Unfinished Business: A blog-based Let’s Play of 999, part 3 (final)

This is it! The shocking conclusion!

Unfinished Business is once again back from the dead, and with fitting timing seeing as this sidequest of a post series was created for the 10th anniversary of Damage Control, and here we are mere weeks after the 15th.

9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors, the first entry in what became the Zero Escape series of visual novels, is one of my favorite games of all time, but it took some work to get there. It was at times a quite frustrating and unrewarding experience. But by the time all was said and done, I considered it a masterpiece that could not have been achieved in any other medium.

I was late to the game (literally), playing it in 2014 as a random GameFly rental (do I name drop GameFly or KitKats more often? Quick, somebody go count). Geoff had played it already closer to when it came out and we came up with the idea that I would start a Google doc to capture my thoughts on the mystery as I played through the game repeatedly, finding my way to the true ending. If this sounds similar to some of the content in the #gaming_progress channel in the Discord, that’s because this process was the inspiration.

We never did end up adapting the tale for the blog, and it spent many years sitting around, forgotten. That all being said, I’m not confident that a Let’s Play translates well into written form, given that people who haven’t played/don’t remember the game will easily get lost with no context. But I’m willing to give this a try and should worst comes to worst, we just don’t do it again. If nothing else, this will be interesting as piece of Damage Control history.

As you might expect, this entire thing is unblocked SPOILERS. You have been warned.

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Sixth Playthrough

A new option has appeared on the title screen: “Preview.” It gives me the option of “Preview B.” It’s that same flash from Ending 2. With two endings left, I deduce that one is the Good End, and the other will fake me out and unlock “Preview A.”

All right, I’ll have to play your game, and the prescribed order of Doors 5, 8, 6. Hadn’t I already done it in that order on one of my early save scumming attempts, and got Ending 5 just the same? In any case, this is the exact opposite order of what I just took.

Gah. I can’t wait to finish this so I can look at ending guides from GameFAQs and see what artificial barriers the game may have dealt me.

And how the heck am I going to hunt All-Ice without all the plot coupons from Door 7 and Door 1?

The morphogenic field from my previous playthroughs had better serve up some epiphanies. At least this way nobody will get the gun.

One sudden thought as I zip through repeated dialog: Is the girl in Santa’s picture (as seen and bemoaned about in the Engine Room) the girl Clover said died in the Nonary Games 9 years ago? [As it turned out, yes. -Ed.]

Anyway, this is my chance to crack open that safe. I won’t get ahead of myself and close off the living room, hall and bathroom again. I’ve already solved most of the mysteries I listed before. I feel the only way things go differently is by opening that safe. [As it turned out, yes. -Ed.]

Toss the room as I might, I can’t find a way to open that safe. The game requires I find a clue to its combination first. I checked it once more after solving the piano puzzle and got a new dialog with Snake, who noted it was odd that we didn’t need to open the safe to solve the puzzle.

I noted that it was odd that Seven didn’t say “So we can go back and open the safe” when asked why he jammed the door behind him.

Things progress as usual. Snake disappears.

However, a whole extra conversation with Lotus occurs instead of Jumpei shoving his foot into his mouth in Room 8. Does this happen because I’m taking the prescribed order, or has something else enabled it? In the process, we get a new discussion on the morphogenic field through a rather fascinating thought experiment.

After that Clover’s previous “…nothing” became a much longer conversation about Snake, in which she tells me he lost his sight and his left arm in an accident. This will help me avoid an Ax-Crazy Clover, as now Jumpei can recognise the body behind Door 3 as a fake when he sees it.

Okay, I now know I never did this room order before, as I can’t skip the text for sorting out the keys after we meet back up with Ace.

AND BAKA JUMPEI DOESN’T REMEMBER THE PROSTHETIC ARM CLOVER TOLD HIM ABOUT MERE MINUTES AGO.

This loser is really starting to make me angry.

