9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors – An amazing game almost no one has heard of.

If you ask someone if they had heard of or played the game “9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors”, you would would probably get a no. This is an amazing game for the DS that had almost no marketing at all, I only found it because I stumbled across it on a website. This game is mostly a puzzle visual novel, with a remarkable story, interesting characters, great music, and amazing style, it is a very enjoyable DS title, and I would love to play more games like it. Unfortunately, there are very few titles (if any) like this for the DS, making it a very unique game, and should be played by anyone with a DS. (especially those who enjoy point and click style puzzles, and/or great visual novels) This game has multiple endings, and you can hold down a button to skip all already read text when replaying it, it will automatically stop once you come to something you haven’t read before. The endings are all very interesting, and the game did exactly what I was hoping it would do when I got halfway through the game. I should also mention the game is M rated, and has some cursing and sexual jokes in it.

You begin the game as Junpei, who wakes up on the top bunk of a bunk bed, and immediately bangs his head on the ceiling. As he swears out loud from pain, he notices  that he is in a room he never remembered being in. He is confused as to how he ended up here, and what this strange “watch” device on his wrist is, then you notice a window with water on the other end, indicating you might be in a boat, just then, the window cracks a little and the room slowly starts to fill up with water. You quickly start looking around and solving puzzles in this room to unlock the door locking you in. As you do this, Junpei will recall a bit of what happened before he woke up here, and as he escapes the room, the water overwhelms the glass keeping it at bay and floods the entire lower deck. You come to a large room with stairs leading up both sides, as Junpei runs up these stairs, he runs into 8 other very interesting people, one of which he knew from his past.

This is the first maybe 20 of 30 minutes of the game, and gets better and better. You will have to do quite a bit of reading in this game, but its got a very interesting (how many times have I used that word now?) story and exciting twists. I don’t think most people would mind the reading, and the puzzles can be a bit tricky at times, but people who are good at these kinds of games should be able to get by without a guide of any sort. There are tricks and puzzles to the game that are not even necessarily in the game itself, which adds to the uniqueness and fun of the game. Hopefully you will take the time to check it out, it is a very good DS game that almost no one has heard of, and if you feel like it,  there is a demo of the game online. http://www.aksysgames.com/999/agegate