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Hi there, it’s time for a long-awaited Journal Page about an Otome game! As you might know (I mean, the placeholder logo for the site has always been a picture of Piofiore Fated Memories, an Otome game), I’ve always been a fan of them, as they are fundamentally visual novels with a romantic twist, aimed at women who are into men; they’re usually quite endearing and engaging, and do a great job at making my heart warm. I haven’t played many lately (always too many games and too little time, as they say), thus they never ended up having a place in the Journal (although you might see a review of certain ones, such as Bustafellows, Cupid Paradise, and Code: Realize – Guardian of Rebirth, as it would be a shame not to talk about them at some point). Now, I have a fresh one for you, so stay tuned! Even if you aren’t interested in romance, you might still find the plot of this one to be quite intriguing, so don’t stop reading.
After this unusually long first paragraph (you’ll agree that I gotta change up stuff at some point, I can’t write all 74 Pages in the same way), it’s finally time to keep you posted about the fact that EmeraldDM8 and I have finished watching Season 4 of Doctor Who (2005); I can blame him and that marvelous show if I haven’t finished Norn9 sooner. It really saddens me that I can’t tell you more due to spoilers, but it’s still quite incredible, and I even found a character I can relate to; I’m looking forward to watching more episodes, though it’s somewhat unfortunate that this is all going by so fast (I’m not used to binge watching, that’s for sure).
Now, let’s move on to what you’re here for, my newest addition to the list of my completed otome games…
| Norn9 Var Commons |
|---|
This is an otome visual novel by Otomate originally released as NORN9 Norn+Nonet in 2013 for PSP (only in Japanese); in 2014 it was then ported to PS Vita for a Japanese audience, being renamed Norn9 Var Commons (it received an official English release in 2015), and it was finally enhanced and ported once again on Nintendo Switch in 2018, though only in Japan (English fans had to wait until 2023). I originally intended to play the PS Vita version, though I moved to the Switch version as soon as I knew it was going to be available in English.
We follow the adventures of a large cast of espers, who are traveling aboard the Norn ship; at first, we play as a young boy from the present age, called Sorata, who, during a school trip, catches a glimpse of a young girl no one can see and gets mysteriously transported to the past (it reminds me a bit of Magic Knight Rayearth), in 1919. After his initial stupefaction, he meets a young girl, who has forgotten her name (later revealed to be Koharu, one of the main heroines), and Sorata decides to follow her in her plans to get aboard the mysterious Norn ship, a vessel meant to gather Espers like Koharu and help them reach who governs Earth, an entity called The World. As he has nowhere else to go, he figures that going with her will probably help him go back to the future. Soon enough, we meet the rest of the cast and the other two heroines, Mikoto and Nanami; we’ll then be prompted to choose one of the three girls and a love interest, in the hopes of getting a grasp on the truth that lies beneath the Norn’s journey to meet The World, and protect the ship from an unknown traitor who is preventing them from reaching their destination. What might the real reason behind this mysterious meeting be?
Apart from its unusual premise, something that makes this game unique is the fact that it has three voiced heroines; normally, in Otome games you play as only one protagonist, who is nearly always not voiced, in order to help you identify with her (an example of an Otome where the Main Character is voiced is Bustafellows). This is why this one feels so special, and I was incredibly excited to know how the game would make use of this feature; each heroine has a completely different personality and three love interests each, bringing the number of routes to a whopping 9, not including the game’s Epilogue you unlock after having read all of them. This variety in heroines allows Norn9 to successfully pair up the girls with a few love interests that fit, instead of just making a single heroine fit with multiple boys; plus, it allows the routes to feel less monotonous, as you’re seeing similar events with the eyes of 3 characters and not one.
The first one, Koharu, is surely my second favorite of the 3; she’s the airhead of the group and an incredibly kind girl, who becomes stronger as the story goes on. Additionally, she is a pyrokinetic, though she dislikes her power as it can hurt people. As she has always lived a sheltered life and knows little about the outside world, it was a lot of fun to watch her interactions with the other characters of the Norn, who did their best to teach her how it all worked (one of her love interests, Toya, actually became her teacher at some point in the game, and it was pretty hilarious). I think the moment she shined the most was in Senri’s route (her second love interest, if you play them in order) as, due to various reasons, he was a shut-in, and Koharu managed to understand his true feelings, put him at ease, and eventually helping him to exit his room more often; it was immensely adorable, and it made for one of my favorite stories in the game.
