It’s tough being a slacker. This is a common truism for people who write game reviews, need to accomplish heroic amounts of tasks at work or just don’t feel like attending school. It’s the latter that’s most applicable for the protagonist ofNever 7: The End of Infinity.Our boy Makoto is reticent about attending his classes and finds himself “punished” with a mandatory class trip to a Japanese island in the middle of nowhere, engaging in tennis, fishing and basically enjoying a chill vacation. If only laziness like that paid dividends in other areas of life.
Of course, not is all it appears at first glance for our lead. He dreams of a tragic death, mysterious in its origins. That alone is disturbing, but could be written off as the product of a normal teenage brain. The thing is, he finds himself able to predict other happenstances before they occur. A classmate taking a spill, a local restaurant being out of rice when it’s his first time there, a dead car battery. Somehow, he knows of these things before he should, leading him to wonder if he’s clairvoyant or if something else is going on….
As a set-up for a visual novel adventure, this isn’t bad. There’s enough mystery to pull the reader through in a well put-together genre entry. The thing is that, when all is said and done,Never 7doesn’t quite stick the landing. This is truly a surprise. The original version of this title launched in March of 2000. If you had never seen this through before, you could be forgiven for knowing this tidbit of information and figuring that the decision to remaster the work and launch it 25 years later is indicative of a level of quality in the writing and story work. A publisher wouldn’t want to expend the capital and effort in bringing back a mediocre title, right? Upon reflection, however, this could be due to the fact that this rerelease is hitting on the same day as a remaster of the sequel,Ever 17, and being offered as a standalone release, as well as a double-pack of the two titles.
It’s for the completionists.
The death dream mentioned above is a premonition of something that occurs at the end of the week, which would be April 6. Makoto is left with a feeling of dread that something terrible really is going to happen, amplified by his gut feelings turning out to be correct at an alarming rate. He’s convinced that he knows the death will involve a small jingle ball in a hand slackened by the holder’s demise, which is an intriguing premise.
A huge issue is in the writing. Even ignoring the many (many, many) typos and clumsy phrases found, something that hopefully will see sprucing up in the near future, the story itself comes across as one where the writers needed a conflict to move the story forward. So, things will come out of nowhere. So-and-so is a clone, because there are clones in this world now. Will that factor into the story? Not really, no. It’s just something for the group of students and locals to argue about. Romantic love triangles pop up and vanish. People will punch each other for no real reason. If the writers leaned into it, this would be an entertaining level of insane. Instead, it’s presented as a slice-of-life title with an overarching mystery that should slowly reveal itself over the early spring days leading up to the 6th, if the protagonist didn’t give it away on the first “day”, well before he actually knew what was going on. To be fair, the name of the game itself is a huge clue.
It’s about the characters.
So, without a mystery unraveling, we’re left with the characters. There’s Yuka, the leader of the trip who was made the leader by random chance. Haruka is a shy, bookish type who seems to be on the spectrum. Okihiko is a brash, spoiled dude that comes from money. For the locals, there’s a pair of sisters who run the local restaurant, Izumi and Kurumi. Finally, we have Saki, another richy-rich who vacations locally. Saki would have left sooner, but there are storms approaching the island that prevent this from being done safely. Of the group, Haruka’s quiet shyness was the most endearing. She presents herself with a level of innocence and curiosity that makes her odd turns of phrase or nonsensical responses feel more like a character, as opposed to a cipher for the writers to slot in plot. That’s not to say that everyone else is dry, with standouts like Yuka.
The biggest disappointment comes with the art. Comparing screenshots from the old release to this remaster, one can see that work obviously went into this, but not at a great level. On Switch playing in docked mode, the backgrounds have a fuzziness that looks like an example of poor upscaling on the original images. Character drawings range from acceptable to ‘bad web comic with anime influences’. Okuhiko was particularly bad, with a strange off-center face that doesn’t come across as a stylistic choice. It’s almost like it’s generic without the competence. This also covers the music, too. It’s inoffensive and just kind of there, but does little to set the tone or move the story further.
The thing is that, when all is said and done,Never 7doesn’t quite stick the landing.
For all of this, it seems likeNever 7is an easy skip. That isn’t quite true, though. About halfway through the title, some of the things within the overarching plot start to be explained. It’s at this point that things do get interesting. For fear of any further spoilers, the details will be skipped. None of the non-sequiturs previously mentioned are resolved, but the jingle bells, the dreams and the premonitions Makoto exhibits do fall in line to finally create an interesting story. It’s still a bit rote, but a specific character’s motivations come to light in a satisfying way that helped sell some of the nonsense. Also, for a game that originally came out in 2000, the amount of player choices in this visual novel is impressive, especially as they actually can affect the story.
Closing Comments:
While there’s a lot not to like aboutNever 7: The End of Infinity, it’s not a complete waste. Being able to go through an old genre example is nice for a history lesson for those interested in how the style evolved. There are a few story beats that do get the ol’ brain hamster running the wheel, which is also cool. The fact that it takes about half of the game to go anywhere is a problem, as is the fact that it is shorter than most modern visual novel fans have come to expect. As a curiosity, this is worth checking out. For someone who is only checking out the visual novel genre for the first time, there are better options.
Never 7: The End of Infinity
Makoto is unsure if he is seeing the future or just really intuitive in Never 7: The End of Infinity. Is he able to unravel the mystery before tragedy strikes?
