Young Sorata is a smart young fellow who one day finds himself awake in a time and place unfamiliar to him. While it seems to be from a period long ago, the technology there is futuristic and none of it makes sense. He quickly meets Koharu, a young girl who can’t even remember her name at the time or anything else, and the two board a ship, the Norn, which is a spherical aircraft that is en route to some location in the United States. Crazy, right? Hang in there.
Aboard this ship are several other key characters, including Mikoto and Nanami, while the rest of the members are male. Everyone except for Sorata are espers who are basically humans with some kind of special power. They’re under the directive of an entity — perhaps an organization, perhaps an individual (it’s revealed but I won’t spoil it) known simple as The World. The World exists to maintain peace through a variety of means, but every so often, a Reset has to occur which throws civilization back in order to quell wars. Anyway, after the Prologue, which features Sorata’s storyline, the game branches with players being able to choose between the three female characters. You’re suggested to follow Koharu’s story first, but I went with Mikoto, and over the several hours it took to get through her main storyline, found it fairly engrossing. I only played my first otome game about a week ago in Code: Realize, and as a quick comparison, Norn9 manages to be more interesting than Code, but both play similarly and are a credit to their genre.
With Norn9, as with most any otome game it seems, you have an overarching storyline as well as relationships to build and explore. Mikoto’s story is between her and a childhood acquaintance and somewhat friend, named Sakuya. Sakuya, as an esper, has a power, and his is being able to see visions of the future. He has one seemingly damning vision — he will die saving the one he loves. You can probably start to see where this is going as far as a deep relationship between Mikoto and Sakuya and the inevitable peril that awaits if their relationship evolves to that. A catalyst to that possible outcome is a strange, gun-wielding visitor that appears on the Norn and tests Mikoto’s esper ability of creating a magical shield around objects and people.
Now, I’ve only played through Mikoto’s main story at this point, so the resolutions of the relationships of everyone and the overall plot involving The World and the mysterious bad guy are still lost on me. I know at least that there is more to Mikoto’s original ending though because in the Gallery there are a few more videos that are locked. I think those become available on consecutive playthroughs during which you can explore relationships with other characters. At least when you do go to start another story, you can skip through previously read parts and go right to the handful of decisions — some of them timed — that you have to make when prompted. Between timed decisions and the Affection mechanic, Norn9 seems to go a little bit beyond a typical otome game.
With that, let’s get to the summary…