Norn9 Var Commons or wtvr Review

no shotas were harmed in the making of this game. probably

As the 3rd(?) 4th? idk otoge that Aksys brought over to throw at the West ofc I had to do my job as an otoge supporter and buy it. And y'know what? I really wish I didn't. Norn9 is an absolute shit excuse for an otogame and if you honestly believe the characters, writing, and romance written in this game is believable or doki-doki inducing than I'm sorry but you are either a naive child, or are just a fool. I'm sorry but I don't make the rules here. Anyways, idk about the original JP version, but I played the Aksys localized one! Went in bright eyed and positive! Anyways this is my first review on my shit blog so bear with me.


Plot
The plot of this game is pretty interesting, and it really had some potential to actually work out into something interesting! Sadly, it doesn't. We're just given a mysterious look at some shota named Sorata suddenly clipping from a tour-guide to the middle of a town in the supposed past. While everyone's dressed like it's the olden days, he bumps into some modern seifuku sporting amnesiac chick who can use fuckin fire magic or some shit. Anyways eventually he tags along with her and she joins the NORN, some kinda scifi space ship that collects THE CHOSEN ONES (aka super special espers) who must go onto this super high tech flying device to follow their DESTINY. To get to some 'destination' where they'll get shipped off around the world to help stop war??? Okay sounds shady and vague as fuck but sure. Anyways these espers varying from like age 16-25 are all just on this boat together, except we learn there's a TRAITOR amongst them so it's time to pair off!! The girl pick their partner!! You play as the girls and you pick one of 3 dudes for each of them for some thick romance to unfold~ <3

The thing about this, is the game takes itself very seriously. It opens with a lot of unanswered questions, and hopes to perk the reader's interest! On this ship we meet our hefty cast of 9 dudes and 3 heroines, and like any chick, I'm ready to dig into the handsome ones! Time to get ourselves some cute romance, right?

WRONG

The romances in this game are complete shit, and here's why.

Koharu's routes

Koharu's a sweet sweet naive lil dumbass 17 year old who's never had any human interaction or proper education in her life! Of course this means she's innocent, pure, and doesn't even know what kissing is! She also has unchecked OP fire powers which she can just blast away at will to destroy anything she wants if she so felt like it. But she's a pure sweet innocent baby so of course she hates her own powers and hides them at all cost!

The dudes available to her are asshole Kakeru mcfuckface, Masamune Irresponsibledickwad, and hikki NEET shota Senri. Lemme just tell you now I had hope for this game as I dated the boys. I only truly started to hate everything after playing through most of the routes and sitting in a chair alone for 5 hours to ponder over the filth which this game expects me to swallow.

Senri

Senri may be a hikkineet but at least he cute

Senri's a shota. He's cute and small, and like every other otome game, his shortness is just a ruse and he's of course taller than the heroine! Too bad in real life I could probably throw him over a fence single handedly since he clearly never goes outside or excercises. Anyways Senri is cute. He has social anxiety and holes himself inside all day so as to avoid negative events occurring, being a pessimistic lil bugger.

His whole route is just Koharu trying to help and support him, and y'know what it's really cute and they get along great. After spending a few days with him, Koharu experiences a disease called 'what is this feeling' itis and for some reason becomes red in the face when close to him sometimes!! Wow!! this is of course after Senri straight up has a crush on her because a girl is nice to him!! Of course he's in love with her now! Through her long efforts of protecting him from abusive ass-fuck Kakeru, they fall in love and get married n shit, lots of shit goes down with the plot but who cares.

A funny note that I picked up on though is that being a hikki neet, no one cares about Senri since he's holed up all day anyways. Except Kakeru, who's trying to help Senri get out more and become more well adjusted!! Out of the goodness of his heart!! By forcing him out of his comfort zone, saying very cold and callous shit to the boy almost every day, and basically torturing him!! There's many ways to try to help a hikki neet regain control of their life, but the way which Kakeru goes about it is the most detrimental, opposite of helping I've ever fucking seen. Kakeru is a menace towards Senri and honestly the level of 'teasing' seen in the game I'd think would scar Senri permanently for life. At first I thought it was funny and a window into Kakeru's shitty ass personality, but I soon learned the game actually tries to pass it off as friendly teasing?? Kakeru's asked by someone to look out for Senri, and he's 'looking out' for him all right. By ruining his fucking life. If I was Senri I'd want to kill myself too going under all that abuse.