In the Engine room, it’s Santa who is suddenly more chatty with this door order. But he’s a total dick, as he more-or-less likens the player of the game to a lab rat trying to find the right exit after “a lot of trial-and-error,” [As it turned out, yes. -Ed.] before finding plot relevance by tying the tale to the idea of a morphogenetic field. [Santa knows this is not the winning path and by talking about the field he’s trying to train an alternate Jumpei to succeed. -Ed.]

Santa then gives away his identity as Zero by talking about the hallway puzzle behind Door 2. Well, gives it away to me and to confirmation bias (as Ending 2 already told me he was Zero), as this Jumpei had never seen the brig.

We get a much less creepy (but sadder) Santa story from… Santa that supports the girl who dies in the Nonary Games 9 years ago was his sister.

And another new twist as June collapses in the Cargo Bay, which turns into the reveal that Ace is the head of Cradle Pharmaceutical! Now the only people not connected to the events of 9 years ago are June and Jumpei.

After figuring it out the first time, the solution to the Pushmaster 5000 puzzle is very easy for me to just phone in. However, each time I’m about to accomplish it on my first try, around move 49, the game dumps me out of the puzzle and I have to start over. It works fine the second time.

And now to see how Ace ends up with the gun in Preview B. Or not.

We find Door 9, take the elevator up and Lotus and Seven tell us Clover’s gone missing. Crap, now we’re on to Ending 5.

Or not? June and Jumpei ran to the hospital room and the text became unskippable. Something [different] is going to happen. And much too late, Jumpei remembers that Snake had no left arm and realizes the body was a fake. Too bad he didn’t figure it out in time to make Clover not run off. With possibly an ax.

Still, with knowledge belatedly gained, We run back to find the others. The others, it turns out have already found Clover. Dead. Conveniently in the same area as the safe we couldn’t open. Hell of a way to get a second crack at it. Knowing we can save Snake only for Clover to die instead.

Oh, NOW Seven mentions the safe. It’s not like it was a big secret!

Everybody is just broken by Clover’s death, and Jumpei wanders around the area to look for clues. He returns to the 9th Man’s corpse and discovers his bracelet is missing. I wonder if Clover’s is gone, too. With a 4 and a 9, somebody with no bracelets could escape on their own if they killed me, too, to get my 5.

Seven meets Jumpei in the living room and tells him something’s up with Clover’s body. How convenient after thinking about her bracelet. Instead, he discovers a piece of paper in her possession. Is it the combination to the safe?

“Truth had gone, truth had gone and truth had gone. Ah, now truth is asleep in the darkness of the sinister hand.”

After deciphering the message, I get a string of numbers from my bracelet. It also seems to have left it stuck on “1.” The string couldn’t be a combination to the safe, but it might be the punch code for the coffin. Or, perhaps, I should be taking the numbers as two-digit integers rather than one-digit.

And if Jumpei is a second “1” (and without clover’s “4”) that makes the escape route much more messy. If they did find Snake, and Jumpei didn’t get his number back, either he or Ace would have to stay behind.

But no, the safe had eight one-digit numbers as its combination. Weird.

And inside the safe… was a page of exposition. Linking various people to the Pharmaceutical company and also the Nonary Games from 9 years ago, including Ace and, possibly Lotus? I forget exactly what Seven said her real last name was.

We all go back to the hospital room, where Jumpei… CONFRONTS ACE. Whether this is a play at something, I do not know.

And now the game tells me my deduction from my very first playthrough WAS COMPLETELY CORRECT.

Apparently, Clover found the 0 bracelet behind Door 1 just as she died every other time. Only now, the discovery inspired her to collect or check on 9 as well, as that might change who the suspects were in Snake’s murder.

Only Snake didn’t get killed. Some other guy did. But where the heck did this other guy come from? He or she is dead in every path (as apparently is Fake Zero), so it couldn’t be the person who killed everybody (Ace included) in Ending 6.

