{"id":348413,"date":"2024-10-01T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T14:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/operationrainfall.com\/?p=348413"},"modified":"2024-09-27T21:20:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-28T04:20:38","slug":"review-9-rip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/operationrainfall.com\/2024\/10\/01\/review-9-rip\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: 9 R.I.P."},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"9<\/a><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Title<\/th>\n9 R.I.P.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Developer<\/th>\nIdea Factory \/ Design Factory<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Publisher<\/th>\nIdea Factory International<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Release Date<\/th>\nOctober 15th, 2024<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Genre<\/th>\nOtome, Visual Novel<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Platform<\/th>\nNintendo Switch<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Age Rating<\/th>\nTeen<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Official Website<\/a><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

A while back I had been in the mood for some otome and when 9 R.I.P.<\/em> was announced for localization, I decided I would review this one. I didn\u2019t know much about it going into things and typically I am extremely picky about the otome I\u2019ll play. But, it sounded like it was a longer game than most and had a lot going on, so I was intrigued enough to take on this review. Was 9 R.I.P.<\/em> worth the time investment? Or was it simply a failed horror show not worth the price of admission? Keep reading and find out my thoughts.<\/p>\n

\"9<\/a><\/p>\n

The main character of this one, Misa Isshiki, is at a loss for what to do with her future. She recently received this career path survey at school and is expected to fill it out with her plans. Misa lives at home with her mom and her older sister, as her dad passed away when she was little. Misa\u2019s sister, Tsubasa, followed her own path in life. Now their mother expects Misa to follow the route she wants for her. Ideally, she wants Misa to become a doctor like her father and constantly pressures her to do as she wishes. Being lost in life and unsure what to do with this survey, not to mention constantly pressured by her mother, Misa ends up spirited away to one of a few different dimensions.<\/p>\n

\"9<\/a><\/p>\n

In one route, Misa ends up trapped in her school in a sort of limbo realm full of the dead. In another route, Misa finds herself in Hell. In a third potential spiriting away, she ends up a ghost herself. And finally, the last potential outcome is being haunted by spirits in the regular old mortal world, still a human herself. Regardless of the outcome, Misa Isshiki is expected to go through the challenges awaiting her and ultimately figure out what to do with her life. Each of these four routes contains two different potential romance options for you to get to know and you\u2019ll make various choices along the way. In these initial common routes containing two love interests each, make the right choices and whoever you\u2019re closer to by the end is the one Misa will end up falling for. After this, you\u2019ll be lead to their specific route where you can get even closer with them, or find yourself doomed should you take a wrong turn.<\/p>\n

\"Affection<\/a><\/p>\n

9 R.I.P.<\/em> has a lot of overlap between routes. I found myself tired out pretty early on. You\u2019ll often be revisiting routes and have to skip over the various common route content you already saw to get to the choices you have to do differently. Despite that, this otome was relatively straightforward. If you leave on the option to see when you\u2019ve raised a character\u2019s affection, or you constantly check the status screen as you make choices, you\u2019ll find it easy to go in a decent direction. However, I did find out that you can reach more than one good ending in a lot of the routes and trying to go back to get the best ending can prove difficult until you figure out how things work completely. Not to mention the game also has this insanity meter in some of the common routes, but I found it extremely difficult to even raise it naturally during a first playthrough. It wasn\u2019t hard to avoid a lot of the bad ends. Also, these bad ends aren\u2019t a true full ending like other otome with bad endings. They don\u2019t have their own special bad end CGs or anything like that, it\u2019s more of an abrupt fail. I got a few bad ends to see how they went, but typically I just went back through the game\u2019s log and rewound a smidge to wherever things went awry. You\u2019ll know relatively quickly when you make a bad choice, since most of the routes don\u2019t make it too hard to figure out.<\/p>\n

\"9<\/a><\/p>\n

I really enjoyed my time with 9 R.I.P.<\/em> Though, I do believe it was somewhat lacking in comparison to other Idea Factory otome. I mean, between all the events going on, most routes don\u2019t have a ton of romantic parts. It\u2019s kind of lightly dispersed between other happenings. Also, the horror wasn\u2019t anything major. Some of the love interests in their initial common routes were cheerier and lacking in scary moments. And the ones that were more horror filled still weren\u2019t anything crazy. I think my favorite of all the romanceable partners you can go after was definitely Koyo. His route was really fun honestly, mostly the beginning common route shared between both him and Sena. I had a hard time picking between them at first, but after going after both of them, Koyo was definitely my favorite.<\/p>\n

I think the atmosphere in this otome is the best thing about it. It has a really good soundtrack, especially all of the ending songs. Hibiki, one of the love interests I was least interested in, I think actually had the best music theme of all of them. Each guy has their own unique music theme which will play often. While I\u2019m on the topic of the game\u2019s music, I should discuss the different extras in 9 R.I.P.<\/em>‘s menu as you complete routes. It doesn\u2019t have a significant amount of extras, there aren\u2019t any additional stories following up on endings or anything like that. Still, like other Otomate titles, there are some special extras. The main extra content you\u2019ll unlock from finishing routes are these voice lines for each guy. They each have a menu with different voice lines, some of them featuring aspects of your time with them after the story ends. In addition to that are the standard otome extras, like how you can listen to the soundtrack, check the glossary of terms from throughout the game, or look back at images of Misa with the different characters from throughout the story. You can also of course revisit specific chapters you\u2019ve gone through to make different choices and get other endings, even starting with an already filled affection meter if you\u2019d like. And finally, you can re-watch various videos as well, mainly the end credit music bits for each love interest.<\/p>\n

\"Glitched<\/a><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t happen upon too many issues. Performance wise, 9 R.I.P.<\/em> played smoothly for the most part. There wasn\u2019t a true abundance of grammar mistakes or typos. Honestly, I now expect there to be some in all of these localized otome, they\u2019re never flawless. Nonetheless, I do think Idea Factory International is a ton better at the quality control than certain other companies that localize these games. The biggest error I found was in the videos menu. The bars with the name of whatever should be the highlighted video you\u2019re going to watch didn\u2019t match up with what was pictured in the center and what the video ultimately ended up being once selected. I\u2019ve provided a picture above of this issue. You\u2019ll see the bar I had selected says it\u2019s Sena\u2019s video but in the center it shows it\u2019s Koyo\u2019s. That specific menu was pretty messed up and was the biggest issue I ran into.<\/p>\n

\"Characters\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When I went into this, upon looking up how long the game was – seeing as it\u2019s already out in Japan – I was expecting it to be a bit longer than it actually is. But with so many different love interests and multiple endings for all of them, it still has quite a lot of content. I spent over 35 hours on this otome and completed six different routes, plus unlocked various alternate endings. I still have a couple more routes to go. In the end though, 9 R.I.P.<\/em> was a fun time. It\u2019s nowhere near the spiciest otome you can play, but the atmosphere and music is fantastic. If otome are your thing, you\u2019ll enjoy yourself. I do believe it’s worth the price of admission. 9 R.I.P.<\/em> releases on the Nintendo Switch Oct. 15, 2024.<\/p>\n

Review Score<\/th><\/tr>
Overall<\/th>www.dyerware.comwww.dyerware.comwww.dyerware.comwww.dyerware.comwww.dyerware.com<\/td><\/tr>
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