Over the weekend I bought 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors for the DS. I can’t even describe how good this game is. I had tried it out on a friend’s copy awhile back and only played the beginning (not even finishing the first puzzle) and I found it to be tedious and slow. Keep in mind the first thing I do when I start a new RPG is crank the text speed way up – the fact that you can’t do that in this game made (and makes) me very irritated.
Okay, I’m going to give VERY slight spoilers of the game that won’t ruin the story, but will ruin the premise, so if you want to go into this game knowing absolutely nothing about it (as I did), stop reading now.
So anyway, I actually started playing and got past the first part and now I can’t set it down. The premise is that 9 people (persons) are kidnapped by some person in a gas mask and put aboard an old (think Titanic) cruise-liner. The windows are boarded, the doors are locked, and the characters have 9 hours to escape from the ship before it sinks. There are, however, numbered doors – 1 through 9 – and the characters come across sets of these doors (the first set they find is 4 and 5), and must pass through them to find door 9, and when they go through door 9, they’ll escape. Sounds simple enough, right?
Except for one problem – each character has an assigned number as well. And they must pass through each door 3-5 people through each door, and the digital root of their numbers must add up to that door’s number.
Example: Person 3, 4, and 7 decide to go through a door. 3 + 4 + 7 = 14, 1 + 4 = 5, so they can only pass through door number 5.
The realization of what this means hit the characters hard when they realized that the 3-5 rule meant they would have to sacrifice 4 people along the way at least, because not everyone could pass through the last door together. When this realization hit, I nearly threw my DS (this is what I do when something happens that I find to be amazing).
So basically this is a game, a game of life and death, a creepy game where I don’t know how and I don’t know why, and I have grown to like and appreciate all the characters, and each are completely different and memorable, and 4 of them have to die.
Not to mention at more than one point, they will come across doors where the numbers don’t work out.
It’s utterly brilliant. If you enjoy visual novels, puzzle games, or even just a really good story, and if you can find a copy of this online or at your local game store, pick it up, because it’s worth it.
I love that game! Absolutely brilliant visual novel that has left me floored by its genius and its creepy but fascinating plot and characters. I haven’t had a game so impacting as that game as before until To the Moon.