9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors is an escape room visual novel released for the Nintendo DS in 2009, and was re-released on PS4 and Steam bundled with sequel Virtue's Last Reward as part of 'The Nonary Games'.
999 is one of those stories that could only have been told through a video game, and it's a big part of why i love it so much. i genuinely consider it one of the best games ever made! i love how the features unique to video games as a storytelling medium are an integral part of the game's narrative.
999 comes from the era of DS games that utilise the dual screens in unique and creative ways. the dual-screen presentation is an inextricable part of the game's storytelling, and it's why i'm such a firm advocate of the OG DS version of the game despite the quality-of-life improvements of the updated re-release.
perhaps one of 999's greatest strengths is its cast of characters. each character is fleshed out and distinct, with a justified reason for being involved in the story. their reactions to the situation at hand feel both appropriate and representative of the vast spectrum of human emotions. plus, developer Kotaro Uchikoshi based each character off of one of the 9 Enneagram types -- how cool is that! i won't talk about the characters in too much depth here, but if you want my detailed thoughts, click the character portraits on this page!
one final word of warning: 999 is a game that's best experienced by going in as blind as possible. the rest of this page will contain spoilers, so if you haven't played it but think you might like to, proceed with caution.
Junpei ... truly THEEE protagonist ever !!! he's just a silly goofy guy, even though he's trapped in a murder-death-game and having the worst day of his life (so far). he's also so, so unfailingly kind to the point that it fundamentally alters the narrative. the friendship he strikes up with Clover, and the support he provides her through what is likely the worst experience of her life ... the way he unquestioningly puts his life on the line for the sake of saving a little girl from a horrible fate.
and yet for all his goofiness, it can be easy to overlook the fact that he's also so scarily clever. no matter how many times i play the game, the scene where he reveals Ace's identity and intentions gives me chills.
genuinely i think about him too hard and start crying :'')
alright folks give it up for the world's worst heroine!!!!!
would you believe me if i said that i didn't like Akane on my first playthrough? which feels insane to think about now because she's one of my favourite characters of all time. i think about her every day of my life. i am her irl (minus the whole burning-to-death-in-an-incinerator thing). in this house we love weird little girls who will infodump on psuedoscientific concepts at any given moment.
i actually have WAY more thoughts about Akane than this little snippet, but i really want to do her justice and currently lack the braincells to do so. stay tuned! :>
Santa ... Aoi Kurashiki ... the older sibling of all time !!!! i have soooo many emotions about him and about the Kurashiki siblings. she's all he has left in the world. he would move heaven and earth just to make her happy.
thinking about post-Safe end Aoi absolutely destroys me. the fact that Safe end needs to exist if Akane is going to get out of that incinerator at all, but also that it means there will always, always be a version of Aoi who fails to save his sister a second time.
i headcanon that the reason why he displays so much animosity towards Junpei in particular is because Akane died because she went back for the Jumpy doll. if it hadn't been for that doll -- if it hadn't been for Junpei -- none of this would have ever happened. Junpei may be the only person who can save Akane, but he was also (albeit inadvertently) the person who doomed her.
he's SO unbelievably gender i wish i looked like him fr.
Clover didn't deserve any of this and honestly it's a miracle she only snapped in ONE timeline.
woagh another member of the eldest siblings club ...
also democratically elected gay via Twitter poll. in this household Snake Gay Day is a national holiday.
Lotus fucking rules !!!!!!! hacker queen extraordinaire who's determined to find out wtf happened to her kids. sometimes i think the game/characters unfairly demonise her? which is so unfair honestly don't they understand they're in the presence of a queen ?!
Seven is one of those characters that i forget how much i like them until i replay the game. while he's not my favourite by any means, he's still a solid and really enjoyable character !!
characters who should die in a fire. i love Ace, which is to say that i absolutely hate him. pathetic old man who makes my skin CRAWL. incredible twist villain. his actions and the motivations behind them are absolutely heinous, and yet he conceals his true nature so well that you likely won't realise it until Junpei's reveal.
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spoiler alert: it's the DS version.
| pros | cons |
| the intended experience of the game. the game's twist is built around the dual-screen presentation on the DS | incredibly hard to come by; expensive even when you can find a copy |
| touch-screen controls; as a point-and-click escape room game, navigation and puzzle-solving is at its most intuitive with touch-based controls | dear god is it SLOW. the text scrolls at one speed only, and that speed is not fast -- given just how much text is in the game, it can be genuinely frustrating at times (there is an autoskip for text you've already read, but it still takes a while) |
| the final puzzle !!! ohhhh my god it is THE most emotional puzzle you will ever solve in your whole entire life. it unites the narrative, the characters, and even the game mechanics in such a cohesive and satisfying manner that it's genuinely haunting | can get repetitive. 999 has multiple endings, but since the only way to achieve them is to play the game through linearly, it means rewatching the same early-game scenes multiple times, at an agonisingly slow text speed |
| pros | cons |
| infinitely more accessible | the switch from dual-screen to single-screen weakens the narrative, and absolutely KNEECAPS the main plot twist |
| voice acting ! the game is fully voice-acted; all of the voices fit the characters sooo well and Evan Smith does an INCREDIBLE job as Junpei. his final lines in Safe end haunt me | THAT FINAL PUZZLE. because the final puzzle was built around the dual screens of the Nintendo DS, it did not translate well AT ALL to the remastered port so they changed it entirely. while it's not, like, a BAD puzzle by any means, there's sooo much gravitas behind the OG final puzzle that's just ... lost with the change >:( |
| quality-of-life improvements. the most notable improvement is having access to a flowchart of the game's endings, allowing you to skip along parts of the timeline you've already played, thereby significantly reducing the amount of backtracking needed to achieve every ending | button-only controls. these were present in the OG DS version, but not required. the button controls can be finicky and not as accurate as the touch screen controls; while not a significant issue, it does break the flow of gameplay at times (and, for at least one puzzle, makes it significantly harder to solve) |
final thoughts: the DS version of 999 is undeniably the best way to experience the game. its story and gameplay is built around the dual-screen format of the DS in such an inextricable way that removing the dual-screen presentation fundamentally weakens the narrative. (while it's still a fucking incredible story regardless of which format you play it in, i think a huge part of why it hit so hard, and why i love it as much as i do, was because i played the OG DS version first.)
that said, getting your hands on a copy of the DS version is exceedingly difficult these days. my recommendation would be to emulate it if at all possible -- being a point-and-click visual novel means it translates much better to emulation than some games do. (plus, the emulated version comes with the added bonus of being able to speed up gameplay, and thus the text!) that way you get to experience the intended version of the game while sidestepping the majority of the accessibility and quality-of-life issues of the OG DS version.
if you do play the updated re-release, at the very least play in 'Novel' mode. it's the most accurate representation of the original version of the game, and so many of the game's key emotional moments are heavily reliant on the narration that is only viewable in that mode! unfortunately the updated rerelease doesn't do a lot to incentivise playing in 'Novel' mode, so in lieu of that please heed my heavily emphatic suggestion instead.