A really strange, but unique experience to say the least. Described as a rejection or sociopath sim, which it certainly lives up to.
We play as Nicole, a girl with clear issues as she has moved home for the seventh time due to her mothers many divorces along with her fathers suicide, which she often jokes about. We land at a new high school where Nicole has begun to notice her looks have improved, thus people’s interest in her has increased. Nicole doesn’t care for the attention. In particular, attention from men and doesn’t want to be a pushover.
The humor is quite dark and crude, so if you’re easily offended this game is not for you. I’m not though and I found the game to be pretty funny at times. It’s well aware of typical high school stereotypes and mocks them. There’s lots of cursing, but for teenagers I suppose that’s normal. The dialogue would sometimes shift to something realistic then to something outlandish. For such a strange story it makes sense however.
The game is fully voices and well voiced at that. Nicole’s tone is always well preformed and the characters such as the generic nerd and bully are voiced in a satirical manner, which was funny since it’s so self aware.
The choices you make have huge effects even ones such as not going to class can change your ending. Speaking of there’s multiple endings and some drastically different from others. I would even say some would be controversial to those easily triggered. Nonetheless having all these endings makes replayabilty enjoyable. My first playthrough took around half an hour, but even with different endings the game is rather short.
One great feature was to be able to make a different choice at different points in the menu and play it from there. Rather than having to go through everything again from the start, which was a welcomed feature. It saves at multiple points automatically for you, so no need to go through tedious amounts of dialogue you already know.
I wouldn’t say the story is memorable, but the endings are undeniably memorable. The choices were limited, yet they had impactful effects on the story and dialogue. None of the characters were that likeable, still I didn’t dislike them. Nicole felt realistic even though her personality wouldn’t be a common one. The good voice acting really carried the games dialogue and in hand the funny dialogue at times carried the story.
This is a very niche game and it is definitely one you’ll enjoy or wont be able to stand. The games humor bodes well most of the time and it was worth replaying to see different dialogue and endings. Class of ’09 feels like a huge satirical piece on romantic simulation games and even stereotypes in general. The price of €12.50 is perhaps a bit much for such a short game with only dialogue. Although, I definitely won’t forget Class of ’09 anytime soon.
