I was drawn in by the art style and my general love of cyberpunky things. Most of the games I played that I would label "cyberpunk" discussed topics like identity, technology, transhumanism, unhinged capitalism, gender, etc. The story of VirtuaVerse is very shallow and boils down to "new technology bad, old technology cool". I'd compare the disappointment with watching on of the newer episodes of "Black Mirror": it's just the retelling of an old trope you've heard for a million times. There are a lot of plot points that simply don't make a lot of sense. The characters are so underdeveloped, it hurts. You are responsible for the killing of a gang member, which has no consequences at all for your relationship with the gang members. At first I thought I would be able to customize the faceless hooded main character at one point, but nothing of the sort happens. Maybe this is a generational thing, but the puzzles weren't my cup of coffee at all. I often had a "half-solution" that just wouldn't work (or the game would tell me that I was wrong) and then discovered after long frustrating trying that I was supposed to do something before. Maybe the pixel-hunting is supposed to be fun, but if the story is so bad and the motivations are unclear, it's just frustrating. The (A)VR-mechanic was good, but not used often enough. If you fancy a Lucasarts-style game with cyberpunk decor, you might have a few good hours with VirtuaVerse. I'd recommend "2064: Read Only Memories" as an alternative if you like … an actual story and characters that are fleshed out a little more than "punk", "gang-leader" and "girlfriend".