Even with the safe open and Snake’s “killer” unmasked (and he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for us meddling kids), mysteries remain.

With further confessions from Ace, I deduce that the Ninth Man was one of the other people on Zero’s list from the safe. He said he had to punish all of them, meaning that they should all be on the ship. So the wisps of Lotus’ name that might have matched somebody on the list (Head of R&D, perhaps?) might be the truth. On the other hand, both Fake Snake and Fake Zero are probably among the four (Once being killed during the game by Zero’s machinations and the other probably killed before the game by Zero himself), then Ace and Ninth Man would be the whole collection.

Ace took Lotus hostage and escapes through one of the Doors 9. Seven’s and my pursuit is too late to catch up, but we at least manage to rescue Snake from the coffin with the same code as the safe and discover that the 0 bracelet was actually another 6 bracelet, as though to suggest June was Zero. [As it turned out, yes. -Ed.] But we’re not going to entertain that notion.

In the end, we go through the other Door 9 without Santa and June. We catch up to Ace and Lotus but solve no room escape puzzles. This suggests to me that I’m not on the True Path. [As it turned out, yes. -Ed.]

Snake confronts Ace and manages to single-handedly eliminate the threat of the gun and then take out Ace in the worst way possible. It’s kind of like watching End of Eva for the first time and saying “AWESOME! I’ve wanted to see Asuka kick ass again for so long!” And then…

Jumpei goes back for the others and doesn’t find Santa. He caught up to June, collapsed in the Chapel (she’s been collapsing a LOT MORE on this path than any other I’ve taken) and Zero announces it’s Game Over. I had a feeling 6 a.m. was just about there.

Oddly, Zero says that it was Game Over for HIM and that HE had lost. If we take the stakes of the game as what his note stated: Punishing the four people from Cradle Pharmaceutical and avoiding innocent deaths. He had failed in that before we even found the manifesto, as Clover was already dead.

Had we known to open the safe previously, Seven and I could have interrogated Snake immediately as to its purpose. I know he participated in the original Nonary Games because of what Clover told me on my way to Ending 2. However, the man bearing bracelet 2 could have referred to Fake Snake instead.

With June magically going poof in the 5 seconds I looked away from her, I know I won’t get a chance to return to the Door 9 elevator and off the ship because the music from the end game screens started playing. Sure enough, things were over quickly.

And Seven died too, because they couldn’t make a Digital Root of 9 even with the extra 1, 6 and 9 bracelets they had. Lotus could still escape with 1, 8 and 9. But did she have time?

With her gone, Santa, Jumpei, June and Seven could have escaped together through a Door 9 with the extra 6 bracelet. All they had to do was wait for Lotus to clear the area, as the Numbered Doors revert to [vacant] when those who authenticated have left or deactivated (not sure how it knows the people have finished the escape rooms, but that’s how it’s been working).

It’s all for not, though. Like in Ending 6, I get a “The End… or is it?” as opposed to Ending 2’s “To Be Continued…” That damn preview led me astray and into Ending 4 instead.

…and to “Preview A,” as I suspected might exist. Flashes of the Titanic, Ace’s real name, Jumpei running down a hall with Seven and Lotus, All-Ice, June resting in the Engine room and a group examining the four-leaf clover bookmark. Doors 4, 7 and 1……… the same as my game that led me to dead end at the coffin, Ending 2.

GAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Seventh and, by God, this had damn well better be the, Final Playthrough

My enthusiasm for this game has dropped somewhat as it keeps giving me higher and higher optimism and then crushing me again with an incomplete experience.

Mysteries remaining: Where is All-Ice? Who is the extra person who became the murderer in the TPK ending? Will those questions answer each other? What was the point of the Sun Key, which isn’t even used other than in the TPK bad end? How the hell do I make the game let me check out the library?

