Snacko
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 448
Registered: 06-08-2006
IP: Logged

Junpei doesn't wake up until the bomb goes off. The explosion throws him from his bunk, but is followed by silence, then the window breaks and the water begins to rush in. Suddenly he's hunting for a way out before he drowns.

It's a harrowing and disorienting way to begin a visual novel, but the opening to ChunSoft's late 2010 DS adventure effectively sets the tone for the dark and oppressive tale that follows. Junpei soon meets up with eight other people, all kidnapped and trapped in what seems to be a replica of the Titanic. They are informed over a loudspeaker by a voice that identifies itself only as "Zero" that they are to take part in an experiment, the Nonary Game. They must traverse the ship as a team according to very specific rules in order to find the exit behind a door marked with the number 9. If they fail to follow these rules the bracelets that are locked to their wrists will detonate a bomb in their lower intestines. The ship will sink in 9 hours.

It may sound like a Saw derivative, but 999's story is not one to milk its (occasionally significant) gore factor for cheap scares. Everything is meticulously plotted, and each of the six endings (three of which are to some degree simply game overs, albeit the sort of game over that makes one lose sleep thinking of its implications) feels like a separate revelation. For those worried that the story's pacing would be compromised due to the necessity of replay (and one playthrough will not under any circumstances give you the full story), reaching any of the three main endings will unlock stylized walkthroughs on how to get to the next one and previously viewed text can be easily fast-forwarded through.

I am having trouble transitioning from a simple run through the bullet points to an actual review, but visual novels are extremely difficult to give traditional criticism on. It will suffice to say that the puzzles in the occasional "escape-the-room" sections sprinkled throughout the game are satisfying to solve and not prohibitively difficult, the atmosphere is startlingly effective, the characters are uniformly interesting, the translation is decent (there are a few typos and a couple of lines written as badly as "he felt the warmth of her face", but nothing too major) and when the story finally decides to jump the shark it does it in a genuinely unique and compelling way.

I've spent the better part of the last four days uncovering exactly what's going on behind these nine doors, and highly recommend that any fan of adventure games do the same.

____________________________
Director of the Department of Orderly Disruptions

Rabscuttle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2460
Registered: 09-10-2004
IP: Logged

Ok, so I bought this game and have been playing it for around... 6 hours so far.

There is _way_ too much story for the gameplay. I've solved 3 or 4 escape the room puzzles now. Excess story wouldn't necessarily be so bad except:

a) there's no way to increase the text speed. It appears slower than I can read which is just frustrating.
b) during the story parts I feel really left out from the game - (Game: "Hey, let's explore this part of the ship"
Me: yay, I'll get to interact with the game a bit now.
Game: "Everyone explored the ship and met back later"
Me: wait, I didn't get to do anything?)
c) the writing is just _bad_. Maybe it's the translation, but I find so often it's mindnumbingly stupid. Everything is explicitly spelled out - often multiple times. There's rarely a point where the game credits its audience with enough intelligence to draw a conclusion on their own.
("The light is red - that means the door is locked!")
There's a mixture of dialog and descriptive prose, which wouldn't be so bad except that the prose so often conveys exactly the same information that you can gather from the dialog. (eg Junpei: "Aaah!" Junpei was surprised!)
The description of events is so often internally inconsistent (one character opens a door, a second character on the other side of the room starts to faint, the first guy turns to catch her)
The one description of gore that I've come across so far I found to be overly excessive.
In the middle of gameplay sections looking at a specific object will derail into a 5 minute cutscene. That's happened twice so far. thanks for that, game.

Additionally, the puzzles are _far_ too clue-heavy. You can't pick up or look at objects without the people who are with you pointing out exactly what they are used for. Examining an object apparently means "Tell me what to do with this"

I wish there was a setting that could say "Yes, I know about hexadecimal and base 9 please stop going on about it"

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If the replay lets me speed up/skip the text that'll probably solve quell a lot of my problems with it, but it really should have been like that from the beginning.

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In short, I am complaining a lot about this game as I am playing it.