Masamune

Masamune is the leader of the Norn, and prides upon himself to keep everyone organized and prevent any chaos from breaking out. This must mean he's reliable and responsible, epsecially seeing how he's a whopping 24 years old, right??? WRONG. Masamune suffers severely from 'i'm a man so of course i can't hold back my lust' itis. Towards a 17 year old. Who doesn't even know what kissing means. A 24 year old. Kabedon-ing this girl 7 years his senior who probably doesn't even know what a dick is and telling her "You're just so cute so I can't hold myself back...It's taking my everything to resist putting my hands on you!!"

Jesus christ. Just. Jesus. He needs Jesus. He's a fucking adult. We learn during the game that he actually knows all the spoilers in the game, and that he's been raised from a young age to burden the responsibility of leading the Norn to it's destination. So of course, he is a man who understands the consequences of his actions! And who is responsible! And who doesn't play the "can't hold back my man-lust" card, right??!?? Hahahah n o p e. Absolutely disgusting. Of course his inability to hold back is just cute and romantic and being kabedon'd by this dude 7 years older than you is oh so cute, right?? It's fucking not. It's not. This game tries to play it off as romantic, but I was just straight up disgusted by this bullshit.

Anyways his route eventually ends with him abandoning his responsibilities because he just fucking loves Koharu sooo much!!! Of course also he fell for her since she's just nice and tries to make him feel better since he's so stressed, and being treated nicely by a teen girl of course he's just like *dokis* "Wow Koharu is showing basic human kindness to me which no one ever does... How I am growing to adore her.. how I so wish to kabedon and ravish her teen body but of course being a leader I musn't fall in love!! And if I do I'll just have to push my feelings on her and then elope with her instead of going about this like a reasonable fucking adult"

Fuck him. Pulling her away to elope of course he also lies to her and keeps information from her because oh she's so pure and naive she's safer if she doesn't know!! Just come with big daddy ur daddy will keep you safe baby doll ;)

no.

Kakeru
tbh I didn't even do him but I heard second handedly it's a disappointment. If Kakeru truly was an ass-fuck shit of a human being who loves tormenting shotas, maybe it'd be a good route. Instead I'm gonna assume there's just drama with him and his fake dad who's brainwashing him or whatever, and him being wrapped around Koharu's lil finger cuz that just happens for some reason, and sure that's cute but also whatever I didn't even do his route so what do I know.

Mikoto's routes

Mikoto is the tsundere responsible ojou-san rich girl raised in a fancy household to use her powers for good!! So majime and responsible. She has barrier powers, and feels obligated to use them to protect those she cares about! She's very proud of her abilities! Since she's so serious and bound by her honor and pride, of course she's the type who will keep all her promises and live chained to her responsibilities, right??? ? ?? ? ?? ?  ??  We'll see.

Anyways her choices are serious devoted osananajimi Sakuya, flirty dick ready for action Itsuki, and fucking gun toting nerd Natsuhiko!! Sounds like some fun!! !  111

Sakuya

Sakuya is Mikoto's childhood friend and he's clearly in love with her! He's nice and friendly when in her midst, but as soon as she's gone he reverts to a stone cold ass lacking of any empathy whatsoever. Yandere alert, amiright? Wrong. He's just difficult. Anyways spoilers: He can see into the future, and when he was a kid he saw that he was going to die for the one he loved (obviously Mikoto)! Mikoto however was LIVID. Sakuya dying?? Not on her watch! Of course she then made him swear to never fall in love ever (too late dipshit) and that she'd support him by never falling in love herself either. Of course the best choice of action is to keep a distance from him for the rest of her life so that he can live. Sakuya just goes with it since he knows she's doing it for his sake.

His entire route is just them being awkward. They're just so awkward. Mikoto clearly has lingering feelings for him but she has to resist for his sake! Sakuya straight up is in love with her, and everytime he tries to express this she prevents him from doing it. Of course this means that they're just suffering for nothing, since he's still clearly in love and the prophecy will probably come true thanks to that, but of course Mikoto wants to believe he's not really in love if she doesn't hear it! And of course Sakuya just goes along with it since he'd rather live this pining lifestyle instead of just forcing Mikoto to face the facts since well idk if that's what he wants!!!

After years of absolutely nothing happening, eventually they come to terms with the facts and live happily ever after. Though yeah obligitory bad end where Sakuya dies for her ofc but who cares about that, either way this was boring shit.

