VR Art Museum

The VR Art Museum is a location in Soul Hackers. It is a part of Paradigm X.

Appearances

 * Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers

Profile
The VR Art Museum is an attraction at Paradigm X's Theater. It's main selling point is the ability to enter the world inside the paintings, although that feature was not going to be available until public release.

Story
After departing the airport, the protagonist gets a panicked call from his mother, indicated something is wrong with his sister Tomoko. Arriving there they discover she at the computer, catatonic and unresponsive. Hitomi recognizes the symptoms as identical to when the protagonist undertook a Vision Quest, and with the computer showing she had last visited the VR Art Museum, they suspect the answer lies in Paradigm X.

From within Paradigm X, the protagonist and Nemissa enter the museum and find many visitors seemingly enthralled by the art. A man mentions seeing a girl entering the Aqua Dolphin painting. Within said painting is a tranquil ocean realm, and the two glimpse what appears to be a teenage girl playing with a dolphin the distance. The illusionary nature of the realm prevents them advancing closer, and Nemissa suggests rethinking another way of reaching them. In the museum hall, they encounter the Juggler, who taunts them and mentions the key is retrieving missing chess pieces and bringing them back to the Chess Painting.

Searching a painting entitled "Strange Realm," they find themselves in a bizarre alien landscape that wraps around on both axis and inhabited by strange creatures that speak backwards. To find the chess piece, they carefully decipher clues by the beings and navigate a maze of teleportation tiles. The second piece is located in the Waterfall painting, where they find themselves in what seems to be a damp cave behind a waterfall. They discover the chamber with a chesspiece requires a scroll, and exploring the caverns, they find four old men who all claim another has it. The protagonist must deduce which one is lying; upon pointing out the one who is, they congratulate them on their astuteness and deliver the scroll.

With the two chess pieces in hand, they enter the Chess Painting. They find themselves in a maze-like realm styled like a giant chess boards, with large statues shaped like chess pieces. Making their way to the back, they encounter the Juggler who agrees to give them the final piece - in exchange for their lives. Upon defeating the madman, they restore all the proper chess pieces. Returning to the Aqua Dolphin painting, they are able to make their way through the illusion. They find Tomoko with Snappy the Dolphin, who is intent of keeping her here in his painting world. Engaging the demon in battle, Snappy is quite formidable due to his resilience to physical attacks and complete absorption of magic - this proves to be his achilles' heel. By focusing Nemissa's and other demons' spells, he eventually overloads from absorbing too much magic and expires. With him gone, Tomoko recovers from her trance and leaves Paradigm X, though she does not have a clear memory of what happened in the museum.