Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is a visual novel. It's arguable whether this is a genre of game, or a distinction from video games altogether. Don't be fooled by 999's point-and-click escape-the-room sequences and Cing-style puzzles -- there is virtually no video game here. If Hotel Dusk left you feeling unfulfilled narratively, 999 might restore your faith in the writing abilities of a game developer; but if Hotel Dusk left you feeling unfulfilled interactively, 999 will be even more disappointing.
999 starts with a gripping hook, and has you asking questions about the plot from the very beginning. But the first hour or so (two hours? I lost track) makes the game's intents very clear. You read a lot of exposition. You look around a room, open some cabinets, find some keys, solve some logic puzzles. You read more exposition. You read a lot more exposition. You keep reading exposition. You choose a room to go into. Look around, open, keys, puzzles. Read. Read. Read. You can see where this is going.
The plot is well-written, and fairly intricate. Actually, what makes it special is that this isn't just another story-based game with multiple endings; 999 actually requires replays in order to get the whole story. I'm not talking about some choose-your-own-adventure with some good endings and some bad ones -- 999 has one good ending, and getting it requires at least one complete playthrough to a bad ending. (Actually, I think it might require two. I got the final ending on my sixth playthrough.)
This approach would of course be completely untenable without some special concessions for replaying the story, and there are some, but I would argue that there aren't enough. Since the game is mostly text, being able to fast-forward through it is helpful; and knowing the solution to a puzzle when re-doing it cuts out a lot of the work. But you still have to start from the beginning each time, you still have to hold the fast-forward button for minutes at a time, and you still have to go through the motions of each room you've already solved.
Replaying the story does highlight choices you haven't made - or, rather, dims choices you have made - making it easier to try things you haven't tried before. It's a workable system, although I still felt compelled to consult das Internetz to get to the endings I hadn't seen yet, since some of them required making combinations of choices that are prohibitively time-consuming to get through trial and error.
And, yes, the endings are dictated by trial, and by error. The hidden facts, including the real, ultimate, final hidden fact, of 999's story are obscured by choices that are... unintuitive, at best. At the same time, I was able to (easily) see some story details in my first playthrough that became vital plot points ... in other endings. I wasn't able to act on them, and not for any reason I felt was anything other than bullshit.
The narrative is intriguing, and compelling, in the same way that a good book or a surprisingly good movie is. But as in Professor Layton, it's striking how entirely divorced the storytelling is from a real sense of interaction. Just as it's remarkable how the room-solving occupies such a miniscule part of the game's running time. And while the puzzles are inoffensive - not bad, in so many words - they also have little to offer that makes them feel unique, or special.
Summarily, the story is well-written (although imperfect -- even, spoilers, the writer's answers fall back on several deus ex machinas) and takes impressive advantage of the multiple playthrough mechanic, while everything else about the game is somewhere between insubstantial and nonexistent.
It's impossible to say that 999 pushes the medium forward, just as it's unfair to say that it pushes the medium backward; because it really isn't a video game. It's a picture book that's very slightly non-linear. If you like good stories, that's worth something.
Better than: Shadow of Destiny
Not as good as: Hotel Dusk (not as fun, anyway)
Yeah, the plot holes bother me: but I figure by next week I'll have forgotten about them, and just remember the cool stuff.
Progress: Got all 6 endings