{"id":19221,"date":"2018-02-26T17:47:17","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T22:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=19221"},"modified":"2018-04-02T11:47:21","modified_gmt":"2018-04-02T16:47:21","slug":"999-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2018\/02\/26\/999-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Erika’s Enthusiast Expo: 999 Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0While \u201cThe World Ends With You\u201d is absolutely my top Nintendo DS game of all time, there are other games that fall within my coveted favorites spots right below. One such example is the first entry into the Zero Escape series known as \u201c9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors\u201d or simply \u201c999.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201c999\u201d is a visual novel adventure game originally released on Dec. 10, 2009. I played the game in 2015, so my memory of the entire storyline is hazy at best, though that\u2019s good in order to avoid accidental spoilers. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The story begins with the protagonist, Junpei, waking up in the cabin of a cruise liner. On his wrist is a digital watch with the number five displayed in bright blue. The room begins to flood through the port window, and using puzzle solving skills the player has to use the surrounding area to figure out how to get out of the room before Junpei drowns.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Screen\u00a0 \u00a0Upon escaping, Junpei enters a large room with a giant staircase where he encounters eight other people that have woken up in the cabins of the ship and went through similar scenarios. Out of the entire cast, the player only learns of one other person\u2019s real name: Akane, a childhood friend of Junpei\u2019s who also has become trapped.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0After everyone gathers, a voice comes over the speaker. It\u2019s a mysterious person known only as Zero, who announces that they have placed these eight people in something called a Nonary Game. The ultimatum is simple: escape the ship within 24 hours or the bombs planted inside each participants stomach will go off. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The game is broken into two separate sections: Novel and Escape. Novel is all the text between the protagonist and the rest of the cast as well as the main character\u2019s inner dialogue. Escape is the mode when the player most solve the puzzles of the room.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Overall, the game is an absolutely gorgeous blend of several different parts. The gameplay is fun and simple, the puzzles are difficult enough to keep a player entertained, and the art is stylistic and recognizable. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Screen\u00a0 \u00a0To me, the overarching scientific feel of the game made it a little hard for me to understand, but I\u2019ve never been good in that field so that could explain why. That, however, did not hamper how emotional this game made me, in terms of giving me a small cast with varying personalities and backstories.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0In addition, there\u2019s not just one ending in total: there\u2019s at least six for the player to reach. The game has to be played through twice at least, as the \u2018Safe\u2019 ending has to be hit before access to the \u2018True\u2019 ending opens up. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The route the player goes down depends on what doors they pass through during their run. Thankfully, I found a flowchart that tells you how to get the true ending, otherwise I may not have beaten the game. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Overall, \u201c9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors\u201d is a compelling visual novel with puzzles and a story that won\u2019t let you set down the game. With interesting characters and plot twists to keep the suspense high, it\u2019s definitely not a DS game to be passed up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Erika Brandenburg<\/strong>
\nStaff Writer<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0While \u201cThe World Ends With You\u201d is absolutely my top Nintendo DS game of all time, there are other games that fall within my coveted favorites spots right below. One such example is the first entry into the Zero Escape series known as \u201c9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors\u201d or simply \u201c999.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0\u201c999\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":19222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2104,2113,2109,3],"tags":[2412,2100,2448,1866,2141,323,2285],"class_list":["post-19221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-video-games","category-opinion","category-tartan-news","tag-2412","tag-erika-brandenburg","tag-erikas-enthusiast-expo","tag-nintendo","tag-online-exclusive","tag-video-games","tag-visual-novel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Screen-Shot-2018-02-26-at-12.33.14-PM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-501","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19221"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19618,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19221\/revisions\/19618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}