極限脱出 9時間9人9の扉 (Zero Escape: 999) 🗝 Week 7 (Visual Novel Book Club)

Week 7: Starting May 12th

極限脱出 9時間9人9の扉 :old_key: Home Thread!

This is being read as part of the Visual Novel Book Club.

Previous Part: Week 6
Next Part: Week 8 (starting May 19th)

Reading

This week we’re reading four scenes starting from the second to last square of the middle route of the last main branch of the flowchart; see week 6’s main post for screenshots of the starting points.

Note: it’s not always obvious when a section ends, so try to keep an eye on the flowchart when you think you’re getting close to the end. Below is a screenshot of how your flowchart should look and where the section ends. Screenshots are under a double spoiler so you can unblur one at a time (minimizing spoilers).

Screenshots (potential spoilers)

Current flowchart:

Stop here:

The end of this week’s assignment is an ending so you’ll circle back around to the beginning of the game after some information screens and saving.

General Advice

In the remastered version, novel sections have two reading modes: novel and adventure. The mode you are currently in is displayed in the top right; click on it to swap between the two. Novel mode includes both dialogue and narrative text, while adventure mode includes only dialogue. Which you read is up to you; novel mode generally gives you more information by nature of writing out descriptions of events, while adventure mode is less reading by nature of being only dialogue.

Note: the game will occasionally force you into the other mode. When this happens, you can simply click the button in the top right to swap back; however, if it forces you into novel mode, there may be a reason it does so, so proceed with caution!

Choices

The choices are under a double spoiler so you can unblur one choice at the time (minimizing spoilers). For those of you who would like to go through the game blind as to which choices matter, I am including baseline responses for all choices. However, for those of you who would like to make your own choices where it doesn’t affect story progression, whether a choice is critical or not is marked under a second spoiler below each choice.

Note: the appearance of some choices is triggered by previous choices, so if you pick different responses on ones that aren’t required for story progression don’t be concerned if you don’t see some of the choices listed below.

Choices

No choices this week!

Guides if you want to check choices yourself (beware of spoilers!)

From what I can tell it seems like major spoilers and puzzle answers are hidden, but proceed with caution!

Japanese guide
English guide

Puzzles

In case anyone has trouble with the puzzles or that just isn’t their thing, I’m including the relevant puzzle instructions. Of course you’re welcome to ask for help in the thread as well! If you are trying to figure it out I’d recommend asking for hints here first, as the guides are somewhat hit or miss with how much they reveal and how quickly.

Puzzle guides (beware of spoilers!)

No puzzles this week!

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter/part and any content in future chapters/parts.
  • When asking for help, do your best to provide context. Pasted text, screenshots, descriptions, etc. Unlike book clubs we can’t flip to relevant pages, so we may need a little help identifying exactly what is being discussed.
  • Feel totally at ease to ask questions or give your thoughts, any time! Clubs live and die by participation, and asking whatever question you have, no matter how silly it may seem, helps others who are reading it and even the answerer themselves.
  • Have fun, and do your best to interpret anything said with as much good faith as possible :slightly_smiling_face:

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.
(Please feel free to update your status whenever you like!)

  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part
  • I’m still reading but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I am not reading this VN

0 voters

3 Likes

This week’s definitely on the shorter side as of now; if you’re looking for an indication of length, it took me about 50 minutes. What to do about that is under discussion in the home thread, but for now at least we’re sticking with the shorter length. As always, let me know if you have any thoughts!

5 Likes

Well, that was abrupt. Having never played a visual novel before, I found it hilarious that the words “Bad End” were actually displayed on screen, as if there might be any doubt about that. :joy: I’m not sure to what purpose people are being killed by this point. Why would someone need their watches? Surely if it’s to go through door 9 they could easily have done it with those people still alive and cooperating? Also, how do you even use a watch on a door without a hand? Anyway, we’ll soon find out more I suppose.

7 Likes

Finished it yesterday morning, clocking at about 70 to 80 minutes.

We have officially reached our first ending! Any theories? :grinning:

On a side note, it’s nice that a lot of vocab is repeated. I’ve started to recognize several words on sight that I didn’t know before…as well as approximately 100 billion different ways to describe people entering or leaving a room. :sweat_smile:

7 Likes

You know, I was just thinking about how common little sprinklings of English are in every Japanese game. I remember reading it feels weird to Japanese people if there is no English at all. Very interesting. I’m not sure BAD END always happens, but I do think VN bad ends tend to be a little abrupt. I often don’t bother with them unless it’s specifically required.

That song that played briefly while Junpei was thinking about what to call Murasaki was really nice! I don’t really remember it to be honest.

Again, having played this before, my lips are pretty sealed. Rereading in Japanese is fun though, and I was happy with how more or less effortless the reading was for me until the dead body led to some more lookups. Seeing great progress, and happy to hear it’s the same for @Voi :grin:

7 Likes

I realized I hadn’t done one of these in a bit with this week’s shorter section, but just to get a sense of things!

How’s the section going?
  • I have a lot left
  • I’m not quite done, but I’ll probably be finished by the next assignment
  • I finished using most of the time allotted to me
  • I finished and would feel comfortable going a little faster
  • I finished and would feel comfortable going significantly faster

0 voters

Next week is a bit more normal so we’ll get a better sense of actual pacing then, but hopefully having a shorter week helped out!

1 Like