[GOTY] Jonathan’s Obscure Japanese Game Of The Year

Jonathan Tay

GOTY 2012

Minor spoilers follow.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: as much as I love them, I don’t really consider videogames to be the best storytelling medium. All too often, I find that the story of a game must make concessions to its gameplay. Take Niko Bellic of Grand Theft Auto IVor John Marston of Red Dead Redemption as examples of this: the story tells us of a protagonist who is seeking redemption from a blood-stained past, while the gameplay allows us to ruthlessly murder whomever we choose. If a player does opt to make Niko or John cold-blooded killers, we arrive at an instance where the gameplay has totally undermined the theme of the story for the sake of “fun.”

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind you—I believe that interactivity and player choice are what make videogames an exemplary artistic medium—but when it comes to stories, games simply fail to compete. Part of this is simply due to differences in maturity. Literature has been around for quite some time, allowing the production of masterpieces from Homer’s Odyssey to Orwell’s 1984, whereas videogames have existed for roughly half a century. That’s not to say that videogames haven’t produced anything unique and interesting—I think that Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty has one of the greatest postmodern narratives of all time—but I think that most of us can agree that videogames with brilliant stories are few and far in between.

Whoops, forgot to list this storytelling masterstroke.

So, when I tell you that Virtue’s Last Reward probably has one of the best stories ever, I do hope you take it to heart. The premise might be a familiar one: 9 strangers are trapped together in a puzzle-filled warehouse. Each of them has a bracelet with the number 3 on it; when that number hits 9, the person can escape through the number 9 door. Some people are grouped up in pairs by bracelet, while others are solos, and the bracelets can have one of three colours. To access puzzle rooms (there are usually three different doors), participants must group up in threes, and have bracelets that will form a colour that is the same as the door they will be going through (i.e. a magenta door would require someone with a red and blue bracelet to go through).

Sound confusing yet? It’s only going to get weirder/cooler. After solving a puzzle room, participants must return to the warehouse where they all first met, and enter rooms to play the “Ambidex Game”, or AB game. If you’re familiar with the Flood-Dresher prisoner’s dilemma, then you’ll know all about how this game works. In it, you are pitted against the person you entered the puzzle room with. You have two options on the screen ahead of you: ally or betray. If both participants pick ally, they each gain 2 points (on their bracelet). If one picks ally and the other betray, the betrayer gains 3 points while the person who allied loses 2 points. If both betray, then no one gets any points. First one to hit 9 can escape – anyone who hits 0 dies.

Hopefully you’re interested. Yes, the mechanics are complex, but it only goes to show you how well-thought out the background to the game was. There are an incredible amount of paths to go down (there are more than 20 different endings based on your decisions, which handily beats Mass Effect 3), and some crazy (and I do mean crazy!) plot twists along the way. The characterization is also damn solid, as characters and their responses to you change based on your decisions.

Yep, *solid* characterization.

The game is primarily a visual novel—so there’s lots of reading, but you like reading, don’t you, dear reader?—but the puzzles are also expertly crafted. They achieve that perfect Portal balance: challenging, with new situations every time, but still solvable. Best of all, puzzle rooms aren’t disposable. How they’re solved, and who solves them, play an important role in the story. There’s no real gameplay and story segregation here – puzzle rooms, as well as the AB game, fit perfectly into the narrative. There is even a skip function you can use to quickly bypass old text, as well as a flow chart you can use to jump to certain times.

There’s nothing else I can really talk about without giving away spoilers, and I would really like anyone who likes a brilliant story to check this one out. A note of caution, though: while you don’t need to play 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors (which is this game’s equally brilliant predecessor) to understand this game, there are some pretty big spoilers for 999in this, so if you’re dead-set on avoiding spoilers, play that one first.

Although most of the games I was looking forward to this year were extremely disappointing in one respect or another, this tiny, obscure Japanese visual novel/puzzle game might be my favourite. Though it does have some serious competition. If you own a 3DS or Vita (don’t know why you’d have the latter) and are interested, pick up a copy and treat yourself to an awesome holiday season.