999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

One of the most intriguing, plot heavy games. This convenient title, packs the first two games in the Zero Escape saga, the third and last one is a separate entry. Since this compilation add new features to the original GBA releases, let's talk first about the games and then we'll dwell with the updates. The first game is 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors. Probably the best game in the saga and one of the most interesting and engaging visual novels ever made. The basic plot is that you are Jumpei, a boy kidnapped with 8 other persons and put into a ship that is a Titanic replica full of puzzles and traps. Your captor, a gas mask person known as Zero, explains a complex set of rules involving painted doors, mathematics and that you have only 9 hours to escape. The brilliant twist, is that each character has a watch with a different number from 1 to 9. You have number 5. The watch is used to open the different painted doors and require cooperation with some of your teammates, the ones not chosen are left behind and free to wonder other possible doors if their watches match what another door needs to open. However, if any of the rules is violated, Zero will blow up that person from inside. He made everyone ate a small bomb before the game started and is quickly demonstrated. Needless to say, the game is full of huge plot twists, revelations, myths, legends, a lot of philosophical discussions and character development. There's various endings but only one true, a golden ending, that superseeds all the previous ones and is the one that needs to be found to properly understand the whole deal. There's also graphical and crude descriptions of deaths and bodies, fortunately you never see anything apart from some blood. This was changed in the sequels where people will still die in horrible ways, but you are not treated by these descriptions. Each one of the numbered doors lead to self contained puzzle rooms. This is the moment where the game feels light and more relaxing. It plays as a classic first person adventure game where you explore your surroundings, inspect objects, combine them and use them on the room. They generally have a moderate difficulty and with the space being so small and the great hinting by the characters, they don't overstay their welcome. Mind that some of the plot and world relies on an abstract, not totally explained, supernatural science. This is not a deal breaker but if you want a 100% realistic game, this is not it. The same cannot be said for the second game, Virtue's Last Reward, where it moves into the supernatural terrain much more comfortably. This sequel deals with a new set of 9 characters, some returning ones, and a new Zero trapping everyone in an abandoned warehouse. You play as Sigma, a young man who has no clue why he was kidnapped. The main game proposed is now the Ambidex game, similar to the famous Prisoner's dilemma problem. After going through doors to solve puzzles, you are forced in groups of three to ally or betray each other and affect the points that each bracelet holds. If anyone reaches 9 points, the final door opens for them to escape but if it reaches 0, they are immediately executed. This time, there's more timelines and it's very easy to switch from one to the other. You can play most of the game in any order and that works back into the plot. It's a much crazier setting, with more twists and eventually explanations that are so far fetched and obscure that you have to suspend a bit of disbelief once the late explanations start. About this release, this is the best way to play these games. They are now fully voiced and they even retroadded the timeline branches into the first game. Now after reaching an ending, you can quickly jump to a random scene without having to replay the whole game. Fortunately there's also a quick skip dialogue function for every text that you've already seen, only stopping for new conversations if they arise. Be very careful of spoilers, you can only be amazed once by each one and these games are totally worth for those moments.

On sale this is a steal. Both games are amazing(even if the second one looks really ugly), If you are a fan of puzzle/escape room type games i cant recomend them enough

25/09/26 - Finnished the first game included (999) and can say that as off right now this is my favourite puzzle game ever. The puzzles were cool, difficult but do-able, taught me a bunch of cool cyphers, and had an overall great, cohesive story. Cannot wait to play the other games. A tip for others going into this: click everything. Good luck!