Never 7 - The End of Infinity

I mean it's alright, don't mind the low playtime, I've played through the entire game on the PSP fan translation before and only really bought it here cause i said i would if it ever got properly released outside of japan as i used to be a massive Kotaro Ushikoshi slob, with 999 and VLR being 2 of my favourite games of all time and I just have a very soft spot for the first 2 AI the somnium files games. As for Never 7 The characters are nice, well developed, the music is pretty damn good, The story is alright until the ending, where It feels like they were building up to something pretty neat but instead just decided to dip out and make a massive deus ex machina for why things were happening the way they were despite the game giving clues and foreshadowing for something else. A Massive miss for me though was the almost complete lack of QOL improvements that the PSP remaster brought over, For being visual novels the Infinity Games starting with Remember 11 used to have an insane amount of neat additonal content, a gallery, music player, Ending Tracker, the TIPS section would give information about world building, inside jokes and what not, pausing the game told you information about your current scene, how far you are into it. It sounds really stupid but these little additions did really add alot for me and seeing almost all of them gone sucks I don't know if i'd recommend this game to someone who isn't either a visual novel connoseur or a pre existing uchikoshi fan, If your either of those things though it's not a bad time

Far from being a bad game, it's a bit repetitive. I had a good time. Yes there are typos and errors. But honestly, I've seen worse. Honestly it's a satisfying experience, way better than I expected

懸疑氛圍恰到好處 非常適合喜歡看劇情的玩家

Never 7: The End of Infinity je hra, která si zasloužila asi mnohem více péče. Ten špatně upravený retro design mi vadí, byť musím říct, že animace je neskutečně povedená. Ano, audio je nádhené, ano časová smyčka zajímavá. Jen tedy musím říct, že se brzo ohraje a zatímco některé linky neskutečně baví, u jiných hrozně trpím. Jak to tedy shrnout? Jako nadstandardní hru trpící schizofrenií. Baví, nudí, zaujme, odradí. Ale víte co? Když si vezmu, že je tohle remaster dvacet let starého díla, mě to baví, ale rozhodně to není pro každého. [url=https://www.gamingprofessors.cz/never-7-the-end-of-infinity-recenze//]Více v recenzi[/url]

This was the first VN that Uchikoshi had a significant role in writing, so I was curious to see how it would play out. I had already read the two following VNs in the Infinity series and what I had heard at the time was that this one really wasn’t worth it overall. But I wanted to give it a try anyway and I’ve largely come to the same conclusion. There are a few interesting ideas at play, but their role in the larger narrative combined with the focus on characters over the sci-fi concepts surrounding them ultimately means they have far less sway than in any of Uchikoshi’s later works. While it was still neat to read, I don’t think I could recommend it over anything else he’s been involved with. -------------------------------------------------------------- Instead of a sci-fi thriller like Zero Escape or Somnium Files, Never 7’s DNA is much closer to that of a dating sim. You play the first half of the game on a common route where you earn points with each character according to your dialogue choices with slight divergences for specific events, followed by a 2nd half where you go down a character-specific route that explores them more deeply and results in a good end so long as you make the correct decisions up to that point. Each route has some sci-fi elements associated with it (as well as some with the common route that persists across them all) but the way they’re used in the story is much more tailored to the characters than the overall narrative. One character is a clone and you learn this quite early on so when you go down her route you learn more about cloning and her feelings of identity as a result. But go down any other route and the fact that cloning exists in this universe is practically irrelevant. And it's a similar case for all the others where elements brought up in one route only tend to matter in their respective domains and have little overarching impact. So rather than something like Zero Escape where the sci-fi elements all interact with one another and build a very convoluted ending, Never 7’s complexity is highly specific and contained. While there is an overarching narrative, it's much clumsier and far less cohesive than anything else I’ve seen of Uchikoshi and feels a lot like there were greater ambitions that couldn’t be fully realized. ------------------------------------------------------------ So without a strong overall story to bind these disparate elements together, Never 7 has to rely on the quality of each individual route to justify itself. And on that front it disappoints more often than it impresses. The characters themselves are written reasonably well, but the events of each route don’t offer much of interest. The overarching events play out similarly each time as you go through 6 days of slice of life stuff and learning about the characters, the one whose route you’re in dies, then a time loop begins where you replay the same 6 days with some changes according to your actions. It renders the first half of each route irrelevant to the characters’ experiences since only you remember it, while the latter half is split between repetition of earlier events and learning some more details that you didn't get during the first cycle. The pacing ends up being quite slow and the routes feel repetitive as it's the same structure even when specific events differ. And while there are occasional character moments or interesting concepts at play, it never felt like enough to justify the time spent getting to them. There were only 2 or 3 of the 7 routes that had enough going on to keep my attention the whole time (and unsurprisingly it turns out these were the ones Uchi had the most involvement with) but they can't carry the experience all on their own. --------------------------------------------------------- Overall though, I don’t have any particularly strong thoughts here. I played this more out of idle curiosity than genuine interest and now that my curiosity is sated I have no real desire to keep it in my mind. It was neat to go back and see more Uchokoshi ideas in a nascent form, some of which you can see done to better effect in his later titles, but whether that's really enough to justify the time to go back and read this is uncertain. I don’t outright regret it, but I don't think I could recommend it either.