Natsuhiko

Mikoto romantically fantasizing abt her dead ex (bad end)

This was one of the only routes I enjoyed. The romantic development was actually kind of cute and I smiled on occasion. Anyways Natsuhiko's your straight-laced tech nerd who loves science so much he wants to kill all the espers since there's a 50% chance they'll go through with the 'reset' and destroy the tech he loves so much. Of course just convincing them is too difficult so murder using the same tools used in the 'war' he hates so much is the only answer. Natsuhiko is kind of a hypocrite, but if you use the power of love well enough he can become more idealistic and whatever.

He kidnaps Mikoto since her barrier powers are vital to the Norn and it's protecting itself from his terro attacks, and also he would love to use her powers himself to randomly go interfere with current warfare since yolo swag. Since Mikoto's barrier protecting the Norn will stay up until she dies or turns it off or whatever, of course let's just use this time to make her warm up to the terrorist squad and perhaps help them with their pastime of attacking battlefields. Of course she spits in his face and is just like 'fuck u' but through a lot of effort eventually his thinking goes through to her sorta. Natsuhiko just wants to stop war by taking action! Fighting the good fight! Not just holing up all the espers to go give up and reset the world or whatever the heck. Mikoto's super tsundere so she's difficult for like forever, but softens up when seeing Natsuhiko's softer nerd side. He also promises not to hurt her fellow espers sooo why not just hook up with him???

Remember her promise to Sakuya? Well remember no longer, since Mikoto's clearly forgotten!! Haha what promise?? Who's Sakuya. Mikoto and Natsuhiko have a grand ol' time, and at one point Natsuhiko even gets convenient amnesia and she plays the part of his house wife basically and they play house for a month or two. After his memories return he plays dumb and savors the domestic life, but eventually is pulled by Ron (the Norn traitor and his cohort) to stop screwing around. You'd think he'd want to not run from his responsibilities as soon as his memories returned, but as we all know almost every dude in this fucking game would rather fuck around with a girl instead of facing reality and getting shit done haha great.

Long story short Natsuhiko makes up with the Norn squad and Masamune and if he loves Mikoto enough he'll throw his guns away and go the pacifistic route, hoping to find a solution to world war without using weapons. Sounds impossible but okay go for it. Otherwise he just leaves forever with his guns and dies somewhere rip in pieces.

Itsuki

Tbh i didn't even do him but I heard from a friend you fucking sleep with him pretty soon in the relationship so I'm gonna assume Mikoto once again is breaking her own personality of being honorable and a complete prude and once again completely forgetting her promise with Sakuya. Who even is Sakuya?? ?  Who cares, Mikoto's getting laid!

Nanami's routes

Nanami is the cold, hard to read short girl. She's also the youngest, at the baby age of 16, wow! Underneath her apparently callous exterior, she's actually a very worried and shy soft girl, craving love and whatever but her tough love upbringing has resulted in this self-hating kuudere type instead. Her routes are the worst.

Nanami's 3 love interests are tsundere teen angst Akito, genki boring bland Hsomething idek, and Mysterious Dangerous Cool Guy™ Ron.

Akito

Akito is secretly Senri's long lost brother, though because he kept preventing Senri from using his water powers to fix the droubt issues back in their hometown sinec it was literally killing the child (Senri is physically weak and can squirt out like 3 drops before collapsing), so of course the village opted to idk hire some shady ass ninja clan to use their loli esper to wipe Senri's fucking memories of his brother!! Just fucking kill the older brother, cast him out, whatever. Instead of idk restraining him and forcing the baby bro to continue doing forced labor without removing him of the only emotional support he has. No wonder Senri's incapable of positively doing any form of social interaction.

Anyways for the rest of his short life (I mean he's only like what 17 or something) Akito fucking hates Nanami's guts for doing this to him and Senri. Who even knows what he did in between now and when he was a shota brat, but no one cares, clearly. Anyways upon reuniting with the binch who ruined his life on the Norn, ofc he is overcome with emotion and-- does fucking nothing!! Maybe deep down he understands that Nanami didn't truly mean to do it, right? Nope.

