999 is a game you
can play only on the DS (or 3DS) and it follows the multiple-ending story of
Junpei. He and eight others have been kidnapped by a mysterious figure calling
him/herself “Zero”. They have been forced into what is called a “Nonary Game”.
This is a game forcing these nine people to work together (for reasons I won’t
spoil here) or they will die. This is immediately proven when one of the nine
candidates decides to go off on his own and blows up as a result of his
breaking the rules.
You don’t learn most (if any) of the other names of the
characters, but they all take codenames to hide their identities in case Zero
is watching them. But of course Zero is watching them because he/she has to
make sure the game is going as planned. But no one stops to think that doing
such a thing is pointless. If you’ve been kidnapped and there’s a reason for
it, odds are your identity is already known to the captor. Thus, it’s fairly
obvious that those suggesting the idea are hiding something (this isn’t a
spoiler, but just an observation I had when playing the game).
Each character has a wrist-device with a number that
correlates to their ability to open doors and also activates the bomb inside
them should they break a rule or fuck up. Going in number order, the codenames
are the following. Ace, an older man who seems like a pretty legit guy wanting
to help the young’uns get out. Snake, a man slightly older than Junpei, but not
by much who is blind had has many secrets you learn later on as you play.
Santa, a young man with white hair who generally remains uninteresting and
somehow always gets paired with your love interest (cock-blocker). Clover, a
young girl who is deceptively cute at times and absolutely insane at others,
but cares for her brother, Snake. There’s you. Then there’s June, your love
interest character you’ve known since you were kids who tends to fall down a
lot from getting feverish. Seven is the big guy who couldn’t come up with an
actual codename and just went with his number. Lotus is a woman, as you can
tell with her big tits and belly-dancer outfit. She’s smarter than she appears
but there doesn’t seem to be all that much about the plot connected to her. Then
there’s the 9th man who dies so early on that his role is completely
irrelevant except for the “True Ending”.
There’s a mechanic tied to the story dealing with a concept
called “Digital Roots”. To open certain doors or conquer certain puzzles, one
must combine different numbers together to form math equations that make the
Digital Root equal to the goal number presented on the door or in the puzzle.
This is why the wrist-devices exist and it is explained very early on as it is
a very core concept to the game. Beyond that, most puzzles are straight-faced
adventure game, Point-n-click style gameplay. And this is perfectly fine on a
DS because I’ve always felt touch-screen interfaces are done right with that
kind of gameplay. It’s when they try to do anything else or mix in fast use of
buttons that things get stupid.
But since this is that style of game, that means our review
is more concerned with the story and logic of the puzzles than anything else.
Interestingly enough, the two kind of tie together which is a rarity for puzzle
games. In most puzzle games or puzzle aspects of games like Legend of Zelda, the puzzles don’t make
any sense in terms of their existence. Why are elaborate push-block puzzles
used to lock a door in a dungeon that requires a special key to access around?
Why not just set up turrets and call it a day?
That being said, to explain things in more depth requires a
bit of plot-spoilers. But since this is a DS original game (and thus old) I’ll
assume spoiling some of the plot (but not everything) is fine. The concept of
the Nonary Game (to an extent) is in dealing with the concepts of “Morphogenic
Fields”. To summarize a VERY LONG explanation the game gives, it’s basically
trying to discover telepathic capabilities among humans by putting their lives
in danger. The thinking is that such a scenario forces those good at receiving
brainwaves to pull them from the air of other people who are transmitting the
solutions to those puzzles.
In other words, how is Junpei so good at puzzles and getting
answers to problems that no one else on the boat has? It’s not because the
controlling player is looking up a walkthrough or remembered the answers from a
previous playthrough towards a different ending. It’s because he is receiving
that information from Zero (supposedly). And while this logic doesn’t make a
whole lot of sense out of context, it works perfectly to explain
inconsistencies of logic within the game itself. No matter how you intend to
solve the puzzle (either by remembering solutions, figuring them out, or
looking them up) it’s all explained not because Junpei is a genius, but because
he’s receiving the information from that Morphogenic Field.
As I mentioned a moment ago, explanations of the Morphogenic
Field (and many other elements of the game) are explained in LONG tedious
stretches of dialogue from the various characters. On the plus side, it makes a
game that feels light on content at first feel like there’s more to it in both
depth and complexity. This makes the story all the more intriguing, even if the
information being given doesn’t feel important at the time you get it. On the downside,
in order to get the proper ending of the game, you have to play through the
game at least TWICE. And while you won’t have everything explained to you on
both playthroughs, the problem is that unless you KNOW how to get to those two
endings, you’ll end up playing far more than twice, meaning you’ll sit through
these explanations a lot.
The way this issue is countered is by having the option to
fastforward through literally ANY dialogue you’ve already seen. While this is
certainly handy, why isn’t there an option to just skip that chapter or
auto-solve a previsited room entirely instead? It would have allowed me to get
through ALL the endings that much faster instead of cutting myself short one
optional ending to get this review out on time. Any why is the dialogue so slow
on default anyway? Why isn’t there an option to speed the dialogue up anyway?
You can always go back and look over the dialogue you may have missed, so
there’s no penalty for blazing through the dialogue (like being unable to see it
again).
And as for the endings, this is determined largely by which
doors you go through during the game. For the ending needed to unlock the
“true” ending, you must visit Door 5, Door 8, and Door 6. This gets you the
“Safe” Ending (no, I won’t explain anything about the plot of these endings).
Once you’ve done that, then replay the game again under the option “Begin With
Old Memories” on the main menu. In what is basically New Game Plus, you must
visit Door 4, Door 8, and Door 1. There are other important details to do as
well, BUT I’ll let you figure those out for yourself.
Other combinations of doors can get you one of I believe
four different endings. Two of which are rather mundane and two of which are
actually mildly interesting. If you have the spare time to check them out, you
totally should. But if you just want the plot, then the previous paragraph is
the most direct way to get to it without added fluff.
As far as the narrative goes, the true strength of the
narrative come at the end of the important stories. Yes, you have snippets
throughout the main game that are interesting. But big reveals of who is
actually the bad guy and what this was all for don’t come until you reach Door
9 (the exit of the Nonary Game). Again, I won’t spoil things for you here, but
let’s just say EVERYONE is easily a suspect for the identity of Zero, but the
answer is never as straight-forward as you think. In short, it’s a good mystery
that definitely had me interested the minute I knew I had a bombed lodged in my
stomach.
Overall, this isn’t a bad game in anyway, but it’s certainly
bogged down by a few issues I can totally understand if people don’t enjoy. I
was annoyed with how slow the dialogue was and how long explanations to
seemingly unrelated topics were and settings to mitigate this should have been
available. Likewise, I have nothing against multiple-endings, in theory. But if
there’s a “true” ending among them, then the path to get to it shouldn’t be
hidden behind a single different ending. You should either have to play
everything first or it should just be accessible from the get go.
If you enjoy puzzle games and want something with a strange,
albeit interesting, narrative, you can’t do wrong by giving 999 a try. If you can find a used copy
somewhere, I would suggest giving it a look as the price now isn’t too
outrageous and you can probably finish it pretty quick (barring the time it
takes to actually get through all the dialogue).
Hope you enjoyed our review. If you liked it and want to see
more similar content, please be sure to like, share, and subscribe. Tune in
again soon because I promise that Bayonetta
2 review I’ve been putting on hold is coming shortly. At the time of writing,
I’m already done with the game and the review should be here before too long.
See ya next time.
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