't really impact me. I know Clover and Alice were returning characters. Akane was kind of a surprise to me based on my background knowledge and Tenmyouji's picture of a young Akane, but again not a huge impact on my because I didn't play 999. Also, Tenmyouji was Junpei, the player character from 999, I guess? That was probably a massive revelation to players of 999. I kind of wish I played that before this.

 

Overall, fantastic game though. One of my favorites of all time for sure (well, it would make my top 25), and one of the greatest stories in a video game for me (possibly top 5 material, if not then top 10).

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All right! Glad this thread is here now. XD

 

Points of discussion from other threads:

 

-Phi's identity

-How did Sigma not notice that his body had aged? (This one bugs me a lot as well... though since his arms are artificial he might have not noticed the effects of aging on those.) I know the mirror in the Infirmary was dirty, but it seems that he would have caught a glimpse of himself in a reflective screen or the pool of water in the garden, etc.

 

I hadn't played 999 either. I'd actually never even heard if it before I played this one. I might see if I can get ahold of it to play on my DS now, though obviously I've been spoiled now on some of the main plot twists from it.

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I have a feeling that the girl who Sigma lost his arms and right eye for was probably Phi.
I'm pretty sure it was girl, on whom Luna is based on.

There was one point... A woman's life was in danger.

You risked yourself for her sake, and lost your arms and your right eye.

Since they both know Phi it's quite odd to not use her name. So, at least, it's not Phi for sure.
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I had a feeling that Sigma would end up being Zero. When I saw the projection of older Sigma, I noticed the watch and the similarities, so I knew for sure then, but didn't know how it was all connected. Didn't expect to be playing as an older Sigma, though. Thinking about it, the explanation as to why Sigma's arms always looked like they belonged to his 20s-self is that the older Sigma had cybernetic arms, so the ABT he developed and used on his arms likely didn't "age" like the rest of his body. It was a little trick to keep the player thinking they were playing as Sigma in his 20s.

 

I'm very curious as to what they'll do in the future with Phi. There's still much that wasn't explained when it came to her. I'm hoping Phi, along with the Sigma/Kyle swapping at the end, is properly explained in the next game.

 

All in all I don't really feel like I missed out on too much by not playing 999 first, though I certainly want to play it now. This game has a great and interesting storyline and I got hooked quick. Thank goodness for PS+ or I would have missed out.

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Started to suspect Sigma was Zero Sr when he started to make cat puns and i remembered that Zero Jr used bunny puns.That was very odd and a came up with a theory of Sigma being Zero Sr or being in cahoots and having amnesia.

 

When Sigma takes K's armor off and sees *himself* i thought that something weird is happening regarding Sigma.

 

Luna calling him *Doctor* was a giveaway.Being honest i didn't gave much attention to the reveal of the cybernetic arms and passed that as nothing important.

 

I was 90% certain that Sigma and Zero were the same person...what surprised me was the part when Sigma looks at his reflection on the pond and sees himself as an old man.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The story was fantastic. I went into the game with the intention of getting an easy plat, at first I was annoyed I couldn't skip dialogue quickly but in the end I'm glad I couldn't as otherwise I would have missed out.

I guessed a couple things. Like Akane in Temouji's (sp) picture being the old woman and the whole thing how Sigma and Phi could jump around alternate timelines. Did not see the whole Sigma being Zero thing coming.

Edited by TheManUtdFan
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  • 2 weeks later...

I was onto the whole sigma is zero thing pretty early. Apart from the already mentioned cat puns. He was also referred to as an old man many times in the game. For instance he mentions to Phi he is 22. She suggests he must've had to use a lot of drugs to look like that at 22. Dio calls him geezer or old man a few times as well. Does seem a bit odd in reflection that Clover wanted to go on a date wit a 70 year old.

Edited by breathofwater
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I was onto the whole sigma is zero thing pretty early. Apart from the already mentioned cat puns. He was also referred to as an old man many times in the game. For instance he mentions to Phi he is 22. She suggests he must've had to use a lot of drugs to look like that at 22. Dio calls him geezer or old man a few times as well. Does seem a bit odd in reflection that Clover wanted to go on a date wit a 70 year old.

