Our Verdict
9 R.I.P. is a gripping occult mystery visual novel that weaves a web of tantalizing tales into something truly unique. While certain elements could be expanded upon, the game successfully combines horror, handsome husbandos, and a taste of tragic romance, managing to humanize the monster under the bed. And guess what? He’s kinda hot.
One of my biggest loves in life is horror. From slight spooks to full on frights, I’m always ready to dive into anything even remotely horror-adjacent. Another of my biggest loves is husbandos. I’m not ashamed to admit it – there’s nothing quite like a handsome anime man, and even my partner of ten years accepts that. So, naturally, seeing horror and husbandos collide had me jumping at the opportunity to write up this 9 R.I.P. review – just in time for spooky season, too.
9 R.I.P. is a horror-themed visual novel game. It also happens to be one of the best otome games I’ve played, pushing the boundaries of dating sim and weaving a web of striking narratives that kept me up all night because I simply couldn’t put it down. Will it have this effect on everyone? Absolutely not. But its tantalizing yet tragic tales were enough to grip me across multiple playthroughs, to the point where the handsome husbandos and cute encounters became secondary to my desire to understand more about this unusual world.
Before we move on, please note that this game does deal with some incredibly heavy topics including suicide, self harm, and abuse, and is not intended for all audiences – take care of yourself, and if you think that sounds like too much for you, it may be best to give this one a miss. After all, there are plenty of other handsome husbandos waiting to woo you in our list of the best otome games and the best dating games.
9 R.I.P. sees you play as a young woman called Misa Isshiki (you can actually change her first name, but Misa is the default choice). She’s a second year student at Narimigahama High School, and is facing a pretty big crossroads in her life. You see, her father was a doctor, but he died when she was young. Since then, Misa’s mother has been pushing her to study medicine at a prestigious university and follow in his footsteps. However, Misa doesn’t want to study medicine. In fact, she’s not sure that she wants to go to university at all – but she’s having a hard time coming clean to her mother.
You join Misa at a critical time, as she’s faced with the dreaded career path survey. The deadline is drawing near, and this tiny piece of paper is set to decide her entire future. Luckily (or perhaps, unluckily) it looks like some kind of higher power is watching over her. After falling asleep at her desk after class, she hears an unusual voice beckoning her into the darkness, and she soon wakes up to find herself spirited away to an alternate version of the school – one that sits somewhere between the Hidden Realm (the land of the dead) and the Mortal Realm.
Here, she must face the Seven Mysteries of Narimigahama High School, each of which have inspired their own urban legends and appear to have origins tied to a mysterious incident that occurred on this land back in 1949. She builds relationships with the dead along the way, piecing together the mysteries of their past, the tragic tales of the land they occupy, and the reason for her own spiriting away. However, the realm is dangerous. Wraiths occupy the derelict hallways, and if she stays here for too long, it’s only a matter of time before she becomes one of them.
The overarching narrative of 9 R.I.P. weaves real Japanese urban legends into an entirely unique narrative that humanizes the monsters hiding under your bed. From Hanako of the Toilet to the Grasp of the Mirror, each tale unravels to reveal a tragic backstory, while also tying back into that one catastrophic event that triggered it all, making you feel quite sympathetic towards the spirits that surround you.
I initially struggled to connect to Misa as a protagonist due to our difference in age (I’d estimate I’m around ten years older than her), but I actually warmed to her, too. The main character in dating games can often be bland and passive, but Misa takes quite an active role in 9 R.I.P., and I enjoyed seeing her grow as a character throughout the game.
Of course, there’s also the otome side of 9 R.I.P. The game features eight handsome husbandos, each with a unique style, backstory, and personality, though not all of them are available to you at first – like many other games in this genre, you need to play through multiple storylines to experience all the content. In fact, it’s a pretty innocuous decision you make early on in the game that determines which characters you meet in the other realm.
There are also a lot of different endings, including some bad ones that stop quite abruptly. Therefore, while each individual route isn’t that long, the amount of different routes you can take pads the game out to a decent runtime without one story overstaying its welcome.
The eight love interests are split into four pairs. Each pair sees two love interests share a common route, but they branch off at a certain point, diverging into different endings. Luckily, the pacing is solid throughout, and the game really respects your time. As soon as the paths branch off, the narrative takes a unique turn that caters to the current love interest and alters the course of events quite dramatically, allowing each character to shine without pushing you to sit through too much shared plot.
The love interests are quite well fleshed out. While they won’t all appeal to you, all of their routes and endings, including the bad ones, are worth seeing in my opinion. There are some truly unique tales that take some unexpected turns, and it’s quite rewarding unveiling the secrets each character holds. Additionally, 9 R.I.P. features occasional brief scenes from the love interest’s perspective that give you an insight into their thoughts, which helps establish even more of an emotional connection to them without over-explaining things.
I do want to highlight that, for the most part, the romance often takes a backseat in this game. The tragic forbidden love stories do weave their way into the different routes, and the characters can be truly charming, but a good chunk of the narrative focuses instead on the occult mystery and dilemma that Misa finds herself in, and her goal of making it back to the mortal realm by finding the Seven Wonder. So, if you’re looking for pure romance to sweep you off your feet, this probably isn’t the game for you. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a gripping story with dark themes and some romance elements, this should be right up your street.
