Reviews from

in the past


This review contains spoilers

Uchikoshi takes the bold choice in confirming that the player is canonically a pedophile.

Como un no fanático de las novelas visuales tenia mis dudas sobre si disfrutaría de esto, y como dice la calificación fue un viaje sorprendente. Ever 17 toma lo que es una premisa sencilla y hasta cierto punto cliché para detonar en un sin fin de giros argumentales y siempre mantener al espectador con dudas y preguntas sobre que está sucediendo realmente.
Si tuviera que encapsular la cosa que más me sorprendió de esta novela, no es la historia en sí, si no su estructura poco convencional y que utiliza el medio interactivo lo mejor posible, y es que cuando mas lo pienso mayor es la sorpresa en como enlaza todos los hilos y dudas en la ruta final, sin contar ese giro argumental final el cual demuestra lo único que pueden llegar a ser los videojuegos siendo irrepetible en otros medios.
Aun así no todo puede llegar a ser bueno, ciertos eventos y conversaciones pueden ser mas largos y cansados de lo normal, además el factor romance se siente un poco fuera de lugar en algunas partes, esto debido a la gran inclinación a los temas de ciencia ficción y es muy notorio la pocas ganas de los escritores en escribir romance hasta el punto de ser un pequeño impedimento para ver lo que realmente importa. Fuera de eso mi ultima queja es con cierta conveniencia argumental en eventos concretos. Ever 17 esta plagado de elementos cancerígenos que pueden arruinar cualquier historia muy rápido y aun así se las arregla para no caer en tropos típicos o anticlimáticos la mayoría del tiempo pero a veces es necesario o llega a ser muy conveniente chocando con la demás narrativa.
Para dejar una conclusión e incitar a otros a leerla puedo decir que en un principio fruncirás el ceño en más una ocasión preguntándote si esto tiene sentido y a medida que avanzas algunas dudas se resolverán, pero otras surgirán y todavía más confusas que las anteriores, aun así esta es la magia de la novela, toda duda tendrá su respuesta a su debido tiempo y yo como testigo de conocer muchas historias de ficción logro sorprenderme en más de una ocasión.
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Because only you are in the infinity loop

I FUCKING ADORE THIS GAME SO MUCH. I love the ocean, I love science, and I already knew so much of the physiology detailed within this game that I felt so fully immersed and cool and so gaming and YEAH IT WAS EPIC PLAY IT

look the last 5 hours or so are cool but the rest is so soul crushingly boring
Pi-yo-pi-yo, pi-yo-pi-yo

Soninho simulator
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


While the pacing leaves a lot to be desired, the cast is decent and the overall plot has a couple of great moments. I'm still not a fan of how much is handwaved though.

I can see the sun, you can see the moon.
and there are a little dream and hope in the sky.
I can see the sky, you can see the sky.
and I'll show you our sunshine...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMn9ZPJ_8D0

this game has one of the biggest and ballsiest twists i've seen any game do, and the fact that it pulls it off is a testament to how precise and immaculate the execution of it was. this is the type of game where even if you can predict/figure out a reveal ahead of time, there's going to be 20 other things that catch you off guard and have you going "holy shit no way". and it fucking rules for that alone.

i have my problems with this game (there's a lack of urgency for a lot of the routes, people really don't panic as much as they should when faced with the prospect of their impending death, only one of the three romances really works for me, and there's some sexual violence as a plot point that did not age well at all in one route), but i had a great time with this game. i would recommend it to anyone regardless of their affinity for visual novels, because this was a landmark game that has left an impression on me that will stick with me for a very, very long time.

Despite having some pacing issues and Sora's route being awful, this is a good visual novel with a great cast, an interesting story, and a fantastic soundtrack.

Damn, this opening song is great.

Ever17 was my 100th VN. I suppose it's only fitting to read one of my last remaining unread translated classics for a milestone like that, especially when it predates even Tsukihime's and Fate/stay night's English translations. I had to take breaks from suffering through Never7, so I decided to read a bit of this to get a headstart at the time.

Amidst the whole Infinity-Uchikoshi-Nakazawa-SciAdv situation you have works like:

• Remember11, a game that, in my opinion, is primarily focused on its sci-fi concept, as well as themes and symbolism, and sacrifices having character and surface-level story depth, to the point that you will almost certainly have trouble figuring out a chunk of it without that one blog

• Chaos;Head, a game with an unlikable protagonist, with a strong character and thematic focus, to the point of being unapologetic about its vision, regardless of the fact that a huge portion of the audience would obviously drop it because of the main character, Takumi

• Steins;Gate, a much more unambitious, safer bet following Chaos;Head with a lesser passion from the writer of being tired of time travel stories, but undeniably competently written

• Chaos;Child, which I see as being somewhere between the previous two

And so on. So where does Ever17 lie?

