Review of Never7 -the end of infinity-
| Subject | Never7 -the end of infinity- Never7 -the end of infinity- Eternal Edition v0.6 |
| By | Helpfulness: 1 Vote: 5PhantomSonzai on 2022-08-19 last updated on 2022-10-22 |
| Review | Never7 is the first game in the Infinity series, that being said it's also the least popular. Many people who have played the follow up, Ever17, aren't even aware of Never7's existence, either that or they're just not interested. And frankly, I can't blame anyone who isn't interested in reading Never7. Despite being primarily written by Kotaro Uchikoshi and directed by Takumi Nakazawa, both of whom are known for sci-fi narratives, Never7 hardly focuses on sci-fi at all. It's a romance/slice-of-life VN first-and-foremost, which isn't all that likely to appeal to people who are already fans of their other works. Never7's biggest issue to me isn't the genre though. While I'm generally not a fan of slice-of-life stuff, I've come to realize recently that when done well, slice-of-life stories can be quite fun. The problem with Never7 is that I don't think it's particularly well written at all. First of all, there's the characters. The protagonist, Makoto Ishihara, is...interesting. Uchikoshi and Nakazawa had apparently gotten pushback for giving the protagonist of Memories Off, a previous game they had worked on, too much personality. Ignoring the fact that this is some the worst criticism I've ever heard, Uchikoshi decided to respond to it in an equally terrible way, by making the protagonist an unlikeable asshole who has no personality. Now, to give him some credit, the final route does do some very interesting things with Makoto's character. I highly doubt the writers intended to actually do something this interesting given the release history of this game (the final route was not included in the original release and was presumably never planned), but either way, I do need to give credit where credit is due. The other characters aren't much better. Yuka is used as a comic relief character but pretty much all of her jokes boil down to "I'm drunk and I'm going to do dumb stuff." I don't think any of her jokes are even remotely funny. Haruka is hardly a character, she has a lot of potential to be interesting but I never feel like that potential gets fully explored. Saki is the worst character in the game, worse than Makoto. Imagine a tsundere character like Tsugumi from Ever17. Now imagine that they just remain how they are at the start of the game and never get any form of development. That's Saki. It doesn't help that her route is just straight-up-bad but either way I don't think she's a good character. Kurumi is surprisingly good, I really don't like what the game does with her, but as a character she's not bad at all. Izumi is really boring but she's not offensively bad or anything. And finally we have Okuhiko, the "rival" character, who is the best character in the game purely because he's actually pretty funny, and I'm being 100% serious when I say that he's the second most complex character in the game. But now onto the routes themselves. I have never read a VN where it is as painfully obvious that each route was done by a different writer, because the quality varies so much. Yuka's Route For the majority of it's runtime, this is the most generic late '90s VN romance route you can think of. Yuka is already a boring character and her route being so cookie-cutter generic really doesn't help. The "conflict" (if you can even call it that) is incredibly forced and doesn't add anything. There are one or two interesting scenes sprinkled throughout the route, especially in the second half, but they don't really go anywhere. I'll give this route 4/10 for just being boring. Haruka's Route Slightly less interesting and also has lower writing quality. Most of this route just blends together for me, not much really happens. The climax is very forced but it's also one of the only parts of the game that has a miniscule amount of tension. I'll give this route a 3/10 for also just being boring. Saki's Route An absolute shitshow of a route. The whole point of the route is that Makoto is supposed to put his faith in Saki and trust her, I guess? But the scenario it's presented in is so terrible. Saki killing herself because she broke into the house everyone else was staying at right before it got robbed is just...why? Any reasonable person would suspect Saki, if you really want to have this scene the second loop should be about Makoto trying to find evidence to prove Saki's innocence (still not great but it's a hell of a lot better than what we got), not about him just blindly putting his faith in her to stop her from killing herself. Seriously, I have no idea what whoever wrote this was thinking. 2/10, moving on. Kurumi's Route The first half of this route as actually pretty good! Kurumi is a good character and this highlights her problems in a surprisingly heartfelt way. This route honestly could have been a 6 or 7 out of 10 if it wasn't for Makoto during the second half being so goddamn creepy. It turns a nice and well written route into something really uncomfortable to read. 4/10. Izumi's Route This route isn't unlocked until after the true end in most releases of the game but I'm skipping ahead because I played it first, and also because it was the final route in the first release of the game. This is a joke route, it is a comedy, there is nothing remotely serious in it. I can understand why Japanese reviewers disliked this route when the game first released, because honestly? I would have felt insulted if this was the final route. If you view it as a joke extra, it's fine I guess, 4/10 probably would be an okay score. But as an actual route, 2/10. True Route Fortunately however, Izumi's route is no longer the final one, and wow, what an improvement this is. This route decides to focus on sci-fi and it's actually really interesting, even if the writing quality itself still leaves a lot to be desired. The main concept introduced here is a very important connection to the later games. Praise aside though, this is the only route that I would say has some pretty significant pacing issues. Every time something interesting happened it ends up getting interrupted by some SoL stuff, and it's honestly a real shame. This route has the potential to be absolutely amazing but it's held back by having to conform with the rest of the game. I give it 6/10. Presentation-wise, Never7 is a mixed bag. I'm really not a fan of the artstyle they went with for the sprites, and they often look off-model and strange. The music on the other hand, is excellent. Takeshi Abo has composed for some of my favourite VNs and he's just as good here, perfectly capturing the lighthearted whimsy of the majority of the game. And with that, there's not really much else to say. I would only really recommend Never7 because of it's important connections to Ever17 and Remember11. Despite what many people may tell you you will get more out of Ever17 and Remember11 if you read Never7 first. That being said I can't really recommend the majority of the game in good faith due to it just not really being a compelling read. If you really can't get through it, I feel like the route order of Yuka -> (maybe Kurumi) -> True works mostly fine, but you will miss some small stuff here and there. At the very least, I can say that this game has a lot of charm, so even if you do decide to read it, it's not soul crushingly dull or anything, just nothing special. |
| 1 point |