Seeing as this set of doors is identical to the Ending 2 path, I’m going to do it while refusing the bookmark this time, making a save at that decision, of course, as that might just give me Ax-Crazy Clover.

As it turns out the map in the 2nd Class quarters is NOT skippable, as June won’t let you go to the other room until you take it and listen to the conversation about the Titanic it triggers. Nor is there anything else to be found in the dark bedroom.

Playing through without the bookmark proves foolhardy as it results in the Ax Crazy ending. I need to find another thing to do differently if I am to avoid that and also the locked coffin ending. …which shouldn’t have ended there because Clover mentioned, after pilfering the 0 bracelet, that she found “a note” so the clue to opening the coffin was right there with us the whole time.

Then, Seven, Clover, Snake and I could have finished the adventure with our Digital Root of 9. It’s unlikely that we’d bother checking the Uranus door with the imminent threat Santa posed to the others.

In any case, to get the next ending, we need to read Clover’s note before she dies in order to unlock the coffin and free Snake. We also need to actually use the Uranus key, because no other ending goes there. Once the Uranus key is used, I’ll know I’d already have won the game, as there’s only one ending left.

So here we are in the “To Be Continued…” ending all over again, desperately trying to find a clue to unlock Snakes coffin when the clue is in Clover’s pocket but she won’t produce it.

As luck would have it, “To Be Continued…” meant something special. The fact that it produced a clue as to how to get the contents of that note in the Ending 4 path, rather than the “True Path” that ending 4 supposedly told me, was also meaningful: I had to experience the note in another playthrough in order to have an epiphany through the morphogenic field.

The coffin ending WAS the right ending. But my progress was cut off through this game mechanic.

And now, the conclusion.

This time, we get a tearful reunion between Clover and Snake. It feels like this was the task I worked to accomplish since the very first playthrough.

Though I am confused. If Santa is Zero, and Zero was the one who swapped Snake with the Fake Snake to trick Ace into killing one of Zero’s four targets (according to the manifesto, nobody else was supposed to die). Zero also was the one who gave everybody their bracelets. He didn’t have to threaten anybody in order to secure his own escape, because he knew Snake was right there, awaiting a rescue. He could even put in the code himself if he was done waiting.

The two possible explanations are that To Be Continued ending lied about Santa being Zero (which would mean Real Real Zero could be the killer in the TPK ending) or that Zero had to keep the [danger] pouring on as the party would otherwise feel very safe and secure having reached the end, or because nobody had experienced an epiphany yet. But the second option could mean Zero has the same goal as Cradle Pharmaceutical, which shouldn’t be the truth.

Despite lacking a motive for his actions, we discuss and conclude that Santa is Zero, and that some crazy stuff is happening with the bracelets beyond Fake Zero’s 0 being a 6. That Santa’s 3 is really 0 and that June 6 is really an upside down 9. But since June and Santa are always together, and 9 + 0 = 6 + 3, nobody noticed.

It’s suggested that Fake Zero’s bracelet is really the letter O, hacking back to the various hexadecimal themes from the Cargo Bay and the Kitchen. Perhaps that means that Fake Snake is S or Z instead of 2 and that the Ninth Man was a G?

That wouldn’t make much sense mathematically. G being the seventh letter of the alphabet and all.

Still, I took a look at the number/letter chart from the Captain’s Quarters, as I thought it’d be quicker than looking it up in my head. O is the 15th letter. 1+5 = 6. Adding in the nine numbers before it doesn’t change the value for a Digital Root, as 2+4 = 6. That was the lesson of the keypad puzzle in the Captain’s Quarters. S is the 19th letter (1+9 = 10, 1+0 = 1) and Z = 35 (3+5 = 8), so the Fake Snake must have just had another 2 and the Ninth Man should have also had a 9 or a 0. There’s no other letter a 9 or a 6 looks like, nor any other like a 2.

Well, that was a waste of time.

