9-nine is well known in the Galgame field, but this is not only due to the quality of the game but also to its most criticized distribution method, which is known in Japanese as 分割商法.

The quality of this game is not bad, with an interesting superpower worldview setting, a self-explanatory explanation of the multiple endings, lovely characters, and great music. 9-nine is an excellent work for most visual novel fans and Galgame fans alike.

Nevertheless, the game's position determines that it is not really accessible to all players. As mentioned at the beginning, the 分割商法 - that is, splitting a complete game into episodes for sale - helps the development of the game, but is difficult for some gamers to accept, especially since each episode of the 9-nine series is not so cheap. The length of the game is also apparently too short, and to a large extent, it is more like a prologue to the 9-nine series. At the same time, the occasional disproportion of the illustration characters also makes the gameplay experience unsatisfactory.

I generally think that 9-nine has a lot of potential from this chapter alone, so if you're interested in the 9-nine series, you might want to try Episode 1 first to decide if you want to buy the rest of the series. If you are not that interested in the game, then I'm afraid you don't have to try it.

It's kind of hard to judge this as a standalone visual novel, since it's part one of an unfinished game. Rather than releasing a longer VN with character routes, the devs chose to release each route as a separate chapter; only the first two episodes have been released in Japanese (with the third set to release April 26th), and I don't know how long it'll take for them to be released in English.

The plot hasn't really captured me so far, especially since it takes a back seat to the romance in the second half and ends on a cliffhanger with nothing resolved. It seems to be working up to a time travel/alternate universe plot, which is something I really enjoy, but YMMV on whether it's worth the wait to maybe get there in the future.

The characters are pretty generic, but still entertaining (especially Sora). The romance is sweet and realistically awkward, and that extends to the free R18 patch, as well (although I'm not a fan of the unnaturally stiff-looking animations). The rare fully voiced protagonist is a nice touch. There are some volume balance issues, though, with Kousaka and Yuuki's voices being far quieter than the rest.

The price is a bit of a sticking point, as well, considering the length (about 6 hours) and that each route is a separate release. I assume there'll be four total for the four main female characters, so $80 altogether; not outlandish for the Japanese market, but way more than an English-speaking audience would expect to pay for a VN of comparable length.

I enjoyed the first episode, so for now I'll tentatively recommend it, but my opinion might change depending on how the plot develops in future chapters.

I like the story especially with its very amazing plot.
The visual novel is about 10 hours to complete.
Love the art, but I don't really like the background music
I recommend to play this Visual Novel
(this game is also available with 18+ patches)

I’m always up for a good supernatural mystery novel. I just enjoy the way that they seem to introduce a totally crazy premise and wrap it all up in the conclusion leaving me at the edge of my seat. So you can probably guess that I jumped at the chance to review the Palette developed visual novel 9-Nine-: Episode 1[noisypixel.net] as its premise is as out there as they come. However, the story ended up not keeping my interest in its promise of mystery, but rather that optimistic personality of the characters.

9-Nine- is a supernatural murder mystery episodic visual novel series. As of right now, there are five episodes planned and two of them have been released in Japan. As its name suggests, 9-Nine-: Episode 1 is the very first episode of this series. Each episode will focus on a different heroine, but they all share the same setting and dimension. However, each episode tells a stand-alone story so playing them out of order isn’t a problem. Currently, there is also a free 18+ patch available on Denpasoft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-dYQdxkvkQ

9-Nine-: Episode 1 resolves about Miyako Kujo, a popular girl that every guy dreams about getting close to her, including the main protagonist Kakeru Niimi. One day, she finds a lost hairpin and tries to return it but for some reason, she isn’t able to part with the item. All of the sudden, a statue gets discovered that looks strangely very close to a real human. Evidentally, this statue was once a real human who got turned into stone. A strange plushie named Sophie appears in front of Niimi and claims to be from another world and is searching for certain artifacts, such as Kujos hairpin. Everyone with such an artifact possesses a unique power and the artifacts choose their owner by themselves. Niimi also seems to possess an artifact, though he doesn’t know what his power could be. Kujo and Niimi are both determined to find the culprit together while bringing the artifacts back to their original world.

9-Nine-: Episode 1 was quite different than I had imagined. While it has a serious plot, this game still contains plenty of fluffy and light-hearted scenes. Kujo is a protrade as a cute hardworking girl who never fails to give up as she tries her best no matter the challenge. With that said, she is also a bit reckless and is willing to put herself into danger way too easily.

