This review contains spoilers
The story really hooked me, and the intricate sci-fi mystery thriller plot made the game engrossing enough to overlook some of the more frustrating gameplay mechanics.
The escape room gameplay is a great complement to the visual novel segments. Even though there's a huge amount of dialogue and narration in the game, it rarely feels like a slog to read through.
Where the game does become a slog is in finding all of its alternate endings. After obtaining one of the common "bad" endings, you are sent back to the beginning with painfully scant guidance as to how to proceed. While you might enjoy exploring new scenarios on your 2nd (or maybe 3rd) route, eventually you'll get tired of holding down the right D-pad for 2 hours only to be rewarded with the same unsatisfying non-sequitur endings. There's also no guidance on which of the many decisions available to you will impact the ending. Most of them don't.
Strangely, the game does include two handy "preview" videos that give clues on how to unlock the full story, but these videos only become available after they would have been most useful. The solution here, as many have pointed out, would have been a flowchart mechanic, which would allow you to skip between completed scenarios in order to find new paths (I see they implemented this feature in the remake).
While the localisation and writing was generally top-notch, there were a couple of things that bugged me.
The first was the characters' truly excessive swearing (I blame the localisers!). It is hilarious to see these characters swearing at each other CONSTANTLY, even when it doesn't fit the tone ("You Old Bitch! Fuck!!"). I laughed out loud when, during a dramatic, major story moment, our protagonist blurted out "What the shit!". Truly an iconic line that will be remembered for generations. While it's sometimes clunky, I do appreciate the writers trying to go for a more "adult" tone to match the subject matter. This game probably goes toe-to-toe with Chinatown Wars for edgiest game on Nintendo DS (Anyone wanna deal some heroin?).
Less endearing is the way the characters' sexist or objectifying harassment of women is played for laughs. Back in 2009, dialogue about looking up a female characters' skirt as she walks up the stairs, or asking female characters to repeatedly say "it's really hard" was seen as "lewd" or the writers having a "dirty mind". Now, it just makes the male characters seem creepy. My strong suspicion is that this some of this stuff was shoehorned in by the localisers who were struggling to replace Japanese specific puns and gags.
While this review contains more criticism than praise, that's only because everything else about 999 is EXCELLENT. The character artwork and animations are great. The music nails the atmosphere and tension. The 3D environments are high quality. The puzzles are rarely frustrating and often quite satisfying (I say this as someone who usually sucks at puzzles-- Professor Layton probably shortened my lifespan).
From what I've read about the remake, it seems like the DS version is superior. If you're on the fence about 999, I would definitely recommend you give it a shot. Try and avoid plot spoilers and just go in blind.
That being said, don't be afraid to use google to find all the endings. Or, if you're so inclined, use some "morphic resonance" and download the information directly into your brain.
The escape room gameplay is a great complement to the visual novel segments. Even though there's a huge amount of dialogue and narration in the game, it rarely feels like a slog to read through.
Where the game does become a slog is in finding all of its alternate endings. After obtaining one of the common "bad" endings, you are sent back to the beginning with painfully scant guidance as to how to proceed. While you might enjoy exploring new scenarios on your 2nd (or maybe 3rd) route, eventually you'll get tired of holding down the right D-pad for 2 hours only to be rewarded with the same unsatisfying non-sequitur endings. There's also no guidance on which of the many decisions available to you will impact the ending. Most of them don't.
Strangely, the game does include two handy "preview" videos that give clues on how to unlock the full story, but these videos only become available after they would have been most useful. The solution here, as many have pointed out, would have been a flowchart mechanic, which would allow you to skip between completed scenarios in order to find new paths (I see they implemented this feature in the remake).
While the localisation and writing was generally top-notch, there were a couple of things that bugged me.
The first was the characters' truly excessive swearing (I blame the localisers!). It is hilarious to see these characters swearing at each other CONSTANTLY, even when it doesn't fit the tone ("You Old Bitch! Fuck!!"). I laughed out loud when, during a dramatic, major story moment, our protagonist blurted out "What the shit!". Truly an iconic line that will be remembered for generations. While it's sometimes clunky, I do appreciate the writers trying to go for a more "adult" tone to match the subject matter. This game probably goes toe-to-toe with Chinatown Wars for edgiest game on Nintendo DS (Anyone wanna deal some heroin?).
Less endearing is the way the characters' sexist or objectifying harassment of women is played for laughs. Back in 2009, dialogue about looking up a female characters' skirt as she walks up the stairs, or asking female characters to repeatedly say "it's really hard" was seen as "lewd" or the writers having a "dirty mind". Now, it just makes the male characters seem creepy. My strong suspicion is that this some of this stuff was shoehorned in by the localisers who were struggling to replace Japanese specific puns and gags.
While this review contains more criticism than praise, that's only because everything else about 999 is EXCELLENT. The character artwork and animations are great. The music nails the atmosphere and tension. The 3D environments are high quality. The puzzles are rarely frustrating and often quite satisfying (I say this as someone who usually sucks at puzzles-- Professor Layton probably shortened my lifespan).
From what I've read about the remake, it seems like the DS version is superior. If you're on the fence about 999, I would definitely recommend you give it a shot. Try and avoid plot spoilers and just go in blind.
That being said, don't be afraid to use google to find all the endings. Or, if you're so inclined, use some "morphic resonance" and download the information directly into your brain.