though i bought VLR immediately upon finishing 999, i actually didn't wind up playing it for several years. then COVID hit. with the entire country in lockdown and endless free time that i somehow had to fill, i found myself sitting down and committing to playing through Virtue's Last Reward.

...yeah. if you've played it, you'll know. very early on, one of the main plot points introduced is about a never-before-seen virus spreading rapidly across the globe that scientists can't find a cure for. it hit a little toooo close to home for comfort, so i immediately shelved the game and didn't get around to finishing it until the following summer.

highly controversial opinion, but VLR is asily my least favourite game in the Zero Escape series. while it's still a good game, it just doesn't hit my interests in the way that 999 and ZtD do. i tend to suffer from a case of second-installment disillusionment, especially in the case of trilogies -- the second entries generally fail to captivate me anywhere near as much as the OG installment did, and that holds true for VLR.

999 was an incredibly compelling premise that is further strengthened by a solid narrative, characters whose presence in said narrative is justified, and a solid atmosphere. VLR lacks all of that. i found the facility of the game's setting incredibly bland (visually, but also far less compelling narratively than 999's sinking titanic); many of the cast felt like they were there just because; and i didn't enjoy the puzzles and the game mechanics nearly as much as i did 999's. (the one exception being the AB Game, which is an incredibly cool means of giving the player agency over the game's multiple branching timelines.)

ultimately though, the thing i disliked the most about VLR was that the game was 40-odd hours of what amounted to set up for a sequel. i'm not gonna talk about ZtD here, neither in terms of development nor its effectiveness in concluding the plot threads introduced at the climax of VLR, because 1) that's its own conversation and 2) VLR ought to be evaluated on the basis of the game as a standalone entity. what i will say is that one of my favourite things about 999 (and which i think it did particularly well) was that it was a cohesive standalone story -- so it was incredibly frustrating to invest time into unravelling the mysteries of the VLR, only to be told "psyche! it's all part of a bigger plot that we're just Not gonna resolve in-game!" it felt like a slap in the face, tbh. (also, i am stupid and found the puzzles hard.)

for all my complaints, VLR is a fine game? it's fine. it definitely has its strengths, and it's widely considered one of the better entries in the Zero Escape series, so if you enjoyed 999 i'd still recommend playing it! i'm just a contrarian is all lmfao :')