I just saw it pop up on amazon. It looks like kind of cool, mostly about the story with a bit of puzzle solving from what I understand. Has anyone played it? I wouldn't mind hearing some thoughts about it aside from Amazon reviews.

It's written by Ever17 people; apparently, this means something.

If your looking for something like Prof layton but with waaaaaay more story and less puzzle it's great.
The story is actually pretty fantastic.

My friend was ranting and raving about it, so he let me play his copy, and I was enjoying it until...All I will say is that the game is extremely unclear about how your actions effect the ending you get. I game over-ed for no reason, and I would have had to restart the game to try to get a better ending. It really angered me, and I refused to play it again.

So just expect that if you play it, you might think you're doing everything right, but make some mistake that gives you a bad ending that is (I assume) a ways off from the actual end of the game.

It's a cult classic (I guess), and it has a really neat narrative. The problem is that it appears to have been written by a second year Creative Writing major. I had to stop playing it after 20 minutes because the writing was SO BAD.

one of the best games i have played on the DS , play it . it has multiple endings and i found the story to very top notch

You have to make it past a few annoying hurdles to get the best ending, but HOLY SHIT, MAN. It is a thing that needs to be experienced.

It's a fairly enthralling visual novel, just don't expect much gameplay. It's basically 85% cutscenes with some minor choices and 15% puzzles. I really hope the sequel fleshes out the gameplay and adds chapter skip for the fucking forced replay shit.(Fast forward isn't good enough, I need to jump through everything, including the puzzles I've beaten multiple times already.)

@MooseyMcMan: the game has suble hint about which path is correct, once you beat it you fin the reason .

It's worth playing for the story alone. 
 
It might not look like it but it's actually a really scary game at times.

The game is absolutely fantastic, don't pass it up.

@SlightConfuse said:

@MooseyMcMan: the game has suble hint about which path is correct, once you beat it you fin the reason .

It'd be nice if they didn't include bad endings in the first place. I saw nothing in the game that indicated that I was going to get that bad ending, and it killed all interest I had in playing a game I was only somewhat enjoying to begin with.

Ever17 is better, but this isn't bad.

@MooseyMcMan:

You have to get a certain bad ending before you're allowed to get the best one.(In fact attempting the 'correct' path will end in a cliffhanger, if you didn't get that certain bad ending already)

I was just informed of this game from a friend. I'm glad to hear that this game is good since I can't seem to locate a copy anywhere near my house,

@Dallas_Raines said:

@MooseyMcMan:

You have to get a certain bad ending before you're allowed to get the best one.(In fact attempting the 'correct' path will end in a cliffhanger, if you didn't get that certain bad ending already)

THAT'S BAD GAME DESIGN! It made me hate a game that I thought was all right. Why would they do that?

@MooseyMcMan said:

My friend was ranting and raving about it, so he let me play his copy, and I was enjoying it until...All I will say is that the game is extremely unclear about how your actions effect the ending you get. I game over-ed for no reason, and I would have had to restart the game to try to get a better ending. It really angered me, and I refused to play it again.

So just expect that if you play it, you might think you're doing everything right, but make some mistake that gives you a bad ending that is (I assume) a ways off from the actual end of the game.

I guess it's a perception thing. I never really saw it as a game over situation. "It really is more of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel with a few puzzles thrown in than an actual game. You're not expected to get the best ending the first time (in fact, it's impossible.) Some might call that bad design, and it's hard to argue with that, but... it's hard not to spoil anything, but I'll just say that the best ending makes the entire gamebetter.

I went in blind and got the ending I got (didn't work out well for my guy), then used a spoiler-free guide to get to the best ending. I recommend it to anyone who doesn't feel like stumbling through it.

@MooseyMcMan:

To artificially extend the length.

@SpunkyHePanda said:

I guess it's a perception thing. I never really saw it as a game over situation. "It really is more of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel with a few puzzles thrown in than an actual game. You're not expected to get the best ending the first time (in fact, it's impossible.) Some might call that bad design, and it's hard to argue with that, but... it's hard not to spoil anything, but I'll just say that the best ending makes the entire gamebetter.

I went in blind and got the ending I got (didn't work out well for my guy), then used a spoiler-free guide to get to the best ending. I recommend it to anyone who doesn't feel like stumbling through it.

I went and read what the ending is online, and that only reinforced my decision to stop playing. It seemed really dumb to me.

@Dallas_Raines said:

To artificially extend the length.

I know.

@Dallas_Raines said:

@MooseyMcMan:

You have to get a certain bad ending before you're allowed to get the best one.(In fact attempting the 'correct' path will end in a cliffhanger, if you didn't get that certain bad ending already)

THAT'S BAD GAME DESIGN! It made me hate a game that I thought was all right. Why would they do that?

@FancySoapsMan: I think designing a game to intentionally block you from beating it the first time and forcing you to replay it is bad design. Having bad endings is one thing, but forcing you to go through it is dumb.

@MooseyMcMan said:

@SpunkyHePanda said:

I guess it's a perception thing. I never really saw it as a game over situation. "It really is more of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel with a few puzzles thrown in than an actual game. You're not expected to get the best ending the first time (in fact, it's impossible.) Some might call that bad design, and it's hard to argue with that, but... it's hard not to spoil anything, but I'll just say that the best ending makes the entire gamebetter.

I went in blind and got the ending I got (didn't work out well for my guy), then used a spoiler-free guide to get to the best ending. I recommend it to anyone who doesn't feel like stumbling through it.

I went and read what the ending is online, and that only reinforced my decision to stop playing. It seemed really dumb to me.