The second one, Nanami, is my least favorite of the three; she’s a kuudere and she was born into a family of former ninjas. She has the power to delete specific memories from people at will, and she swore not to use that skill anymore as it only causes problems for others. As far as I’ve seen, she barely appears in routes other than its own, because she almost never speaks; luckily, though, she makes for a decent protagonist, both due to her backstory being quite intriguing (we’ll see the previous uses of her power) and one of her routes being pretty amazing (Heishi’s). Unfortunately, one of her routes is the worst one in Norn9, which almost made me stop playing the game altogether, but we’ll talk about that one later in the blog.
Moving on, the third protagonist, my favorite, is Mikoto; she’s a tsundere and a tomboy, and she was born into a somewhat important and rich family, spending her life with her childhood friend Sakuya (one of her love interests). Even if her background would imply her to be sheltered and refined, she’s actually the complete opposite; her power allows her to create barriers to protect both people and entire cities, a skill that she values the most in her life, often putting her own well-being at risk to use it. She might look annoying at first glance, yet under her strong and snobby facade, we’ll see that she just needs to find someone who truly likes her for what she is and not for her powerful barriers. She particularly shined in the “Secret” route, where she looks for the traitor alone and at long last is able to get a grasp of some hidden lies in the whole journey; in my opinion, it was the best route, as it had the perfect balance of slice-of-life moments and plot, we’ll look at more of it later on.
Lastly, there is actually one more protagonist, none other than the young Sorata I mentioned before, though he almost never appears in the main game (you’d swear they forgot about him or added him late in the game’s development), he is actually immensely important to the plot, and thanks to him in the Epilogue we’ll be able to see the truth behind everything. While he isn’t an esper, his scientific knowledge kind of makes up for his missing powers, although I would have liked to see him a bit more.
Now, it’s time to talk about the first 9 routes! In order to avoid as many spoilers as possible, I’ll be talking about most of them more generally, to then allow me to delve into the best the game has to offer (any major spoilers will be hidden accordingly).
Firstly, let’s explore Koharu’s, Kakeru, Senri, and Toya; apart from the previously mentioned Senri, I wasn’t a huge fan of the other routes. Among the two, Kakeru was the most enjoyable, though it didn’t feel right, as Kakeru starts as a pretty obnoxious character, always picking on poor Senri, and as a Senri fan, it was not nice to see; he does get better as time goes on, yet not enough to make me truly like him as a character. On the other hand, Toya appeared to be quite sweet, being like an older brother to the whole group and even a teacher to Koharu; even so, it always looked like he was forcefully hiding things from Koharu, and she didn’t seem to be truly happy with him, which ultimately ruined his route for me.
Secondly, let’s explore Nanami’s routes, which are Heishi, Akito, and Ron. Among her routes, my favorite was definitely Heishi’s, as the two seemed a perfect match, and his upbeat personality helped her be more positive too; while it was the route with the least details of the underlying plot being revealed, it was still incredibly wholesome, and I immensely enjoyed reading it. Sadly, the other two are lacking in comparison, with the worst being Akito; while it’s the route that revealed most of her backstory, and it featured a character I was particularly curious to read about, it was so poorly executed that it made me want to drop the game (especially due to me not enjoying some routes prior to this one). Luckily, the third one, Ron, was a bit better, and although I didn’t really like Ron’s personality (he’s incredibly uncaring and forgetful, the kind of person that I’d avoid at all costs), it did contain some intriguing plot reveals and was somewhat funny, so I can’t say it was entirely bad. Poor Nanami, she definitely deserved more, but oh well.
Thirdly, it’s now time for Mikoto’s adventures, which feature Sakuya, Itsuki, and a mysterious character (so mysterious that you can literally see his silhouette in the routes selection, and he’s on the front cover too). She was incredibly lucky, in my opinion, as two of her three routes were amazing, with the Secret one being the best in the game. Let’s start with Sakuya, her childhood friend; I’d rate his route lower than the others as, due to reasons I can’t reveal as they are spoilers, Mikoto is quite cold and annoying with him, and while said reasons are actually serious, it doesn’t look like it for most of the route, which made me quite annoyed at the whole situation, although it did become quite adorable at the end, so it gets a pass. Itskuki’s, on the other hand, was pretty entertaining to watch, as while he was fundamentally a trickster, he ended up helping Mikoto solve her internal struggles, and after some hilarious banter, the two ended up making for an adorable couple; additionally, it offered some decent insight in the bigger picture, which was definitely an appreciated plus.