A huge issue I had with Remember11, and especially Never7, as opposed to SciAdv which generally has a strong focus on characters, was that the two Infinities were almost hyperfocused on their sci-fi concept that they neglected their characters, making the surface-level plot and cast appear shallow and having like two scenes of actual characterisation outside of drama surrounding the premise (albeit for different reasons — Never7 makes you repeat the same thing around a dozen times while wasting time, and Remember11 is short and well-paced but doesn't have very compelling characters to me).

Going into Ever17, I did almost expect it to be "the Infinity/Sci-fi Mystery VN of all time", but I went in with an open mind. Luckily, I was mostly proven wrong, E17 is definitely my favorite Infinity. It barely even had the "I am sad, therefore I can shoot this sci-fi thing because of having a childhood trauma, or something" trope that these stories love to have.

While yes, E17 does have more of a mass appeal written into its DNA (written with being liked by as many various audiences as possible), as opposed to N7 and especially R11, so to speak, I think it has the most interesting premise and best cast of the three. It certainly has some issues, like how it could be cut by around 10 hours without any damages to the actual substance of the game, and we could have three routes instead of five, or how this among Takeshi Abo's weakest OSTs (though there are some bangers, like Karma, Drittestock or Zweitestock, of course), or how it gets cheesy at times, but overall it was certainly a fun experience. I can see why it was such a big deal. It certainly would have impressed me more earlier in my VN journey, but it still had plenty of surprises for me this late in the game.

"Pero dígame señor Anderson, ¿Cómo puede amar los videojuegos si dichos juegos no se... Juegan?"

And so I continue my journey through Uchikoshi's writing credits in a kind of reverse order.

I was a bit surprised how much I enjoyed this one. The first hour confirmed that this was very much an "early" work of his, and I would go so far as to call it something of a 999 prototype. Having played 5 of his games in the span of a year, I've noticed that he has a set of battle tested plot devices he's been polishing up iteratively. It could feel like I'm reading the same story over and over, but in application they're more like structural elements of the story rather than the twists. In a way it feels like sci-fi chemistry where he takes a set of known hooks and mixes them together in different ways to see how they interact.

Here with Ever 17, what's interesting to me is that the "thriller" element of the Zero Escape and Somnium Games is gone. Instead we get a quieter, more character driven drama. There's still definitely the paranormal/sci-fi mystery element and more exciting moments, but not so much the pushing tension the later scenarios lean into. Less reliance on suspicion and shadowy antagonists and more gradual and mostly cooperative struggles against nature.

What I ended up liking the most about this title was what I've generally found to be a weakness in Zero Escape/Somnium: characters. The cast here is nearly as flashy, quirky, and immediately rememberable — there's no Dates or Clovers or Aibas — but they feel more grounded because of that, and their dialogue still has plenty of chracter. Everyone has a decent range of roles they play and their own ways of playing them.

The characters also get the time they need for their arcs to build and for you to get attached to each by the end. And in direct contrast to my issues with later Uchikoshi titles, you actually get some solid closure with the characters by the end. Not sure how that quality of his stories went so haywire with Zero Escape.

That said, the pacing here can feel a tad more sluggish due to a less refined story. For the most part it glides along pretty well, especially since they wisely made the skip feature work on "similar" scenes and not just the exact scenes you've read — for example, if someone delivers a bit of exposition in one scenario, the smart skip will generally let you skip that same exposition in another route, even if given by a different character. On occasion though, there are still a few scenes that will feel road-bumpy. Getting to all the "good" ends and through the true route took me about 19-20 hours so it still felt like a pretty light read (for me).

As a sci-fi fan I should also mention how those elements are used, as I was quite entertained by the set of topics explored. There were some well worn matters, but also a lot of ideas that now feel kind of cooly retro and even ones that feel more uncommon (at least in my reading). I think there was a lot of good detail paid to water and diving physics without getting too caught up with itself. It was lighter with the supernatural/occult conspiracy elements than ZE. Enough to make it fun but not so much that it muddled up the hard sci-fi elements.

From a technical level, there's not much more to say than that this is an early 00s VN but on the more fully featured side. It should be explicitly noted, though, that this is a strictly text VN unlike Uchikoshi's later works. So anyone hoping for more puzzle gameplay will be left wanting here.

