Behind The Nihon Review

Title: Ever 17: The Out of Infinity
Genre: Drama/Action
Company: KID
Platform: PC
Release Date: Aug 29 2002

Synopsis: It’s 2017 and Kuranari Takeshi is visiting a futuristic underwater theme park called “LeMU”, where he’s to meet up with his friends. However, an accident leads to a breach in the upper levels of LeMU, and in the ensuing chaos, Takeshi is trapped along with five other people with no means of escape and no way to contact the outside world. With its structures compromised, LeMU is set to implode from the external pressure of the sea water within about five days. Takeshi and his fellow stranded must figure out how to get out before this happens, but there are suspicious circumstances surrounding whether the incident was an accident at all, as well as some mysterious secrets that the people around him are hiding.

The Highlights
“Good” end paths: Up and down; frustrating at times.
“True” end: A reward for loyalty; incredible.
Mystery: Very elaborate; waits as long as it can before revealing itself.
Plot twists: Dramatic; hit hard and heavy.
Characters: Full of personality; become very sympathetic before the end.
Music: Not great standalone tracks, but used well in most scenes.
Challenge: I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have to resort to a walkthrough.

As I’ve said earlier, I’ve only had limited experience with the visual novel medium, but what I’ve read has given me an appetite for more. There’s so much I want to say about this particular title, but a lot of it can be summarized in just a few words: Ever 17 is mind-blowing. It’s so revered by the few people who have read it that even on 4chan‘s /a/, where nothing is sacred, revealing spoilers for Ever 17 is considered taboo. I respect that, which is why my challenge now is to tell you why I think it’s so amazing without spoiling anything… which isn’t easy, since the best parts of it happen deep in the story.

Ever 17 can basically be divided into four “good” endings and an additional “true” ending, but it’s only within the path leading to the “true” end, which can only be accessed after completing all four “good” endings, that the story shows its full colours. The other endings aren’t really all that amazing; in fact “hit and miss” alongside “frustrating” probably aptly describes them. Ever 17 really keeps its cards close to its chest, and gives nothing away throughout the first parts of the game, and it becomes hard not to grow indifferent to an entangled mess of unanswered questions combined with some rather irksome moments of overblown melodrama (see Sora’s arc in specific for what I’m talking about).

But this just underlines how brilliant the final path is. If you make it this far, Ever 17 will reward your loyalty; the revelations and plot twists come hard and fast and many will leave you gasping at the screen. The way each of the elements in a very elaborate mystery come together is mind-blowing: someone has really thought this set-up through very carefully because by the end of it, there’s very little which remains unanswered or unaddressed. But the plot twists in the final path aren’t just impressive for the way they tie into the mystery: many of them come with a heavy dramatic punch as well – real drama, with maturity and heart and a level of deftness a cut above what comes in the earlier arcs. There were at least a couple of scenes where, simultaneously, my jaw was on the floor and my face covered in tears.

Technically, it’s very good as well, particularly for a VN its age. I wouldn’t call the music “great” (with a couple of exceptions like “Der Mond Das Meer” and the OP “LeMU ~The far away land of Lemuria~”), but it’s used well; there aren’t too many times where they haven’t chosen the right tune for a scene. The art and character designs are quite good, and the interface is polished, with enough features to make navigation of the game fairly convenient (while the “game” itself remains quite challenging). What stood out for me was the seiyuu work, with a cast featuring stars like Asakawa Yuu and Ueda Kana. VN voice work is often clunky and disjointed (often due to the limitations of the medium), but the lines in this flow out and the conversations feel genuine.

No character is wasted in this story: everyone has a role to play and each of them are explored and justified, and are eventually made out to be human and sympathetic. The writing is incredibly creative as well: the story utilizes the visual novel medium so well that I doubt that they could adapt this to something else and pull it off to the same effect. The way the mystery comes full circle is mind-blowing, and even mundane “philosophical” discussions in the earlier parts of the story (that are easy to tune out of) end up having surprising significance by the end. It’s not a perfectly written plot, but it’s so earnest and heartful in the final path that even one of the clumsier attempts to close off a plot hole comes off as admirable. But it’s the dramatic plot twists leading to the ending that really makes this special. Bear with the frustrating and disjointed build up in the first four endings, because when it finally brings everything together, it delivers an incredibly moving and uplifting story: a real reward for loyalty.

The Rating: 9

Reviewed by: Sorrow-kun

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