999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors (Nintendo DS, 2010)

It's rather rare that you see a visual novel with a Mature rating, particularly on the Nintendo DS, but this game, 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons 9 Doors, is one of those very games.

A rather rare, but interesting concept, "999" takes a concept that you would normally see in a adult movie such as "Saw" and puts it into a DS cartridge; A game of life and constantly looming death.

Plot

You play as Junpei, a young college student who finds himself on a slowly sinking ship after being kidnapped by a mysterious figure in a gas-mask. He soon finds that he's not alone however. 8 other people were also kidnapped, and now, together on the sinking ship, they are forced by a unseen person who calls themselves "Zero" to play a game, known as the "Nonary Game".

As the name suggests, the game is centred around the number 9. The 9 different people all have 9 hours to make their way through 9 numbered doors in order to escape before they are doomed to sink along with the ship. 9 hours, 9 people and 9 doors.
The "game" sounds simple enough, however each person has a irremovable bracelet on their wrist, each of which displays a different number from 1-9. This is where the twisted game of escape become a matter of not only hast, but also mathematics, trust and quick thinking. In order to pass through a numbered door, 3-5 people must "activate" their number on a panel. The numbers which are activated must have a "digital root" that's equal to the number painted on the door, however, to put it in the same words as Zero: "All those who contribute must enter". At the same time, those who have not contributed can't enter through the door once it's opened.

That's all well and good, but how are these rules reinforced? Simply put, each person has a bomb in their stomach. The bracelets, as well as being something that holds the number data, also acts as a detonator. Any breakage of the rules, and the detonator is activated...resulting in a nasty death.
As you can see by how long it's taken me to sum up what is the EXTREMELY cut-down and simple plot summary, this game is completely plot based, with about 98% of the entire game being nothing but dialogue. Although, this is in no way a bad thing. After all, the genre is "visual novel". It's to be expected that dialogue will be more prominent over gameplay, which is plenty the case here.

Gameplay

The game is split into two sections: Novel and Escape. You'll be spending most of your time on the novel sections, which, as the name suggests, is progression of the plot through text dialogue. During these sections, you will occasionally be asked to make choices, some of which will affect which direction the plot goes in, but some of which will also not affect anything.

The actual gameplay however, or what little there is of it, comes in the Escape sections. In these sections, once again as the name suggests, you will be tasked with trying to escape from the room you are, normally by getting through a locked door. You do this by looking around the 2D backdrop style room, changing angles and zooming in on certain important areas and picking up items. By combining items, using items on certain areas of the room, or finding set items themselves, you put together a string of events that unlocks the door, letting you escape.
In a lot of "locked room" games, this set up can come off as a little but too convenient, but in "999", with the entirety of the ship having been turned into a "game", it makes sense. Everything seems conveniently set up, because it has been conveniently set up. This might seem like a small detail, but this fact really helps give these sections a kick of reality that makes them all the more enjoyable.

Feel and Themes

As for the pure style the game goes for, it can be summed up with one word: "Dark". The game is EXTREMELY dark, as well as gruesome and, most of all, mature.

Like I said, this game as a "M" rating in America (16+ In the UK), and it defiantly deserves it. Despite being a visual novel, it manages to be one of the mature games on the Nintendo DS.
Death, or rather, the thought of it, is constant, and this is evident right from the first 10 or so minutes. In fact, not just death, but grusome death. Although the visual gore is minimal at best, the descriptions, the details given about what Junpei is seeing, are so vivid and detailed that it's borderline over the top. Of course, with such a thing as the "Nonary Game", not everyone is playing by the rules. But who exactly isn't telling the truth? Who's faking their emotions? Who's trying to mislead you? What are they willing to do to save their own skin? It's these questions, theses points that create such a dark atmosphere. You never know what will happen when someone is left alone with another person. Or what exactly is going on behind your back.

The more you learn about how much the game likes to play with your mind, the more you question what may happen, what may BE happening. It's this constant "hanging axe" that makes the game almost painful to play through, but in a good way. Painful in the sense that you never know what will happen next. You never know who will die, you never know what's behind a door, you never know if what you're doing is leading to your escape, or to your death. It's all a mystery, and it's the mystery that makes the game so fun, so painfully fun, to play, as well as constantly dark and grim.
Although, there are moments of comedy and light-hearted chatter that gives you a brief break from the dark tone that the game constantly has.

Game Flow

The game works in a "cause to effect" type of system, or "split-path". By pick a different choice when prompted, you may create a split path, causing you to go down a different path to if you had picked another choice. Going down a flow of these paths, you end up at one of different endings that the game has to offer.

For example, you may have a choice as to what door out of three you want to go through, or whether or not you want to take an item that another character has offered you. By going through a certain door, or taking the item over refusing to take it, you will cause the plot to change and go down a different path. This has, of course, been done in many games, but it's done here especially well. The plot, for the most part, has a central set of events that are always the same, with the difference of a few details. However, depending of what choices you make, where you choice to go and the like, you will change different off-shooting paths to fit around these choices.
For example, one choice may have had a different effect if you had chosen a different choice eairler on in the plot. By choosing a set series of choices, you will be lead to an ending, and this is what's do tense about the game: You never know what you're heading for. You never know what your choice is going to do for you later in the game. Only a few of the endings are canon, while there are also a few bad endings. And the name is completely justified, as these endings ARE INDEED bad.
By getting one of the endings, your playthrough data is saved and you replay the game with the information you required in the previous playthroughs. This, of course, gives you a leg up over the characters themselves, as you know things that they don't. In some senses, you know things that you shouldn't know, and that's what makes it so fun to replay through, trying to get different endings. You know some thing’s that the characters don't, you know some things that the main character himself doesn't.
And not just that, but you know things that you shouldn't have seen yet until later in the game. Of course, you know because the game told you. You know because you saw it happen yourself. But even when you don't see events happen from before, you know that those events would have happened. You know that, technically they did happened. You saw them happen, and you saw what people said, what they did. In a lot of ways, it makes you, the player, feel like "God". You feel like you're the one who knows everything, while the characters are running around like chickens trying to work things out. This, of course, makes the moments when the game pulls a shock drop on you all the more impact. For the last 10 minutes you've been thinking about how you know everything, how you know what everyone's gonna do. Then when something new happens, it leaves you momentary stunned because of it. When your new choice you didn't try before leads to someone not doing what they did before, or doing something different to before, or whatever it may be, it's a surprise drop on you.

All of this also adds up to become a bigger plot. A few paths are canon, and not to give much away, but the game ties in the entire feeling of knowing stuff you shouldn't into the plot. In fact, the entire gameplay flow is tied in and, the fact that replaying the game at least once, and choosing a different path each time, is required is also explained. Turning what at first seems like a gimmick to try and fiddle around until you get the right path into a plot-point in itself is something that I really love about "999".

Conclusion

It goes without saying by now, but "999" is a game for those who want a more mature visual novel. It's defiantly worth getting if you want a game that focuses on plot, and although the story can be rather complex and hard to follow, it's defiantly one of the best and most gripping I've ever experienced in a game so far. The concept is interesting, the characters are all unique, the little gameplay there is keeps you entertained, and the game creates a feel that grips you into it's story. It's really one of those games that you have to play, to understand exactly what it's about and how it feels. If you like visual novels, and don't mind more mature content, then I say defiantly give a go.

Recommend this product? Yes