We learn quickly that Akito's under the impression that Nanami's a cold hearted robo binch who callously wipes memories without a care for anyone else's feelings on the matter. It's pretty obvious she has a personality, but he is a blind teen so he can't see dog shit if it was thrown at his eyes. Anyways picking him as her partner, the game implies that Nanami is pretty obsessed over her guilt on what she did to Akito and Senri. So of course she follows him around constantly from the shadows, insisting that she doesn't like him at all but stalking him anyways and recieving verbal abuse whenever he sees her. Of course she has a reason for all this stalking right? To find a way to atone for what she did? Or something? No she's just curious. Also of course after 4 days of stalking she gets 'what is this feeling'-itis and becomes hurt whenever he treats her badly. But sometimes shes kinda tsun and Akito, looking in the face of the girl who single handedly ruined his life, feels a doki... Loins before brain amiright. Akito basically seems incapable of choosing between having a random crush on this chick cuz she's like sort of cute and there all the time, or idk continuing to hold her at arms length 'cause she ruined his fucking life. He just flips between 'a tsundere with a crush' mode and 'i hate u girl who ruined my life' mode. One point they're hand cuffed together to force them to get along, and of course it's really awkward. Nanami blames herself for everything wrong in Akito's life, and of course all this blame turns into a crush on the boy, and Akito sees this girl and just y'know he's a boy she's a girl of course he's gonna fall for her!!!

Eventually they solve all their differences and fall in love or whatever, and he makes up with Senri and everything and if you aren't a dumbass ofc you don't wipe Senri's memories a second time even though Akito wants you to for some reason? ? What does Akito even want? Who is he? What life did he live those like 7 years or so alone in this world without anyone to rely on? He's just aw ell adjusted tsundere teen who was unloved by his own parents, forgotten by his brother thanks to a ninja clan, and banished to survive on his own when he was like 10 or something. Well whatever who cares what his life was like, he's well adjusted now and falls for the cold ninja chick since she's so cute!! That's great!! !!

On another note, being Senri's bro you'd think Akito would look out for him more, right? Nope. Only when scenes about it show up in his route. Whenever Kakeru is runing Senri's fucking life, where's Akito? Who knows, just cooking or something probably!! Living his whole life worrying about his baby bro he was seperated from as a kid, and now that he knows baby bro is safe(?) on this ship he's just gonna ask fucking Kakeru of all people to keep an eye on him, and now it's out of his hands! Best brother of the year.

Ron

Nanami misses when trying to stab them abs try harder gurl

Ron is the super secret traitor even though he goes through literally no effort to hide it at all, and the game's probably trying to surprise you by making it so obvious it's not obvious but his route's such bullshit that y'know what I'm gonna shit all over it either way. Ron's set up as the 'unreadable guy with a mysterious past' and he's also 'a heartless mercenary who's killed hundreds'. So edgy!! He's killed many and he's broken inside wow so dark!! No one can understand him and he acts all chipper and silly since he's empty inside wow!! Why the fuck did hall monitor majime as fuck Natsuhiko even hire this guy? Ron is clearly the most untrustworthy unreliable person ever, and he makes little to no efforts to hide his identity as the traitor and he's just so inherintley suspicious and I'm jut -- anyways, Nanami partners with him and he's useless and stupid as usual, until!! Wow suddenly he kabedon's her in the shade out of sight of all the others and is serious for 5 seconds!! So edgy, so dokidoki inducing!! Maybe if I was a middle schooler I'd think it's soo dangerous and cool for this useless piece of shit to suddenly enter cold serious mode, but honestly I just want him to fuck off. Nanami too, she's lived a life of hurting others and now just wants to hole up on the Norn and never use her powers again, so unlike obsessing over her guilt in Akito's route now she just wants to see what Ron's up to since he's so shady. And of course whenever he's annoying it makes her hate him more!! But also feel... what's this? What's this feeling?... a doki? Why?... that's a disease called 'shit excuse for a romance starter'. You hate a guy? Well too bad, you're getting the dokis so clearly you like it when he's an asshole to you!! Congrats, Nanami!

Ron continues to be a useless piece of shit and Nanami just wants him to do his work and do his part as a member of the Norn. As the evidence piles up that he's the fucking traitor of coures Nanami's like "omg it can't be.. *denies everything*. he's so fucking shady though he's ttly the traitor.. but.. these dokis... they compell me to keep silent." So she keeps silent. Ron raises hell and almost kills a couple people but Nanami is feeling a feeling so complicated inside so instead she just makes out with him n shit. Let's not forget he's 25 too. Unlike Masamune however, it's clear from the get-go Ron is an immoral man who is also incapable of forming attachments to people, and it's implied he's just using Nanami as a passing tool for entertainment. Does he actually love her? .. or not?? So mystery... Nanmi worries about this things.... . . . . and that's romantic right??? ?? ? I'm all for edgy romance, but this is just stupid. Nanami has no reason to like him, but doki-itis  forces her to continue supporting him.