On that note, I would call this a solid recommendation for general VN fans, and particularly for readers looking for character driven sci-fi dramas or early 00s ocean themed stories. Not the most polished work, but much more solid than I expected. And its more matte finish is actually part of its appeal.

a very slow, albeit interesting story with a lot of very cool moments

well until the last 2hrs where the story literally falls off a fucking cliff, resulting in by far the worst ending i have read in a very long time

Should have logged this in 2020 when I first tried this game. I tried Ever17 because I'd heard it praised amongst VN fans and especially those who like 999. Completed Tsugumi's route underwhelmed and uninterested in her relationship with Takeshi (that is his name, right?) so I decided to look up the rest of the plot and basically confirmed anything I liked about Ever17 was also later reused in 999 and fleshed out to a degree that I thought was more interesting. Glad it exists so 999 could exist, but I don't know how or why people could think this is an improvement upon 999 in any way. I do like the setting, but the borderline anime harem-y vibes of "guy stuck with girls who fight over his attention" is just......yeah, I can't do it anymore, guys.

this shit sucks ass tbh its called the out of infinity because if you fucking play it its gonna put you to sleep for an infinity amount of hours because its so fucking boring

Probably one of the best visual novel that makes the most of the visual novel genre.
Maybe too slow for someone but personally i loved the SoL moments

I had low expectations about this title coming from Never7, which were kinda confirmed at first. The first playthrough felt eternal, but I loved the (Sora) ending. After that, I really liked completing the other endings because of how they make you understand the characters and the whole picture.
Then, I went for the true ending, and man it felt slow, but once it gets started, it's trully a mindfuck. You think you know how the plot will end and then they throw you plotwist after plotwist after plotwist, until you are afraid to think that a human mind could actually create such a story. Kotaro Uchikoshi, you're a fucking genius.

A game that uses everything about the visual novel/ADV genre to its fullest for it all to come together in the single greatest true route I have played in any VN ever. The mystery in this is so amazing, and is the best I've ever seen. A masterpiece in every sense of the word.

Unlike other VNs in this series, this has an ending!

Go play a real game instead of glorified cutscenes

This review contains spoilers

Ever17 es una Visual novel que de buenas a primeras definirías con un setting peculiar, las tramas de escape rooms suelen transmitir un sentido diferente de urgencia, Así que en buenas a primeras ciertamente estuvo inmerso en las primeras horas de juego.

La cuestión es que el consumo se me hace medio molesto una vez asentado y centrado en la trama más slice of life pues aca hablamos que La mayoría del contenido es puro relleno o pérdida de tiempo, y No tanto por el contenido en sí sino que es un contenido repetitivo en el sentido más puro de la palabra. Tienes gran parte del diálogo que no aporta a nada, haciendo chistes, jugando escondidas o comiendo sandwiches, dale es raro una interacción tan normal en una situación donde no puedes relajarte de esa manera estando a 5 días de poder morir e igual no seria tanto un problema cuando bueno repito son 5 rutas y estas interacciones no cambian y son exactamente iguales, pero el juego ni siquiera tiene la decencia de decir que diálogo es repetido (varias VN suelen programar un fast travel exclusivo para diálogos repetidos pero no este caso, He buscado si esta lo tiene pero parece que entre diferentes versiones puede funcionar o no), entonces no puedes saltear del todo porque habrá una diferencia que el juego pretende darte a entender que es importante, así que ponle que puedes quitarle el 70 por ciento del contenido reduciendo el tiempo juego pero mejorando en términos de ritmo o bueno cambiar los diálogos.



Comprendo que es complicado ya que tengo entendido según entrevistas de los creadores que estuvieron agarrados del cuello en los tiempos de entrega, esto pudo afectar el no haber más variedad de diálogo.

Por otro lado admitó que La mejor ruta es la de tsugumi que contiene temas bastantes interesantes y un desarrollo con giros trágicos de los eventos que lo hacen una historia solida por si misma, de hecho funcionaria de forma independiente, pero estos logros son algo que después las próximas rutas bastardean, me explico lo mejor de esa ruta fue el sacrificio de takeshi fue un final agridulce y genial que te dejaba al borde la lágrima, por ello es una decepción cuando en retrospectiva deja de importar pues el plot final es que takeshi sobrevive, vaya molesta bastante que pintes una escena triste y pretendes hacer creer al espectador que alguien murió para que después no muera, tal one piece. Es una traición con la escena podrías haberlo hecho más sobria para que no se sienta tan tramposa en el gran esquema.
Lo más molesto en todo esto es la misma explicación pues el elemento usado para que Takeshi sobreviva es algo de OTRO JUEGO (asegurado en entrevistas sumales), específicamente never7 y es básicamente poder del amor, un poco gracioso.