 

There were a few other clues too, like at one point Sigma said he was a student working on his PhD and Alice (I think) said "you must've been working on that for a while." I don't really remember the context of Clover saying she would go on a date with him, I think she was probably just trying to manipulate him.

 

I have to say though, it seems like "the villain was actually YOU!" storyline has been used a lot recently (though I won't list examples as there isn't really a way to do so without spoiling those other things) and I'm not crazy about the whole unreliable narrator thing. I like to follow a story without feeling tricked.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Such fantastic story :) loved all the twists such as sigma being zero and can't wait for part 3. Just hope they make it a harder plat. I felt like I was actually in the game it was done so well. Most of the times I betrayed I felt bad. I'm pretty sure that Dio never once choose ally unless I'm forgetting an ending just so he could blow up those bombs.

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  • 1 month later...

Hey guys I played 999 and VLR few months back and was satisfied with (most) of the ending and explanations, but one think kept bugging me. Didn't you feel like Quark is one of Dio's/Left's clones? I looked it up online and few people had teories about immune system and colout of hair, but what stood up to me most and planted this thought in my head was the voice acting. I felt like in the tense moments (screaming) their voice were very similar... There is the fact that the original voice work was japanese, so it could just be a coincidence or it was instructed by the author - what do you think? Also for those of us who played 999, how great was the moment when you realize who Tenmyouji really is? :eek: :D

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the voice acting. I felt like in the tense moments (screaming) their voice were very similar...
In jap version they were voiced by Kugimiya Rie (Shana in Shakugan no Shana, Kagura in Gintama, Elric Alphonse in FMA, Aisaka Taiga in Toradora!, Kujikawa Rise in Persona 4) and Hosoya Yoshimasa (Hidaka Subaru in Robotics;Notes, Braun Reiner in Shingeki no Kyojin, Yasuri Shichika in Katanagatari, Akatsuki Kojou in Strike the Blood) and their voices are really very different.
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  • 1 month later...

Very enjoyable game. There were a fair few moments where I would be sitting there mashing the x button to skip repeated scenes again and again, but I really enjoyed the story and the congruence between story and gameplay/game mechanics.

 

Although it would be perhaps apropos if they didn't make another game. Like Schroedingers Cat, whatever we think happened in the story is the reality of it, not unlike the idea Phi mentioned that how the Nonary game played determined to fate of the world outside the box.

 

 

Very intellectual game, bringing in a lot of elements into it.

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I don't know if you guys are aware, but Spike Chunsoft/NIS America are localizing another game in this style: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.

 

The concept of that game is that "Hope's Peak Academy is home to Japan's best and brightest high school students—the beacons of hope for the future. But that hope suddenly dies when Makoto Naegi and his classmates find themselves imprisoned in the school, cut off from the outside world and subject to the whims of a strange, murderous little bear named Monokuma. He pits the students against each other, promising freedom to anyone who can murder a fellow classmate and get away with it. It's up to you to find out who Monokuma really is, and why you've been taken from the world you once knew. But be careful what you wish for—sometimes there’s nothing more deadly than the truth..."

 

So basically you play a detective-like role and look for clues and try to piece stuff together to figure out who the murderer is, the place is controlled by an evil bear (probably Zero III 2.0 haha) and characters will probably be killed off often and seemingly randomly.

 

I'm extremely excited for this game, I'm actually probably going to pre-order it (it comes out February 11, 2014 for PS Vita in North America). You can get a collector's edition for $10 more which includes a collector's box, soft cover art book, and soundtrack.

 

Thought I'd let you all know!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Agreed with everyone on the story. I had a feeling that I might be Zero, but I can't remember when. It's kinda depressing that some of the supposedly good endings end with a lot of death.

 

I felt like a bit of a dick the first couple of times that I betrayed people but you get screwed over so many times that it's not so bad thereafter.

 

Thanks to PS+ for giving me this gem :bow:

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I don't know if you guys are aware, but Spike Chunsoft/NIS America are localizing another game in this style: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.

