Virtue's Last Reward - PSVita

Visual novels don’t seem to get an awful lot of love these days. But the interactive nature of the Nintendo DS and its touch screen opened a door of opportunity for this genre to really shine. One such game that benefited from this was award-winning title Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors - and the same development team is back with this thrilling follow up, Virtue’s Last Reward.

This standalone story focuses on a young college student called Sigma, who is kidnapped and awakens in an elevator with a girl named Phi. They are told that they must escape the elevator and the abandoned warehouse that contains it - but once they do the pair find out they have been unwittingly enrolled in the Nonary Game. And they must survive it to escape.

Playing the game involves either co-operation or betraying other players. Doing either allows you to gain Bracelet Points - collect 9 BP to leave the warehouse. Lose all that you have, and you get killed by lethal injection. It’s a premise that reminds you of the crazy set-pieces and tactical decisions that arose in Japanese manga/film Battle Royale.

To succeed, players have to interact with non-player characters and make choices that alter the outcome of the story. Working together with an NPC will net both characters BP - but choosing to betray them will make them lose BP and allow you to earn more. If both characters betray one another, no points are earned. You will also need to solve environmental puzzles to escape from the many rooms of the warehouse. more