Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is a part of the Zero Escape: The Nonary Games collection. It's another visual novel published by Spike Chunsoft and predates the Danganronpa series.

In Zero Escape: 999 the player controls Junpei, a college kid who is knocked unconscious, kidnapped and wakes up on a ship. The point of the game is to complete "escape room" puzzles and progress through the story uncovering the mystery surrounding why you were kidnapped, who your kidnapper is and why you are taking part in "The Nonary Game." The least you know the better so l'm going to leave it there and move on.

I enjoyed my time overall with 999. The narrative kept me hooked and the puzzles weren't complex to the point where I felt like I was banging my head against the wall or that I wasn't making progress.

My frustration with Zero Escape was "unlocking" new paths in the story. Personally it felt as though as I was doing everything "right" yet new paths weren't unlocking. I felt "forced" to restart my game from scratch, deleting my save completely multiple times to experience a new branch in the story. This resulted in me having to replay certain story lines multiple times as a completionist. Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is a game that I would highly recommend to fans of visual novels and escape room/puzzle games.

Pros:
The narrative
Escape room level design
Flowcharts that guide the player through the story
and finding new endings

Cons:
Progressing through the story felt "buggy." Unclear
if I was getting stuck due to bugs or not completing
things correctly or in the right order.

Played on: Xbox Series X via Xbox Gamepass