9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors

Recently I've been totally obsessed with a Nintendo DS game:
9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors.

I was in Nintendo World sometime last week and while looking at the shelves this game caught my eye. The description was interesting and another thing I noticed it was rated M. The only other game for the DS that I've seen rated M was Theresa and that game scared the living day lights out of me!!

So I got the game and have found myself spending my entire day playing it.
It's really addicting!!!


So the story is you play as "poor college student" Junpe! One night while he is coming home he is mysteriously attacked by a man in a gas mask and wakes up in a locked room of a ship. The only way out of this room is through a steel door with a big red 5 painted on the door. And to make matters even worse the only window in the room has burst open quickly filling the room with water!

Oh no!

In order to open the steel door you must first obtain a card key but, in order to obtain said key you must first solve some puzzles to get them.




As you progress through the game you learn that on the ship with you are 8 other passengers who have all just been through the same ordeal as yourself. A voice soon comes over the ship's loud speaker and identifies itself as "Zero".



In order to escape from the cruise ship you are told to find door number 9 and go through it. Sounds easy enough, right? However in order to get through numbered doors you first need to verify it on a bracelet that is locked onto your arm. Each character has their own bracelet (numbered 1-9) that they must use to get through each door. The sum of the numbers added together must equal that of the door. Everyone who verified their bracelets must go into the door. No less than 3 people but no more than 4 may enter a door. So if one wanted to get through door 3 for example you could use bracelets 4+6+2= 12 = 1+2= 3. Any number 10 and over you add both of the numbers together. So 10 = 1+0 = 1. You must work together with these other characters to progress through the game.


You find that door Junpei!




The game is a Visual Novel type game with some Puzzles. It's extremely text heavy and at some points have even found myself becoming aggravated with the amount of dialogue exchanged between the characters. The puzzles them self are pretty much straight forward although, at times can become quite difficult. Everything you find in a room that you are able to collect has a purpose, even if it doesn't make much sense. Why else would it be there?



There are up to 6 endings you are able to unlock in this game! I am currently replaying for my 5th time and have unlocked 4 out of the 6 possible endings. Hopefully this time around I should unlock the True ending. After beating the game you have the choice of skipping through any scene you have already seen before, however you must still solve all the puzzles over again which does get quite annoying at times!


From left to Right: Lotus (8), Seven (7), Santa (3), June (6), Junpei (5), Ace (1), Snake (2), Clover (4) and The 9th Man as (9).
All the characters are different and have really interesting personalities!

I absolutely despise the music in this game. It makes me cringe. I feel extremely uncomfortable listening to it, especially at night. I found myself afraid to go into the kitchen and bathroom area at work alone now. orz

The descriptions of the horror scenes in the game are also quite disgusting. The way the corpses are describe in such detail, down to comparing the smell of a mixture of feces and burnt flesh makes me want to vomit! So disgusting! I feel like ants are crawling under my skin!! The combination of the music and description are just terrible, but I assume this is what the makers were aiming to do.


Overall game play is extremely smooth and the animation is pretty simple. Just icons of said characters moving above their typed text. I slightly wished that the game could have had voice actors but it's just as fine without it. I really enjoyed it a lot and hopefully HOPEFULLY this time around I'll get the True ending and finally beat this game!! But! Until then I will cower in terror of dark bathrooms and empty kitchens in the middle of the night.




If you're into Psychological Visual Novels and Puzzle games with a slight scary twist you should totally play it!!!