1484: Virtue’s Last Reward, No Really It’s Totally the Last One This Time

So I did it. I finished Virtue’s Last Reward.

Spoilers follow for both 999 and VLR.

Damn. What a great game.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect in the plot of the new game after 999 wrapped up, because although 999’s plot was pleasingly self-contained, it left things on an intriguing cliffhanger with regard to one character in particular — the peculiar and almost-naked Alice, whom, at the end of 999, you are led to believe may very well be an Egyptian mummy full of Ice-9.

Virtue’s Last Reward initially appears mostly unconnected to 999 aside from a few elements — the presence of the character Clover, who looks somewhat different (and rather more cheerful) than her moody, brooding self in 999; the main “antagonist” (for want of a better term) being called “Zero”; and the main concept of the game’s setting being the “Nonary Game,” which involves attempting to escape through a door marked “9” (which, this time around, is visible from the very start rather than buried within the depths of the facility) and trying not to get killed by the bracelets locked to your wrists (which, this time around, inject you with anesthetic and muscle relaxant rather than blowing you up — something which I find somehow more horrifying than simply blowing up, despite the fact that the injecty-bracelets were designed to tone down the horror elements from 999.)

Aside from those aspects, however, it’s not immediately apparent that there’s any direct connection between the previous game and this one. The protagonist is different; there’s no sign of characters from the first one (aside from Clover) and it’s not immediately apparent whether or not the new Zero has any connection at all to the past one.

What’s most intriguing about the overarching plot of Virtue’s Last Reward is how it drip-feeds information to you. As you progress through the game, you gradually start picking up more and more pieces of information, but for the most part, the game doesn’t put it together for you. In fact, there are several situations where you’re just plonked in front of a computer’s login screen and expected to figure out the user ID and password based on what you’ve seen before, but aside from that, you’re also expected to draw your own conclusions about how the characters relate to one another, which of the numerous timelines down which the story can proceed is the “right” one (if any) and what things people tell you in one timeline might mean in another.

A particularly fascinating aspect of the game’s structure is the fact that the in-game ability to “jump” from narrative node to node at any time is specifically addressed in game as Sigma and Phi are revealed to have the ability to send their respective consciousnesses forwards and back in time. In the absolutely, positively, completely, no-really-we-mean-it-this-time final final ending, the game even shatters the fourth wall by having the characters talking directly to you, and strongly implying that somehow you have been present through all this (and will likely be there in the sequel too).  It’s mind-bending, but always remains coherent and consistent throughout; to paraphrase the game’s unsurprisingly comprehensive TVTropes page, the game wilfully and happily breaks all of Knox’s Ten Commandments of detective fiction, but does so in such a way that it remains true to the spirit of the rules — deus ex machina is kept to a minimum, and even the strangest stuff that goes on is eventually explained in a manner that is utterly convincing; that which isn’t explained is used as a sequel hook and manages to do so without being unsatisfying — by the end of Virtue’s Last Reward it’s abundantly clear what actually went on in the new Nonary Game and as such it takes a bit of a sting out of the whole “Oh, but then they went off and did this, which we’re not going to show you right now” stuff they pull at the end.

One thing I’m sure of having finished it now, though: that third game needs to get made. Given the relatively low sales of both 999 and VLR, I fear for the series’ future, but I do hope that the third game gets made and wraps up the complete story. As it stands, it’s a fascinating, brilliantly crafted story that would only really be possible through the video games medium, and it would be a shame to see it left as an unfinished work. It may have taken me a while to get around to finally playing these two games, but having done so, I’m confident in saying that a third installment is a day-one purchase for me, no questions asked.