As the second game in the Infinity series and the sequel to Never 7, Ever 17 is the second of the two recently remastered games for modern consoles. Like its predecessor, it is a mix of science fiction and romance. With the original release coming more than two years after Never 7, there is a noticeable improvement in the writing, art, and audio. But how does this installment stand compared to the first game? And does this game hold up 20+ years later?
While Never 7 is not required to play through Ever 17, there are aspects to the story when it comes to the lore of the world in general that will make more sense. And compared to Never 7, Ever 17 leans a lot more into the science fiction aspects of its story. That’s not to say there isn’t romance, but it doesn’t feel like the focus with this title. Along with that, the general concepts of the story feel more cohesive, with each route giving more answers to the overall question (although, in turn, also leaving the player with additional questions until they play through the entirety of the routes).
The story starts with the main protagonist, Takeshi, hanging out with his friends on an artificial island that has its own resort park, LeMU. But while they’re navigating around the facility, a sudden emergency lockdown occurs, resulting in Takeshi being trapped underwater in the facility with five other people. All escape pods have already been evacuated, and with every hour that passes, fewer routes are available for them to take due to the structure slowly falling apart. So while the close quarters makes character bonding a very easy process, the main focus for everyone is escaping LeMU alive.
When it comes to keeping the tension high and the game interesting, Ever 17 accomplishes both. There are moments where the game will dump a bunch of exposition (hopefully, you love the concept of Schrödinger cat, because it shows up a lot). There are also a few moments that don’t add much to the plot in general. But overall, the writing and atmosphere for Ever 17 are pretty good.
There are five routes for you to play through, each with its own good and bad ending. Along with the five routes, there is an epilogue that can be played through once all routes have been completed. Ever 17 is a bit stricter on route order compared to Never 7, as Ever 17 locks the player out of “later” routes until the beginning routes have been completed. The general route order is Tsugumi → Sora → You → Sara → Coco → Epilogue. With this order, you are given information in a way that doesn’t immediately confuse the player, but does leave crumbs that keep the player wondering what’s actually going on.
As for the individual routes, all of the routes offer a piece of the puzzle. Some routes are stronger than others, but overall, all of them stand by themselves pretty well. The characters are all interesting, albeit with some annoying quirks here and there. Each route has a good and bad ending, although the bad endings don’t count when it comes to unlocking the epilogue (so for those who don’t want to play through those endings, don’t worry).
Ever 17 is a visual novel where you can occasionally select dialogue options that will eventually decide what route you end up on. Every character has their own set of options required to end up on their route. Right out of the gate (after playing through a couple of routes), your early decisions will send you down one of two paths (where only two characters are available to pursue.
One main drawback with Ever 17 has to do with the skipping function. There is a Skip Read Text function, which will allow the player to skip through text that has already been read. While this makes going through the early days of the game a breeze, there comes a point where the skip no longer works, and you’ll have to just skip through text manually. While it makes sense why the game wouldn’t skip through specific moments focused on the character you’re currently focusing on, there are several shared moments that, for some reason, are also included that don’t add much to the story. And while there is a Skip All function, this will skip all text, even if you haven’t read it in other routes.
Much like its predecessor, Ever 17’s art style is rooted in early 2000s anime aesthetic. But it’s just as charming with its colorful cast of characters. The designs of both the characters and the environment are an improvement from Never 7. As a surprising twist, there are also 3D animations for some of the key moments in the visual novel. While simplistic in their own right (for instance, one of the animations is of rushing water coming towards the player), it’s an addition that does add to the tension of the games.
Thankfully, a lot of the weird sound issues that seemed to plague Never 7 didn’t occur in Ever 17, such as the abrupt cutting off of the music before it loops. The music and voice acting both sound much clearer. The cast, in general, is strong, comprised of voice actors who have nowadays solidified themselves in the industry. As for the music, while there aren’t a lot of tracks/many of the tracks tend to blend together due to an abundance of piano and guitar pieces. The overall feeling matches the bleak yet hopeful vibe of the game.
As a sequel, Ever 17 knocks it out of the park. The weaknesses of Never 7 don’t appear as much in Ever 17, and it stands solidly on its own. The story is very interesting, and while the skipping of repetitive text could have been handled better, each route is interesting in a way that keeps the player engaged. The addition of the 3D animation sequences was a nice surprise and definitely added to the tension of being locked underwater in a failing facility. The art CGs are interesting, and the writing keeps the player hooked until the end. It’s a solid visual novel that is worth checking out, especially for fans of Uchikoshi’s work.
Ever 17 – The Out of Infinity gets an 8/10.