The dialogue between Niimi and his male friend Yoichi can be aggravating at times since they only talk about naughty things involving girls. This could be written off as typical behavior of teenage guys, but it seemed out of character for Niimi and didn’t fit his personality, which made the friendship as a whole not believable. Although it’s not a problem and sometimes even guys talk about girls, Yoichi never talked about anything else and Niimi never reciprocated the eagerness for inappropriate conversations. Their friendship just felt weird since they don’t even seem to have the same interest. Luckily, Yoichi doesn’t appear in too many scenes of the story.

9-Nine-: Episode 1’s specific genre was a bit different than I has assumed it would be when I first started the game. Basically, there is someone who goes around killing people and we don’t know who it is. Sadly, that’s the only mystery that happens in 9-Nine-: Episode 1. The supernatural happenings will get explained very early on in this game and the murder story was not in the foreground enough to really catch my attention.

The story scenes are serious when it’s necessary, but overall this game is very humorous. The friendship shared between the cast of characters as they joke around is believable, save for Yoichi, but this also makes the game seem like more of a Slice-Of-Life title. Throughout the game, we get a chance to see Niimi and Kujo’s everyday life as they slowly start to get closer. In this game, romance definitely is the main aspect of the story. While I really don’t mind a sweet romance story I just thought it would be more focused on the mystery aspect. The story holds the reader’s hand through most of the unexplained events and leaves nothing to really have to guess for yourself.

The system setting in 9-Nine-: Episode 1 allows the player to choose a font of their own. So if you don’t like the standard font, you’re free to change it anytime. You should pay attention to which ones are supported since you can basically choose any font, but not all of them are optimized for 9-Nine-: Episode 1 so it might look a bit odd at times. There’s also a feature called Already-Seen-Text that pops up as yellow on the text bar. This makes it impossible to miss what you already read. You can also set dual languages to show up, in case you’re trying to learn or improve your Japanese.

9-Nine-: Episode 1 features multiple endings, but you have to complete the bad end to be able to unlock the good ending. This means this game is pretty linear and even though it does offer choices during the second playthrough, your choices won’t result in a different ending of the story. You will either get the bad ending again or you will get the chance to fix your mistakes. However, during the first playthrough, there will not be any choices at all and it’s a kinetic novel until the ending is reached.

9-Nine-: Episode 1 offers an option to skip to the previous or next choice to get through the second playthrough quicker. However, there are new scenes the occur based on the player’s choice so it’s possible to miss out on the new dialog while using this feature. Given that the true ending is longer than the bad ending, the replayability of the game was quite high for me to experience. Sadly, both endings were unsatisfying due to the episodic nature of the game. Some events even go unexplained as they set up the rest of the series.

9-Nine-: Episode 1 is fully voiced, included the main character. The voices are superb and indeed high in quality. There is also a lot of stutterings and excitement that sounds natural to the dialog. Furthermore, the soundtrack is catchy and calm at times and it is pleasant to listen to while playing. However, there were a few moments when the music playing didn’t match the scene, such as, during a creepy scene when the music fits closer to a moment of action than a dark and atmospheric theme.

I had expected, 9-Nine-: Episode 1 to be more of a mystery adventure, but still found enjoyment in its slice-of-life undertones. The romance between Niimi and Kujo was believable and the CG scenes and character illustrations were undoubtedly charming and beautiful throughout the entire story.

9-Nine-: Episode 1 has enough for players to play through the game twice, but I didn’t have any interest in the supporting cast to say that I enjoyed the writing completely. I just think if you’re looking for a creepy mysterious story, maybe 9-Nine-: Episode 1 is not the game you are looking for. However, I ended up enjoying it for many other reasons, which has me eager to have all of my questions answered in the upcoming episodes.

NOTE: THIS IS MY OPINION FOR 9-NINE- SERIES AS A WHOLE (4 EPISODES TOTAL), NOT JUST EPISODE 1
Why? Because, I think, newcomers do not want to know whether Episode 1 is good or not, but newcomers want to know whether the entire 9-nine- title is worth pick up or not. Since its story is all connected.

Fortunately, the answer definitely is Yes.
9-nine- do surprisingly well cramming the element of fantasy, cute, thrilling, and dark altogether into the story. You may find Episode 1 is not so tense. But don’t worry, the intensity will step up in each episode you read, and go to max at Episode 4.

Characters: All interesting, detailed.
Dialogue/conversation: Well written in both funny moments and serious moments.
Art/Music: Great
(optional with patch) H-scene: High quality and animated (mosaic though)

When the protagonist's adventure (and reader alike) come to the end in Episode 4, honestly, 9-nine- does not leave the impression like “perfect” or “masterpiece” to me. Not that but rather I feel it is “unique” , kinda has its own charm and I'm glad that I got to know this series. It has taken me 2 years following this series since Episode 2 was just launched, and when case come to a close, somehow I feel fulfilled.

