Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors Review
In this game for the DS you're going to play the part of Junpei a youngster who gets attacked and finds himself trapped on a boat along with eight other people. Each of these people have a story to tell, and you'll get to hear all about it through the game. Each character will have a bracelet attached to them with a corresponding number. You're going to need to use the numbers in combinations of 3 or 5 to unlock doors within the game. You'll also only have nine game hours (not actual playing time) to get through the game and save yourself.
Graphically this game has the flavor of a Japanese game. You can tell the anime influence in the character designs. I do have to say that I enjoyed how every character had a unique wardrobe and an overall different structure to them. The areas that you're going to get to explore definitely have a Titanic feel to them, and once you play the game you'll see exactly how close that feeling is.
The sounds of the game aren't too complex but they come enough that it reminds you there is sound in the game.
With the game basically being a puzzle adventure game the controls can be as simple as using the stylus, or you can utilize the other controls to get certain things done, but you're still going to need to use the stylus.
I have to say that I was excited to play this game, I'm a big puzzle fan, and with the back of the box promising me a large variety of puzzles I couldn't wait to dig in. I quickly found that this was going to be a game that requires a boat load of time. It wasn't because of the amount of puzzles, but of the pacing of the game. The pace is snail like. If this could be found in a novel format, you might get more enjoyment out of it. I'm not saying that it is a bad game, but you're going to be spending the vast majority of the time dealing with dialog, history lessons, and even more reading. One of the big things about this game is that there's multiple endings depending on your decisions in the game. My issue is that I just can't get over the amount of reading you have to get done between actually getting to play the game. If it were cut scenes I think I could give the game more slack as I could passively let the story unfold, but having to tap on the screen or press a button constantly to advance the text on the screen becomes too much of an not so enjoyable chore.
If you're looking for a good puzzle game with plenty of dialog to all you to feel the pain and anguish of the characters as well as their body language, then this is the game for you, but if you're looking for a puzzle game with a good variety of puzzles that you can pick up and put down and feel like you advanced the game, this is not the game for you. This game gets a 5.9 out of 10.