 

The concept of that game is that "Hope's Peak Academy is home to Japan's best and brightest high school students—the beacons of hope for the future. But that hope suddenly dies when Makoto Naegi and his classmates find themselves imprisoned in the school, cut off from the outside world and subject to the whims of a strange, murderous little bear named Monokuma. He pits the students against each other, promising freedom to anyone who can murder a fellow classmate and get away with it. It's up to you to find out who Monokuma really is, and why you've been taken from the world you once knew. But be careful what you wish for—sometimes there’s nothing more deadly than the truth..."

 

So basically you play a detective-like role and look for clues and try to piece stuff together to figure out who the murderer is, the place is controlled by an evil bear (probably Zero III 2.0 haha) and characters will probably be killed off often and seemingly randomly.

 

I'm extremely excited for this game, I'm actually probably going to pre-order it (it comes out February 11, 2014 for PS Vita in North America). You can get a collector's edition for $10 more which includes a collector's box, soft cover art book, and soundtrack.

 

Thought I'd let you all know!

 

I like the sound of it, probably will preorder if more places offer a preorder :D

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Just finished it, thanks PS+ for an easy, fun plat. After 2 or 3 rooms, I started using guides to get through the escapes just to get back to the stories faster.

 

There were definitely some funny moments like when Sigma started using cat puns. The accented robot was terrific. Having everyone die in Clover's ending seemed odd to me. More than skipping dialogue I felt annoyed after seeing a few endings and having to wait through the dots-on-a-map travel system.

 

So many twists and questions as I went along. There was soooo much death along the left and center story branches, then suddenly on the right branch the old woman's body wasn't there and Dio's not betraying everyone every turn and I was like, "What gives?"

 

I really hope they go through with making Zero Escape 3, even if they make it smaller scale or something for the fans to give us closure after the cliffhanger.

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  • 2 months later...

I was VERY impressed with this game and the story. I got it months ago from PS+ and just got around to it now, not expecting very much besides easy trophies but I absolutely loved it.

 

I did get a little confused right at the very end when young Sigma wound up in K's body though. So essentially it's Kyle's consciousness back in time trying to set things right with Phi if I understood correctly.

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I just finished the game and was very impressed. I didn't manage to guess anything and the story gripped me until the end.

 

However there were a few things I didn't like. 4 to be in fact.

 

1) Quark! Why is he even in this game? He didn't have a point to be in the AB game, and it's a game of murder and death. So you knew that as a child he was going to be exempt from dying. I liked the story where he went missing and his watch was at 9BP, someone might steal it? etc But even Quark's ending didn't even seem to have anything to do with Quark. I can't help but feel that a proper 9th character would have been better.

 

2) I happened to see Dio's ending first, and it doesn't take a genius to work out that the base is on the moon. I was eager to see all the possible outcomes but it felt like I knew too early on that even if you escaped nothing could be done because everyone was trapped on the moon.

 

3) Right at the end, the whole whirlpool of points A,B,C,D and E were really quite complex. Infact a bit too complex which in the end just made me think meh, instead of wow cool! This is especially apparent since because there is some sort of circular switch going on between people's minds. Except in your own case you could choose anywhere you wanted on the grid. Akane's explanation just didn't really explain enough and to me felt like a lazy way to wrap up all the loose ends.

 

4) Biggest cheat for me was the whole, "wrap your watch in silver foil and the watch falls off trick". That didn't need to be there. Kind of breaks the whole universe of having the watches.

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  • 6 months later...

I will never understand what people are praising about the story here. This is the most convoluted, ridiculous story I've ever gone through. Logical inconsistencies and poorly presented narrative structure are the least of the problems here... Once you get to the end?

 

Spoilers:

 

So even when he's walking around reflective surfaces like glass and water, he never notices his reflection? Ok, I can accept that, it's ridiculous, but I'll accept it. I won't accept that he never notices the gigantic metal prosthetic eye sticking out of his head.

 

Alice was abducted because... she was really good at math and was able to figure out something a calculator could have? Her required presence is ludicrous.