That's too bad. I was afraid someone would do that. A summary on Wikipedia is not gonna do it justice. It's like trying to sum up Lost or Inception. They're all gonna sound super dumb.

@SpunkyHePanda said:

@MooseyMcMan said:

@SpunkyHePanda said:

I guess it's a perception thing. I never really saw it as a game over situation. "It really is more of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel with a few puzzles thrown in than an actual game. You're not expected to get the best ending the first time (in fact, it's impossible.) Some might call that bad design, and it's hard to argue with that, but... it's hard not to spoil anything, but I'll just say that the best ending makes the entire gamebetter.

I went in blind and got the ending I got (didn't work out well for my guy), then used a spoiler-free guide to get to the best ending. I recommend it to anyone who doesn't feel like stumbling through it.

I went and read what the ending is online, and that only reinforced my decision to stop playing. It seemed really dumb to me.

That's too bad. I was afraid someone would do that. A summary on Wikipedia is not gonna do it justice. It's like trying to sum up Lost or Inception. They're all gonna sound super dumb.

To be fair, I also thought a lot of Inception was...Okay, I won't say dumb, because I still liked it overall, but some of it was kinda...Okay, dumb. Definitely my least favorite of the Nolan films (which is to say it's merely a very good film to me).

@MooseyMcMan said:

@SpunkyHePanda said:

@MooseyMcMan said:

@SpunkyHePanda said:

I guess it's a perception thing. I never really saw it as a game over situation. "It really is more of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel with a few puzzles thrown in than an actual game. You're not expected to get the best ending the first time (in fact, it's impossible.) Some might call that bad design, and it's hard to argue with that, but... it's hard not to spoil anything, but I'll just say that the best ending makes the entire gamebetter.

I went in blind and got the ending I got (didn't work out well for my guy), then used a spoiler-free guide to get to the best ending. I recommend it to anyone who doesn't feel like stumbling through it.

I went and read what the ending is online, and that only reinforced my decision to stop playing. It seemed really dumb to me.

That's too bad. I was afraid someone would do that. A summary on Wikipedia is not gonna do it justice. It's like trying to sum up Lost or Inception. They're all gonna sound super dumb.

To be fair, I also thought a lot of Inception was...Okay, I won't say dumb, because I still liked it overall, but some of it was kinda...Okay, dumb. Definitely my least favorite of the Nolan films (which is to say it's merely a very good film to me).

I mean... Memento.

@SpunkyHePanda: Oh. I liked Memento.

@MooseyMcMan said:

@FancySoapsMan: I think designing a game to intentionally block you from beating it the first time and forcing you to replay it is bad design. Having bad endings is one thing, but forcing you to go through it is dumb.

it skips all text that you've already seen on subsequent playthroughs though, so it's not nearly as long.

on topic: it was pretty good, the story was pretty cool, but the translation seemed really... offputting. maybe the multiple memes or somethin.

I really liked it. The problem with these games though is they severely underestimate the intelligence of the reader and feel the need to explain everything in 20 min that could have been left up to subtlety for the reader to grasp. Once that 20 min is done, the characters have to talk about it too, so you just get really beat down.

I played until the first puzzle, then i stopped, because i couldent solve the puzzle. I just havent looked up a faq for it.

No, but I really want to. I've heard good things.

It's one of my favourite DS adventure games, for sure. I found the story to be very interesting, the puzzles were cool, and it was creepy and atmospheric. I will say that it has two major issues: the narrative prose is pretty flowery and it is a visual novel that requires multiple play-throughs to get the true ending so there are puzzles you will have to repeat at times (but you can fast forward through dialogue and narration you've already seen before). All in all, though, the experience is pretty fantastic. I guess it was fairly successful as well, because Aksys is releasing its sequel here as well.

@Video_Game_King said:

It's written by Ever17 people; apparently, this means something.

I already offered to pass my copy around since it's hard for me to prove that when the thing is no longer in print (which was almost a problem for 999, which only just recently got a second printing).

Yeah, I'm playing 999 right now. Not really far enough in to say too much, but it's basically adventure game puzzles with long bits of dialog and character interaction. Its attachment to Ever17 is pretty much the only reason I'm tolerating the puzzle bits. I typically stay away from adventure games.

@Shun_Akiyama said:

If your looking for something like Prof layton but with waaaaaay more story and less puzzle it's great. The story is actually pretty fantastic.

#PhrasesToGetMeToBuyAGame

This.

I just bought a copy off Amazon, it's cool how they've just gone and printed another run with new box art. New copies of the original run are going for like $50 on eBay, and they'd probably be going for more if they didn't print more.

I came to this game's forum because I was hoping hearing the GB squad's sudden interest in the series would make some people more aware of its existence. I recently completed 999 (I own every major game released since August and dropped them all after two hours of 999) and I'm about halfway through Virtue's Last Reward.

It was forced down my throat by a friend so I finally got a hold of a DS and the game. It absolutely blew my mind. It ranks very high with the best stories I've ever experienced. After much internal debate on how to do this, I described it to a friend as "creating a 5th wall and then breaking it." Hopefully anyone who has seen all the endings understands that comment.

Regarding the design choice to force you into seeing the bad endings and things like that: I HATE games with multiple endings. I think it's a cop out and a waste of time. Once I'd reached two endings in 999, I almost put it down because I thought that was such a dumb idea. Having seen them all, I will say this: just keep playing. If you want to know why (minor spoiler that will likely make you want to play the game) ...

The "true" ending explains and justifies both why you had to go through all the other endings AND why this is a DS game. Trust me. It matters.

Also, I apparently don't know how to use the spoiler block.

I put it on my Christmas list. I'm too on the fence about it to buy it, but I would love to check it out.