New To Zero Escape Is The Ambidex Portion Of The Game

By Author: Jennefiy
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You’re probably asking yourself, what does this have to do with videogames? Well, in terms of Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward, quite a lot. In order to explain the mechanics of the game, this review will contain some mild spoilers, so stop reading now if you want to go in with entirely fresh eyes.For those of you still with us, Zero Escape is based on the idea explained previously, that different decisions create new universes and that each of these universes have different outcomes. A spiritual successor to 999 on the Nintendo DS (also developed by Chunsoft), Zero Escape will certainly make your head hurt at times with its explanations of the quantum mechanics theory lying at its heart, but the journey (or journeys) is well worth it.

Zero Escape contains a main cast of nine characters, including Dio (a circus ringleader), the ancient Egyptian-themed Alice, and the Elderly Tenmyouji. Players, though, view the game through the eyes of Sigma, and the game starts with a brief series of flashbacks explaining Sigma’s side of the events leading up to his incarceration in Zero’s warehouse. This is quickly followed ...
... by a confused awakening in what seems to be an elevator. Also in the room is Phi, an emotionally distant young woman who seems to know more about you than she should.The twenty minutes or so you spend in confinement with Phi allow you to experience the two main aspects of Zero Escape’s gameplay: first, the visual novel, and second, the point-and-click puzzle.

You’ll be spending a lot more time with the novel side of the game than the puzzle portion (unless you’re truly terrible at puzzles), so if reading really isn’t your thing, then perhaps Zero Escape isn’t for you.Once Phi and Sigma manage to escape from the elevator, they find themselves in a large warehouse, amongst a group of seven other participants in what turns out to be the latest incarnation of the Nonary Game, which will be familiar to players of 999. For those who haven’t played 999, the Nonary Game essentially groups participants into three, and sends them into a locked room to solve puzzles in order to find the key, escape said room, and progress through the game.

New to Zero Escape is the Ambidex portion of the game, in which players return to the elevator mentioned previously, and vote against each other in an attempt to gain 9 Bracelet Points (the currency needed to unlock the warehouse and escape). Explaining the full details of the game here would take far too long, but understand that it’s based off of `The Prisoner’s Dilemma’ by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher.All characters in the game (excluding Sigma) are fully voice-acted though, and for the most part, while bucking the trend of most English voice tracks in Japanese-made games, the acting is well done, with characters conveying emotions, suspicion and malice convincingly. There are a couple of annoying moments though, with Zero, the villain, and Quark (a child participant in the game) being the main culprits as their banter tends to be repetitive in nature.

Zero Escape can be controlled on the Vita through either the face buttons or the touch screen. The face buttons are easier to use during the novel sections, while the touch screen proves more useful during the puzzle areas. The puzzles were surprisingly logical in Zero Escape, and whilst there were a couple fifa 14 coins of instances with obscure instructions, or being unsure where to go next, there were no instances where you had to make a mental leap just to tie two particular objects together, or having to try fitting every item in your possession into a particular object.