Muchas de las rutas son terminan siendo al pedo, incluso con la excusa de que son dimensiones alternas no hay muchas variaciones que lo justifiquen pues mucho de este diálogo se repite en la ruta final, y la teoría de schrodinger contradice activamente con el concepto de predestinación en los viajes en el tiempo que el juego justifica como la principal y segundo los sucesos importantes se repiten de cualquier manera osea en la ruta final se repite todo evento relevante anterior, es diferente a algo como tatami galaxy que sus repeticiones nunca eran iguales a la anterior más allá de la fórmula de nuevo club - sale mal incluso los capítulos 8, 9 y 10 que narraban el mismo día aprovechaban a contarlo desde diferentes puntos de pistas asi no se repetía diálogo o los momentos.

- El problema de los viajes en el tiempo entran en el momento que metes lógica de causalidad, que es lo que implica LAS DECISIONES en una ruta takeshi que el juego activamente te desvía a diferentes finales dependiendo de como estuviese disponible en tiempo para tsugumi o sora, donde si o no podrían formar un lazo de amistad dependiendo de la decisiones. pero en la última ruta si tiene tiempo para todos estos diálogos, todos estos momentos que antes decían que no se podría, SIMPLEMENTE DE DONDE SACO EL TIEMPO?

Ahora entramos en un río de diferentes implicaciones y es que Toda la trama esta trama se sustenta en el destino, El GRAN PLOT TWIST de esta cosa es una paradoja de predestinación, osea por ejemplo A viaja al pasado para evitar B y descubre que A fue la causa de B, No es algo malo aunque tampoco es que diga "FUA ME EXPLOTO LA CABEZA" pero esto en sí mismo implica afirmar que el destino existe todas tus acciones ya son conocidas por tu yo futuro, el mismo plan de you fue justamente planeado por blickwinkel del futuro, interesante no? El problema surge con 2 cuestiones.

-Primero No hay tensión, ya de por si lo anterior implicaba que todo está predestinado para salir bien pues... saldrá bien, aunque realmente puede ser justificable habría que sumarle a que al menos las rutas de KID estaban planificadas por usted para que nadie muriese, las constantes amenazas de tensión que se alargan horas en este juego eran... algo cuidadosamente planeado por lo que eran un puro engaño.


- Después entramos con la idea de bad endings, que tienen el problema de ser decisiones especificadas pero que contradicen decisiones o el mismo sentido de la causalidad. Por ejemplo si kid u otro muere en un bad ending esto dañará la causalidad posterior que causó el evento en primer lugar y dejaría de ser predestinado.
pero también estos bad endings no tienen sentido en su misma lógica, varios personajes se salen de personaje, como si en cierto punto la historia se cortase (porque de hecho fue asi) kid tiene el plan de escapar y pam se le olvida o tsugumi de un momento decide dejar a los otros morir cuando activamente quería ayudar.
En resumidas cuentas con respecto a los bad endings se sienten metidos a último momento sin planear mucho, rompen con la casualidad y reglas establecidas.


Ahora el problema principal surge cuando piensas que YOU estuvo 17 años sin aceptar la muerte de sus amigos que conoció una semana, para poner a su hija en riesgo de morir que las razones se contradicen porque por un lado dice tenerlo planeado hasta que esto se contradice al llegar a un bad ending.
Donde el juego te obliga a pensar que entre 10 universos paralelos que salieron mal, te tienes que alegrar porque uno salió bien.
A Propósito o no, La conclusión muy feliz se siente escapista donde muchas inmoralidades salieron bien porque sino las cuestionadas muchos personajes salían mal parados en sus decisiones.
O el asunto de la amnesia de ryogo que otravez para el bien del plot twist queda como un plot hole, Es para el bien del plot twist calar la amnesia de ryogo con la de kid y confundirte, Quedas impresionado cuando te explican la amnesia de kid pero se olvidan de explicar la de ryogo.

Muchos de estos asuntos, son en resumidas cuenta para impresionar en el plot twist, el que haya 2 you es impresionante, el que la razon sea el miedo a la muerte y un renovado sentido de vida post morten es interesante pero el que you al final se haga inmortal quita la gracia de esta implicacion, y que no desarrollen en la implicacion de poner a tu hija en peligro me hace pensar que no lo pensaron muy bien.


