999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors — Seeing the RED, Dreading the DEAD

When you think of the term “visual novel,” what’s the first scenario you imagine? The utterance of the phrase seems to initially bring about thoughts of it being a novel on a gaming system that you interact with occasionally to guide the story along its intended path. While that’s kind of an accurate description of some games in its genre — one that’s been rather prevalent in Japan, though it’s mostly left English speakers looking upon them in bewilderment, never getting the chance to dip their hands in the pool — it’s not quite an accurate description of the shining examples in the medium.

Enter 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors to explain to us precisely what a good “visual novel” is, and why it’s a video game genre. Do you remember having any novels where you chose your own path and flipped through multiple pages to see where your decision took you? That’s pretty much what 999 is like, only within the confines of a video game. Actually, wait, that’s not quite true; saying that would belittle the impact of this game’s purpose of existence within this technological spectrum. 999 is very much a game whose story could have only worked as a video game, and it helps in disproving the theory that games can’t tell good stories.

The player follows the plot through the eyes of Junpei throughout the game, a 21-year-old third year college student. He wakes up within a mysterious room in an unknown ship after being drugged into unconsciousness by a mysterious figure inside his home. Uncertain of where or why he’s there, he knows he has to focus on getting out of the room he’s in, which is being flooded. This prologue is mainly a great tutorial for the types of puzzles awaiting later in the game, and how you should go about exploring every nook and cranny of each room you find yourself in. As a testament to how effective it is, quite a few players get stuck in the first room, but have no problem solving some later puzzles.

And what a cast of characters they are.

Upon getting out, Junpei realizes he has plenty of company: eight other passengers, to be exact. One of which happens to be a childhood friend of Junpei named Akane, who is referred to throughout the game as June when everyone gets a codename. All of them are wearing bracelets with different numbers, Junpei’s being “5.” They conceal their name — “they” meaning “aside from Junpei,” as June blurts his name out so everyone can hear it upon seeing him — and create a name for themselves that’s based on which number they have. This happens to not allow the mysterious figure known as Zero, who has planned the game and brought all of them together. None of them know why they’ve been brought there, but all of them know they have to find some way of escaping. The main challenge they’ll face while proceeding down that path is, well, a time limit of nine hours, and these nine persons have to work together and make their way through nine doors before that time is up. It really is all right in the tile.

The puzzles and exploration sequences interspersed throughout the game make its sections feel like a fusion of what you would find in an Ace Attorney and Professor Layton title. Many of the puzzles have some use of math involved, though many of them aren’t too hard to figure out. Finding the correct answers to the puzzles will get the characters out of the rooms they’re stuck in, and some of them will unravel some of the mysteries about their location. Many character revelations will also happen during this time.

Some of these are simple, while some aren’t. There are clues, though.

But really, the puzzles are only a miniscule part of the game. You’ll be spending the vast majority of it reading. It’s not classified as a “visual novel” for nothing, as the best parts of the game involve its plot and dialogue; learning about the characters involved in the game, and about the location you’re presently in. This isn’t a problem at all, as none of it ever feels completely extraneous during the game. You can thank the development team at Chunsoft for making all of it interesting, but due credit should also be given to Aksys Games for their excellent localization job. This is the first time a company took a chance to localize a Chunsoft visual novel, and hopefully it won’t be the last.

To go back to an earlier point: this isn’t just a story that could have only worked as a video game, but it also couldn’t have worked on any other system but the DS. And that’s not merely referring to the touch screen-reliant  puzzles. Character interactions take place on the top screen, but you’ll see descriptions of what’s around you and Junpei’s thoughts on the touch screen. Going into how well it really works is venturing into spoiler territory, so you’ll just have to trust me here.

During the game you’ll have to make decisions whenever an important question arises. Some of them will just net you minor (and sometimes humorous) dialogue changes, but most of them will affect the outcome. This game has six different endings, all of which are attached to your decisions and which rooms you choose to explore.

Man, you better figure your way out of there.

Actually, the endings are a common point of contention with some critics and a few gamers. It’s admittedly a little tough to see which path is the correct one to take to get the true ending, because picking one wrong room or dialogue choice can instantly throw things off kilter. You’ll make it there with a little exploration. This is helped by the ability to fast-forward through dialogue you’ve already read, which makes everything go much quicker. You’ll have to do that, since it’s impossible to see the true ending in your first playthrough. The only problem there is that you’ll have to do the puzzles over again every time you play. Some of them are a little annoying, but those are fortunately mostly attached to rooms you’ll only have to visit once. The game also has a very intelligent way of communicating to the player which path is correct.

The endings aren’t just bonus extras or basic “What if?” scenarios. No, every single one is important to the game’s plot. You’ll learn plenty of interesting details about your characters and location — especially the former — in each ending, so skipping some will leave quite a few questions unanswered. You don’t want to rob yourself of part of this game’s experience.

Good thing you have some help around this place.

This game has some great character designs, provided by supposedly expatriate Capcom artist Kinu Nishimura. The designs were replicated into animated characters for the game, and they’re done very well. Anyone who’s played an Ace Attorney game can tell you how big of an effect animated portraits can have on character interactions. For those of you not erudite in the genre or anything remotely related to it, let’s just say that it makes all the difference in merely reading words and seeing the characters animate well to what’s happening.

Do you have a DS? Do you like games with good stories? If so, you need to play 999. It may be on the least technology efficient console currently on the market, but that’s in no way an impediment to telling an excellent story. This game apparently sold incredibly well due to word-of-mouth following its release, enough so that Aksys had to do three printings. Hopefully this will lead to more visual novels making the trip over from Japan in the future.