Cleared on December 2nd, 2023
This game is a chaotic rollercoaster that truly lives up to being an anti-visual novel. The only other game that I've seen pull this is maybe Doki Doki Literature Club, but those two walk on drastically different paths. DDLC is rather generic with its dialogue to disguise itself as a typical visual novel dating simulator and relies heavily on visual and... other abstract details. Class of 09, meanwhile, focuses more on creating unique dialogue to the point where I don't think I've ever seen this kind of writing style in any visual novel period. This isn't some idealistic Japanese school life where you date pretty girls, you are the pretty girl dealing with a shitty American school life.
The story takes place in the 2000s where MySpace was relevant, anime was a niche subgenre of animation that only dweebs got into, and you could've got popular just by recording yourself playing a game on a television with shitty quality and uploading it onto Youtube. And being in that era, the dialogue reflects this as the characters don't talk formally as if they are speaking exactly the translated subtitles from Japanese audio. They are talking like a shitpost English dub, and from what people say, this kind of dialogue reflects the real world quite a lot. It further helps that the events, encounters, and personalities are supposedly real.
While I don't have any verification on if this is the case given the absurd nature of the game, if you're at least aware of the world around you, it's easy enough to believe that many of these events can be real. Heck, from my experience, I've seen some of these personalities in person.
It can be seen as morbid and cynical, and under certain conditions, it can be. However, it takes a more daring approach to make it a dark comedy as you might find yourself laughing at points like "Why is this so funny?". Well, I'll tell you one thing that helps, the voice acting and their delivery of the lines.
Majority of the time, there are three things that I've seen in visual novels. Either they are not voiced at all, they have some voices but only for more important scenes, or its just all in Japanese. Here, however, every single line of dialogue is voiced in English. Even ones that seem unimportant and only serve to lead to a route that others could've led you to. The voice acting I would say really adds to the overall game, and it's not like they took a bunch of randos on 4chan or whatever. Some of them are actually talented VAs with a reputation in the business, and there's a good chance you've heard one or two of them before.
It's a really well-made visual novel, and my only complaints are a few character inconsistencies across some routes and making certain choices that lead to a route will cause you to feel confused as if there was some information that's left out. Also, a bit of a spoiler, but the choices you make until the 2nd day do not matter at all. They are just there to give insight on the characters that you'll be dealing with throughout the game.
There's not much else I can say about this game. Having such an emphasis on story-telling and multiple outcomes, it's something you need to see for yourself to believe. It's not always going to be bright, and there's a lot of ways it could go south. But I recommend you look into every single outcome. You might just learn something new.
This game is a chaotic rollercoaster that truly lives up to being an anti-visual novel. The only other game that I've seen pull this is maybe Doki Doki Literature Club, but those two walk on drastically different paths. DDLC is rather generic with its dialogue to disguise itself as a typical visual novel dating simulator and relies heavily on visual and... other abstract details. Class of 09, meanwhile, focuses more on creating unique dialogue to the point where I don't think I've ever seen this kind of writing style in any visual novel period. This isn't some idealistic Japanese school life where you date pretty girls, you are the pretty girl dealing with a shitty American school life.
The story takes place in the 2000s where MySpace was relevant, anime was a niche subgenre of animation that only dweebs got into, and you could've got popular just by recording yourself playing a game on a television with shitty quality and uploading it onto Youtube. And being in that era, the dialogue reflects this as the characters don't talk formally as if they are speaking exactly the translated subtitles from Japanese audio. They are talking like a shitpost English dub, and from what people say, this kind of dialogue reflects the real world quite a lot. It further helps that the events, encounters, and personalities are supposedly real.
While I don't have any verification on if this is the case given the absurd nature of the game, if you're at least aware of the world around you, it's easy enough to believe that many of these events can be real. Heck, from my experience, I've seen some of these personalities in person.
It can be seen as morbid and cynical, and under certain conditions, it can be. However, it takes a more daring approach to make it a dark comedy as you might find yourself laughing at points like "Why is this so funny?". Well, I'll tell you one thing that helps, the voice acting and their delivery of the lines.
Majority of the time, there are three things that I've seen in visual novels. Either they are not voiced at all, they have some voices but only for more important scenes, or its just all in Japanese. Here, however, every single line of dialogue is voiced in English. Even ones that seem unimportant and only serve to lead to a route that others could've led you to. The voice acting I would say really adds to the overall game, and it's not like they took a bunch of randos on 4chan or whatever. Some of them are actually talented VAs with a reputation in the business, and there's a good chance you've heard one or two of them before.
It's a really well-made visual novel, and my only complaints are a few character inconsistencies across some routes and making certain choices that lead to a route will cause you to feel confused as if there was some information that's left out. Also, a bit of a spoiler, but the choices you make until the 2nd day do not matter at all. They are just there to give insight on the characters that you'll be dealing with throughout the game.
There's not much else I can say about this game. Having such an emphasis on story-telling and multiple outcomes, it's something you need to see for yourself to believe. It's not always going to be bright, and there's a lot of ways it could go south. But I recommend you look into every single outcome. You might just learn something new.