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scoutception · 3 years

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Never7 -the end of infinity- review

Kotaro Uchikoshi holds the title of being one of the most magnificently insane writers in Japan, which is saying something. He’s most famous for the Zero Escape trilogy, an innovative mix of escape-the-room puzzles and normal visual novel story sequences, and the much more recent AI: The Somnium Files, a more standard, yet equally memorable detective drama, which I actually wrote a full review on right here. Though, all things considered, “famous” would be a bit of an overstatement, as these games are very much cult games, being all but completely ignored in Japan, and not doing fantastic overseas either, with the upside of those who have played them often loving them, including me, with Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and AI: The Somnium Files being some of my favorite games out there. However, before the days of Zero Escape, Uchikoshi got his start working at KID, a now defunct developer most famous for its two visual novel series, those being Memories Off, a series of romance VNs that have unfortunately never seen the light of day outside of Japan, not even through fan translations, and the Infinity series, the brainchild of Uchikoshi and the equally insane Takumi Nakazawa, consisting of Never7, Ever17, Remember11, 12Riven, and Code_18, though, reasonably speaking, only those first three, as the latter two were pretty badly received. Science fiction VNs that are mostly connected by their shared themes, these games laid the groundwork for Zero Escape, and are ironically the exact opposite in terms of popularity, being well received and popular in Japan when released, but almost completely unknown in America even today, for understandable reasons, as only Ever17 was officially released in English, with Never7 and Remember11 only being playable with fan translations, along with just being old. Never7 originally was released in 2000, with Ever17 and Remember11 coming out in 2002 and 2004 respectively. Needless to say, these games have long lost their chance at the spotlight, but my curiosity has driven me to them, and thus, we arrive at today’s topic: the first game in the series, Never7. Note that I played the PSP version, as while the translation was originally made for the PC version, that version is really not recommended, for reasons I’ll detail later in the review. Either way, here it be.

20 year old Makoto Ishihara is an unremarkable college student theoretically majoring in psychology, but in practice has majored in skipping the majority of his classes due to his lack of personal direction. This slacker attitude comes back to bite Makoto when he finds himself forcibly signed up for the strange “Seminar Camp”, set on a faraway island and lasting from April 1st to April 7th, with no apparent purpose other than to strengthen the bonds between the members of the group. The other members of Makoto’s group are Yuka Kawashima, a friendly, outgoing girl who serves as the group’s leader, Haruka Higuchi, a quiet, mysterious honor student, and Okuhiko Iida, an infamous playboy who also happens to be heir to the Iida Financial Group. During their week on the island, the group also befriends three others unrelated to the camp: Saki Asakura, an old friend of Yuka’s who comes from a rich family, Kurumi Morino, an energetic and cheerful girl, and her older sister Izumi Morino, the temporary manager of the cafe Lunabeach, whose motherly nature quickly gives her a place as the mediator of the group.

Unfortunately, this otherwise relaxing stay proves to have its own share of problems, mostly within the group. Yuka, despite being the leader, is rather reckless, with a tendency to get unreasonably drunk every chance she gets. Haruka avoids interaction to the point of seeming cold, and insists, among other things, that she “has no heart”. Okuhiko is a shallow jerk who instantly takes a disliking to Makoto, and has a fixation on Haruka that he takes to controlling levels, despite her clear disinterest. Saki, though perfectly affable in group settings, is unnecessarily difficult, stubborn, and harsh in one on one conversation, with a tendency to lash out at others when upset. Kurumi is extremely childish, despite being 17 years old, and even the otherwise dependable Izumi is more than a bit scatterbrained and secretive. As both bonds and tensions form within the group over the week, Makoto is faced with something far more concerning: mysterious premonitions of near future events that always turn out to be correct, coupled with a strange dream which seems to predict the death of someone on the 6th while holding a strange bell, with him soon finding said bell washed up on the beach one night.

It’s pretty much impossible to talk about this game without giving away that it is much more than a simple romance VN, despite it being the big twist of the game when it was first released. Unfortunately, the twists of the game mostly rely on being a surprise, and aren’t very developed otherwise, for the most part, and the story is mostly focused on romance. Considering how elaborate Uchikoshi’s later games are, this is absolutely the biggest reason why Never7 remains so obscure even by Infinity’s standards, considering that Uchikoshi fans are pretty much the only ones who’d be interested in this game nowadays, and knowing that this game isn’t even close to the same level of complexity as his more famous games is the biggest thing that has to be kept in mind when considering anything about it.

The game consists of a beginning common route, 5 routes for Yuka, Haruka, Saki, Kurumi, and Izumi, and the two Curé routes: Izumi Curé, the final route, which takes the plot in a vastly different direction, and serves to completely supplant Izumi’s original route as well, as it’s rather infamously disappointing, and Yuka Curé, a retelling of Yuka’s route from her own perspective. While Yuka Curé is an extra accessed outside of the main game, the rest are accessed in pretty typical VN fashion: the game starts with a common route that serves to introduce the characters, setting, and a few plot elements, before eventually diverging into one of several character specific routes depending on your choices within the common route, namely building up affection points with the characters, and seeing specific, important scenes concerning them. Having enough points and having all requisite plot flags will lock you into that character’s route, with the game otherwise defaulting to Yuka’s route. Not anything atypical of the genre here.

