999: Great game, but there are definitely a few things about it that I disliked. Not recommended for those faint-hearted.

MECHANICS SPOILERS:
Of course, this game was made and released years ago, and so it's a bit outdated. I felt like the pathing or storyline was a bit unclear, especially the FLOW button. Since I played one of the creator's other games, AI: somnium files, I understood the assignment, but there was nothing in the game to indicate testing out other timelines until much later? I definitely feel like it was poor writing and lack of connectivity -- or at least, should have been mentioned earlier. Sometimes the choices matter and forces you to go back and redo another timeline. Besides that, there was no way to just skip it.

The puzzles were interesting and definitely made me think, but it was required that you thoroughly researched the entire areas before proceeding. This locks in only one way to solve each puzzle, but it can be irritating when you've searched the entire room but missed an important clue because it was in a spot you did not know you could click. Sometimes, irrelevant items that you can click on might be too wordy and it's annoying to have to keep clicking through it to find what you needed. The game requires a lot of clicking around and trial and error. The most annoying part about all of the puzzles is that for some of them, including the Torture Room, is that the puzzles required matching something to another screen. Steam's version does not show both screens (since it was originally on the DS, which had two screens), so it was almost impossible to solve it without trial and error or looking it up. Through trial and error, I managed to solve the Torture Room puzzle, but I did not understand how I solved it and was forced to look up the gameplay in order to understand the meaning behind the puzzle. I don't understand why I don't have access to all of the screens/clues if I paid for it via steam.. They had a "files" button which included clues that you gathered, but I disliked that there was no way to access it on your screen as you're trying to solve a relating puzzle. Which means, you'd have to go back and forth and back and forth. The menu settings for resolution etc and whatnot was hard to access unless you closed it and relaunched it. That was a pet peeve, since most games had settings that were easier to access. There was no autosave either. I wanted to enjoy the game, yes, but I definitely think they should have optimized everything for PC before releasing such a version for PC.

On a brighter note, I really enjoyed the way the game provides past dialogue (to review whenever), a flowchart to move between timelines, many puzzles, dark themes, deep storyline with many twists and turns, and the way that they wove in real facts or real myths and create a story around it. It's brilliant! However, it can be quite gory, so beware.

PLOT SPOILERS:
With all of that aside, the story is pretty good. It was a bit annoying hearing Junpei pine after "June" the whole game. It became too repetitive and not in a cute way. Definitely more creepy, if anything. But did become sweeter towards the end. In the beginning, it just felt weird, because they supposedly knew each other, but the "players" did not understand that or have the full background story, so it felt empty. The voice acting was decent and Junpei's voice is nice, but his recording made him sound much softer and further away from the mic than everyone else. His character also seemed .. overly dramatic for no reason. He's constantly asking "what's wrong with you guys? HUH? How did this happen!!!" when everyone is just there and didn't do anything. It felt like he was constantly accusatory. It makes sense, since an awful thing happened to all of them and they were kidnapped, but I just thought he should have had a more likable personality.

Overall, get it on SALE, if you're curious about it and if you're okay with dark, gory themes. I would still recommend it, being that it was an interesting experience and that there are barely any games out there as similar to AI: somnium files as this. But you can definitely tell that this game is in dire need of a remake.