The game was kind enough to place the Uranus lock after Door 9. It also had a Neptune lock that we’d have to search the Library to find a key. Would All-Ice be behind that Neptune locked door? And would we also find a Pluto key and lock to get out of the Neptune room?

As we solved the puzzles, Jumpei finally got Snake to spill the beans on the original Nonary Games. The game showed me a shadowy image of the four Cradle Pharmaceutical men on Zero’s hit list as Snake described their roles in the games. They looked like younger versions of exactly who they should have looked like: (from left) Ace, the Ninth Man, Fake Snake and Fake Zero, who lost some weight in the past nine years but not his mustache.

Santa will now meet his goal by killing Ace and not killing everybody else. With five bullets and an incinerator at his disposal, it looks like there’s little chance of not getting a win for Zero.

Snake also revealed that the name of the girl who died, (who I surmised was Santa’s sister, therefore meaning Santa’s real name was Aoi. Geez, Zero’s got three names to keep track of now) had the same real name as June, Akanae.

It seemed unrealistic to me that this was the same person as June, for the obvious reason that June was not dead. And not a double as she knew everything June knew. And it stands to reason that Jumpei would have at least known that his best friend in grade school had a brother, that the brother had a name, and that brother looked conspicuously like a younger Santa. And that Akanae had no parents because they died in an accident. It was a major stretch.

But I know how these narratives work, so Akanae MUST have died in the first Nonary Games. Somehow.

All-Ice is nowhere to be seen in Zero’s Workshop. Although there’s no telling if that coffin was even hers considering it looks just like the other two.

I stopped typing here as the game continued inexorably to its conclusion.

There are some amazing results. I’m so happy that All-Ice didn’t exist and the lameness was averted. The explanation at the end proved to be satisfying in the way that Bravely Default made all the little seemingly video-game-like features have a representation in the world of the game itself.

The notion that everything on the bottom screen had always been Akane’s viewpoint and thoughts from nine years ago (seeing as she was a “transmitter” and all) while the top represented Junpei’s view in the present. And whenever her future survival became less likely, her temperature increased as the flames of the past came closer to consuming her.

It also made all the sense in the world that they were in the Nevada site, seeing as the Gigantic sank and all.

And who was the extra person in the Submarine ending who killed everybody, including Ace, Santa and June? [I still hadn’t figured out Ace was faking it at this point – Ed.] Every fact and occurrence along all six possible paths is consistent with the information in all other paths. Everybody was always the same person with the same motives and same history. Only present events change based on the order in which you did things and if you had turned in all the plot coupons for this ending. I can only assume that this person left over was Fake Zero (the “Captain”), who couldn’t be killed if Ace never entered Door 1. But Fake Zero would have no way of unlocking the Sun and Jupiter doors.

This makes the Sun key (and door) entirely pointless in a game in which everything else had consistent reason and rhyme, except for speculating that bracelets were different numbers; any notion that Santa and June’s bracelets were different numbers was entirely unnecessary and didn’t pan out anyway when you consider that June was Zero, meaning that the O bracelet was simply a clever clue hiding itself as a different clever clue for the same damn thing.

I suppose one other mystery remains. Why the sudoku puzzle never appeared for the first group of kids in the incinerator, only for the remainder group. It’s weird that one group would have 3 puzzle rooms while the other group just went straight through.

So we know why everybody was there. Ace, Fake Snake, Fake Zero, and the Ninth Man were the four architects of the disaster nine years ago. June and Santa were there to save Akane in the past. There rest were people trusted by them: Snake and Seven, who were there when Akane died… and didn’t, Junpei, Akane’s best friend who was preordained to save her. Clover, of course, had the obvious connection to Snake. And they were somewhat being kind to Lotus by giving her closure on the horrible experience her children refused to tell her about. I suppose one of her daughters was the extra kid who Seven saved from the incinerator.

Ending 1. The End, with no bloody “or is it?”

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But is that ALL-ICE thumbing for a ride in the desert!? What the hell, game!