999 review: a great game with some very obvious holes

A few months ago I reviewed the iOS reboot of popular Famicon game Banshee’s Last Cry by Spike Chunsoft and Aksys. Today I played 999: 9 hours, 9 persons, 9 doors (999), a reboot of a popular DS game by Spike Chunsoft and Aksys for iOS. Deja vu or what? There’s always a danger in releasing two games so close together that are in many ways very similar. Both of them are plot-driven and player interaction is limited to only a handful of choices. They both take place in an enclosed, claustrophobic environment and have loads of grisly murders.

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But to 999’s credit I can say the similarities never bothered me, and in fact only occurred to me after completing the game a second time. 999 is definitely its own game. It’s unique, intriguing and creepy as hell. It’s also pretty damn confusing and deeply flawed.

999 begins with a group of 9 people waking up on an abandoned cruise liner. They were kidnapped by a mysterious gas-masked fiend named Zero who has big plans for them. They have bombs inside their bodies so must play the mysterious “nonary game” otherwise go down with the sinking ship. Or blow up.

Who is Zero? Why were these people people chosen? What the hell is going on? Honestly I have no idea. After two full playthroughs I have several important pieces of the puzzle but nothing seems to link together. Betrayals don’t make sense. Hints of backstories haven’t been fulfilled and I still have no idea why the main character or his one-time crush are there. I’m sure it’s not random but I have no idea.

999 has one of the most user-friendly features ever. Once you have played through a scene it unlocks in a “flowchart” menu, meaning that you can go back to it whenever you want.

What’s even better is that the flowchart shows all the possible option branches. If you have three doors to choose from, the flow chart shows these choices to you, it also shows you which choices you have made. This is awesome!

I have frequently wanted to sit down and play Banshee’s Last Cry again but have been put off. Re-reading umpteen pages of dialogue I have already seen only to make the same choices by mistake is just too intimidating. 999’s flowchart system eliminates that worry and allows me to get into the story and play around to my heart’s content.

The main difference between 999 and Banshee’s Last Cry is that 999 is an anime at its heart. I loved Banshee’s Last Cry, but page after page of text did get wearisome and it also made for some dull screenshots. 999 explodes off the iPad screen; it is bright and beautiful. Every new screen was interesting, every character close-up was exciting, which is why it sucks that there were so few of them. 999 re-uses a lot of the same images again and again.

What’s more, often when there’s a fight or action, the game writes about it instead of showing it. 999 is awesome but it should have played to its visual strengths more.

Now as I wrote last week, one of the things I knew about this game was that it had some content stripped out. Originally it had been a puzzle game, whereas now it is a visual novel. I wrote then that it didn’t bother me, but I’m going to have to eat my words. It’s very obvious throughout 999 that something is missing.

I think what threw me the most was the fact that the game kept talking about puzzles I neither saw nor completed. It would flash up: “the room is full of puzzles which they solved.” Gee, thanks! If you are going to cut out a feature, don’t keep telling us about it.

The removal of puzzles also threw the pacing off because where there was meant to be a complicated puzzle, there was just text. This definitely had an impact on my enjoyment; not a massive one, but a noticeable one.

I guess the thing I don’t understand is why. Why would they not include touch-based puzzles on a platform like iOS? Surely, most of the puzzles they had in the original could have transferred somehow to iOS; after all, the finger is mightier than the stylus!

Go and get this game. For the very reasonable price of $4.99 you get a massive story, filled with mystery, romance and some very gross murders. It isn’t perfect, but hey, what more do you want for $5?

Banshee's last cry is one of the best horror games I have played in a long time, but how does a text based game hold up with the competition?

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