given my interest in visual novels and having experienced a few of the big names in the genre back in my teenage years, the fact that i'd never gotten around to ever17 is pretty astounding. it's one of those seminal pieces that completely changed how the medium would be executed for the foreseeable future, and something of a rite of passage in the genre even now. my first uchikoshi project i saw all the way through was 999, and after being pretty mixed and generally underwhelmed with never7, i'm happy to say ever17 is the remarkable sequel and reboot(ish) that people built it up to be.

cat out of the bag, uchikoshi is a hack in the most lovable way. he strikes me as similar to hirohiko araki in the way that he's constantly bursting at the seems with concepts he wants to share regardless of how well he can fit them into the already pacing-troubled genre of visual novels, or how much weight they end up carrying in the greater picture. he's a hack, but he's my kind of hack. and i think the fact that, to my understanding, he was a supplemental force in ever17 more than the general overseer as he was with zero escape works to this game's benefit.

given the premise of ever17, the conversations and concepts at hand actually feel naturally and relevant. basically every concept or theory introduced holds weight and feels like a naturally integrated piece of the larger puzzle. these characters have a lot more time to unwind and communicate in a way that feels natural; where 999 is in a constant state of reminding you how urgent every waking moment is, the perpetual dread of ever17 looms over and is constantly shoved aside like an impossibility, clearly out of mental defense, and it works REALLY well.

i'm a sucker for late 90s-early 00s slice of life anyways, and the moments ever17 SHOULD feel comfy, it comes naturally. the entire cast is interesting and developed well - PARTICULARLY sora and tsugumi, the latter is the rare exception of uchikoshi not only writing a genuinely empathetic and grounded woman character but stands as one of the greatest visual novel characters and respective routes i've ever played. sara and you are great too, and even coco, who embodies that loud-mouthed moe type i tend to really dislike ended up winning my heart over as her route slowly came up over the horizon. ever17's protagonists offer a phenomenal dichotomy and as the slice of life slowly peels away, especially if you play the game with its now obviously intentional route order (which IS the way you really should play it) it occurs to the reader how seamlessly all of the ideas snugly tucked away in moments of slice-of-life key-esque everydayisms and bombastic melodrama piece together into a final act perhaps too intelligent and profound for the game's own good.

ever17 is a slog at points but i chalk that up half to the nature of early vn composition as a whole and half to being completely by design. the slow days wasting away with this cast build up a social structure and a dynamic that, when tinkered with, becomes even more irregular and upsetting. it's astounding how ballsy this game gets in its final hours, even with all of the games it's inspired down the road under my belt. i'd be very surprised if another uchikoshi project gets to me the way this one did, but then, there's still remember11 down the road.