8+6+4 = 18, 1+8 = 9 : A Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors Analysis

 Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors or 999 for the DS is one of the more interesting titles I've played in sometime. From the outside it looks like your typical adventure game, but its roots are more from the “choose your own adventure” genre.

As the title suggest the game is about nine people, I'm not going to spoil the story of the game here as it is one of the main draws. I will give the basic summary of the game that most reviewers have talked about. Nine people are trapped on a boat and in nine hours the boat will sink, killing them all. Their only means to survive lie behind nine doors, the player will control one person: Junpei and see the events play out from his perspective.

The game has two systems present; in novel mode the player will be reading text, a lot of text. For gamers who like excitement I'll just ruin it for you now that 999 will not be something you'll be interested in. The majority of the game is spent reading the conversations between the cast of characters. The writing can be heavy handed at some times but the conversations between the cast stand out. From the writing you can see how each person has their own personality and how they act around the different characters.

During novel mode you'll have to decide Junpei's response to certain questions, but the real choice that you'll make involves the nine doors. Deciding which door Junpei goes through factors into the ending (more on that later on).

The next mode is your standard adventure game-play. Multiple locations on the ship have their exits locked and to escape you'll have to solve puzzles. To simplify things the items and solutions are localized to their section, you'll never go back to a previous area once you escape. The puzzles are varied with a strong emphasis on math, mainly the hexadecimal system and digital roots which the game is kind enough to explain to you.

The pattern for each room is that there are multiple puzzles which in turn will guide you to the solution that will open the door and allow you to continue. I am by no means an adventure game connoisseur so I can't comment if the puzzles are too easy or too hard. I will say that I did get ridiculously stuck on the first puzzle, but from reading message boards I wasn't the only one.

The game length is only a few hours but 999 throws in a twist. The game features multiple endings based on which doors you decide to open. Like the typical choose your own adventure format, most of the endings revolve around death. On repeat play you can skip over text that you already read which should allow you to keep your sanity. Like any tricky game, there is a specific path you'll have to take to get the good ending and this presents one of my main problems with 999.

While you are able to skip the dialogue you cannot skip the puzzles. Now I know that not doing puzzles in a puzzle game seems blasphemous, but in all honestly if I did the puzzle five times already don't you think I understand it? Personally I think the developers should have taken the game in one of two directions. Allow us to skip the puzzles on repeat play so that we can experience the story, or depending on the order of doors mix up the puzzles slightly. Keep the same path to the solution but change the solution so that we're not on auto pilot.

The story in my opinion is worth the hassle, even with the bad endings it can still shake you up even if you know its coming. One of the bad endings even though I had an idea that it would happen, how they presented it still got under my skin and made my twinge . I especially loved the "true ending" which was one of the most satisfying endings I've seen in a long time.

The only legitimate game-play problem I have with 999 involves the hints for puzzles. Many items you'll find which serve as important hints will end up either in your inventory or your files. However you cannot view them when you are in putting your answer, instead if you have to review them you'll have to exit out of the input, read the information then go back in. This seems like an unneeded hassle and just serves to force the player to spend a little more time on each puzzle.

I was also a little surprised that for an adventure game there wasn't a place to record notes that you could view while solving puzzles. That seemed like a missed opportunity to help people solve the puzzles. The game does offer an interesting hint system if you do get stuck, new conversations will start between the people as they try to walk through the solution with you.

999 is an interesting mature title for the DS and for adventure fans a must play. Also in case you were wondering, the title for this entry is not some super secret clue to the game.

Josh.

P.S : or is it?

P.P.S.: If you want to know which ending made me cringe here is a clue : 10,33,14