Cuando creas un giro de la trama tienes que elaborar en la implicacion del giro, por ejemplo al final todos los personajes quedan siendo inmortales o almenos con juventud eterna, y todos los que saltaron 17 años al futuro se quedaron sin padres (son niños todos) al fin y al cabo, ni que decir de coco que tampoco elaboran quien la va a cuidar, o si se va a quedar en esa misma forma de niña toda su vida.
Lo mismo con el resto de personajes acaban de ganar inmortalidad, y no elaboran en sus propias reacciones mas que sentirse felices de que se reunieron denuevo.


Y asi voy con mis problemas en cada implicacion, La ruta de sora implica en que un tipo se murió por una máquina, te lo pintan heroico pero es una obsesión tóxica para la salud personal. El mito de pigmalion es una muestra de ello no es basicamente un argumento para decirte que si queres obsesionarte con una mona china NO REAL esta bien? O PEOR ahora que estan estos chats GPT la historia te dice "ve y pretende que es real si lo deseas lo sera" MUY ASQUEROSO.
El futuro de Tsugumi y you implican no poder aceptar la muerte de una persona querida y hacer inmoralidades porque una voz en la cabeza te dio una guía.
Mi creencia en la raiz del problema se basa en las entrevistas de los creadores, es que por los tiempos de entrega cada escritor de cada ruta fueron solos sin saber que escribiese el otro y por suerte uchikoshi dice que calaron por magia del destino.

Son muchas inmoralidades o implicaciones que por el bien del plot twist o por el final feliz se pasan por alto, Y es algo que trata de corregir la odiada version de xbox 360 dando un final feliz a cada universo como epilogo o dando una ruta a ryogo explicando que es un pisquico y envio sus recuerdos al pasado (si gracioso), pero justamente con una muy mala narrativa en compensacion o con unas explicaciones sin sentido, pero de cualquier forma por el bien del plot twist se olvidan implicaciones importante que puramente terminan desviando y siendo en un todo hasta un mal mensaje.

3/10

Zero Escape did some of this better, but the optimistic frutiger aero mood and atmosphere this game had going on is glorious. Far from perfect and I still love it to pieces. If you don't mind shitty pacing and an increase of slice-of-life characterization content over the sci-fi, it's a good read. Nails the ending.

Coming to this VN while having read Uchikoshi's modern works (Zero Escape and AI), it is very surprising how much of the VN has its concept later being reused in his future works.

I generally liked how casual the setting felt, despite the general situation what was happening. Very neatly placed info throughout the story that makes you definitely use your brain WHAT exactly was going on. But also very fun to read that you can just enjoy the spectacle what was going on. It has an enjoyable cast too, with some standouts and some who were just fine.

There are obviously routes that are better and more important than the others, but I don't think I fully disliked any, just that a certain one didn't add much to the overall plot (which I was still fine with)

Not gonna go deep into spoilers but man, the reveals are kinda insane for something that came out in 2002? Some stuff that you could pick up by (over)analyzing stuff or being a monkey with a typewriter. And the best part? Everything came together so well and the ending is satisfying and I just don't have any problems with it? Great VN, it really is.

Insane. Insane premise, insane execution, insanely deliberate. It starts smart and slow by initially having a focus on SOL and romcom. This works wonders to set up the cast, which by the end, is truly amazing and one of a kind. All of this culminates in the true route, which is one of the ballsiest pieces of fiction I've come across. The first four routes are excellent in their own ways, but the true route is a masterpiece in its own right. Bravo.

very bad pacing, but the core trick and ending route is fucking crazy in 2001


never7 was bad, but at least it didn't make me read about the characters eating tuna sandwiches 10,000 times over

picked this up because I thought the setting was cool but I got filtered. 4.5 hours in and absolutely nothing has happened, and I don't particularly care for the characters so the slice of life is not sustaining me. maybe I'll play remember11 and then try again.

I can't fucking believe Uchikoshi did the whole Zero Escape series just to repeat the twists he firstly thought of here. But I'm sort of glad, because while the final revelations are pretty good (maybe even better constructed throughout the game than ZE), the rest feels kinda like a chore.

I really want to love this game I really do.
Not only does it have probably my favorite setting in a video game but the overall experience was amazing I didn't mind the slice of life stuff that people complained at all, this could've been a 9/10 game for me.
If only not for the very last 2 hours of the game which make for the single worst ending i've seen in a video game so far