Now, I’d like to dedicate a paragraph for my favorite route of the game, though I’ll have to put it under a spoiler tag, so read it at your own risk.
SPOILERS for the Secret route
Let’s all face it, Natsuhiko’s route was the best one in the game, and when I played, I knew this was the true reason I played the game. During the previous routes, it felt as clear as day that The World was extremely suspicious, and that its desire to reset history back to a less advanced era in order to stop war was too extreme and pointless; it felt wrong to see all of the Espers blindly believing in it, and being tasked with the incredibly taxing choice of whether to reset the world or not. While the game told us to look for a traitor, someone who wanted to defy The World’s orders, deep down I knew that that same supposedly bad person was probably more righteous than the rest of the cast. Luckily, in Natsuhiko’s route, we had the chance to see Mikoto finding it all out, and while she gets kidnapped by him as he attacks the Norn, it ends up allowing her to find out the truth behind their journey, and that the almighty World was not who they had to go asking help to. At first, Natsuhiko himself was quite cold to Mikoto, making her almost hate him, yet as the plot went on, we finally saw that, deep down, he was just a scientist who wanted to reach the stars but was instead forced to craft weapons. I was so thrilled to know that all my suspicions were real and that the two were such a fitting pair; I’m glad I didn’t drop the game as, otherwise, I would have never read this route. If you are a fan of a certain Final Fantasy game, you might extremely enjoy this story as it has similar themes.
Now that the normal routes have been taken care of, let’s talk about the game’s themes, which tie into the Epilogue. Unfortunately, I will have to reveal a minor spoiler, in order to be able to talk about what hides under Norn9’s slice-of-life facade; the real reason behind the Norn journey is actually to reach a certain place, based in America, where the Espers will be able to perform a World Reset. You see, the in-game world, while resembling the 1910s, was actually supposed to be far more advanced, though it had to leave most of its progress behind due to World Resets; they are a procedure meant to stop all war, by eliminating the knowledge, structures, weapons, and memories that led to warfare, and from time to time Espers meet to decide whether to basically burn down and rebuild the entire planet or not. I thought it was an extremely interesting concept, as it would be amazing if there was a way to effectively stop all war, and humanity lacking the means to destroy itself would surely be a working solution, yet I believe it’s not so desirable. You see, by giving up progress and reverting back to the past, we would be eternally delaying the moment in time when this such dangerous war begins, and we would never solve our problems; is running away truly the best choice? Should we really give up all progress, even what saved lives and made our living conditions better? It was an intriguing theme to ponder, and I wish the game wasn’t almost completely filled with slice-of-life and didn’t only mention these themes in the last chapter of each route and in the Epilogue, where we did finally understand more about its underlying reasons and why Sorata is even in the story.
All things said, should you play this game? If you are only playing it because you’re curious about the plot, beware of the long slice-of-life scenes, which will certainly dilute the plot; if you love slice-of-life moments, you’ll probably enjoy this game, and the presence of amazing routes will make up for the less decent ones. Ultimately, the decision is yours, though I feel there are many Otome that are better than this one; what gives me hope is that Norn9 Var Commons actually has a sequel, Norn9 Last Era, which hopefully will solve its predecessor issues, and is already available in English on the Switch.
If you need a walkthrough and the list of the recommended route order, feel free to check Otome Kitten’s guide out!
Thanks for reading, and I hope I’ll see you in next Thursday’s Journal Page!
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References
- Otome Kitten: NORN9 Var Commons Review – https://otomekitten.com/2018/12/17/norn9-var-commons-review/
- Norn9 Official Site – https://aksysgames.com/norn9/ (beware of spoilers for the sequel!)
- Wikipedia: Norn9 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norn9
- Wikipedia (Japanese): NORN9 ノルン+ノネット – https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORN9_%E3%83%8E%E3%83%AB%E3%83%B3%2B%E3%83%8E%E3%83%8D%E3%83%83%E3%83%88
- http://operationrainfall.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Non9-Var-Commons-Cast.jpg
- https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcms.gameflycdn.com%2Fcontent%2Fscreenshot%2F1024w%2F4295598.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=b1ef0729fb0cc5963bc6f33732a016bd34cd519f748b604ccf7049f19cae86c4&ipo=images
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