Topic: Virtue's Last Reward

I've heard it was actually done this way because the Japanese publisher self-published the game in Europe, unlike the American release, and they could only settle on buying out the text translation from the localization company.

Wow! I had no idea the North American release had an English dub. I can't say I'm too bothered as the Japanese voice track is good enough for me, but I'd really like to hear what the characters sound like in English.

I'm guessing GOLM doesn't have a cockney accent, and that was just the European localisation...

I'm playing through the game at the moment, having started again, and I've revealed under half of the progress tree after 18 hours of play.
half of the tree that is visible from the beginning, I reckon.

Some of the puzzles gave me a bit of trouble, and I had to look up some guides to push me in the right direction for some of the gold files. This was because I was too scared to save in any of the rooms in case it destroyed my save file. Additionally, I encountered several freeze bugs while using the memo, causing me to lose about an hour of play time every time it happened.

I'm enjoying the experience so far. It's much more branching than 999, and after 18 hours of play, I haven't even achieved an official ending yet.

My experience with Virtue's Last Reward ended after the game-breaking bug - 17 hours of gameplay in. There is no way in the world I'm going to replay 17 hours of dialogues and puzzles I have already read and solved. Not this decade at least.

999 was a good game, but I have to admit the game only takes off when you are on your way to the Real Ending, which is a brilliant piece of writing. The "bad" endings were so-so, or uninteresting, but the game seems to be made to get these uninteresting endings first, which is a test of endurance. In order to get the real ending you have to do a series of specific actions and I was forced to look up a guide, because I was tired of playthroughs that led to the same three outcomes. Actually, is there anyone who was able to trigger the real ending without a guide?!

VLR seemed to be doing things better when it came to managing the whole multiple paths thingy, with the navigable diagram etc. And I personally thought the writing was superior because I didn't have to wait until the real ending for something interesting to happen.

Was the 3ds bug fixed? Trying to decide if I want this on 3ds or vita...

As far as I know, the 3DS RETAIL version never got fixed. The downloadable version did. Don't know about the Vita version though.

If it's a dl to the 3ds system then both got fixed.

I never encountered the save bug. Nobody else I know who played the game did either. It probably didn't affect THAT many carts.

@Ryu_Niiyama: Vita version never had a bug, has better sound quality, and has trophies. Go for vita.

999 and Virtue's Last Reward are two of my favourite games. 999 is my favourite since I preferred the story and characters in it, though Virtue's Last Reward had the best gameplay. Normally, I wouldn't play a game for longer than a couple of hours at once since I get bored if I do the same thing for too long. But 999 and VLR was different. I was so hooked on the story that I could play for hours. Plus, there was always a fear in these games that my character could soon die, and this was more fearful than in most games since the character acted like a human.

As for 999 endings, I'm glad that I got the knife ending on 999 first. I was suspecting Lotus of being a villain, so the ending really surprised me. The true ending was really gripping and I stayed up well into the early hours completing it.

I encountered the save corruption bug in VLR, and had to speed through 10 hours of gameplay while making the exact same decisions to get back to where I was. After the bug happened and I caught up, I bought the digital version, transferred the data to it and then did a save data backup (this is done by having the digital version of the game selected on the home screen, tapping the arrow in the bottom left corner and pressing 'save data backup'. Other than the bug, both it and 999 were fantastic and I would fully recommend it to anyone who wants a visual novel with a gripping story.

I've had to sit through the credits sequence eight times now, but I'm finally nearing the end.

I'm glad I decided to pick this up and play it again.

Something I discovered online after beating 999 was the aksys website which has a Q&A session with the developer (can't remember who). It's an interesting read, but contains massive spoilers.

Virtue's Last Reward also has one. The links are http://www.aksysgames.com/999/answers and http://virtueslastreward.com/qahome/.
Massive spoilers can be found on both pages. But
If you feel yourself reaching for the link and clicking it subconciously as if someone were controlling your arm,
don't worry, because the page itself is behind an age gate.

I plan to read it after I finally complete the game, but I've heard the last stretch is quite long, so it might take two sittings.

EDIT - 29/8
Right. now I think I'm on the route to the true ending.