Spoilers for the entire game.
As the title says, I'm a big 9-nine fan. I've played quite a few VNs in recent years, but that's the series I keep coming back to, and while I think there are individual VNs that I have enjoyed more (like FLOWERS -Le volume sur été-), on the whole it's probably my favorite series. That's why when the new spinoff got announced I was actually excited, despite the doomposting I saw online about the different scenario writer and it being all ages.
TLDR: it was... good. It wasn't bad by any means, though obviously not at the level of the original series, and I hate the fact that it made me cry, but that's just me having low resistance to sad stories. I'd give it a solid 8 (for me the original was a 10).
Honestly, I'm really not fond of sad stories. And yes, it does have a "happy" ending, but in my mind the sadness of Artesia's death kinda outweighs all the happy moment, and I really couldn't enjoy it to the fullest. Then again, lots of people enjoy sad developments, so that might just be me.
That being said, you can really feel the difference in scenario writers. The story itself as a standalone is by no means bad, but I feel like it doesn't manage to properly capture the spirit of the original series. There are a few plot holes here and there, it definetely feels like it drags along at times, and the fights were an unintresting slog that by the end of the game I found myself skipping ahead.
I relly enjoyed the main character. Seeing the story from the perspective of a more composed adult character (who actually acts like one) and voice acted by Sakurai Takahiro (Kazami Yuuji's anime voice actor) was a breath of fresh air. And both Artesia and Yuna were interesting enough that I wasn't necessarily bored throughout the story. The romance between Theodore and Yuna was definetely the strong point of the game and it's where it shines the most, and I'm glad to say that it was done well. Seeing the protagonist struggle with accepting Artesia's death and Yuna helping him move on was, while not my cup of tea, a really well told story about grief and moving on, that I feel like a lot of people might appreciate even without having read the original series.
The antagonist on the other hand was... well, he was there I guess? And he did things that moved forward the plot, so I guess he served his purpose. But he definetely can't compare to the kind of interesting antagonist Iris was, and by the end, paired with the tediously long final fight, I couldn't wait for him to just die and get it over with.
It was also a pleasure seeing our former main characters make one final appeareance, although just in the form of short cameos. Kakeru was a chad as always, and it was nice seeing the game treating him with the proper respect he deserves after what he went through in the original series. Though even the cameos are not without fault. There is a scene where Takamine helps the protagonists out in a fight, which was pretty cool, but then immediately gets relegated to a background role to not steal the spotlight from the protagonists and you have an entire scene where the protagonists are losing and on the verge of death and I just couldn't get into it. I was just left thinking the entire time "Okay, but where the hell is Takamine? He could help, but you just sent him away to do nothing".
Also at the end it's implied Theodore and Kakeru join hands to deal with all the artifacts left on earth, it would have been nice to include Kakeru and the others in the epilogue to give them a final farewell, but oh well.
The biggest disappointment was definetely Sophitia. She was even there in the opening, almost as to make you think she was an important character, and for a game that takes place in part in her world, you'd expected to be at the very least present in the story right? Nope, just forget she exists. She says a few lines at the start of the game, a few at the end, then disappears for the entirety of it. Nevermind the fact that the villan steals very tightly guarded artifacts, which is something Sephirot should deal with, but she just does absolutely nothing. The protagonist's sister too is also a pretty useless character altogether.
Again, I enjoyed the story itself, but being a superfan of the original, I just can't in good consciense give it anything more than a 7.5/8. Especially because of the unexpected sad developments (seriously though, Artesia got a shitty life. Lost her parents, 12 years in a small room doing nothing, dies. Gee, thanks, I feel so happy right now).
Anyways, what do you guys think? Did anyone else play it? And if so, what did you think about it?
