I've become convinced that there is no way to substantially improve this game, and/or its story, without drastically altering the final product and its core identity for the worse. If Spike Chunsoft's Danganronpa series is an exploration of character relationships dynamics at its most hyperbolic and brash, Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors explores those same dynamics with the tact of a carefully crafted pressurized chamber. There are so many moments within each stroke and line that are created with the sole intent of increasing the dread between two characters, whether by sowing discord or pulling them together amidst almost certain death. The tension isn't overbearing at first but it builds and towers into this monolith of anxiety, to the point where its true finale brought me to tears on my first playthrough.

That's not to discount the gameplay, which is in effect perfected (for the most part) in the PC port but is just as gripping and fun in the original DS version. It's the type of escape room puzzling that I absolutely adore, fully realized and made even more gripping with the eclectic ways you craft solutions. Combining objects, altered arithmetic, careful dialogue traversal, it's all so wild and fresh as someone who plays around with this genre as a matter of habit, let alone taste—it makes me wonder just how much more developed this idea of room traversal and additive puzzle-solving can get if this game is the best I've seen the genre offer. It's such a shot of euphoria peeking through each individual notch in this labyrinth of rooms, putting together pieces and creating more puzzles. It's this type of design that makes me swoon and weep for more of its kind, even as the escape room genre wanes in its popularity little by little every year. This is the type of puzzle game I fucking adore, concentrated and purified to such an extent that replaying it was an immediate rush of dopamine and anxiety.

My first visual novel :) I really loved unraveling this mystery bit by bit. I really liked the puzzle rooms and always wanted to know how the story would continue. The game had a very cool setup, an exciting basic mystery and managed to keep me interested for the entire length of the game. I thought the amount of "anime bullshit" was just right. Sure, you have to accept some things as given, even if certain plot points don't make a lot of sense and the story gets very wild towards the end, but overall I found it much more believable than the later parts. Still a great little insider tip for me.

i didn't mark this with a spoiler warning, and i don't think this review really spoils anything, but i do discuss how i feel about some parts of the game (ending-related) without going into specifics or saying anything explicit about the plot.


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i really liked this game. the escape room puzzles are pretty decent: nothing too difficult, but still moderately thought-provoking. having played the original DS version, i didn't have the in-game choices flowchart or any other real quality of life features in the newer versions, so it was definitely a bit of a grind to get all of the endings. the premise of the game is extremely unique, and it does a lot with it. loved the final ending, and while most of the other endings feel "unecessary," i don't think you can really do away with them for the way i felt in the final ending having experienced the others. i kinda popped off.

i will say, i don't like how arbitrary the way you get to some of the endings is. looking at a flowchart of all the possible ways to get each ending, it feels kinda random why doing certain permutations of choices leads to the endings they do. usually, the only real reason the game steers towards different endings because the characters just kinda decide to do different things that you could not possibly expect, such as going down a different corridor that they don't go down at the same point in time on another path. also, sometimes you will be in the exact same situation you have been in before but because you did something different earlier that playthrough, some characters will just suddenly have different things to say for some reason, which feels weird even though it should not affect them in most circumstances. if there's reasons why characters decided to say different things at different times or why they decide to go to X door instead of Y door when you had done different things in the past, i didn't get them.

everything really comes together in the end, but i would probably have never found all the endings if i had not looked at a spoiler-free/spoiler-light flowchart that explains how to get them all. i'm sure it's much better to do so in the newer releases. loved it overall. some stories you really can only tell through videogames.

Fui jogar 999 com ZERO expectativas e acabei me surpreendendo muito positivamente com uma narrativa extremamente profunda e personagens que não são um estereotipo ridículo, me diverti bastante.
o único motivo de eu não dar um 5/5 é eu ter achado o loop de gameplay um pouco cansativo, já que o jogo me jogava um mistério interessante pra ser resolvido e logo depois me jogava em uma sessão de puzzle que deixava as coisas mornas de novo.
Ainda assim, pela narrativa maravilhosa, compensa cada segundo.

I don't think the approach 999 takes with it's story is always perfect, but Uchikoshi still has such a deep understanding of mystery that it wraps up in a great way nonetheless. Cutting through all of the crazy stuff this game pulls, there's a sound theme about connection transcending both time and space that I think works well. I can't say I emotionally connected with it to the degree that I wanted to but it still is impressive nonetheless, especially when it manages to sell every aspect of it so well. Even then it still leaves a lot unanswered, which I can't really say is a good or bad thing for now but it leaves me excited for the sequel.