“I gotta get outta here!!” - That absurdly buff fish from SpongeBob, SpongeBob SquarePants, Season 2. Ep. 19/39b (2001)
There’s alway been a magical absurdity to the scene that proceeds this quote. The rumbling quake that comes from the creatures steps. To Plankton’s manically and violently introducing who might be SpongeBob’s opponent, almost like some sort of biblical monstrosity. The thing is—unless you’re a child, or just comically unaware, you know that it’s the setup for some sort of joke. The terrifyingly buff fish crashes through the wall only to give a pathetic whine and reveal the truth; that Plankton’s borderline insane ranting was all for Patrick Star. Expectations are shattered, the whole room starts laughing, backflips are performed, your brother starts proposing to his girlfriend in the light of such absurd humour. In the light of such humor though, we find that the threat posed is still in effect, just not by the gigantic fish, but by Patrick.
None of this is to try and make SpongeBob sound like some sort of epic ala the writings of poet Virgil. The point of this is to show how I feel about VLR.
Before I continue that line of thought, I want to go into some partially related aspects of VLR.
VLR starts off similar in an off-hand way to 999, a brief slideshow of text and events shows our main character being treated with the classic #9 order of white gas, kidnapping, and a large side of fries. The beginning is devoted to putting us in our first puzzle room and introducing us to our characters. Now for all intents and purposes—VLR does completely well in this regard. But in comparison to 999, one of my favorite introductions to a game—it falls short. This introduction puts one issue with this game, and one thing I love about it.
That issue being that, it seems like most characters are the complete same from the get go to the end, the only answer to them missing is their motivation. The characters in 999 feel more dynamic, like actual people. The characters in VLR feel like an unchanging checklist of personality traits. I found myself missing how human the characters in 999 felt. That being said I greatly enjoy the characters in VLR. I was particularly drawn to Luna. I just hardly got the feeling of “wow! I love this character!” or “wow that was a great character moment”. I think the issue with this is lack of flavor text, particularly in puzzle rooms. This is especially saddening when you remember that there are returning characters are they’re not as good as their 999 counterparts.
BUT, this introduction just really sells how sharp most of the rest of the game is. I find that in all three starting routes once you get past the first AB game, VLR really shows how sharp it can be, because frankly—the plot of VLR is one of the most interesting and well executed ideas for a plot. It’s constantly information after information, questions, theories, it’s all so wild. There’s something around every corner to surprise the player and to have them rethink what they know. The ideas behind this game are incredibly carefully considered…for the most part.
Before I get into that I want to take a brief stint into gameplay and graphics - Yes, this game is ugly. The models for characters are bland when our side to side with the key art. Some expressions are oftentimes underutilized while some are lost in translation. There’s a bug that makes Clover smile all the darn time. Environments are dull, and that’s fine. 999 looked dull, but it was also dull and uncomfortable, gross, it made my nipples honestly hard, was that goosebumps, or did I just enjoy the art that much? The comfort zones of human’s are fickle, but I’m pretty sure they don’t extent far enough to talk about my nipples for a paragraph. Going back—VLR’s environments were just dull. Except for a couple of puzzle rooms, notably the garden and the rec room. As for the gameplay, it’s fine, more difficult than 999 control wise, but nothing to complain about. I actually enjoy the puzzles here more than 999 for the most part.
Back to the SpongeBob example…
Out of the gate, VLR has something to live up to. It comes off the tail of the utterly fantastic 999; a game that was able to answer it’s biggest questions in a concise and in a way, logical by the standards set up. Not only that, VLR hardly ever strays away from giving the player new tidbits of information, and big questions to be solved, it sets itself up for big answers and big expectations. Much like that SpongeBob scene.
The answers the player gets is akin to Patrick, still significant in its own right, but anti-climatic. After the emotionally touching and potent ending of 999, I expected for something as half as effective. The ending we get in VLR is good, it answers all that we need to know then pushes us along to the credits. It’s a “woop, there you go, here’s the answer to everything you’ve spent 30 hours wondering.” It’s made worse by the fact the ending relies on the sequel, Zero Time Dilemma, to be worth it, and reviews of ZTD are not great. This ending experience isn’t as bad as some make it out to be. But…it didn’t win me over. I just wish it left me off feeling like I experienced something great. I know that it’s about the journey, not the destination, but in this case the destination raises itself to be as big as the journey, but it never is so.
That’s all I have to share on VLR, I want to give this game a few more words someday, but for mostly spoiler free, this works by me. This is a great game, worth your playthrough, please play 999 first though.
