The limited roster creates a highly focused and fully fleshed out cast of characters. Their path through the nine doors requires dividing into smaller groups, offering unique interactions along each path, which reveal the history and relationships behind each character. Their discussions provide fragments of mysteries and experiments integral to the game's story, as well as the occasional banter to lighten the mood. It all leads to a deep understanding of and connection to each other captive. These are people you come to love and hate, to suspect and be surprised by. They leave little to be desired, from the various visual designs and personalities to the secrets you discover about each one.
The puzzles behind each of the numbered doors are intricate, deceptive, and logical. The clues provide just enough information to put the solution into the "adjacent possible" space: The answer can be found, but you must stretch to reach it. Continuing to search the area will allow other characters to comment on the puzzle at hand, providing extra hints, but never giving you all the pieces lined up nicely. The DS's touch screen is used to complete most puzzles, offering only a single "Nintendo gimmick" throughout the game - a gimmick used to such great effect that my heart skipped a beat before my pulse raced to catch up. Many of these puzzles have the same intensity, framed by the story to make finding the solution dire.
Ultimately, 999's story is the main attraction, a grand mystery that only gives you fragments based on your decisions. Your first play through is guaranteed to leave you staring in disbelief, dying to replay the game and choose another path. This cycle repeats, never offering you full closure until you reach the "true ending". The entire experience is absolutely maddening. The lack of closure is maddening. What becomes of each character is maddening. What your character does is maddening. Everything is maddening, much in the way H.P. Lovecraft envisioned things unseen, unknowable, yet just on the edge of reality and consciousness. You will know things - know them to be undeniably true, but without proof to back up your suspicions. Perhaps another path, another puzzle, another door holds the answers. It's maddening, and I love it.
Everything about this game drives the central mystery, the powerful story I can tell you nothing about. I love the puzzles, the character depth, the entire game. I love the sights - the brilliant shots of graphic violence just off screen - horrible, unknowable things just outside of your view. I love the sounds, the driving soundtrack that pokes and prods the brain, quickening your pulse and promising that the mystery shall go unsolved. I love the text that tells of things so awful my stomach churned, yet the script still finds time for lighthearted humor between beats. I love that every puzzle is drenched in life-or-death intensity. I love the simple controls, the fast-forward feature that skips text you've seen until some new dialogue appears. I love that I lost sleep over this game - a lot of sleep - because I wanted and needed and just had to know more, because some central piece was missing. I love that it drove me mad. I love that there's something so unique to this game that I just can't tell you about. I love it all, and I'm sure you will too. Won't you join in the madness?
<3 Bryce Walton, Game Development Engineer, Zhurosoft
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