If you're too clingy and dependent you end up as his life long tool to help him do mercenary shit. That's great. Otherwise you hang with him and it's like a pain in the ass since Ron is incapable of empathy or caring for others and lives for bloodshed, but he also gets convenient amnesia at some point so he can play house with Nanami for a while. Nanami of course loves him even if he has amnesia since!! ?? ??  who the fuck even knows. She's just 16 so I guess she's become dependent on his presence since she has no one else in her life to attach herself emotionally to!! That's great. Anyways good end: Nanami wipes his fucking memories cuz hes too dank edgelord to live with her otherwise and if he truly loves her than even with his brain drained he'd still love her!! If he doesn't love her enough, ofc having all his memories removed results in him returning to being a cold kill machine (?? returning?? not that we ever learn about his backstory so who the fuck even knows) and he kills Nanami!! That's great!! She's probably happier dead anyways, I wouldn't wanna deal with this useless fuck my whole life anyways

I can see what the game tried to do with Ron's character, and it really fell flat. His personality has no basis at all he's just an empty shell called edgy dank romance for middle schoolers craving some fake spice in their bland as fuck shit romance game. Ron's only appeals are his abs that's it.

Heishi(?)
Who is he

CONCLUSION

yuri route fuckin where

This game is shit. I played through a lot of it in a blind stupor just thinking "maybe the next route will be better" and that 'better' never came. The romance in this game is shallow, abuses the 'what is this feeling why do I feel this way' card for EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN ROUTE and also the heroines' personalities seemed to vary a bit depending who you were dating as well. I like consistency. There are i need ways to write good romances with a variety of different sorts of guys, even with a very personality-full heroine y'know. Look at heart no kuni for example, I won't go into it but the romance in that game was cute and solid, even though Alice has a shit ton of personality! This game however, I really could not see what Nanami's personality really was as it fluctuated so much. Mikoto's values seemed to be forgotten depending on who she was in love with. Koharu was pretty consistent with her dumbass naive setup but yea I can't take the 'what is this feeling' bs anymore if I see that shit excuse used again to initiate the romance in an otoge I'm gonna set myself on fire. Also a guy taking it upon himself to protect a girl 'cuz she a dumbass and too innocent and pure to know any better ISN'T FUCKING ROMANTIC. IT'S NOT CUTE IT'S CONTROLLING AND UNSETTLING. If you want to live your life sheltered from reality in the warm arms of a 'can't control myself cuz ur soo fukkin cute lil girl' boyfriend then suit urself. I want some real romance here. Like maybe if Koharu's purity and keen eyes let her see into the dudes' problems and maybe help them realize something about themselves and come to truly appreciate Koharu for who she is (a powerful esper who uses pure will to restrain herself and chooses to show only compassion to others rather than idk became a fire witch which I probably would become if I got treated like a pariah by villagers like she did), instead of just falling for her cuz she's nice and stupid and has a cute face, then it'd be cheesy but the routes wouldn't be horseshit??? These romances were just so fucking shallow and devoid of looking into the characters as who they are. It was all external 'oh i have crush on this person now!1 1 ogmg what is this feeling' instead of a real LOVE built from two character's like growing relationship and idek just end this game end it.

Anyways if you appreciate this kind of really stereotypical boy-girl romance garbage with the she's a girl he's a boy ofc they fall in love nonsense, and also the oh she's so cute the boy can't control himself anymore nonsense, then sure buy this game. Otherwise, please get Code Realize instead. It's also an otoge for middle-schoolers but at least it's solid. At least the romance isn't as garbage as it is in Norn. I've only done 2.5 routes in that game so far though so I'll leave it at that.

I hate this game so much. Every day I see a positive opinion on it I die a little more inside, I'm sorry but that's just the kind of person I am. Not even Nobuo Uematsu's music could save this game. However, now that I've written this all out, I think I can finally move on with my life. The salt has been expelled from my body, eternally immortalized on this blog. I am finally free.

TL;DR I give this game a -20/10 don't play it if you love yourself