If you remember 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors or Virtue’s Last Reward, this is the third game in that series, released this past Tuesday and available for 3DS or Vita like the previous installment…or Steam, this time around. (And since they forgot to turn on preorders for the Steam version, you get the preorder goodies if you order by July 8th.) I expect it to be fabulous, mindbending, and text-heavy. It’s also the sort of game where I’d personally recommend spoiler tags from the off.
Unfortunately, I haven’t played it yet because I preordered it almost a year ago. If I’d just waited for it to come out like a sensible person, I could have bought it on Steam or even ordered it on Amazon as of a couple days ago (though they had supply problems at first). Because I preordered, I’m getting some silly replica watch thing for no extra charge…buuuut the watches got damaged in transit, so Aksys decided to have retailers ship the game without the watches and send them later (with extra bonuses as an apology for the delay). From the sound of it, Gamestop (the other place you could preorder this edition) went ahead and did that. Amazon somehow lodged their collective heads firmly up their collective rectums and, despite having plenty of stock to ship to people ordering fresh, did not even have a shipment date for me until Friday. Said shipment date is next Tuesday. I had to spend twenty minutes on the phone to even get them to bump it up to one day shipping, and explaining that they had copies and could ship it on Friday availed me not. Leeetle bit frustrated.
(I could have cancelled my preorder, admittedly, and if they fuck around any more with my order I will probably do that. But these things sold out in a matter of hours, so I’m not getting another one if I take that step.)
I cancelled my preorder and downloaded the PS Vita version from the playstation store. Not to rub it in Malkav, but the game is excellent. The animation on the characters (and the models, and the low res on the Vita) is awful, but you stop noticing after a few minutes.
This is a much darker game than Virtue’s Last Reward, much closer to 999 in that respect. I actually think it is a good synthesis of the two, with the “holy crap!” aspect of Virtue’s Last Reward mixed with the darker, more violent themes in 999. Thoroughly enjoying it so far.
Highly recommended, but you really need to have played 999 (now available in visual novel form on iOS!) and Virtue’s Last Reward to really appreciate the story.
Yeah, I’m in the “screwed over by Amazon’s anal yoga” boat too. I had replayed Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Virtue’s Last Reward over the past couple of weeks in preparation, but at the current rate, my girlfriend will have time to finish her initial playthrough of VLR (she finished 999 over the weekend) before my copy of ZTD even ships.
(That said, Amazon has been screwing me over on other orders lately as well, to the extent that I’m pretty much done with them after this and a couple of other outstanding orders are done and over with. No, Amazon, I don’t think it’s acceptable to wait until September to ship me a book I preordered that came out in May, just because you want to consolidate shipments.)
Amazon screwed me over as well, my order status still doesn’t have a shipping date. If you didn’t know, you should have $10 credit automatically. You can check if they gave it to you here. I didn’t want to wait so I bought it on Steam and I’ll sell my other copies and keep one of the watches. Got two watch editions because I thought the colors were different like the VLR watches.
As for the game itself, I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit, although I’m not yet in love with the story. The puzzle rooms are fantastic and looking at the flowchart makes me drool.
Yeah I canceled my Amazon pre-order on release day when I saw it wouldn’t get delivered for another week. Drove down to Gamestop and bought the Vita version. Only about an hour in so far but I’m liking what I’m seeing.
Played the first two and thought they were pretty good, though not the staggering works of genius they seem to be held to be. I was always kind of bugged by how in the first game, other players mindsets and loyalties seem to vary drastically depending on what path you take, independent of any in-game justification - one might be a psycho killer in one path, but a casual ally in another. Think I may get this one on Steam though, somewhere down the road where it’s dropped in price.
Yeah, I got an email about the credit before I got an actual ship date. Oh well. As much as I’ve been anticipating this game, it’s not like I didn’t just buy a whole pile of games in the Steam Summer Sale, so I’m not hurting for things to play this holiday weekend.
I loved the first two games, but have a bit of a dilemma of my own. I have a 3DSXL that has never been used downstairs. Do I get the game for that, and finally have a reason to use the 3DS or get it on Steam (didn’t realize it was coming out on PC?
What’s the right way to get in on this series? Start with 999? The game or the visual novel version? Any particular platform superior? Or impossible to get a copy on, so don’t even try?
999 is best on DS if you can find it. The iOS version is the visual novel version, and it cuts out the puzzles, which I thought were enjoyable. The DS version is on amazon for $20-30. Or you can buy the iOS version for $4.99, to see if you enjoy the story.
Definitely start with 999 and play the DS version. The IOS version cuts out the puzzle rooms. It’s also been heavily hinted a Steam and Vita version of 999 is coming so you might want to wait for that, although I think many people will still say to play the DS version for…reasons.
It’s not that there’s not some fun to be had playing 999 for yourself, but to get the big reveals (and thus the point of playing it), you have to replay the game several times and while you can speed through repeated chunks of visual novel, you still have to do the room escapes every time. VLR’s flow chart interface makes exploring all the branches (which is necessary) a lot easier and more user friendly than it is in 999.
If VLR doesn’t end up coming out on Steam (as it has been hinted it will), I’d recommend going with the Vita version if you have the option because last I heard there was a save bug in the 3DS version. There’s not that much difference otherwise though.
Yeah, you definitely should play/watch them in order and this is one of those games where you really need to see all the endings to get the story. I don’t recall the puzzle rooms to be that annoying to redo once you know how they work.
I read up on the save bug on the 3DS version of Virtue’s Last Reward and it seems as long as you don’t save within a puzzle room you should be ok - and I followed that and had no problems. Which may be a hassle if you need to stop in the middle of a puzzle, but there is a workaround.