If you like cutesy story with suspense element (with juicy scene), try 9-nine-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvPcSZhN89c
Pros:
+ Voiced protagonist
+ Language options
+ Free 18+ patch
Cons:
- Inconsistent story quality
- Erratic pacing

9-nine-:Episode 1 is the first in a series of mystery-romance visual novels and unfortunately it shows. Not only is half the game used to setup the rest, but it does so with some incredibly erratic pacing and inconsistent story quality.

Pros:
Voiced protagonist. These days, it is customary for a voiced visual novel to release without a voiced protagonist. This is usually done in an attempt to garner further immersion from the player, but as someone that does not care for self-inserting, it usually comes as a disappointment. As such, 9-nine-:Episode 1's voiced protagonist was quite the welcome change of pace. The voice acting was not only pretty nice, but even offered the option to toggle it on or off depending on player preference. As such, it accommodates for both crowds and is definitely a feature worth praising.

Language options. I am definitely liking this new trend of VNs including multiple languages. Not only does 9-nine-:Episode 1 allow switching between English, Japanese, and Chinese at any time, but it also allows any of those two to be displayed simultaneously. As someone learning Japanese, this is a tremendous help, as it makes it far easier to see how lines compare across the two languages. This is the second visual novel now that I have seen with this feature and I hope to see it again in future releases.

Free 18+ patch. This VN is actually quite the departure for Sekai Project. Usually, Sekai Project VNs have the all-ages version and the 18+ patch sold separately, so I was glad to see the patch made free here for 9-nine-:Episode 1. Granted, they usually justify the paywall for the patch by lowering the price of the main game, but this poses problems for those that want the full experience and are unable to purchase the patch on its own outside of Steam. Hopefully Sekai Project keeps this up with their future releases, it makes them much more consumer-friendly.

Cons:
Inconsistent story quality. 9-nine-:Episode 1 has quite the identity crisis. On one hand, it tries to be this supernatural mystery story, but on the other it tries to be your everyday high school romance story. The result is that neither are done well, with the game constantly swapping between its mystery and romance elements. This constant switching did not feel natural and really the entire romance element felt forced and rushed. In fact, I would compare the romance progression to that of The Sims — it was that bad.

It felt like the romance element was there only to serve up some H-scenes in order to sell the game, compromising the quality of the game's mystery side. I definitely do not mind romance in a visual novel (in fact, it is what I primarily play), but when it is shoehorned in like this, it just feels cheap. Of course, all of this is only made worse by the game's runtime. It took me just under five hours to 100% the game, which is really short for a visual novel. Given that short runtime, you would think that the story would have a clear focus, but it just does not here.

Erratic pacing. Yet again I am reviewing another visual novel with poor pacing, but this time it is made much worse by the game's identity crisis. For the first two hours, the story dragged on and was incredibly slow at setting up its major plot points. In a longer visual novel, this would be fine because the pacing could be balanced out later, but when half of the runtime is spent setting up the story, it really does not provide for an engaging read. After the midway point, the pacing just completely dropped the ball, jumping all over the place and being so wildly different from the first half of the story that I was honestly caught off guard. In fact, I was so inspired by the game's pacing that I tried to draw a graph to represent it in Paint, it looked something like this. I understand that this is just episode 1 in a series of visual novels and was definitely used to setup the world for the rest, but it does not make for a good read on its own.

Overall:
While I like the idea that 9-nine-:Episode 1 was going for, it unfortunately just does not execute it properly. The majority of the game is used to setup the rest of the series, resulting in a rather boring read on its own. On top of that, the story that is told is done so erratically, with some really poor pacing and inconsistent story quality. On the technical side, the game does fare a bit better, with some nice language options and a voiced protagonist with toggle. However, the story is where the heart of a VN is and 9-nine-:Episode 1 is unfortunately dead on arrival.

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9-nine focuses on the powers of the modern world along with a slice of life as we live the daily life of student Kakeru Niimi while looking for a serial killer.

