****MARK AND LABEL YOUR SPOILERS PEOPLE****

So I thought it'd be nice if we had a venue to discuss the game's story with each other as we play through it. Since there hasn't been a thread we could do that in yet, I decided to create this one. People should mark pretty much everything significant when talking about VLR and label it in such a way that makes it clear what the spoiler blocks contain.

I've played about 4-5 hours of VLR.

1st branching path (Lounge):

So finding the escape code was easy enough, following the three environmental hints, but I spent about one hour trying and failing to find the secret file passcode. Going by the bartender diary thing, I tried all 8 permutations I could think of (all starting with Red Planet or Red Moon), AND NONE OF THEM WORKED. Someone on NeoGAF said they got Red Planet, White Island and Blue Ocean to work for them, but that didn't do anything for me! What gives?

1st Ambidex Game (Following Lounge):

Also, Zero III's voice acting is the best thing ever. One of the best voice acting in a game this year, if not the best, for sure.

@FluxWaveZ: That's the right combination of drinks

@Bocam: Then why the hell was it just indicating red followed by Sigma saying "I don't like that" just like any other time it gave an error? Ugh, I think I have a save at that point so I'll just go back and see, but it never gave me the secret passcode.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@Bocam: Then why the hell was it just indicating red followed by Sigma saying "I don't like that" just like any other time it gave an error? Ugh, I think I have a save at that point so I'll just go back and see, but it never gave me the secret passcode.

You have it in the wrong order

Right is Left and Left is Right

@Bocam said:

You have it in the wrong order

Right is Left and Left is Right

Goddammit. From the bartender's perspective... RIGHT.

@FluxWaveZ: Yep. Also Golem's voice acting is the best thing ever

@Bocam said:

@FluxWaveZ: Yep. Also Golem's voice acting is the best thing ever

His has absolutely been my favorite so far.

I think the voice acting on the whole has been good. Except for Wendee Lee. She has no business playing anyone young.

As for the story, I have just started getting to parts where it gets...crazy.

I also think some of the puzzles are way harder than they were in 999 and I wish it was just like Ever17 and straight up novel because I find myself sometimes setting it to easy, getting the answers, reloading to get back to hard, solving everything real fast all just to get back to the novel section. I like a good puzzle as much as the next person, but I love a novel more. And that is why I come to these games. The novel element.

四葉's Ending is pretty fucked.

@Bocam said:

四葉's Ending is pretty fucked.

So, it's short? How many hours did it take you to reach an ending? I know, there's 24 endings I just want to know how long it takes to reach an ending.

@Coafi: It took me 9 hours to reach my first real ending.

@Bocam: That's good to know, since I'm already 3 hours in. I got past the first chromatic door already.

@joshth said:

@Bocam said:

@FluxWaveZ: Yep. Also Golem's voice acting is the best thing ever

His has absolutely been my favorite so far.

I did not encounter GOL-M on the path towards my first ending, but his voice is pretty cool, too. I still vastly prefer Zero III's, but pretty much all of the VA so far is great, with maybe the exception of Clover and Quark, but that could be because I dislike them.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@joshth said:

@Bocam said:

@FluxWaveZ: Yep. Also Golem's voice acting is the best thing ever

His has absolutely been my favorite so far.

I did not encounter GOL-M on the path towards my first ending, but his voice is pretty cool, too. I still vastly prefer Zero III's, but pretty much all of the VA so far is great, with maybe the exception of Clover and Quark, but that could be because I dislike them.

From what I've heard of Zero III's English voice, he reminds me too much of Teddie.

@Bocam: Hm, I can't really say that I get that from him. I guess Zero III's similar to Teddie in that they're both manic and use animal puns, but Zero's VA is so much more insane with the constant accent switching, yelling and tone differences (going from upbeat to brooding in a snap). I love it.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@joshth said:

@Bocam said:

@FluxWaveZ: Yep. Also Golem's voice acting is the best thing ever

His has absolutely been my favorite so far.

I did not encounter GOL-M on the path towards my first ending, but his voice is pretty cool, too. I still vastly prefer Zero III's, but pretty much all of the VA so far is great, with maybe the exception of Clover and Quark, but that could be because I dislike them.

I'll admit Zero III's has been my second favorite. I don't have a huge problem her voice acting, but the bad ending with Clover is just ridiculous. Her consistency as a character just goes all over the place. You'll know what I'm talking about when you get there.

@joshth said:

@FluxWaveZ said:

@joshth said:

@Bocam said:

@FluxWaveZ: Yep. Also Golem's voice acting is the best thing ever

His has absolutely been my favorite so far.

I did not encounter GOL-M on the path towards my first ending, but his voice is pretty cool, too. I still vastly prefer Zero III's, but pretty much all of the VA so far is great, with maybe the exception of Clover and Quark, but that could be because I dislike them.

I'll admit Zero III's has been my second favorite. I don't have a huge problem her voice acting, but the bad ending with Clover is just ridiculous. Her consistency as a character just goes all over the place. You'll know what I'm talking about when you get there.

Clover is a psychopath. They tell you as much in 999.