 

Combine the allen wrench with the pool stick to make a key? I guess this isn't the place to be complaining about a lot of the puzzle solutions, but these were frequently awful. And why did they think it would be fun to not include the passwords in your archive notes? It's a portable game, make it easy on me. I don't want to work out the puzzles on paper, or write down passwords in some crappy "memo" function. It's also annoying that some of the hard solutions were pretty much impossible to decipher without either playing it on easy or using a guide.

 

The plot itself, the general conceit of it, with all its metaphysical nonsense and quantum consciousness-hopping was idiotic. It's not mind bending or interesting... it just ends up feeling stupid and poorly realized.

 

I thought the general plan of having you play through multiple alternate universes could be entertaining and trippy. Instead, you're repeatedly holding down square to skip through repetitious dialog, and then it frequently won't let you because at some point in this alternate timeline, Quark will say something a little differently... or something. Maybe I missed it.

 

Speaking of stupid, look at these character designs! I never played 999, so is there an explanation why every female in this world is dressed up in a sexy-halloween costume?

 

Top all that off with maybe the most unsatisfying cliffhanger ending that fails to explain the majority of the story's mysteries, and even if it did it would have been a let down. By the time I finished the story, I really didn't care what happened next, but to have it 'conclude' in that pathetic way? It just felt lazy.

 

They basically took the plot of 12 Monkeys, mixed it with a little bit of Saw, and then applied the clumsy story telling of the latter seasons of Lost.

Edited by Gogmagog
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  • 3 months later...

I personally loved this game, although the last 2% of the story got a bit too whacky for me to follow easily and I ended up a bit deflated when the plat popped. I was more 'Uh, I guess I kinda get it' instead of 'Whoa - whoa - whoa!!' like I had been at so many other points in the game.

 

I won't comment on the spiralling A-E thing as I'm sure it makes sense to smarter people, but I agree that there's NO WAY Sigma could not have noticed his older body at some point in the 16 hours (or more) they were in the game. Like seriously, IRL I put my hands on my face in frustration so many times in a puzzle room, surely he would have done the same (although I did have a little 'ah-ha!' moment since I'd spent the whole game wondering why Sigma never got a portrait during dialogue).

 

I also didn't quite understand Tenmyouji's thing. If he knew the whole time they were in 2078, why didn't he bring it up? They probably explained it, but I don't remember. I also spent a good few minutes searching through the flow looking for that period between xmas and NYE -- why did they cut the game off right before this point?

 

I shouldn't complain though. Kind of like with ME3, if I discard the last few minutes, I loved this game. One of the very best PS+ offerings.

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  • 5 months later...
  • 9 months later...
I also didn't quite understand Tenmyouji's thing. If he knew the whole time they were in 2078, why didn't he bring it up? They probably explained it, but I don't remember. I also spent a good few minutes searching through the flow looking for that period between xmas and NYE -- why did they cut the game off right before this point?

 

I believe they did address that, or at least a little. Maybe not at a satisfactory level for some. But he mentioned at one point he would finally tell them some of what he knew. But said they'd have to understand it could destroy them mentally if they knew the truth. Then it got cut short somehow I forget why, I think the doors were opening or closing and cut his explaination short.

 

So it's my understanding he simply didn't tell them to save them from learning everyone they ever knew or loved is dead. Questioning their existence, etc. Stuff like that when the game requires you to rely on others for the AB game and puzzle parts. Kinda hard to get help when your partner is having a mental break down because their family is long dead. He could have feared the others could have spin this on him somehow. In his shoes, I would keep my mouth shut unless it was someone I could guarantee would be ok afterwards.

 

I absolutely loved this game. I owned it for probably close to 4 years and just never got around to playing it. I heard they're releasing the third part and decided to play it. Now I've preordered Zero Time Delema, and will watch 999 on my iPad. Kinda wish I watched 999 first now, but can't change that.

 

Right from the begining I thought Zero was Luna or myself. Started to lean more towards Luna about half way through the game.

 

I need more info on Phi, that's the only major thing I desperately want to know more about. A major character we really don't know much about. I thought maybe Akane was her for a bit, but it didn't make sense with the photo of the young girl also being her.

 

I could talk on for hours about this game.

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