Feb 052024
Its been over two years since we discussed 9-nine-, the thriller romance visual novel about a group of teenagers who awaken to special powers.
In the time since then, a fifth episode was released that contains after stories for the main game’s routes, which makes it a perfect choice for our romance celebration.
9-nine: New Episode begins by wrapping up the one branch that was left unresolved in the original, with a satisfactory conclusion, and then an after story is unlocked for each heroine.
Don’t expect these to be fandisc-length stories or have the same high stakes as the full game; rather, they are short epilogues that have a little plot resolution but mainly focus on telling a cute story between the protagonist and that route’s heroine.
They’re sweet, funny, and a pleasant way to follow up 9-nine- if you want to see the characters in a more peaceful situation.
While each after story is quite short and the whole thing only lasts a few hours, I was pleasantly surprised that they don’t all follow the same formula. Although they have the same starting structure (immediate aftermath of the route, followed by a short timeskip), they develop differently from there.
To be honest, you could get by just fine reading the original visual novel without ever seeing these epilogues, but if you enjoyed 9-nine- and want more of the romance side of things, 9-nine-: New Episode is enjoyable enough.
Reminds me of how Rune Factory Special 3 & 4 has “Newlywed Mode” which lets you do a side story with the person you married as a little epilogue/extra story outside of your main game. It doesn’t affect your main save, and you get the added bonus of all the best crops/items/equipment unlocked to play around with!
Oh, interesting! Yes, that does sound similar to the after stories visual novels often have.
(Reminding me of my abandoned Rune Factory 4 playthrough, I see…)
Wait whoa that’s actually cool as heck. That makes me appreciate rune factory even more now.
I was very confused and thought, first glance, this was related to 999.
That’s all i’ll say on that
Now I just need to play a game called simply 9.
(To make things more confusing, though, I believe this title is said as just “9.”)
I have so far not really gotten into the long-form visual novel games that have extra fan-discs at the end. They all just seem like… a lot hahaha. But glad to hear this one was worthy, and romantic!
9-nine- isn’t especially long, actually. Even taking all episodes into account, it’s probably still shorter than something like Steins;Gate.
And just to be clear, fandisc is a separate game (like a certain Steins;Gate follow-up that I’ll hopefully be discussing this month as well), not the same as the after stories unlocked at the end of a visual novel.