Jatopian
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1842
Registered: 07-31-2005
IP: Logged

I like to take Snacko's reviews with a grain of salt, and not just because it's a flavor enhancer.

____________________________
DROD has some really great music.
Make your pressure plates 3.0 style!
DROD architecture idea generator

Rabscuttle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2460
Registered: 09-10-2004
IP: Logged

I heard good things about it from other places too, and apparently a lot of places reviewed it highly.

I reached a bad ending - and I feel like there's little correlation between the choices I made and where I ended up*

Actually let's talk about the story choices you make: At various points in the story, there are numbered doors that you and your fellow prisoners have to go through. At three points you have to decide which of 2 or 3 doors you want to go through. This determines which 'escape the room' puzzle you solve next, and how the party gets split (due to maths). I can see how this can affect the ending you get but it's only makes sense after the fact)


There are other minor choices you get to make through out the story - very occasionally you get to choose how your character responds to what the other characters are saying - I'm doubt that will have much impact on what happens, but we'll see. It could be the best ending will mean buttering up the right people. :/

I'm doing the first replay now. I can only skip through the bits I've already read, so I'm not thrilled about that.

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*Finding the correct choices to make to get the best ending isn't a terrible idea in itself - eyezmaze grow games for example. But the writing in this game makes me not want to experience it repeatedly.

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[Last edited by Rabscuttle at 11-05-2011 07:31 AM]

Rabscuttle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2460
Registered: 09-10-2004
IP: Logged

On replays you can't skip through the 'escape the room' puzzles that you've already done.
3 replays through now (2 endings), so I'm about to re-solve the initial puzzle for the fourth fricking time. Redoing escape the room puzzles is just tedious.

Just looked up a cheat-sheet for which choices to make to get the different endings.

Snacko
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 448
Registered: 06-08-2006
IP: Logged

The plot and atmosphere alone were enough for me to play past the clunkiness, and I didn't even go into it thinking of it as a game.

The endings are trial and error, but that actually figures into the plot in an interesting enough way that I find it totally forgivable.

This can by no means stand on its own as game, I admit, but that doesn't really seem to be the point.

____________________________
Director of the Department of Orderly Disruptions

Dimitris
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 37
Registered: 01-01-2006
IP: Logged

Everyone must play this game!

Also if you like it you can check Ever17 which is 999's spiritual predecessor. Unlike 999 it has no puzzles just choices (about 40-50 each playthrough),so it's considered a visual novel. It requires multiple playthroughs (at least 5) to reach the true ending but when you do you will be rewarded with biggest omg twist ever. Bigger than 999.

Sadly it's very difficult to find nowdays.

Ps. 999 sequel is coming for 3ds and vita!

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[Last edited by Dimitris at 11-06-2011 08:12 PM]

Rabscuttle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2460
Registered: 09-10-2004
IP: Logged

No, no, no. Don't play this game. I have finished it now. The plot twist is quite cool but not worth the drawn out aggravation you have to go through to get it. The ending also draaags on far too long.

Do you know it takes 5 minutes to fast-forward through the story from the first puzzle to the second puzzle room. Every time you replay you will be spending 5 minutes wasting your time as you hold down a button. And this is fast-forwarding.
The second section of story takes around 4 minutes. I forget how long the third section took but it was at least 3 minutes.
I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot about this, but this is what this game makes you do.

If a game requires you to play it multiple times, you do not stick a 5 minute speed bump in the player's way. You do not limit the player to only one save slot.

What you should do is make replaying quick and painless. You use "skip" rather than "fast-forward". You make it easy to jump into anywhere along a path you've already seen.

My advice:
If you want to know the story, then read a transcript.
If you want to play the puzzle rooms, find someone who has finished the game, and use their copy (you can play the puzzles from the menu - because maybe you're not satisfied with being forced to replay them every time you replay the game?)

If you really want to play the game, then I suggest you don't waste time fumbling about and minimise your time you spend by making the following choices:
(walkthrough level spoilers!)



anyway, I am now done with this game.
Farewell, game.
(their farewell took almost 1.5 seconds)

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[Last edited by Rabscuttle at 11-07-2011 10:03 PM]