Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

This game changed my perspective on what videogames could be when I first played it back in 2010 or 2011. Phenomenal. The PC version has a better replay experience.

I don't play a lot of these, mostly because I assume the majority are plotted and animated for emotionally stunted grown men...but this is a visual novel with actual merit.

It has some peculiar narrative choices and some of the character designs (the character "looks", if you will) are stereotypical for animé, but I think the story's obsession with fate and time are handled in a unique way.

The first five hours present a decent but somewhat drab set of locked room mysteries, although the puzzles do remain engaging throughout. The game is generally hurt by wonky, stilted dialogue, but stick through it and you are rewarded with an engrossing story that blends traditional Western mystery novels with charming, elaborate characters and post-modern twists on perspective that tell a unique tale in a way that only this medium can provide. It's as envelope pushing now as back when it came out, which is high praise.

The HD remake loses the second screen, which undercuts the meaning of the game's ultimate message, but introduces voice acting, admittedly sub-par but still complementing the experience and providing it with a cinematic flair, and more user-friendly features that help truly bridge the gap between 999 the game and 999 the artpiece. Brilliant.

999 is a game i have been meaning to check out for a long time, and now that i have i cant help but feel a bit disappointed with it. Its hyped up as one of the best visual novels out there, and considering the pedigree of the developer, who is also responsible for Dangaronpa, i had way too high expectations for it. What i actually got was a pseudo-science mystery, a lot of escape the room puzzles, and a diverse cast of characters that i wish i could have explored more.

The actual escape the room puzzles constitute most of the gameplay in here, and they are just ok. They are quite easy for the most part, and the few moments they are hard they are for the wrong reasons. Honestly feel that there were too many of them and they detracted from the major strenght of the game, which is the actual narrative.

The narrative of this game is one which could only be told in the video game format, and it utilizes the multiple route nature of VN as a plot device. Thats the most i can say without spoiler, but i will also add that the pseudo science they use got a bit too silly towards the end. That said, the characters are all endearing in their way, and it gives rise to some memorable interactions. To the point of me wishing that there was more interaction with them. You only get a superficial feel of what they are about, not like Danganronpa where you feel like you deeply get to know someone after the trials. There is a bit of fan service here and there, just a tiny touch that shouldnt leave many people uncomfortable.

I will say that playing that game to get to the true ending is very compelling, and that they really managed to write a script that is action focused and very hard to put down, even if it is mostly nonsense. I liked it enough to make me want to play the sequel, but not enough to put it on the same pedestal as Danganronpa.

While the game is a VN/puzzle hybrid, it's the story that's the main attraction here. The puzzles are by far the games weaker side. They aren’t fun, they feel like they were tacked on to the game because the developers thought it needed a gameplay element rather than the gameplay element being the basis for developing the game. At no point while I was playing did I pick the game up excited for the puzzles, they simply amounted to being a roadblock to progressing the story.

As for the story side, I think premise is great; a psychopath criminal who kidnaps people and puts them through puzzles of life or death, kind of like the Saw movies. I wish there were more games like this. But I think for 999 the greatness stops there. It doesn't have the same level of atmosphere as Saw and I feel it is overall weaker than Ever 17 having many of the same failings like bad pacing. The dialogue is full of pseudo-science and mystery babble which I found nauseating and unengaging. The visuals failed to have much of an impact for me with bright scenes and colourful characters seeming out of place in context of the story.

In regards to the structure, I disliked most how the game forces you to complete other routes before the true route. It doesn't even lock it off, so if you happen to get to the true route first, it just abruptly cuts you off half way through and forces you to restart the game. This wouldn’t be so bad if the fast-forward function wasn't so slow and you weren't forced to repeat all the puzzles each time. Routes tend to split late in the story creating a lot of forced repetition in order to complete the game. Ultimately, kind of like Ever 17, while there might be twists at the end, I don't think it justifies the first 90% of the game being a chore.

I really got hooked on the story. This game's basically like Ever17, so I think I would've liked it more if I hadn't already finished that. It's the same writer, and the shameless repetition was honestly disappointing. Looking past all that this was a really awesome game. The execution of the mystery itself is great, and I think the way the facts piled up to solve the mystery was better than in Ever17, at least before the true end where both certainly could've been a lot better, but Ever17 was just especially disappointing to me. Ever17 had a better mood and a stronger mystery on the whole, even if the overall story in the true end was weaker. This game's also a bit more adult, there's gore and sexual jokes... in fact, there's some questionable fan service in here (like the axe ending). Oh, and this isn't just a Visual Novel. There's escape the room segments, and those are decent at best. The logic puzzles in them are not challenging and the more "explore and click on things" gameplay tends to be lacking in fun and overall purpose or any kind of emotion. To me, the inclusion of gameplay like this demands that it is good enough to live up to the visual novel, and it does not do this. Usually when you start these, the game does not engage you enough, and you prefer to try to get a move on and see more of the story. So that's a negative. 999 comes highly recommended from me, but there are flaws and a ton of laziness here that I cannot overlook.