999 was great. So far I pretty much hate everything about VLR from the graphics to the controls to the characters. All of the character designs are ridiculously bad except for the main character and Phi. I'd have put this down already if 999 wasn't so good.

Nope, I had the opposite reaction. I do agree with the graphics though, but the graphics weren't particularly good in the original anyway...

I didn't care for the ending, but I thought it most of the game was very good.

Keep playing it. Lots of surprises waiting, and some of the characters will grow on you. K, for example, is pretty awesome.

Fuck Dio though.

I thought the 3D models were fine and having voice acting was a huge improvement, but yeah, there were more character designs in VLR that I didn't like than there were in 999. You should stick with it though, OP, this game throws a ton of really good twists at you even if the game isn't quite as good as 999 overall.

I just don't see how VLR has worse graphics or how its characters have "ridiculously bad" designs. They are tonally and thematically consistent with 999's. I think both graphics and characters are pretty much on par with 999's, for better or worse. And the controls are mostly the same, but with the amazingly useful timeline mechanic that makes navigating each possible story a breeze compared to 999's "replay everything" approach.

Could you elaborate? Because I'm just not seeing the reason for you to hate the game so much.

I'm surprised to see that people preferred 999; although, for me, one of the main improvements about VLR was the way they fixed navigating through stuff you've already seen.

@BeachThunder said:

I'm surprised to see that people preferred 999; although, for me, one of the main improvements about VLR was the way they fixed navigating through stuff you've already seen.

I think VLR was the better game overall although the horror elements in 999 are a lot stronger.

anyway to answer the OP, no. I thought the game was excellent from beginning to end.

The art isn't great, but it sucked in 999 as well. However, it's worth it. Go on :)

Sure, 999 had some goofy fuckers, but they all looked like people. Santa was kind of my threshold for ridiculous japanese character designs and VLR went wayyyyyyy off that cliff.

What the hell is on quark's head? Why is there a robot man? Why is clover 80% naked? Why has she, so far, acted like an idiot? What the fuck is Dio wearing, and why does he think he's a bad ass?

Why does everyone seem kind of retarded?

I find myself trying to read as fast as possible to avoid the embarrassingly bad voice acting coming out of most of the cast. Especially Zero III, Dio, and Tenmiyoji.

I don't like how the game will let you mess with puzzles before you get all the pieces.

Moving around the environment is a lot slower, since its polygonal instead of swapping around static images. It increases the difficulty of pixel hunting by straight up allowing you to obscure stuff with stuff if you're not looking at it from the right angle. On top of that, I find myself looking at the lower screen most of the time, so I'm looking at everything through the stupid interference filter smaller and lower res.

(I have played it on vita too, didn't care for the controls either. Game looks much better though.)

There's no feeling of imminent danger like in 999.

@notsonic said:

Sure, 999 had some goofy fuckers, but they all looked like people. Santa was kind of my threshold for ridiculous japanese character designs and VLR went wayyyyyyy off that cliff.

What the hell is on quark's head? Why is there a robot man? Why is clover 80% naked? Why has she, so far, acted like an idiot? What the fuck is Dio wearing, and why does he think he's a bad ass?

Why does everyone seem kind of retarded?

They do address some of these things, some of them explicitly in game, some of them in the gold files, and some of them are just kind of implied. I'll try to give the explanations I can that don't involve direct plot spoilers (so you should be fine reading them), but I'll mark it just in case.

I feel like VLR is the better game, but 999 had the better story and mood/ atmosphere. VLR new graphics didn't do much for me, I would have prefer if they stuck to the original art style and maybe had animated scenes. Even though I prefer 999 story, I like VLR characters a lot more. It's a good series and each game has its good aspects.

I believe that VLR is a better game in every way besides the ending. That's not to say that the ending in VLR is bad, its spectacular, its just that the ending in 999 is probably the greatest ending to any game ever and gives the player more closure.

I didn't much care for the 3D models compared to the anime art from the first game, but I like VLR as much or more than 999.

I thought the game was fantastic, I only took issue with a few things. I thought the character design for two of the female characters was atrocious - give them some damn clothes! The voice actor for Zero Jr was so obnoxious I just skipped past every spoken part (although apparently some people didn't feel that way). Finally, the ending wasn't as satisfying as 999, but I think that's because this game was intended to be a middle chapter as opposed to a singular work.

They had me from the first SEEK A WAY OUT!

Well, I'm about halfway through my first playthrough and it blew my mind when I discovered the ending tree grows, I thought I was at an end already. I'm not as hooked as I was with 999, that's for certain but there's a lot of the game to go and not much has been revealed yet so we'll see. The wackier characters kind of bug me (Dio, Quark, K, Zero III) but I'm getting over that hump. The rest I like just fine (Luna <3) and the puzzles are better so far. No numbers = happy me.

I'm not liking it that much. The rules for the game are a little too complicated so I feel a little confused story-wise. I don't like the puzzles that much, it feels like they have one or two too many steps to them, I really liked the flow of the puzzles in 999 and it feels off in this one. I'm going to finish it, now that I'm going to be snowed in I don't have much else to do but I'm not liking it as much as 999 so far.