THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!
Zero Escape 3 is coming to 3DS and Vita in 2016, exciting news indeed! Personally i will buy this game day one from the E-Shop and can't wait to play the final chapter of this amazing game series. I have finished both 999 and VLR and think they are both awesome games. Fans of the series debate over which is the superior game in terms of story, characters and gameplay/puzzles some say 999 is better some say VLR is better others say their both equal.
Gameplay wise i think the Ambidex from VLR was a good and innovative mechanic. It made me trust or betray someone based on the conversations i had with them however the npc decisions are 100% scripted and only change depending on the path you choose which is not bad but i don't think it could work again for the next Zero Escape, it might end up being too much of the same game. Where VLR really nailed it is with the Flow mechanic which you use to continue where you left of, take a different route or simply replay the path you completed. The Flow should stay in ZE3 expect for the map which was awfull. The puzzles from both games are top notch some are hard some are easy and most have a reason for being in the game so i don't know about others but i have no complaints about them.
Story and Cast -wise is where the opinions really start to split some really liked the more realistic and horror tone of 999 while others like the more science fiction and over the top tone of VLR.
When it comes to these elements i have to go with 999.
STORY
999: The sense of horror and mystery is right there from the beginning to the end as you, the player, learns something new in each different path. There is one path that connects to the other as it's a gift only Junpei and Akane have. You can actually get the semi true ending on your first play through if you make the right choices and even if you don't get this ending right away you can always complete the others paths and collect more information to get a step closer to the true ending.
VLR: This feeling of dread and desperation calms a bit down as you can play the Ambidex game as much as you like that is until someone betrays the others and locks the group up in this research facility for good, but as you go on you learn that the different paths are all connected to each other and you can't continue a path unless you've learned this bit of information in this other path or if you haven't done this in one of the other paths... While an innovative gameplay mechanic to me this really kills the fear of death and hope for survival as Sigma and Phi can travel through life and death as many times as they want, if we can't escape in this timeline than we can always try the other one as long as we get that brief moment of desperation.
CAST
999: Each character gave me a different impression, to me Santa was the biggest and most annoying idiot until i shocked and realised what a genius he actually was. Clover seemed to me like the most innocent girl and made me trust her more than anyone else which ended up being my doomed first ending and Ace seemed to me like a tired middle aged man but the leader type who stayed calm and would help get us all out of this mess...Boy was i wrong.
VLR: While all the characters have their own goals and purpose in this game they were all pretty dull to me, like even in the game from the beginning everybody already knew that Dio was not to be trusted and it stayed that way, Quark might as well have been an actual duck instead and Alice was just... There i guess..? Even Clover wasn't all that interesting to me anymore instead she along with Tenmiouji and Akane were changed for the worst.
ENDINGS
999: The endings are some of the best part of the game, while most are actually "bad" endings each ending rewards you with new information or hints to who the real culprit is, Who is responsible for all of this? Who is the traitor? Who is Zero? And the true ending while confusing actually has a satisfying closure.
VLR: Before we get to the endings i need to say that the game overs in this game suck so bad and need to be left out of ZE3, now to the endings.
While most of the endings give you important bits you need for other paths they really are personal experiences and histories of the characters you choose to trust they will tell you what they've been through and what their true intentions are for being in this Ambidex Game, they don't really hint at who Zero might be or who Zero is working with. The former will actually be thrown in your face near the end of the game which i won't spoil. While the endings weren't necessarily bad i just felt that most of them were trying to tell me a flashback story and make me feel sorry for these characters when all i really want to know is why we are here, how do we connect to each other and who's behind all of this. Don't get me wrong i loved and felt sad for K's and Luna's history but the rest not so much.
After 40+ hours of playing the true ending is just an overcomplicated cliffhanger, really.
