I’ll say it now, Norn9: Last Era isn’t really my thing. It’s a visual novel with an emphasis on romance. Normally something I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot barge pole. But I took this gig to play games I wouldn’t normally; broaden those horizons. So, I put down the barge pole and gave it a shot. To my surprise, I found myself getting a little bit into Norn9: Last Era.
It didn’t make it easy though. The biggest reason is that Norn9: Last Era is a fan disc. Ever heard of them? They’re essentially a pack of extra content for an existing game. New storyline, images, that sort of thing. In this case, it’s following Norn9: Vars Commons and has quite the staggering amount of new content. I’ve not played the original though, hence my difficulty with this review. Here are the points I’ve managed to piece together.
Humanity Shumanity
Here’s what I can gather of the plot from my scrappy notes. In the world of Norn9 humanity is busy doing what it does best: killing each other. In order to prevent mass war breaking out and obliterating the planet, the bulk of humanity keeps going through a ‘Reset’. This is essentially a memory wipe, taking out all memories and thoughts of weaponry or war, keeping things relatively civil. A nice concept that seems to be absolutely failing. Ahead of the latest Reset, a group of scientists and technicians (unhelpfully called ‘The World’) begin gathering together ‘Espers’, power-wielding humans, on board the bizarrely shaped spaceship, the titular Norn, to come to a decision on whether or not to reset.
First impressions were good. Well, once I got past the J-pop intro that proved my fat fingers aren’t good for suddenly reaching for the Switch’s volume buttons. But the story has a lot of interesting notes that kept me intrigued. The concept of Resets is a good one, posing a lot of questions about nature vs. nurture, which keeps popping up a lot. The art is gorgeous too, with some really pretty backdrops and well realised character art. There are twelve main characters too, and the art makes them all distinct. I found myself caring less about the relationship bit – but they’re already established before we get there, so I might have just come in with the wrong mindset.
There’s no mistaking that it’s only interested in the fans, though. It’s quite difficult to pick things up for a newbie. Still, if you are a fan then you’ll find a ton of new stuff. For one, there’s the ‘Preludes’. These are bite-sized prologue chapters that take place before characters board the ship. They’re interesting, and served as nice intros to the characters and their motivations. There are also ‘Concertos’, which take place after the story and after the key relationships are established, ‘Fugues’, which recap the original game from different perspectives and, ‘Fantasia’, which are bizarre little side stories. Like, ‘everyone becomes a chibi’ levels of bizarre. It’s a little odd to me, but I can see fans of the characters loving it.
Food For Fans
Honestly, my biggest gripe with Norn9: Last Era is that it isn’t really a game at all. You could convert it to a picturebook without any significant changes. I played it every evening for a week and maybe interacted about once or twice. All relationships are established before you get there, so there’s no dating sim element. Maybe I shouldn’t expect much in that department from a fan disc but it did make things a little monotonous. A few choices come into play during the ‘Concerto’ segments, but you’ll have watched through nine prologue segments before that. The writing kept making it seem like we were going to do something, only for the dialogue to just wrap it up. If you don’t need me here, Norn9, I can just go.
Still, the writing itself isn’t too bad. There are some nice character moments and everyone feels distinct. It does lean quite heavily on character archetypes at times though. We’ve got the snarky bloke with a sinister, eerily relevant past, the teenage girl that’s as cold as ice on the surface and the slacker, whose brain has handed in a sick note and so only occasionally turns up. I did actually quite like him, I’m not going to lie. The preludes do make them more bearable, though the amnesiac, stuttering girl is probably the most grating.
In fact, Norn9: Last Era does have a bad habit of talking in circles at times, which make some scenes feel a bit padded. Everyone’s character arcs seem to be explored about ten times over by the end of their scenes. It does feel a bit churlish to criticise the writing in a fan disc, though. I don’t really have the necessary context to make the emotional blows land. It’d be like starting with The Return of the King and complaining that everyone’s crying over this Boromir bloke. I suspect that a lot of Norn9‘s writing issues are endemic to the genre too, although that’s hardly an excuse.
Review: Last Word
In case you’re in the bad habit of skipping to end of reviews, let me say it here: the score at the end of this review is wholly pointless. Your enjoyment of Norn9: Last Era will depend entirely on how much you enjoyed Norn9: Vars Commons. If you’ve not played it, then this is not for you. Like it’s not for me. That said, what I like most about Norn9: Last Era is that it exists at all. The standard template for games is to wring more life out of it by making a sequel. Tack on some new threat, bring in some new characters to romance. To actually explore before and, crucially, after the relationships are formed shows that developers really care about the title.
It’s nice to see a developer go back to a title in order to flesh things out. I’ve played quite a few games where I’ve wanted to know what happens next. Not in some grand ‘the world is in danger’ kind of way, just in a ‘what’s their homelife like’ kind of way. Admittedly, £45 is quite a high price to stomach for that kind of experience, but if you’re super into Norn9 then maybe you’re happy with that. Ultimately, if you’re already super into the series then Norn9: Last Era will serve up seconds and then some. If you’re not, then it’s not going to waste time converting you and there’s nothing wrong with that.