I don't know if it's because of the bad translation here or if the base material just isn't that good, but this is worse than E17 (which is a good VN) and significantly worse than R11 (which is an amazing VN apart from its ending). I played E17 off steam and bought the bundle just to support it getting on and to access N7. This is the first VN I've dropped out of boredom (second if you count AA SoJ as a VN.) R11 and E17 are good because of their atmosphere. They do wonderfully in immersing you in SPHIA/the snowed-in cabin and Lemuria. The music and writing all really contributes to the feeling of immersion in the locations in those games, and there's no attempt to immerse the player at all in this one. Maybe it just became a focus during E17's writing, or I just haven't gotten far enough in my playthrough yet. Who knows. I did almost drop Higurashi after the awful experience that was Ch. 2, but Ch. 3 was great and made me stick around to the end. Maybe it's a similar experience here. All I can say is that right now, after finishing the Yuka route, I'm not eager to read more of this. I hope they can patch this game on this platform to fix the translation errors, I'd like to try it again knowing that I'm reading it properly. That way I'd be able to tell if the translation sucks or if the story itself sucks. And speaking of this platform, they will never (tm) ever (tm) remember (tm) R11.

ギャルゲーとして見るとイマイチだけど、サスペンス・ミステリーとして面白かったです。 ただなんというか全体的にまとまりが無く、もったいないなと感じました。 ルートによってストーリーの質にかなりの差があり、 とあるルートは引き込まれる展開でワクワクしながら読み進むことができ、プレイ後に満足感もありましたが、 別のとあるルートは言い方は悪くなりますが、正直言って読む必要無かったな、というレベルです。 キャラクターに関しては絵柄も相まって、現代だとちょっとキツいと感じる人が多いんじゃないでしょうか。 全員ではありませんが一部のキャラは個性が強すぎて引いてしまい、あまり思い入れを持てませんでした。 （ちゃんと思い入れを持って好きになったキャラもいました） それから、これはテーマ的にある程度仕方がないのかもしませんが、 とにかく同じテキストが多く、別ルートで見たことのあるテキストを何度も何度も読むのがキツイかったです。 別ルートなので当然既読扱いにはならず、既読スキップもできないので結構うんざりしました。 同じようなテキストのところは適度に強制スキップで飛ばしながら楽しむ事を推奨します。 ただ、全編通して選択肢が多くあり、展開やルートの違いだけではなく 過去の選択によるほんの微妙なテキストの違いも随所にあり、丁寧に作られているなと感じました。 また一見意味の無さそうな選択肢に後から意味が見出されたりもして、驚かされました。 悪い点も結構ありましたが、全体を通して傑作とは言えないけど良作ではあると思います、私は好きです。 最後に改めてになりますが、一部のルートは本当にイマイチなので、 この作品の良い所だけ楽しみたいという人は、攻略サイトを見つつ下記のルートだけプレイすることをおすすめします。 [spoiler] 優香 → 遥 → くるみ → いづみキュア [/spoiler]

Absolute garbage story. Doesn't even make any sense. Just skip this.