@joshth said:

Her consistency as a character just goes all over the place. You'll know what I'm talking about when you get there.

Heh, I was convinced that...

Path: Magenta Door, Betray, Red Door + 999 Axe Ending:

...when Alice died, Clover had reverted back to her crazy self from the Axe Ending in 999 where she just snaps. That's why I thought that if I allied with her in round 2, she'd betray me, so I betrayed her and then found out that she stayed pretty normal and was mad that I didn't ally. That's how I got to my 1st ending.

I'm curious to discover which ending you're talking about.

Hey you! Yeah you! One of you add a comprehensive story and gameplay section to the wiki page for this game. Hell I'd even take a soundtrack list.

So, in my first play through I chose:

Magenta Door, Ally, Blue Door, Betray: All I got was a lousy inconclusive ending where,

The puzzles are not that hard as I expected, and I'm not sure if this is true, but some codes can be used twice to get both the file and the escape key in the safe. Sometimes I kept looking, for clues for another code, and if I input the same code twice on whichever puzzle I was I got different safe passwords. That's a lil bit odd.

Hmm, is it just me, or is the dialogue better? I have been laughing out loud at some of the stuff Zero III and Sigma have said. Also, I think K is my favorite character so far. If you explore the Rec room you'll know why.

Is it just me or is anyone else kind of finding it hard to believe that

Maybe it is all explained in the game, but that always bugs me. Especially when it comes from a person who didn't even know about Schrodinger's Cat.

@DonChipotle: You should properly label your spoilers, because I doubt many people except for those who have finished VLR are going to bother opening it when they don't even know what it contains.

Then again, I guess labeling spoilers isn't something necessarily easy to do with a game like this.

I'm not even sure it technically counts as spoilers, but I wanted to err on the side of caution. It's just a minor nitpicky gripe I have about the characters that comes up whenever I play a visual novel of this style. But I'll rectify the label issue.

@DonChipotle: Just read it and, yeah, that's totally nothing big. Hell, I'll just say it without any spoiler marks here: everyone's a freakin' genius. Back when I played 999, I felt like I was stupider than usual because even Junpei, the main character, was extremely smart and going on about stuff that I had never heard of. I have a feeling there's a story reason for this, though, but I feel like Sigma's an idiot when it comes to certain things, at least compared to the rest of the cast. The only example I can think of right now is the Schrödinger's Cat (sorry you hadn't heard about it, but it is a pretty well known concept), which I explained in my demo impressions post, but I feel that he has a lot of key information missing.

@Coafi said:

So, in my first play through I chose:

Magenta Door, Ally, Blue Door, Betray: All I got was a lousy inconclusive ending where,

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

Dio, Alice, and Luna where dead. Tenmyouji and Clover where missing and Quark was sleeping.

The puzzles are not that hard as I expected, and I'm not sure if this is true, but some codes can be used twice to get both the file and the escape key in the safe. Sometimes I kept looking, for clues for another code, and if I input the same code twice on whichever puzzle I was I got different safe passwords. That's a lil bit odd.

Hmm, is it just me, or is the dialogue better? I have been laughing out loud at some of the stuff Zero III and Sigma have said. Also, I think K is my favorite character so far. If you explore the Rec room you'll know why.

Come back after doing Clover's ending.

@FluxWaveZ: @Bocam: Yeah that Axe ending freaked me out in the first one, that was the first ending I had gotten too. If you're curious to get to the one i'm talking about go to the yellow door, ally, blue door, and then betray.

@Coafi said:

So, in my first play through I chose:

Magenta Door, Ally, Blue Door, Betray: All I got was a lousy inconclusive ending where,

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

Dio, Alice, and Luna where dead. Tenmyouji and Clover where missing and Quark was sleeping.

The puzzles are not that hard as I expected, and I'm not sure if this is true, but some codes can be used twice to get both the file and the escape key in the safe. Sometimes I kept looking, for clues for another code, and if I input the same code twice on whichever puzzle I was I got different safe passwords. That's a lil bit odd.

Hmm, is it just me, or is the dialogue better? I have been laughing out loud at some of the stuff Zero III and Sigma have said. Also, I think K is my favorite character so far. If you explore the Rec room you'll know why.

oh that picture is just the greatest thing.

So. I think I finished the game. I feel like I need to discuss this with someone who has. So here we go.

DO NOT CLICK UNLESS YOU HAVE FINISHED THE GAME. SERIOUSLY, GUY.

Please tell me someone else has finished the game.

@DonChipotle said:

So. I think I finished the game. I feel like I need to discuss this with someone who has. So here we go.

DO NOT CLICK UNLESS YOU HAVE FINISHED THE GAME. SERIOUSLY, GUY.

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

Why does this game NOT have an ending? Unless there is something I missed, there is no resolution. This whole game is a giant tease for a sequel. Am I wrong here? I met up with Akane in the past, the day of the explosion. Then I jumped to the path below Phi's ending where you become Kyle and Akane tells you that "Hey, you're special, you're gonna save the world, kid." and then nothing. Is that the end of the game? That is a total dick move. The big reveal of K, Tenmyoji, the point of the AB game, and Sigma were all totally insane, but I still feel like I just played through a giant cocktease. ]= This is the part where someone tells me I missed something.

