Class of ’09 – Review
Visual novels are often a matter of personal taste, and it doesn’t mean because you like the format, you will actually like all the genre has to offer. Visual novels can revolve around basically anything, which is similar to actual novels. We have reviewed fantasy-type visual novels in the past, but also more serious ones that involved realistic themes. Now, we were given the opportunity to try out Class of ’09, which left us with mixed feelings.
Story
In Class of ’09, you’ll be playing as Nicole, a teenager who has moved from one state to another, never being able to make friends. She’s clearly depressed and acts as if she doesn’t care about anything or anyone. Nonetheless, you’ll soon find yourself ‘rejecting’ people around you, while in many cases the story still steers you towards attempting to make connections. The game describes itself as a rejection sim, but it never truly feels like that. That being said, you play as Nicole, trying to reject men who try to get you into bed, and the game often ends in a horrible fashion after each short playthrough.
Even though we usually don’t use the term ‘trigger warning’ here, we do find the depiction of some of the themes in the game a bit over the top. For a game that’s supposed to be funny, we ended up becoming more and more depressed as we pressed on. This was partly due to the horrible quality of the dialogues, as well as the many different depressing endings.
Graphics
The stills used for this story are of ‘okayish’ quality, but as a whole feel like they were made by a rookie artist. Sure, the characters do stand out and are diverse enough, but as a whole, this production felt cheap and unfinished. There are a few different backdrops, and the characters do change outfits from time to time, but the game remains somewhat basic, and the graphics just failed to captivate us. Nonetheless, credit should be given where credit is due: it’s clear some work was put into the project.
Sound
The sound design of the game might just actually be the best part of the game. All the dialogues in the game are fully voiced, and the cast members do a superb job portraying some of the extreme stereotypes that pass the revue here. Even though Nicole’s demeanor could be described as ‘shallow’ and ‘basic’, her character properly comes to life in this very short choice-based visual novel. Other cast members also put down formidable performances.
Gameplay
Class of ’09 is a visual novel that’s all about making ‘key’ choices. The game will auto progress at a steady pace, and at certain key moments, you will have to make a choice. These choices will lead to other outcomes, eventually wrapping up a playthrough in around half an hour. The game has more than ten different endings, so it does take you several hours to explore every possible avenue. The core concept of the game is actually quite decent, but the execution feels lazy, and at times, stupid.
This project was clearly made to address certain modern-day society topics, but the meta-humor does miss its mark more often than it should. This game is a fairly depressing ordeal, even though the developers describe their game as funny. The dialogues themselves are of abysmal quality and they just make the game very unlikeable. The different endings of the game are, in almost every case, negative, and these also don’t really add to the so-called humor-infused gameplay. We found the choices to be too basic, and some of the endings that occurred after certain choices simply didn’t make any sense. It also doesn’t help that a single playthrough, when just listening to the dialogues, will take you roughly around 10 clicks of your mouse to finish.
Conclusion
Class of ’09 nails a few of its core items, such as the voice acting and the overall concept. Sadly, the actual gameplay, the story, the overdose of depressing endings, and the atrocious meme-like dialogues turn this into a hot mess. If this game was offered for free or came with a price tag of 99 cents, we could still mildly suggest it. But at a price that allows you to buy an actual good movie, we suggest skipping this one altogether.
Class of '09 - Review,
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