999 Sequel Good People Die Announced

Aksys Games has announced Chunsoft’s “Extreme Escape Adventure: Good People Die”, called Kyokugen Dasshutsu Adobencha: Zennin Shibo Desu in Japan, is coming to the Nintendo 3DS in the USA. It’s a visual novel sequel to the Nintendo DS graphic adventure “999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors”.

The American Nintendo Power magazine has confirmed the (this month in Japan released) game will be brought to America. It’s unclear if this means the PlayStation Vita version is also being translated into English. For now all we know is that the 3DS version will be released by the end of 2012.

The intro anime (with fansubs) for Good People Die shows all the game’s characters.

To quote the magazine: “Aksys Games shattered the conventional wisdom that Americans don’t care about virtual novels when they released the Mature-rated Nintendo DS game 999 to great critical acclaim and better-than-expected sales. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that series developer Chunsoft has entrusted the company with localizing its sequel, Zennin Shibou Desu, which fans have taken to calling Good People Die. Aksys has yet to announce the final North American title, and it probably won’t be that. But whatever it does end up being called, good people are still expected to die, and probably in droves.

More significantly, Zennin Shibou Desu is built around the classic “prisoner’s dilemma” thoughts experiment, in which two criminals who have been separated have to decide whether to trust each other to keep quiet or betray each other; if they both cooperate they’ll get light sentences, and if they both betray each other they’ll both do serious time. But if only one betrays the other, he’ll get off scot-free while his poor dope of a partner rots in jail. In Zennin Shibou Desu, players need to earn nine points to escape with their lives. Everyone will earn points slowly and steadily if they always cooperate, but if one player betrays a cooperating partner, he’ll gain extra points at the partner’s expense, possibly dooming the partner to a brutal death (killed by lethal injection) if he falls below a certain point threshold (0). Can you betray the characters who are depending on you? Will you end up bestrayed by a character you grow to love? The choices — and consequences — are all up to you. The storyline of Zennin Shibou Desu branches far more often than its predecessor’s; it features 24 possible endings.

Like 999, Zennin Shibou Desu alternates between character dialogue and interactive puzzle rooms in which players explore their surroundings in piece together the mysteries of how and why they ended up in this mess. But instead of still pictures communicating via written text, the characters are now polygonally modeled, voiced by actors, and animated in stereoscopic 3D.”

Here’s an in-game trailer that displays the new models and storytelling elements.

According to Nintendo Power the English title has not been finalized yet. The magazine is touting the slogan “Nine Betrayals, Three Dimensions”. I hope they keep the edgy name “Good People Die”, but even though it’s another game with mature themes I kind of doubt it.

UPDATE: It’s officially confirmed for 3DS and PS Vita now. The game will be renamed as: “Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward”.

What do you think would be a good alternate English name for “Good People Die”?