Okay, back for a few thoughts about Virtue's Last Reward.
Spoiler
Finished middle 1/3 path except "5 minutes to live" lock. Followed the rightmost path until "who planted the bomb" lock.
This game is going to kill my conscience with all these ally or betray options I have to pick. I started choosing what I wanted first (ally) followed by betray but then decided I wanted to get ******* Sigma moments out of the way first (betraying Quark, really man?- I also like how Sigma is the only idiot who invariably fails to actually get through the 9 door when he has the opportunity). But with the Alice choice it almost seemed like choosing betray was 'allying' with Phi and then when I actually did betray Phi later in that path, she says even a god can't take this back and I'm like, ****. Did I screw myself by picking betray first? But then I see that her betray path dialog unlocks a lock on the ally path, so maybe if I picked the ally path first she would have come up with some BS excuse to betray anyway? Trippy. And geth said the leftmost path is the true ending? It's not this Phi ally path with the "who planted the bomb" lock? It seems pretty dramatic. I only have the first bomb code, though.
Seemed obvious Sigma and Phi were related just from their Greek letter names, much less that they both started remembering stuff, much less the stuff Phi just said about Schrodinger's kitty. But is Junpyouji supposedly one of these globe trotters too? His response changed in the middle path depending on what I picked, just like Phi's here. Also, Junpei said he was part of this Mars simulation experiment? And Alice/Clover implicated that it was some kind of shady terrorist thing? I'd almost want to speculate that Sigma, Phi and Zero could be the three survivors of that experiment, but that doesn't add up with the dates the two were kidnapped.
As for who actually dun it, I'm hesitant to say the one with the personality most like Akane is behind it again, but Luna is the only one so far who hasn't tried to escape or do anything suspicious... which is suspicious. She also gets a suspicious amount of praise and "did nothing wrongs" from your guys' supposedly spoiler free commentary. Her motive could be stopping this apparent zombie apocalypse from happening since she's so swell, or maybe she helped start it at that test site? I dunno. If she has an accomplice I'm thinking K, though he apparently went and escaped that one time Dio kicked the dog. Maybe they don't want to actually kill anyone either? That hologram supposedly of "Zero Sr." didn't look much like any of them, except maybe K... or Santa. Snake wouldn't need a monocle. But I also wondered if the dead old woman was Akane since Tenmyouji's revelation. I also wondered why she didn't show up in this path or why the 'radical-6' that apparently killed everyone except K in "Clover end" didn't work so fast in "Tenmyouji end." Also... etc.
Dio seems like too much of a jerk to be the ringleader and I can't see much motive for him to do his stuff aside from self-interest and his middle finger. He also tried to escape.
Tenmyouji and Quark seem out given Tenmyouji's identity. Well, maybe. When they escape, Tenmyouji says something about punishing the guy who did this, whom he knows exactly, on the outside? Could Zero actually not be one of them? (hence Santa, etc)
Clover is as shady as ever but seems too Clover to be Zero. Also, that 'seduction' betrayal? Damn Sigma, you're an idiot. And Alice seems too Seven+Lotus to be Zero.
The last two, Sigma and Phi, are purrretty mysterious, and Phi can jump like a rabbit, and I suppose somehow some kind of alternate reality them or them from the future-sideways-past could have set this all up... but I hope it's not something so far-out. Seems more like Zero needs what they can do to solve his/her problem. They are Zero's... quantum computer? I saw that entry in the first "secrets" file and figured it was about Sigma but haven't heard a single mention of quantum computers yet in-game, though it seems related to the whole "many worlds"/Schrodinger's theory.
Also, this game has quite a fwe typoes.
Anyway, aside from that, I'm enjoying the game. I was wondering if the game had any feels for me until the Junpei end, which was pretty nice. Then I was wondering if it had any gruesome omni-death for me until the Clover end happened, so that was cool too. I'm still not convinced about this radical-6 outbreak apocalypse being an actual thing that happened, but Quark's long story about Junpei does seem to point to it being true. Whatever. This is all speculation barely past 1/3 of the way into the game, I guess.
This is a long game, btw. That board game clock puzzle kicked my ass, but so far it's the only one I had to look up how to do. (and even when I looked up how to do it, I didn't get the right answer if I started by going counter-clockwise... I think because passing 'start' twice screws with the number of steps)
And I don't understand why knowing about Neostigmine doesn't unlock the "5 minutes to live" path, but I suppose we'll see. I suppose it'd take more than 5 minutes to find if someone doesn't already have it.
Just have Luna, Quark and true endings left, I take it.
Finished the Sigma ending and
Spoiler
Can't believe I didn't connect why she was so curious about Sigma being a possible robot, but she's the robot 'mother' whom K rejected, isn't she? I wonder what other hints there have been now that I look back at her conversations in this light...
I think I've seen a glimpse now why this blue bird song is so damn sad, and if that's true, well.
Though if that's all incorrect despite what seemed like a clear implication of her being a robot, well judging from the track I'm sure it's still terrible.
I think you overhyped the second dice puzzle a little Mr. Clover, it wasn't bad at all. I think the hardest part about most puzzles in the game is figuring out what to actually do, but that room is pretty unambiguous about that.
Spoiler
I had to stop last night at the part where this path 'ends', and admittedly I have some reservations about where this is going. Hopefully it doesn't fizzle out. I felt like 999 had a bit more momentum pressing forward during the true ending. Here I kinda deactivated the bombs and it's like, oh, good job, let's just finish this silly game now and let Akane explain everything. I do appear to have found every archive file in the game, at least.
If this ends with abandoning the last timeline where they may have finally escaped with a 'my planet needs me, now none of this ever happened' I will be rustled. Well, I don't see how Luna would ever escape, so that will always be terrible.
I wonder if I would have gotten anything interesting if I purposefully failed or gave up on one of the bomb codes or the login in the Q room. I mean, that whole premonition about bomb 3 exploding hasn't happened yet.
One of the sadder things about the Luna ending was tricking Phi like that. "I have no regrets" because you're a goddamn monster, that's why.
It seems kinda clear that Sigma somehow is Zero after all. I don't know how that works. Cloning? Fake memories? Real memories, then who kidnapped him? Did he go back in time and kidnap himself? wtf.
If Phi is his anima or something I will also be rustled. I'm still going with that Mars test site thing.
Also, Brother and Y. Characters whose names are letters make me suspicious.
Oh yeah and Sigma appears to be able to just get better from Radical 6. That's weird.
The thing about Radical 6 I was wondering, is that Quark's funny rant seems conspicuously "Free the Soul" esque which makes me wonder if the virus exposes the mind to psychic suggestion or something, and they used that wavelength amplification whatever mumbo jumbo and a bunch of espers to make everyone kill themselves.
And/or if he's a rejected Myrmidon clone. Because he's blonde. My logic is flawless.
It just seems kind of hard to believe that a virus that slows down the brain would cause an urge to commit suicide, invariably no less. Information overload of the brain seems more likely to cause seizures if anything.