Genre: VN.
Otomate's latest visual novel! I didn't get started on it right away because
I was busy with FF16 but I still wanted to give this game a shot since it seemed interesting
and they brought back some golden-era seiyuu's I hadn't heard in a while. Oh boy! they
got me nostalgic for Kakki, KENN, Nobuhiko and Shinnosuke Tachibana alright!
I am not too familiar with Azakami or Shun'ichi though but it is always good
to see otomate try to use less popular seiyuus. Other than that I went in very blind
I didn't even know it was gonna be an occult mystery with suspense!
Game/story is presented as an occult mystery about people being spirited away...
The heroine Misa ends up hearing some scary stories/rumors and then she had a strange encounter
in the school hallway, she was also worried over her education when an accident happens...
Due to that Misa finds out crossed over to the spirit realm, most of the love interests
are spirits and such. I don't want to say too much so i'll stop her since its really better
if you don't know too much and can find it out on your own.
Pro's
- Story/character driven, good amount of suspense.
- Art, cg's are very well done.
- Music fits the mood and theme of the game.
- Short but it doesn't feel longer than it needs to be.
- Great heroine, she takes initiative.
Con's
- 1 route has no epilogue cg's.💀
- High amount of bad ends.
The game can have a little bit of suspense too... but at times it can also be relaxing.
There was enough time to get to know the characters during the common route parts but who
you meet there depends on an early game choice, this was good since it kept each playthrough fresh.
Also it is best going into this game blind as knowing too much could ruin the suspense.
First thing I notice is that there are 8(9 if you count the final) routes, well this can
go both ways but I hoped this wouldn't be too long of a VN and it wasn't
the pacing was okay, it moved at a good pace and there was hardly a dull moment!
so I was happy it respects your time, maybe the love process was a little fast
and most characters are nice and easy to like. Of course there are exceptions
and certain characters could not be your cup of tea atleast that was me with Minami.
On the other hand my favorite was Koyou followed by Koharu, Sena and Yukimaro.
Due to characters being paired up and share a common route it makes the most sense
to do the other characters route/end right after. Also even if they shared a common route
they did infact have a individual route and it didn't feel like one character took up more time.
I was relieved at this since I was worried of there being too much shared plot.
The heroine Misa was great and good at taking some initiatives, I didn't find her annoying
and considering what she goes through... she handled it pretty well.
This game does have bad endings so if you want to avoid those or not in the mood
a guide is recommended. I do think the bad ends were still worth doing even if
they had no CG, as sometimes they gave little details or for better or worse
showed another side of a character.
System was your standard stuff but in one route they had you input your characters
name and you could do it manually which threw the entire jpn dictionary at you. xD
Thankfully you could autofill Misa's name which begs the question... why even bother?
The bad end gotten if you fill it in wrong can be gotten through another choice too...
this was a really dumb design choice that makes 0 sense.
Art, looked really nice and before I played I was more positive about it
than I initially was about tsuitsui, so IDK if that says something other than its good.
The CG's were all well done, even if the amount was low its 7/8 there are variations
so i'm on the side of i'd rather most be of quality than half of them be looking off.
9rip also has 8 routes and one finale which is more than the usual 6 or 7 so I think
that says a lot and there's nothing wrong with it. Cg's are nice but it shouldn't be
the whole reason to buy a game, then you're better of buying an artbook!
Music was fine, I had no complaints and it fit the mood. ED themes change
depending which pair of love interests you go after which was nice.
I think I can recommend 9rip if you don't want a visual novel that is on the long side
but still want something with an engaging plot, don't mind it being an occult mystery
that could test your nerves a little (its nothing too scary) and one or more characters interest you.
This was a very good life/death character drama type of otome game
the only real down side I can think of is the number of routes since by the time
I reached the final route I was kind of burned, thankfully it wasn't as long
as a certain character from Tsuitsui but it was still a nice finish even if it was short.
9/10
I can't ironically give this any less than a 9 because of a bunch of facts
and how refreshing each set of routes was, it balanced everything out nicely.
My play order:
Koyou > Sena > Kureha > Hibiki> Koharu > Yukimaro > Minami > Seiya >???.
Recommended play order:
It was hard to come up with a recommended order I think this works nicely:
[Kureha > Hibiki] > [Koyou > Sena] > [Minami > Seiya] > [Koharu > Yukimaro] >???.
You could switch some pairs up due to preference but things to note is that
Koharu/Yukimaro is a bit of a healing route and had more fluff compared to others... it can
either be done after Kureha/Hibiki or after Minami/Seiya. Finally Kojou/Sena may be best
done before Minami/Seiya... it just works better in terms of story elements
same goes for making sure Koharu is done after Hibiki. Of course you could
change something due to preference, like even my own play order works out.
There's not much choice but to do ??? last as his only unlocks after doing all
anyway I hope this information was helpful in deciding a route order.
Character rambles and my fav cg's after the jump! the spoiler free zone ends here.
I should add that 9RIP is one of those visual novels that is best going in blind
as route summaries/thoughts etc could reveal too much.
So if you want to go in blind stop reading here cuz there will be spoilers!
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