I give this game a
siggggggggggggggggy…
phidoooooooooooooooo…
what are you kids doing over there?
we’re about to announce the results! Out of 10
There’s alway been a magical absurdity to the scene that proceeds this quote. The rumbling quake that comes from the creatures steps. To Plankton’s manically and violently introducing who might be SpongeBob’s opponent, almost like some sort of biblical monstrosity. The thing is—unless you’re a child, or just comically unaware, you know that it’s the setup for some sort of joke. The terrifyingly buff fish crashes through the wall only to give a pathetic whine and reveal the truth; that Plankton’s borderline insane ranting was all for Patrick Star. Expectations are shattered, the whole room starts laughing, backflips are performed, your brother starts proposing to his girlfriend in the light of such absurd humour. In the light of such humor though, we find that the threat posed is still in effect, just not by the gigantic fish, but by Patrick.
None of this is to try and make SpongeBob sound like some sort of epic ala the writings of poet Virgil. The point of this is to show how I feel about VLR.
Before I continue that line of thought, I want to go into some partially related aspects of VLR.
VLR starts off similar in an off-hand way to 999, a brief slideshow of text and events shows our main character being treated with the classic #9 order of white gas, kidnapping, and a large side of fries. The beginning is devoted to putting us in our first puzzle room and introducing us to our characters. Now for all intents and purposes—VLR does completely well in this regard. But in comparison to 999, one of my favorite introductions to a game—it falls short. This introduction puts one issue with this game, and one thing I love about it.
That issue being that, it seems like most characters are the complete same from the get go to the end, the only answer to them missing is their motivation. The characters in 999 feel more dynamic, like actual people. The characters in VLR feel like an unchanging checklist of personality traits. I found myself missing how human the characters in 999 felt. That being said I greatly enjoy the characters in VLR. I was particularly drawn to Luna. I just hardly got the feeling of “wow! I love this character!” or “wow that was a great character moment”. I think the issue with this is lack of flavor text, particularly in puzzle rooms. This is especially saddening when you remember that there are returning characters are they’re not as good as their 999 counterparts.
BUT, this introduction just really sells how sharp most of the rest of the game is. I find that in all three starting routes once you get past the first AB game, VLR really shows how sharp it can be, because frankly—the plot of VLR is one of the most interesting and well executed ideas for a plot. It’s constantly information after information, questions, theories, it’s all so wild. There’s something around every corner to surprise the player and to have them rethink what they know. The ideas behind this game are incredibly carefully considered…for the most part.
Before I get into that I want to take a brief stint into gameplay and graphics - Yes, this game is ugly. The models for characters are bland when our side to side with the key art. Some expressions are oftentimes underutilized while some are lost in translation. There’s a bug that makes Clover smile all the darn time. Environments are dull, and that’s fine. 999 looked dull, but it was also dull and uncomfortable, gross, it made my nipples honestly hard, was that goosebumps, or did I just enjoy the art that much? The comfort zones of human’s are fickle, but I’m pretty sure they don’t extent far enough to talk about my nipples for a paragraph. Going back—VLR’s environments were just dull. Except for a couple of puzzle rooms, notably the garden and the rec room. As for the gameplay, it’s fine, more difficult than 999 control wise, but nothing to complain about. I actually enjoy the puzzles here more than 999 for the most part.
Back to the SpongeBob example…
Out of the gate, VLR has something to live up to. It comes off the tail of the utterly fantastic 999; a game that was able to answer it’s biggest questions in a concise and in a way, logical by the standards set up. Not only that, VLR hardly ever strays away from giving the player new tidbits of information, and big questions to be solved, it sets itself up for big answers and big expectations. Much like that SpongeBob scene.
The answers the player gets is akin to Patrick, still significant in its own right, but anti-climatic. After the emotionally touching and potent ending of 999, I expected for something as half as effective. The ending we get in VLR is good, it answers all that we need to know then pushes us along to the credits. It’s a “woop, there you go, here’s the answer to everything you’ve spent 30 hours wondering.” It’s made worse by the fact the ending relies on the sequel, Zero Time Dilemma, to be worth it, and reviews of ZTD are not great. This ending experience isn’t as bad as some make it out to be. But…it didn’t win me over. I just wish it left me off feeling like I experienced something great. I know that it’s about the journey, not the destination, but in this case the destination raises itself to be as big as the journey, but it never is so.
That’s all I have to share on VLR, I want to give this game a few more words someday, but for mostly spoiler free, this works by me. This is a great game, worth your playthrough, please play 999 first though.
I give this game a
siggggggggggggggggy…
phidoooooooooooooooo…
what are you kids doing over there?
we’re about to announce the results! Out of 10