this being my second exposure to the writings of kotaro uchikoshi after his subsequent mainstream hit, 999, i'm beginning to notice some patterns in his writing style that i'm not exactly a fan of. for context, i actually loved 999 and plan to review it positively down the line, and the express purpose of playing never7 was so that i might play its sequels, ever17 and remember11. with that in mind, take my criticisms here simply as my return to this creator's early work, seeing where these patterns formed, and acknowledging that they at least saw improvement down the road.
let's start with some positives. the character designs bleed early-oughts slice-of-life in a really charming way that invokes the feeling of golden-era KEY titles (not the last time they'll come up here), and all of their seiyuus do a very solid job bringing these characters to life. the soundtrack while limited in the actual amount of tracks present is memorable and well composed. the backgrounds are fantastic with really wonderful color choices to suggest lighting across various times of day - very dreamy and warm in a way that perfectly reflects the beachside setting. i think once all was said and done, i feel mostly positively about yuka's route, haruka's route, and the true ending. the post-game arc from yuka's point of view is also solid. the concepts explored in never7 would be influential to visual novels down the line, and indeed - i think uchikoshi has a knack for finding or creating really interesting topics to discuss in his games and i think when never7 is focused, it hits moments where those things actually matter in a meaningful way.
with that said, i need to be upfront. never7's journey is maybe the biggest slog of any visual novel i've ever played. this game only took me about 18 hours to complete, but i had to do so over the course of nearly two months solely because i found the vast majority of the game so unbelievably boring to push through. as if uchikoshi's clearly unedited draft of a script wasn't already bulky and clumsy enough, due to the main gimmick of never7, you're experiencing 60-70% of the exact same events twice in a route before you reach an ending. almost word-for-word exactly the same, but since the game's text recognition system recognizes these instances as a new encounter, you can't even auto-skip them out of hear of potentially missing whatever crucial new information is hidden in those scenes.
not to mention, ultimately, only like 3 of the routes actually matter - yuka, kurumi and the true ending. haruka's story i liked decently enough because i found her character somewhat endearing, but saki was a complete waste of time, kurumi's route had some really gross overtones, and izumi's post-game route is basically just comedic fanservice based around romancing a character who didn't deserve the time of day and bullying the foil character because uchikoshi didn't think to actually develop him in any meaningful way prior. i mentioned patterns in uchikoshi's writing earlier - the largest of which is all over never7. he will take walls and walls and WALLS of text to explain a very simple concept or fact that could consume maybe two, three textboxes, and completely stop the flow of the storytelling to butt in with whatever concept he's currently interested in at the time regardless of whether or not it's actually going to pay off in his story. in all fairness, i actually think never7 is better about keeping its concepts story-relevant than 999, but that's mostly out of the fact that it's a much simpler game with a lot less moving parts. it feels like never7 is either stuck in the first two hours of every early KEY game or it's attempting to go balls-deep into psychology without concerning itself about the timing or the logical way it would come up and from which characters. also, i know it's not exclusive to uchikoshi, but jesus christ this guy does NOT know how to write women or put them in roles beyond 90s anime stereotypes and archetypical damsels in distress. uchikoshi's women serve as tools for his plots to advance, and for a goal in this case for his personality-barren, literally faceless protagonist.
the general consensus from what i gather is that ever17 and especially remember11 are far more daring, conceptually interesting, and better executed stories. i'm excited to eventually give them a try. never7 wasn't a complete waste of my time though i'd suggest newcomers not to be afraid of mostly skimming through the majority of its sleepier routes and mostly pay attention during the positively-discussed ones. a fumbled first attempt, but there's always hope for the future.
let's start with some positives. the character designs bleed early-oughts slice-of-life in a really charming way that invokes the feeling of golden-era KEY titles (not the last time they'll come up here), and all of their seiyuus do a very solid job bringing these characters to life. the soundtrack while limited in the actual amount of tracks present is memorable and well composed. the backgrounds are fantastic with really wonderful color choices to suggest lighting across various times of day - very dreamy and warm in a way that perfectly reflects the beachside setting. i think once all was said and done, i feel mostly positively about yuka's route, haruka's route, and the true ending. the post-game arc from yuka's point of view is also solid. the concepts explored in never7 would be influential to visual novels down the line, and indeed - i think uchikoshi has a knack for finding or creating really interesting topics to discuss in his games and i think when never7 is focused, it hits moments where those things actually matter in a meaningful way.
with that said, i need to be upfront. never7's journey is maybe the biggest slog of any visual novel i've ever played. this game only took me about 18 hours to complete, but i had to do so over the course of nearly two months solely because i found the vast majority of the game so unbelievably boring to push through. as if uchikoshi's clearly unedited draft of a script wasn't already bulky and clumsy enough, due to the main gimmick of never7, you're experiencing 60-70% of the exact same events twice in a route before you reach an ending. almost word-for-word exactly the same, but since the game's text recognition system recognizes these instances as a new encounter, you can't even auto-skip them out of hear of potentially missing whatever crucial new information is hidden in those scenes.
not to mention, ultimately, only like 3 of the routes actually matter - yuka, kurumi and the true ending. haruka's story i liked decently enough because i found her character somewhat endearing, but saki was a complete waste of time, kurumi's route had some really gross overtones, and izumi's post-game route is basically just comedic fanservice based around romancing a character who didn't deserve the time of day and bullying the foil character because uchikoshi didn't think to actually develop him in any meaningful way prior. i mentioned patterns in uchikoshi's writing earlier - the largest of which is all over never7. he will take walls and walls and WALLS of text to explain a very simple concept or fact that could consume maybe two, three textboxes, and completely stop the flow of the storytelling to butt in with whatever concept he's currently interested in at the time regardless of whether or not it's actually going to pay off in his story. in all fairness, i actually think never7 is better about keeping its concepts story-relevant than 999, but that's mostly out of the fact that it's a much simpler game with a lot less moving parts. it feels like never7 is either stuck in the first two hours of every early KEY game or it's attempting to go balls-deep into psychology without concerning itself about the timing or the logical way it would come up and from which characters. also, i know it's not exclusive to uchikoshi, but jesus christ this guy does NOT know how to write women or put them in roles beyond 90s anime stereotypes and archetypical damsels in distress. uchikoshi's women serve as tools for his plots to advance, and for a goal in this case for his personality-barren, literally faceless protagonist.
the general consensus from what i gather is that ever17 and especially remember11 are far more daring, conceptually interesting, and better executed stories. i'm excited to eventually give them a try. never7 wasn't a complete waste of my time though i'd suggest newcomers not to be afraid of mostly skimming through the majority of its sleepier routes and mostly pay attention during the positively-discussed ones. a fumbled first attempt, but there's always hope for the future.