Please tell me someone else has finished the game.

Here's the completed flowchart. Do you have everything? Also 999 had no ending as well.

@Bocam said:

@DonChipotle said:

So. I think I finished the game. I feel like I need to discuss this with someone who has. So here we go.

DO NOT CLICK UNLESS YOU HAVE FINISHED THE GAME. SERIOUSLY, GUY.

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

Why does this game NOT have an ending? Unless there is something I missed, there is no resolution. This whole game is a giant tease for a sequel. Am I wrong here? I met up with Akane in the past, the day of the explosion. Then I jumped to the path below Phi's ending where you become Kyle and Akane tells you that "Hey, you're special, you're gonna save the world, kid." and then nothing. Is that the end of the game? That is a total dick move. The big reveal of K, Tenmyoji, the point of the AB game, and Sigma were all totally insane, but I still feel like I just played through a giant cocktease. ]= This is the part where someone tells me I missed something.

Please tell me someone else has finished the game.

Here's the completed flowchart. Do you have everything? Also 999 had no ending as well.

Yes, I have everything.

The way 999 ended and the way this ended are different.

I finished the game and never got the 'Alternative' spot on the flow graph before seeing the ending. What gives? Can someone tell me how to get there?

EDIT: Ah, you have to have 'hard' listed under all your escapes.

So, I'm close to getting the true ending, but so far the endings I have loved are; K's, Luna's, Sigma's. I enjoyed Tenmyouji's and I'm not sure how I feel on Dio's ending since it was pretty predictable. I still need Phi's ending, but I think Luna's ending was the best out of the whole bunch.

So the big twist of VLR could be summed up as "Sup, Blick Winkel? How's Coco?"

Finally finished everything, I just have to say that Zero III is probably my favorite character in that whole game. I love that rat.
 
AMBIDEX GAAAAAAAAAME!!

Just got Temioji ending.

DAT PICTURE, DAT PICTURE

I've got a question, if anyone knows the answer, but I don't want anything too specific:

FLOW: Magenta Door > Ally > Green Door > Ally (After Dio ending)

I'm at the director's office where the goal is to "Solve the mystery of the two-headed lion" by inputting a username and a password. PLEASE DON'T TELL ME THE ANSWER, but I want to know if I "actually" know what these are given the paths I've already taken (I've just done the Dio ending) and if I'm just missing something. Phi extracted the password "LXA QNS GDQ" from Dio in his ending, so I thought that might be something. I just want to know if I'm already aware of both of the username and the password that's supposed to be entered, but I just don't know that I am.

@FluxWaveZ said:

I've got a question, if anyone knows the answer, but I don't want anything too specific:

You will find the info you need from two other endings. The other password you mentioned is for something else entirely. 

@NyxFe: I won't reveal that spoiler, but thanks a lot for answering! I was getting worried thinking that I had missed something, so this makes me feel better.

@NyxFe: I won't reveal that spoiler, but thanks a lot for answering! I was getting worried thinking that I had missed something, so this makes me feel better.

After loosing 18 hrs due to the save bug a few days uha ve decided to muster the will to play the game again. i should go a bit quicker this time

Not totally relevant, but anyone else find it weird how Clover's character model is practically always smiling even though, often, that's totally inappropriate for what she's saying and the emotion in her voice?

never noticed that

it is wierd going through a new game with serveral of the characters endings, plus K's idenity

@SlightConfuse: Hm, wonder if I'm in a minority who noticed that. I'm not close to having played through even 50% of the game, so I'll take some screenshots of Clover and post them in this thread.

Playing more of the game, it's hard to think that anyone wouldn't notice that unless they're not really observing the characters' facial expressions. It's obvious every time Clover speaks:

It's a bit distracting. Also ran into a bug or something that makes the characters' lips no longer move, which is annoying.

@FluxWaveZ: That bug happened to me to and yes, Clover has always the wrong expressions whenever she speaks. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, but it's makes her character seem a bit more evil, so it's like we shouldn't trust her. Even Dio, who's an asshole has a better range of expressions than Clover.

@FluxWaveZ: Clover's expressions are apparently intentional.

yea i nticed it on my current play throguh now

@FluxWaveZ: Definitely not in the minority about Clover. It was pretty much the first thing I noticed. Catolf picked up on it as well.

Anyway, just finished VLR. Final time is just about under 49 hours. Annnnnd hollllllyyy shit. What a fuckin' ride. Will probably be my goty. I love this series so gaddamn much. SO MANY GOOSEBUMPS!

Now to find an awesome wallpaper of Clover and replace Ritsu, annnnnnd to...

@Bocam said:

@FluxWaveZ: Clover's expressions are apparently intentional.

Really? I rather have the feeling that's kind of a bug. The first one is fine. She winks at you and the expression is supposed to be "playful". The second one (where she grabs her hair) exists in two variations and most of the time I think she is supposed to look frightened. The third one is just downright wrong. Why would she smile when she's looking down and overall depressed? The fourth is strange as well, because she is supposed to look determined or a little bit angry. Her mouth should be a straight line in this one.