Shin Megami Tensei NINE is a psychological horror game about a guy who gets attacked by a giant angry scrotum at a Taylor Swift concert, and then spends several months facing horrific hallucinations from the resulting PTSD. There are no rules in this game. In the first five minutes you shatter the boundaries of space and time when you try to leave this flower shop only to realise that you're trapped as this lady and her lesbian furry lover crawl on two planes of existence at once as she seemingly goes down the wall and towards the screen at the same time. The only way out is through this table down here and then you're back on the street where this guy yells at you, as if you just did all that shit on purpose. Sometimes when you walk down the street you literally walk down into it. I mean this looks like some kind of surrealist painting. Trying to imagine the perspective on this destroys the human mind so just don't think about it too much. Almost every building is empty and plays mildly disturbing music, except for this one where Jack Frost says welcome and promptly shows you a series of menus with no text. The whole game feels like you aren't welcome in its presence. It almost feels like the software is sentient and it's watching, trying to figure out why you're playing a Japanese Xbox game. I truly do believe that if demons can manifest themselves in lines of code, there's almost certainly one hiding in here somewhere. Oh yeah, and the battle system you can't really do anything it's like a movie. You can smack that ballsack all you want, but it's just not gonna go away. Overall, I have to say it's about as good as Persona 5 so check it out when you get the chance. See ya

An intricate and thoughtful first-person puzzler that ponders what makes us human. It's philosophical musings are certainly pretentious, but not to its detriment.

The stellar VO work and soundtrack impress throughout, but aesthetically, I'd have preferred a more stylised look - sometimes it can be hard to spot interactables in the realistic environments - but this is a small nitpick.

The gameplay smartly plays into the underlying narrative, and outside of the (largely optional) secret stars, the puzzles are smartly designed. The announced sequel looks to add even more devious mechanics to the mix, and I cannot wait.

Just finished the first game so i’ll write its review before i forget everything. WOW. Such a crazy game. got this game recommended since it “was like danganronpa” even tho i don’t see the similarities, but i was NOT disappointed.
What i liked : (1) characters felt very human to me, no exaggerated personalities which surprisingly felt very refreshing. (2) the facts, I LOOOVE being fed random facts and knowledge like come on. Om nom nom. (3) the ending, SUCH a COOL messed up twist, sure it honestly took me a while to digest and i needed extra internet explanation but it was beyond insane. (4) the puzzles, not too hard and not too easy. (5) the scientific concepts : the number 9, digital roots, hexadecimals, its all pure genius i could never come up with this concept
What i hated: (1) yes all pure genius but i am still pretty dumb in maths 💀 puzzles that required that extra mathematical mile lost me (2) very petty but skipping text isn’t fast enough
First game : 4/5

Does it adapt 999 perfectly? No. Does it adapt 999 the best it can? Yes. Moving on, I can’t recommend The Nonary Games enough; Uchikoshi is a brilliant writer with some wild twists that perhaps aren’t for everyone but that I think everyone should at least give a shot. The games in this collection are both unique and fascinating, and the gameplay is very, very engaging. The characters are great. Perhaps some jokes are off-color, and VLR can be described as tedious, to say the least, but trust me when I say you’ll be delivered an experience like no other.

Really liked them, even when VLR went completely crazy on me.

The math based puzzle are always a bad idea, since people who love math solve them fast and people who doesn't solve them spend 3 billion hours crying.

The first one was better in nearly every way but the second game is a cool time too