For the most part, this system is fairly forgiving, and works fine. It’s usually pretty easy to figure out what choices actually affect affection, whether from the options themselves, or the reactions of the characters, and the amount of points needed is fairly lenient for each. There’s also a scene near the end common route that has several variations based on which character you have the most affection with, once again defaulting to Yuka if you don’t have sufficient points with any of the others, allowing you an easy way to figure out if you’re on the right path. That said, there’s still definitely frustrations it can cause. While you technically have plenty of freedom to choose what route to pursue on your first playthrough, only Yuka and Haruka’s routes are on the easier side, with Saki’s route being difficult to navigate to and through due to her contrarian nature, with most of the options that involve angering her being the ones to raise affection, and Kurumi’s route forcing you to branch off to a scene involving Izumi instead of her when given the option. Izumi’s routes are also very glaringly not available at first, with options related to her in the common route slowly being unlocked with each route completed instead. While it is actually pretty neat to witness and does make sense, as Izumi’s normal route is not at all serious, and the Curé route is absolutely meant to be saved for last, as far as the serious routes go, it’s still kinda awkward once you notice it, and accessing them carries its own frustration, namely pulling the reverse of the Kurumi route situation and needing to go with Kurumi instead of Izumi at the same point.

Each route also contains multiple endings, with Yuka’s, Haruka’s, Saki’s, and Kurumi’s routes having one bad and one good ending, Izumi’s routes having two bad endings and one good ending each, and Yuka Curé having one bad and two good endings, all of which depend on certain important decisions within the routes, typically at the climax, with specific steps needing to be taken to achieve the good endings, with everything else leading to the bad endings. It’s actually pretty easy to figure out what’s needed for the good endings most of the time, and even if you screw up, it doesn’t take long to fix your mistake, as the game autosaves at the start of every scene and everytime a decision is available. That said, even this has a few frustrating parts. Kurumi’s ending is a lot easier to screw up than the others, and the Haruka, Saki, and Izumi Curé routes keep the affection mechanic, whereas the others forego it once locked into, forcing you to continue gaining points to reach a certain minimum by the climax, or you’re automatically locked into the bad endings. While it’s still pretty easy to do with Haruka and Izumi, to the point you may gain enough points just from the common route, Saki’s route once again causes the most issue with this mechanic, with the choices tending to be just as confusing as in the common route, which is especially bad if you only barely scraped into her route in the first place. As one last note on the affection mechanic, Yuka and Saki’s routes have scenes and CGs that can only be viewed with certain amounts of affection, with Yuka’s needing a rather high amount that forces you to get as many as possible, and Saki’s rather confusing needing less than a certain high amount, based on my testing. The game barely gives any indication of this, outside of showing scenes in their routes missing in the playing log.

As far as length goes, this isn’t exactly Clannad or Grisaia; while not short, it’s only about average length for a VN. Both the common route and the character routes go by pretty quickly, with only Izumi Curé being noticeably lengthy. The bigger plot elements don’t have much focus at all before the character routes kick in, and only the Izumi Curé and Yuka routes place any great focus on them, which can leave it feeling pretty half baked overall. Additionally, the two Curé routes weren’t even in the original version of the game, which released for the PS1 as Infinity, and thus the elements within Izumi Curé can feel a bit jarring compared to the rest of the game. Altogether, this gives the impression of a game that’s, at best, just average, and only notable as a prototype for the later games in the series. However, while I’m not going to argue against how unappealing Never7′s basic nature can be in comparison to Ever17 or Zero Escape, I actually ended up liking it quite a bit, probably a good deal more than average, and feel it does overall do more things right than wrong.

The cast of characters is by far the best part of Never7. While Makoto is a very basic and forgettable protagonist, and Okuhiko only really exists to be the butt of jokes, though even he gets a couple of moments of depth, everyone else is likeable and complex in their own ways. Yuka, though having a lot of traits that could just easily make her irritating, instead manages to be surprisingly charming. Saki is genuinely sympathetic despite the many low points she has, and the parts of the story that focus on her are generally some of the best parts of the game. My favorite character by far is Haruka, who has, in my opinion, the best route in the game, with many memorable and tender moments as early as the common route, and very well done character development which makes it flow better than a good deal of the other routes, and has a tragic element that stands out even when most of the rest of the cast does as well, which leads to many of the more emotional moments of the game. Haruka’s scenes are another consistent highlight of the writing, and she is overall a surprisingly memorable character among the cast, in my opinion.

Speaking of routes, they’re definitely the other main highlight of the writing. While the structure of the plot means that they can feel a bit samey at times, they do do a good job of developing their respective characters, and do have their own little twists along the way to make them stand out. Additionally, unlike some romance VNs, the rest doesn’t simply vanish outside of their own routes. As the relationships between the cast are important parts of their characters, each character plays a role of some importance in at least one route each, which helps keep focus on each character. It’s not quite perfectly balanced, though; Saki is very noticeably screwed for screentime, only playing a noticeable role in Yuka’s route, and having no presence in any other route besides her own. This also rather bizarrely applies to Yuka herself to a lesser degree, despite being the most blatantly advertised of the characters, while Haruka and Izumi tend to have more of the focus between routes.

