999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

Oh my god... my heart has melted. I cried, with an audible "aww". Please, for the love of people, puzzles and everything special in this life, you must play this game. It doesn't matter how tired you get in the middle of the game. The ending is completely and utterly worth it for the first game. Any deficiency in problem solving skills are irrelevant. You can push through. I believe in you. A sea of emotion is ahead. All bad notions of humanity floated into the abyss... I'm free... P.S. The music was so good that I transcribed an entire song by listening to it.

999 is the best visual novel and takes advantage of the genre in a unique way. I still have yet to read VLR because of the art style. 10/10

Where to even start? I'll try and keep this as spoiler-free as possible, but oh man! These games are really a treat, I'm very glad I picked them up. Now, having played other Spike Chunsoft titles (namely Danganronpa series) my expectations coming in were admittedly rather low. Puzzles of widely varying quality, writing rife with anime tropes, and an ending that was trying to be philosophical but sort of jumped the shark. But that is NOT what the Nonary Games are by any means. First - the puzzles. They're classic escape-the-room style puzzles, hence the title of the series. Overall, the quality of these is very high, especially compared to the aforementioned Danganronpa series. 999's puzzles are more intuitive, while VLR's feel more difficult. I like the writing in VLR more (I'll get to that), but the puzzles feel slightly more complex in a way that can take away from the experience. Maybe I'm just not that smart, but I had to look up walkthroughs more when I played through VLR, and even then some of the solutions feel a bit nonsensical. I'd say this is about 10-20% of the puzzles. Most of them are still very good and rewarding. Now for the writing - some broad points: - Good balance: It never feels like puzzles are distracting from the narrative or vice versa. - Integration into gameplay: Story and gameplay are interwoven - bits of story are found in the escape rooms, and there are puzzles integrated into the wider story outside of escape rooms. - Breadth of content/endings: Especially in VLR, there's just so much stuff to read through but it never feels exhaustive. - Characters: Admittedly, 999's cast is weaker, but this franchise weaves characters and backstories together in a very compelling manner. These are all strong points, but the main point is just how clever the writing is. These games are a love letter to the art of game writing. It's one of those rare game series where a core game mechanic is integral to the story in a way that reaches a new level of immersion. Examples I can think of in the same vein without giving spoilers include Undertale and Doki Doki Literature Club. You'll like this game if you enjoyed the "gimmicks" of those games (I put gimmick in quotes because it's so much more than just a gimmick). Another (hopefully) non-spoiler recommendation: if you really like Sci-Fi novels, you'll probably really enjoy the story of this game. The tone of the writing is much more serious than something like Danganronpa, but it's definitely not to a fault. It has its "anime" moments for sure, but the integration of core game mechanics into the plot makes it much easier to suspend your disbelief and really get immersed in the plot. I know I couldn't put it down once I picked it up. Overall, if you're into story games - play this. If you're into puzzle games - play this. If you like Danganronpa - you'll probably like this so much more. Cannot recommend these titles enough.