Ally Or Traitor?

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, the sequel to highly-acclaimed Visual Novel 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors on the DS, was released in North America this Tuesday. Anyone who's played the first should certainly look into getting the next game; for those of you haven't tried 999, I strongly urge you to give it a a go. (Unless you're adverse to reading, in which case I pity you because you're missing out!)

You can read more for my thoughts and analysis on the English animation above.
Beware of spoilers for 999 if you choose to continue.

Is she saving you from a nasty fall,
or dropping you to your doom...?

Right off the bat we're introduced to our main man Sigma, whom we have the pleasure of controlling throughout the adventure. He seems to be a very sly guy, compared to Junpei who more resembled a teenaged shonen hero. The rest of the crew look to be interesting, but to be honest it doesn't look like they'll provide as much of a dynamic as the original 999 cast. Though I hope I'm wrong because a few of them (namely Phi) do seem like legitimately good characters.
Adding in Clover and Alice was a bold move; I wouldn't have expected them to directly tie the two games together using characters. Of course, there's a chance they aren't actually the Clover and Alice we know - who knows what convoluted explanation there would be for that - but Alice claims that they met in a desert in Nevada, a direct reference to their escape from Building Q. However, this raises some questions: Why is Clover amnesiac? Or is it all an act? How is Alice so accustomed to living in the new world if she really is an ancient Egyptian queen? And there's also the nature of K, whose mysterious identity alone would be enough to drive one through the story. All of these are making my head spin already.

At least he has a cool crown to
go with that creepy message

The OVA also presents to us the new Nonary Game lead by "Zero" again, except this time he's a talking bunny instead of a guy in a gas mask. I don't know if that makes it any more or less terrifying, but if it's another game being orchestrated by Akane we know how twisted she really is.
The new system for the game is more confrontational than cooperative this time around, with the watches serving as a sort of score keeper. The characters, either in twos or solo groups, are forced to choose either "Ally" or "Betray" in face-off rounds -- two points are rewarded to both teams if they both choose the same option, but if they don't, the team that chose "Betray" steals points from the team that chose "Ally." If your score drops down to 1 you can't escape the facility. It's a nice new take on the Nonary Game and one that encourages elimination rather than the survival aspect of the previous game. 999 managed to tense up the relationships between its characters even without such a system; Virtue's Last Reward will be upping the ante even more in that regard. (As an aside, I wonder if you're in control of Sigma when he decides at the end of the trailer...)

Everything's set-up neatly for yet another sci-fi thriller story -- but will the entirety of Virtue's Last Reward hold a candle to 999? Sadly I won't be able to buy the game immediately to answer that question and even if I did, it would take ages to complete all twenty-four endings. (In case you didn't know that, yes: 24 endings. 24. And 999 only had six.) If you're a 999 fan (like me) and have sufficient funds (not like me), go ahead and claim a copy. Just don't spoil anything or it really will be the last reward you get before you meet an untimely end...

Well, you probably won't die for spoiling game plots, but seriously: don't. It's not cool.

Unless it's this. In which case it barely
counts as a spoiler to begin with.