Thank you Aksys Games for sending us this game to review!

Norn9: Last Era is a follow up to Norn9: Var Commons. It provides insights to the lives of the teenagers before they boarded the Norn9. It’s interesting to see the back stories of the characters and especially for the traitors. There are also after stories so you can see the trials and happy times for all of the romance routes in the previous game. In a way, Norn9: Last Era is both a prequel and a sequel. I still recommend playing Norn9: Var Commons first.

Like the previous entry, Norn9: Last Era is an otome (reverse harem) visual novel where you get to see through the perspective of three females and nine male characters. Each of the three female characters has three possible romance routes.

There are four different game modes in Norn9: Last Era:

Prelude - See the life of the espers before they board the Norn9.

Concerto - The after stories that pick up from the previous game. Each story has four different sections: Prologue, Moonlight, Sunburst, and Epilogue. There are choices and if there is a wrong selection, the following section won’t unlock. There are walkthroughs available to guide you if you get stuck.

Fugue - A four-chapter retelling of the game through perspective of the guy. By far, this is the longest game mode. To save time, you can opt to skip the prologue. There are not many choices to be made in this mode, but saving before them is always recommended so you can see all of the character’s reactions.

Fantasia - See how and why characters are being transformed into a chibi-like appearance. They must overcome some obstacles to get their bodies back to normal proportions. There are multiple routes with nine different endings.

The art and music hasn’t changed much since the previous game. In fact, I’m struggling to remember any new backgrounds, characters, or music added to this title. I would say it’s easily 95% recycled assets. The stories/perspectives are all new and that’s what counts.

Morally, nothing has changed. Language is used heavily throughout the game and pretty much all of the words with exception of the F-bomb are used. The Lord’s name is dropped casually as well with a lower case g.

Some of the routes end with kissing, but a few of them go much further with implied sexual encounters. In some cases, you’ll see a still image with a guy on top of or beside the female character. Nudity is not shown, but some of the guys are shown in bathing suits and one of them refuses to use shirt buttons. Blood is shown and there are some violent scenarios described.

Aside from the moral issues, I enjoyed learning more about the characters on the Norn9 destined to save humanity from annihilating itself. If you enjoyed Norn9: Var Commons, you’ll definitely want to pick this one up. It has over thirty hours of content to (re)experience!