kisui is Reviewing Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward
This review contains spoiler. I'll minimize story spoiler but it might reveal gameplay spoiler and general story theme.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/477740/Zero_Escape_The_Nonary_Games/
Hello everyone, back again with the review. Around 15 years ago, I played 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors (which I will shorten as 999). Which is the first installment of Zero Escape Trilogy (It wasn't a trilogy at the time). It was really great! Good puzzle, good worldbuilding and engaging storyline.
Now in 2025, I revisited the series and decided to play both the second and third sequels. Virtue's Last Reward (VLR) is the second game of the trilogy. It is now re-released on Steam as a bundle, The Nonary Games (which contains both 999 and VLR) a very value bundle which you can get up to 90% discount (which I did, along with the 3rd game, Zero Time Dilemma).
From what I have heard, the re-released version contains a lot of Quality of Life Improvements especially in flow management, which considering the first game can be quite a chore, is a really great improvement.
As a basic, the trilogy is part Visual Novel, part Puzzle (Escape Room) game. The series origin from Nintendo DS which was one of the golden era for this kind of game.
This one, Virtue's Last Reward, especially has strong story and intuitive puzzles that integrates lore with the puzzles with hints and allusion integrated with the puzzles. Giving you sense of guessing and "Oh wow, all of those are connected" as the plots reveals. Characters are perky (in a good way) and you can easily be invested in the story, giving you that "Just a little bit more" that turns into overnighter.
Without much spoiler, I really recommend getting the game if you like mystery visual novel and clever puzzles.
Heavier Gameplay Spoiler Below
Now, for the bulk of the review. The basic premise is the player and 8 other people are kidnapped and forced to play game by a mastermind or they will die. The Main Character must make solve puzzles and make choices to ally or betray other Players.
The game is separated on two modes, escape mode and cinema mode. In cinema mode, it works like visual novels like branching path, while escape mode is puzzle room. The game switches one to other fluidly cinema->puzzle->cinema. Now since this is visual novel, there's a lot of branched part. Cinema->puzzle->branching choice-> cinema->cinema->puzzle.
That is basically the whole loop. Now what is more important, the game centers on parallel worlds. The main character has capabilities on retaining information from other branch, which is key for continuing the story. When you pick Branch A, your progress might be lock until you finish Branch H, then you can jump back to Branch A and continue Branch A story. Now this is the part which has big Quality of Life Improvement.
In 999, every time you finish a branch, you need to restart all the game and replay it from start including the puzzles. In VLR, you can just jump to any node in the game and continue from there, making it less repeating. To reach True Ending, you need 9 normal ending first which makes this QoL very welcoming.
Continuing, when a lock on Branch A need information from Branch C, the game saved your choice and unlock it. But in certain times, the game rewards people who take notes. For Example in Branch D, player are given a password which obviously alluding to lock on other Branches. But! The game doesn't store this! You needs to manually note it! The game alludes this by saying "Listen, this is important" or "I will only say this one, so really remember it!" which might be gone with the wind to some people. But it is really satisfying when you take notes and it pays off. But at the same time, you don't really need to keep that much of a note. You can easily revisit the node and check the password. The game even gives you hints like "Node E: Lock 1 Password is here". But it does gives satisfying feel since you don't need to replay the same node over and over.
That said, there are inevitable repetition. The game is split into 3 rounds. With a lengthy narrative on each round explaining the "escape game". Since on each round there are branching choice. The explanation repeats whichever you path take first. Which is necessary since first time player won't know, but players who took a different branch will listen to it multiple times already. Fortunately, the game provide speed up, skip text button which makes the journey smoother. What's unfortunate, there might be subtle changes (mostly unimportant) which player might miss with skip text. If they can implement skip "seen" text, it would be better. But this works too since the subtle differences is mostly for fluff only.
In Escape Mode, this is where the game also shines. The puzzles are alluding the story, like each room has a purpose to the story which players won't realize at first "Why are we talking about this?", "Why is this here, is this part of the story?" which build suspense and eventually turns into "OHHHH! So this is what it refers to!" Which I think is really brilliant. Most of the rooms in the Escape Mode serves a beautiful purpose that is heavily connected to the story. The puzzles are also well made. Having perfect fluff to the lore and world while also being just enough right difficulties. That makes you think and try without giving you frustration (there are 2-3 puzzles that frustrates me but not to the point I want to quit the game).
Another brilliant thing; In each room, there is two solution to the end puzzle, one to continue the story and one to give entirely optional "secret files" which are easter eggs on the game and reveal a bit more of the world but not necessary to reach the ending (but at the same time collecting all gives you a secret non-canon post epilogue that is not important to the story but still a satisfying reward). The secret file solutions are usually slightly harder giving more serious player more game satisfaction but players who only want to casually enjoy the story can skip this.
In the original DS, 999, it has a great storytelling using two screen mode which alludes and eventually reveals there's a reason for the two screen. Playing VLR, there are no two screen mode, but there is also a brilliant use of cinema mode, which alludes to a certain thing that I personally guess in first 1/3 of the game and pays off perfectly and correctly that gives a very satisfying wrap.
For the Art and Design, I believe the characters are well drawn, each with own their uniqueness that highlights their personality. The background and game setting is a bit generic but works for "you are kidnapped" mystery game. Some rooms are plains but most of it are great.
The music is nothing memorable but great enough in most moment, it uses the BGM wells in scenes especially where suspense is needed. The Voice Acting is great in most part but some characters do have weaker VA.
All in all, the game is one of the best execution of mystery puzzle games. The base gameplay and story is already strong. But the strongest part of the game came from all the allusion, easter eggs, and subtle hints which you could really get if you attention. It builds up from small satisfying moment into a chain of rapid "I knew it!" which really works perfectly for a mystery game.