Virtue's Last Reward

So, now it's time to move on and change the topic... To the sequel of 999 :)

I'm really sorry that I don't stop to talk about this, but if you actually play these games one day by yourself (I don't think you will, but who knows?), you would surely understand my euphorism.

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward is the full name of the new game of Aksys, the creators of 999. They decided to make a sequel because of the huge amount of fans of the first game that wrote mails to them because they wanted them to make another great masterpiece like 999. An interesting fact that most of these fans weren't Japanese people. A big part of them were Americans and this kind of games (called "visual novel") with so much reading usually don't have many followers outside of Japan.

And well, they thought "That concept worked once, why shouldn't it go well twice?". Thanks to that, tomorrow, the 23th of November, the sequel will be released in Europe (at the moment only the English version). And within the next week I'll get my fingers onto it and I'll finally be able to experience another great story, I'm sure about that.

But what's the game about this time? Well, actually, it's pretty much the same concept.

We have 9 persons who have been kidnapped and transported to a mysterious building, some kind of warehouse. And it's another time our so much beloved Zero (the person in the coat with the gas mask) who's responsible for this mess.

The protagonist's name is Sigma, it's another time a student in the age of a young adult. He wakes up in a big elevator with another girl, her name's Phi (apparently, the guys of Aksys like the greek alphabet). After some little small talk, you know, the usual stuff: "Where the **** am I? Who are you? What happened?" and so on, they receive a little welcome message by an AI, an artificial intelligence, which names itself "Zero III". And this AI comes along in the form of a digital rabbit in some screens placed in the room. Yep, a rabbit. These Japanese people... crazy ones, aren't they?

Somehow the two manage to get out of the room and meet up with, yeah you guessed it, 5 more persons. HAH! I got you! Well... at least if you made the effort to count the people! 2 + 5 = 7 And they should be nine... Well, after more small talk and presenting each person to the others, Sigma finds out that everyone came of elevators and everyone wears these strange bracelets (similar to the ones in 999, but not the same!!!). But, there are two of them who came out off the same elevator just like Sigma and Phi and the rest were trapped in individual rooms...

Then, suddenly another door opens and a VERY strangely dressed guy arrives (I mean, he wears an overall armour... he just seems to be a robot!) carrying a girl in his arms... The girl... well, let's say we know her already. She's Clover, the pink-haired girl of 999. And finally, Zero III starts to speak and begins with his explanations of the horrible game they're going to play: The Nonary Game Ambidex Edition!

Our "lucky" participants (Sigma is the guy in the blue overall and Phi the girl on his left) and the representant of the gamemaster Zero III, the rabbit. Yeah, I know, Clover and Alice, the girls on the right have an interesting fashion style... well, after all, it's still a Japanese game. It's another culture!

So, now the rules of the new Nonary Game Ambidex Edition: Each person has a bracelet with a specific colour (the meaning of which is a mystery if you haven't played the game) and a number. This number is their current score of "BP" (Bracelet Points) and everyone starts with 3.

During the game, they will go in pairs through several special doors. On these special doors, they will have to make an important decision. The two players will face a display with a frightening simple question: "Ally or betray?" Their decisions will affect their BP. This is explained very well by this chart:

Imagine you're Sigma and you want to go through a door with Phi. If you both choose "Ally" you both will receive 2 BP. If you both decide to "Betray" your points won't be changed. But, and here is the clue to the sadistic intention of this game, if one of you chooses "Betray" while the other one chooses "Ally", he will get 3 points for betraying, while the other one will lose 2 points!

This means that, if you play with a good strategy, you're actually able to eliminate your opponent. Because you need 9 BP to go through the final door with a "9" on it and escape from the warehouse. But, if your bracelet points reach 0, you will lose the game... and your life.

So, as you see, it's the same concept, but now the game is even more designed to make the players fight each other. This is just devilish. But this makes it even more interesting!

Well, I think now I've annoyed you enough with all these sick games! ^^" If you're actually interested, I leave you this video. It's very well done! It tells you the beginning of the game in the form of a short anime episode!

Talking about animes...