Norn9: Var Commons is an otome visual novel, it is aimed at the female audience therefore you should expect female protagonists and an abundance of romance. Being a pure visual novel, Norn9 features no gameplay. The whole game consists of reading and at specific points, you will be presented with a few choices which will slightly change subsequent scenes (but ends up largely being the same anyway). Be warned that there is a lot of text, so if you don't enjoy reading then it would be wise to steer away. The story is presented with background artwork and character portraits, being told mainly via dialogue. There will occasionally be full screen artworks of higher quality.
The storytelling is supplemented via music which is actually quite decent, especially the ending themes. A unique aspect here is that Norn9 features three main female protagonists. At the beginning of the game, you pick which character to follow. Each female protagonist has three male protagonists that they can pair up with as their love interest, so there are nine unique stories since you spend most of your time learning about the character's backstory. The story begins with a young boy named Sorata who ends up seemingly back in time. There, he goes onto a ship called the Norn (it's more of a floating orb than a traditional ship) where the three females and nine males are introduced.
The key plot element is that each member is an esper, a person with special powers, whether this be the ability to control plants or manipulation of water. They are following orders of something called The World, who is like a diplomatic being keeping the countries in check. Their orders consist of journeying to a place where they will end up being deployed to various countries for diplomatic missions. This has the repercussions that the characters, who do not know each other that much, may well end up as enemies and thus the thinking is that maybe they shouldn't develop friendships in the first place for fear of an awkward situation later.
Of course, it's not all fun and games since the story presents a few antagonists and some complex plot elements. Unfortunately, Norn9 loves throwing flashbacks which is irritating and redundant, leading to a lot of repetition. It is a short story but it has multiple endings that depend on the choices that you make. You are required to play through all nine stories in order to fully understand the plot. That said, it can be a bit confusing at what everything means even when you've finished a few endings as the game doesn't like to give answers to the questions.
A neat aspect is each pairing's stories cross over against others. This means when playing one story you get to recognise the events that are happening to another protagonist from when you played their story. This element makes it feel that there is a coherent plot rather than nine distinct stories. After you finish the nine good endings (note that there are also multiple bad endings for each character) there will be an Epilogue which is the true ending of sorts where it reveals the final piece of the mystery. Truth be told, although the plot has a neat concept and is executed fairly well, it is bloated since the key plot element is effectively told nine times with some slight variations.
When the tenth playthrough comes along you just want the game to be over. It still feels unsatisfying in some areas as you wait for the big revelation but it doesn't come with a huge impact. Furthermore after the tenth story, there are nine additional short scenes which adds another 45 minutes of story reading. Overall, it can take a total of around 15 to 20 hours to read through the whole game. Naturally, the time depends on your reading speed and can take longer or shorter but there is a lot of content although it can be a grind at times and the pacing slow.
Be aware that some plot elements are cliche and that the characters feel as if they fall in love too fast. They are not given enough time for the relationship to build and it might have been better to not have truncated the story into so many pieces a sit loses focus. The in-game options allow you to set the text speed to instant which is a boon to fast readers. You also have the option to skip the text you've already read or even skip all text entirely if that's what you prefer. The game is voiced entirely in Japanese though.
The only additional content is a minigame which is basically a random number generator. The only reason you play it is to earn more points to buy all the different extras from the in-game shop, although if you're aiming for a trophy, be prepared to play 45 minutes of pointless button pressing. The minigame involves selecting one character and then that will decide whether you earn points or lose points, it's all entirely random. As you'd expect, you can replay movies, scenes, music and artwork. Some of these items need to be bought from the in-game shop. Overall, Norn9: Var Commons has a decent story and is recommended for visual novel fans. You may have to be a little bit patient but it is satisfying when all's said and done.
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