Aside from the aforementioned Haruka route, some of my other favorite routes would be Saki’s route, for its surprisingly tense atmosphere and focus on the tensions within the group giving it a very different feel from most of the other routes, Yuka Curé, as Yuka’s perspective is refreshingly different from Makoto’s and gives her quite a bit more depth, while having a fair few potential divergences from the normal Yuka route, along with giving Saki a very prominent supporting role, and Izumi Curé, for giving the biggest taste of the kind of direction future games would go. The plot elements revealed within are quite interesting, and force you to take a whole different perspective when considering the rest of the game up to this point, and ends with a tasteful amount of ambiguity that, among other things, reasonably lets you decide just which of the routes you think is “real”, despite the seemingly decisive focus and finality it has. Overall, I actually ended up quite a bit more attached to this cast than I was expecting, and while it wasn’t even close to getting to me like, say, Steins;Gate or AI: The Somnium Files, there’s a few decently emotional moments throughout, particularly on the Yuka, Haruka, and Izumi Curé routes.

But despite the dark or depressing moments Never7 can get into, in the end, it’s a lighthearted and optimistic game, and all things considered, that’s for the best for it. It’s not trying to be a dark dramatic story, just a relaxing and pleasant experience with a few twists to it, and after going through gruesome experiences like Zero Escape and Chaos;Child, I honestly kinda appreciate that.

As far as the game’s more technical aspects go, the characters and art were done by Yuna Kagesaki, best known for the manga Chibi Vampire/Karin. While the artstyle isn’t anything special, visually, the game is actually quite good looking overall. The character designs all look quite good, and the sprites and CGs are also well made, with the sprites notably giving all the characters many different poses, which make them quite distinct, even if a few tend to make the characters in question look a bit odd. While the PSP’s lower resolution and smaller screen means the sprites and backgrounds don’t look as good as the PC version, and that entire CGs and sprites can’t fit on the screen, it actually looks better than the PC version in places, from visual effects like rain, to the filters placed over the character sprites during sunset and night, to even just the UI. The PC version is extremely bare bones, but the PSP version has plenty of neat little menus and features such as a backlog, a detailed CG gallery that includes promotional artwork along with the art within the game itself, a playing log that includes detailed statistics and allows you to view how many scenes you’ve seen within the game, and how much dialogue you’ve seen within each, a music gallery, and a glossary that helps define terms and concepts within the game. While these aren’t quite special, they are very appreciated all the same, and make the PSP version of Never7 the definitive version. Still, here’s a comparison of the two versions, with the rainbow textbox being exclusive to the PC version.

Never7 also features a soundtrack composed by the great Takeshi Abo, who, along with the rest of the Infinity series, is the composer for the Science Adventure series, i.e. Steins;Gate and Chaos;Child. The original soundtrack, used in the PC version, was, to be honest, a bit rough in places, but the PSP version uses a remixed soundtrack first made for the PS2 port, which is nothing short of fantastic. The soundtrack fits the mood of the game perfectly, being very relaxing or upbeat. Each character’s theme fits them perfectly, and the music always manages to fit the context of each scene, particularly the song Languor, which fits both definitions of the word: pleasantly tired, or oppressively stiff. My favorite tracks have to be Izumi’s warm theme, the rather emotional main theme of the game, Once More, and especially Haruka’s downright beautiful theme. Exclusive to the PSP is a rather neat OP played at the start of the game, and an ED used for the original five routes, performed by the band Asriel, with the Curé routes having different EDs that were composed well before this port. Never7 also features a voice cast of voice actors both new and popular at the time, mostly notably the late Tomoko Kawakami as Yuka, Yuki Matsuoka as both Haruka and Kurumi, and Kikuko Inoue as Izumi. Everyone does a pretty decent job, with Yuki Matsuoka particularly managing to make both her characters sound very different. Most of the voice acting is rather compressed, even if it still sounds okay, but the voice acting in the Izumi Curé route is uncompressed, which, while a bit jarring when compared to the original voice acting, certainly sounds much better.

Overall, whether or not I would recommend Never7 heavily depends. If you want a crazier, much more visibly Uchikoshi experience, a much deeper kind of romance game like Clannad, or even just an especially emotional experience, you’re not likely to be impressed, and it’s not recommended in that case. However, the lighthearted nature of the game, average length, and likeable cast make for an experience that is actually quite enjoyable in its own right. If you can keep your expectations reasonable and lowered and just take it as it is, you’ll likely find a fun, easily accessible kind of experience, with some great art, beautiful music, and more than a few distinctive moments in its own right that I would genuinely recommend giving a fair try if you care for visual novels at all.

With that, more words than likely anyone has spoken in defense of this game, I’m off to take another dive into visual novel hell, soon including this game’s far more famous sequel, Ever17. Till next time. -Scout

#visual novel #kotaro uchikoshi #game review #playstation portable #long post

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