In terms of mechanics, 9 R.I.P. is very much a visual novel, meaning you won’t be doing much other than reading. However, there are quite a few choices for you to make, and they do have an impact on which ending you get, which gives your decisions a bit more weight than some of the other otome games I’ve played in the past.
There are three main types of multiple choice scenarios you face throughout the game. First are thoughts – these are generally the least impactful decisions that see you ponder different topics. Then there are ‘affection’ dialog options, where choosing the right one increases your affection level with the character you’re talking to. Finally, there are insanity options, which increase your insanity gauge. You can track both insanity and affection levels at any time from the status option in the pause menu.
But don’t worry if you’re unsure which dialog option to pick – 9 R.I.P. offers a lot of little quality of life features that make trying different routes a treat. My personal favorite is the quick save and quick load system – simply hit the left shoulder button to create a quick save before choosing an option, then hit the right shoulder button to load the quick save and try a different option. Alternatively, you can tilt the left joystick upwards to open the history where you can see all the dialog and story so far, replay voice lines, load from specific lines or scenes, skip back to the previous decision, or skip forward to the next decision. There are heaps of save folders that each have multiple save slots if you want to keep a back-up before making a big decision.
The controls are very comfortable and intuitive, and there’s a nice graphic manual where you can check the button prompts at any time. 9 R.I.P. also supports touchscreen controls on handheld mode which I absolutely love. Not only can you tap to cycle through the text, you can also use the touchscreen to select different dialog options, toggle auto mode, and more.
These are all incredibly useful tools that make both playing through a route and backtracking to try a different story far more comfortable, and I would welcome these features in any visual novel. However, I do wish that 9 R.I.P. had a flowchart similar to those in Paranormasight and AI: The Somnium Files, as finding yourself booted to the main menu after hitting a bad ending without a recent manual save is a little depressing.
It would be nice to see where each of the decisions branch off in a format that’s a little easier to digest, rather than having to make your own storyboard of saves or scrolling back through huge chunks of text to work out which decision you should make to get a different outcome. However, this is a relatively minor gripe, and it’s something that generally won’t impact your playthroughs for the most part, especially if you remember to perform regular manual saves or consult with a walkthrough.
Aesthetically, 9 R.I.P. is gorgeous. The character sprites, backgrounds, text boxes, and even the menus all boast a cohesive theme and style that truly makes the game stand out. There is a pretty small pool of CGs compared to other otome games, but what we do have is quite beautiful, making them a treat when you finally come across them. I also really appreciate the inclusion of a thorough glossary that you fill out across your multiple playthroughs, as well as the presence of the gallery where you can view the art you’ve unlocked.
While the sprites are static for the most part, each character has a few different poses and expressions, and they blink and move their mouths as they speak, which goes a long way towards breathing life into the game. This is only supported further by the beautiful Japanese voice acting, which is very welcome considering many premium-priced visual novels and otome games are unvoiced.
In addition to the voices, there’s also a nice OST to add to the mood and atmosphere throughout, as well as some well-timed sound effects. Some of the music loops are a little short and get repetitive over time, but they’re very well-done for the most part, especially the eerie music that plays during the spookier scenes.
To top it all off, the translation in 9 R.I.P. is genuinely very solid. I know it seems a bit wild if you’re unfamiliar with the genre, but having played otome games for many years, I have come to expect rocky translations and awkward dialog. Luckily, that’s certainly not the case here.
The dialog flows well and feels quite natural (at least, as natural as it can when a teenage girl is talking to a guy who died over 70 years ago), and the localization team has done a great job of explaining obscure concepts based on urban legends and folklore in a pretty digestible way. The narrative also maintains its suspense throughout, while still allowing some decent breathing room for you to relax and get to know the characters, which is quite a difficult balance to achieve.
The only real gripe I have with the game other than the lack of a flowchart story board is that it would’ve been nice to incorporate some point and click game elements. While this certainly isn’t the standard in this genre, especially with games that lean more towards otome, I feel these mechanics add a lot to visual novel horror games like Spirit Hunter: Death Mark and NG, Paranormasight, and Emio: The Smiling Man, and would work very well here – especially in the more tense scenes where you’re scanning the background for peeping wraiths and ghastly ghouls.
Some characters would’ve also benefited from a bit more of a fleshed out ending, with one not even getting his own epilogue (and, of course, he was my favorite – my disappointment is immeasurable). Beyond that, I would’ve loved it if the game allowed me to spirit myself away so I could marry Kureha and remain in the Hidden Realm, but I digress.
Either way, I really enjoyed 9 R.I.P. It’s a very unique, character-driven visual novel with some truly gripping storylines and an intriguing overarching plot that kept me guessing for hours. While I do wish the game expanded on some specific elements and characters, it does a great job of sucking you into its world, and I can certainly see myself returning to the Hidden Realm in the future.
If you’re a husbando hunter and want some other cuties to collect, be sure to check out our lists of all Obey Me characters and Love and Deepspace characters. We’ve also got a list of all the new Love and Deepspace codes so you can save for your fave.