PROS:
-The design of the game is beautiful, easily one of the best I've seen
-Nice plot (Seriously you will be surprised)
-The intense parts are well done they really catch your curiosity
-Good romantic development (when they are already together)
-Pretty funny parts

CONS:
-The ending is pretty open and much of the back story isn't so well explained
-The MC is pretty common and without any further development
-They really made a lot of nice additions to not be a saturated story, but in general ended up leaving them kind of aside
-The way they developed the relationship of the protagonist couple in the beginning is very forced

Final opinion: You should play, it is a relatively short reading (I finished the VN in 12 hours) and quite fun to pass the time
Score: 7.5/10.0

Granted, Episode 1 only barely scratches the surface of what's going on in the world of 9-nine... BUT HOW CAN ANYONE NOT LOVE SAWADA NATSU'S CASTING OF KUJO MIYAKO??? WITH ALL THE ANIMATIONS???!!!

Oh, don't worry about my play time, I played this game back in 2017. Hell, the Steam version has barely been out for 1 hour, and you expect me to have read through the whole thing already?

9-nine: Episode 1 was way more enjoyable than I expected, sorry for being presumptuous again.

First, as usual I fell for breathtaking art. Can't say that visual novels with male MC and cute girls are my favorite but when chars are so adorable I can't help but find the whole experience at least relaxing. Bright colors, very detailed & precise backgrounds, stunning CGs... What a sight for sore eyes! And the novel is voiced with the option to turn off the MC's voice. It's the first time I see this feature. Not that it's what I'd ever use myself but it's still rather considerate to other players.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1726952398
Next what I paid attention was English. Being an ESL person, the quality of the language is what matters a lot for me. And oh my, first hours of reading were ecstatic: zero typos, excellent writing with so many different idioms, set expressions, proverbs, interesting vocabulary. I really savored each sentence. I don't remember any other visual novel that struck me so much in a language-wise way. Unfortunately, soon I did spot a number of typos, sigh...but general delightful impression remained.

I adore mystery novels and at first the plot seemed quite gripping with all those folklore and occult references. But soon I felt that the game focuses more on romance, maybe without the adult patch everything would be perceived differently. That patch is for free on denpasoft.com, by the way. Those 18+ scenes still have mosaic censorship. But the most disappointing thing was that I couldn't make screenshots, at least with usual F12 I got tiny pictures. And I really enjoyed the description of those intimate scenes, wanted to preserve privately some moments but alas. If to forget about slightly unsatisfactory mature content, romantic relationship was portrayed in a gorgeous way. That was so sweet I even was ok that love overshadowed more important issues.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1728655155
So, my first impression was more than positive with captivating premise, great writing and fascinating art. But when I reached the first bad ending I was just overwhelmed. What a unique, absolutely perfect (for me personally) structure of the game. That's how I prefer to play visual novels, thank you very much! I try to get bad endings and then as some kind of a dessert to finish the whole process with a happy ending. But here it's implemented in the plot! \o/ At first it's a kinetic novel and after the bad outcome we replay the game but this time having opportunity to change everything choosing wisely. That was mind-blowing! Plus, with this plot organization I had to look at the story from a completely unexpected angle. I got a bad ending: a murderer wasn't caught, mysteries weren't solved and on top of that the girl MC loved was killed because of her stupid antics. I was so furious how dumb she was BUT then when choices appeared I realized one thing: it wasn't she at blame, it's me. I could see how I=mc should have acted, so she wouldn't have been so reckless. Oh my, what a revelation. So simple but I really need to keep it in mind in real life as well.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1727111708
There's a number of complaints about high price, I personally think the game deserves that tag. But perhaps it's really better to wait for a discount as the novel is not very long. Never look at my playtime as I usually keep the game launched even when I don't play doing lots of other things simultaneously.

The novel is not finished yet. Practically no questions were answered actually. I can't say the game felt entirely open-ended. Nope, we get some closure, at least according to MC's perspective. As for me I was a bit unsatisfied with kinda anticlimactic ending. The 2nd episode release is officially announced and I can't wait to play it! <3

I am writing this before reading any further episodes of 9-Nine-. There are also a ton of other reviews and information out regarding this title, so I'm just going to make this short.

9-Nine- Episode 1 is unfortunately a victim of being episode 1 in a multi episode story. There's a whole lot of information presented here, and not much of it pays off in this episode. I can see where they're likely going with a lot of it, but it just drags this visual novel down quite a bit with it. It also ends in a very anticlimactic scene pre-credit roll, and post-credit roll has another scene that is just "To be continued" fodder.

I'm not a big fan of visual novels, even those in series like this, that can't stand by themselves very well, and 9-Nine- Episode 1 falls well into that mold. Because of that I can't recommend Episode 1 to anyone unless your intention is to read the further episodes. I am also hoping and assuming with that recommendation that there is payoff for some of the information and hints in a further episode.

Late edit: having played the further episodes of 9-Nine- I would recommend the series to the majority of VN fans.