It's always the way - you wait years for a good visual novel, and then three come along at once. First we had to re-forge our memories with Amnesia: Memories, then came a wacky trip around steampunk London with some famous literary figures in Code: Realize, and now we find ourselves on a ship with a group of super-powered teens in Norn9: Var Commons. Each a great example of a romance fuelled, female-fronted sub-genre of visual novels known as "otome", these games are probably best thought of as an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure style romance novels, with branching story lines, multiple endings and likeable characters to chat to - and romance. All you have to do is sit back and watch the story unfold - only here you can pick conversation options at key points to steer the story in the way of your desired guy. And in the case of Norn9, there's certainly plenty of guys to choose from. Nine, to be exact.
Yeah, we know, nine is a LOT of romance options.
The year is 1919, but not quite as we know it. There's no World War I yet, although the first few rumblings of disquiet can be felt, with resistance groups all over the world getting ready to… well, resist. Threatening to disturb the peace a top secret organisation known as "The World" has worked so long to protect, the all-powerful organisation takes it upon itself to round up a number of gifted beings, known as espers, to help it quell the conflict. This is where you come in. One of said gifted group of adults, each of which has their own special power, you're called aboard the Norn, a giant floating spherical ship, to journey to a meeting with "The World", who plan on sending you around the globe to become ambassadors of peace using your special powers. Whether it's the power to control fire, the ability to summon a handy protective barrier, or being able to telepathically send messages, each power handily has its place in solving a world conflict, so there's a need for you all. Handily, it'll take the eleven-strong group a while to reach their destination, though - and it's during this journey that the gifted group will forge friendships, root out traitors and maybe even fall in love.
Norn9 is structured slightly differently to other games of it's ilk - for starters, it kicks off with a prologue told from the perspective of a twelve year old boy, Sorata, who somehow arrived from the future. Despite having a key role in the intro, he largely disappears for the rest of the game, only occasionally popping up to give characters advice on guns and other futuristic things, or to make the odd contrary remark. Come the next chapter, control switches over to one of your choice of three different female protagonists, each with their own personality, storyline and love interests, and stays that way for the remainder of your playthrough - while Sorata goes off to live with the ship's chicken-like Hiyoko caretakers.
Sorata even gets a chicken onesie...
Given the size of the ship, and the fact it has to be largely self-sufficient during flight, its dozen or so inhabitants need to cook, clean and grow their own food - and have split into teams, each with their own rotas of chores. Each team includes one of the female leads and three men, although various circumstances lead the crew to suspect there's a traitor in their midst, and everyone pairs up for safety within their groups. Picking which of your team mates you want to pair up with kick-starts you on your path with a potential romantic interest, locking you into that particular guy's story from the beginning, rather than having you play through a near-identical story that branches towards a character specific tale towards the end. On paper it sounds like a bit of a confusing and perhaps slightly limited set up, but in practice it's actually a pretty nice way of making sure the routes are different enough to warrant playing through all nine of them, without too much in the way of repetition. Of course, some key events remain the same, particularly when playing through different guy companions of the same heroine, but they're relatively few and far between, and help tie the overarching story of the espers' journey together.
Norn9 is a bit of an unusual otome game in that not only do you have a choice of guys to try and romance, but you have a choice of girls to play as too. First up is Koharu, the cute and naive pink-haired pyrokinetic, whose innocence is the butt of many a joke from the guys - and sometimes gets her into a pickle or two. Whether it's accidentally barging into the men's bath, unintentionally blowing off a guy by saying how she now has 'Mr. Strawberry' the plant to keep her company, or being lured in by the ships resident playboy's offers to teach her various questionable things, her friendly and trusting nature often leads to some hilarious and random situations. In terms of romance options, she has a choice of the anti-social shut in Senri, the responsible older brother figure of the ship Masamune and the logical and intelligent Kakeru, all of which compliment her cute and innocent personality - although we would have liked to see how she would have fared with the playboy guy too.
We don't think those are sunglasses, Koharu...
Next comes Nanami, a quieter, more introverted girl with purple hair, who comes from a family of ninjas with a bit of a dark past. Gifted with the ability to erase people's memories, she tries not to get too close to anyone, wrecked with guilt about the potential damage her power could do to herself and others. Her guilt, coupled with her quiet nature, makes her a bit clumsy when it comes to romance, often struggling with her feelings and how to express them for the best. Her bachelors include the constantly cheery nice guy and resident telepathic Heishi, the resident tough guy and chef Akito, who has a pathological fear of birds, and the resident enigma (and creeper) of the group, Ron - poor Nanami is in for a bit of a rollercoaster ride with her guys though, with their drastically different personalities and her self-deprecating tendencies.
Mikoto though, the final female, is the type that won't take any nonsense. 'Blessed' with the power to summon protective barriers, she's got a strong sense of duty and the need to protect anyone and everyone, but sees relying on others as a sign of weakness. With a bit of a violent temper, and a heck of a stubborn streak, we almost feel sorry for her romance options, who include her overprotective childhood friend Sakuya, and the ship's resident womaniser Itsuki, with the latter resulting in a fair amount of hilarity from the clash of their personalities, as the prim and proper Mikoto begins to fall for the flirty Itsuki. Mikoto also has a third, secret bachelor she can romance, but we don't want to give the game away too much - needless to say, it's a suitably eventful route.
Someone's just looking for an excuse to be kissed better...
Splitting the overarching story up over three protagonists, and sprinkling clues and references across all nine of the romantic routes does help keep things feeling fresh, but it can also make things seem a tad fragmented, and the first time you hit an ending, you're likely to find yourself more confused than when you first started playing as Sorata all those hours ago. Technically, there is a recommended order for playing through a handful of the guys so that things make the most sense - but in all honesty, the main draw of Norn9 is the characters and their interactions along the way. Everyone has their own defined personalities, and the antics they get up, whether it's Kakeru winding up shut-in Senri, Mikoto rebuffing Itsuki's advances or some adorably innocent Koharu-ism, seeing how their happy endings play out is pretty fun. Be warned though - some of the bad endings can be a bit… disturbing at times.
Really, Norn9 only has one problem, and one that is perhaps somewhat inevitable in such a text heavy game - typos and continuity. While we can usually forgive the odd one or two mistakes (especially considering the number we usually make), Norn9 is sadly a bit on the mistake-ridden side, although by no means to the point it makes it unplayable. One scene in particular is likely a simple mistranslation, where the characters talk about Mikoto being afraid of snow, yet in other routes she's scared by thunder instead, and apparently the two words are sort of similar in Japanese, while another replaces the word 'bags' for 'gloves' for reasons known only to itself. Typos and the occasional missed word are one thing, but Norn9 also occasionally refers to characters by the wrong name - for example during a card game, where Heishi's convinced he's going to win, he declares "Everything's comin' up Itsuki!", which can be a tad confusing. Moments when a key word is missed out and completely changes the meaning of the sentence can throw you off too, making you stop and do a double take, like when the prim and proper Mikoto talks about her reluctance to visit the playboy Itsuki in his quarters: "Auntie and mother taught me that it is very important to visit a man's room before you get married". Mistakes aren't rampant, and do only crop up from time to time, but it's often enough that you can't help thinking they could have taken a touch more care.
#nohomo
Norn9: Var Commons may not have quite as coherent and gripping a story as some of its contemporaries, but it's far from being a bad game - stuffed full of romance-able characters, each with their own fully-fledged and rounded personalities and back stories, it's a game that's much more about the journey than the destination, which is somewhat fitting, really.
Format Reviewed: PS Vita