[h1]被名爲回憶的鎖鏈，牽制自己、停滯不前，無法邁向未來的少女，與以意念化作為現實的少年，相遇的故事。[/h1] 微劇透部分，講述故事大體的流程： [spoiler]故事的進展為慢節奏，只有在通關除去泉美路綫以外的其他角色的路綫，才能進入泉美cure路綫，從而瞭解故事設定的全貌；主角和特定角色都有一個成長期。 優夏路綫通關後會新增其路綫下的優夏視角，能更好瞭解角色本身在各情況下的想法，注意，這部分全程無配音。[/spoiler] 優夏路綫的不足： [spoiler]優夏路綫結尾處理得很隨便，事後也沒有對其進行設定上的説明(即使是其他路綫的設定講解，也不能套用于其中使其合理；)[/spoiler] 大結局内容的觸發條件： [spoiler]所謂的"大結局"内容，也只是泉美cure路綫的後續加筆内容(只有兩筆不到的程度)，需要觸發所有結局(還是説只需goodend就行了？不清楚)才可以出現的額外内容。[/spoiler] 劇透，一些評價： [spoiler]在故事的最初，優夏和主角一樣早已經歷過了數不盡次數的循環，所以優夏對男主的感情上也會有一定的基礎，比如稱呼很親密之類的......而之後發生的便是打破循環的過程。[/spoiler] [spoiler]打越鋼太郎在這一作想表達的主題十分明顯，被回憶、過去牽制，產生的恐懼、逃避，以及停滯不前，了結内心遵循内心，追尋内心戰勝恐懼。 以及刻意雕刻了一下 "替代/替身" 這麽一個觀念。 (不過打越 你只是呈現故事不多加去引導、表達自己的看法，説實話沒辦法改變一些讀者對這種劇情的原有看法的欸......)[/spoiler] [spoiler]以優夏路綫而言，看起來男主就是優夏失去的初戀的替代，但説到底，替代其實沒啥問題，到頭來，也只是一個"選擇"而已。 男主身上有著和優夏的初戀一樣的部分，自然對方也會喜歡著這部分，而那部分是自己的根本，所以對方也一樣愛著、喜歡著男主自己；有人會介意自己是否"替代品"，主要是覺得對方無可奈何才會選自己，覺得自己是對方沒法追求到更好的對象，從而逼不得已的選擇，但説白了，就是介意對方不是 最愛著 自己，自己妒忌爲什麽成爲不了對方的摯愛，自己認爲伴侶的愛就應挑選最喜歡的，討厭著對方就此的委屈求全。 替代，也可以視作替換，僅僅一個動作而言，并沒有產生任何的區別，哪怕是追尋著更好的東西，當中也必然要先經歷著相對而言更差的東西。 即使對方相遇過無數個對象，此時此刻對方都在自己的面前，也不含有著那些人，一刻，并非是永恆，此刻不存在，即是接觸不到，哪怕是一些導致的改變，也只是改變了對象而已，改變對象的那個物質、促使者，永遠都不會伴隨在對象的本身上。 退一萬步來講，如果事實、客觀上某些東西真的伴隨在了身上，最終也只是對其的感覺，決定著一切，前後的改變當中所變化的部分，到底影響了怎樣的感覺，以及一些所謂的規律的描述是否正確，錯誤的自然就不會如那樣的描述所發生，這點也需要思考清楚。 追溯過去，是爲了探尋著對象如今也一樣含有的部分，從而明白著自己面臨著什麽，因爲有些東西，并不能浮出表面。[/spoiler] [spoiler]而優夏，對男主的感覺，在她的視角裏也清晰明白，對男主的愛，值得讓自己脫離回憶的泥沼，願意爲此走出去，不再停留在不斷重複永無結尾的回憶裏，宛如無限循環一樣，男主，勝於了過去。 這也是爲什麽優夏要想起美術室，找尋回自己的内心，而不是想起那場奪去自己内心、附加恐懼的陰霾的大火，祈求僅有一瞬的相伴(畢竟之後死了也算是一輩子了...)，也不要彼此不能相愛的奇跡(留存于無限循環當中)。[/spoiler] [spoiler]喜歡和愛戀，到頭來只是缺失在了程度而已，而男主能夠勝於喜歡，到達愛戀。 而優夏也面對了自己的過去，直視了回憶，不被陰霾遮擋住自己的内心，最終，回憶變爲了不願再度後悔的勇氣，不再是任何枷鎖；何嘗又不是一次告別回憶呢，雨，停了。[/spoiler] ([spoiler]優夏視角的goodend2裏，優夏并未徹底面對過去，也不能完全因此看透自己内心，所以優夏可能會繼續導致這個循環的產生，因爲沒有符合脫離出去的條件，進而無止無盡，一邊沉浸悲傷一邊愛戀著男主，所以她最後那句話其實很恐怖......只能説，相對而言沒第一結局那樣好，畢竟還伴隨著悲痛，或者也可以看作第二結局是邁向第一結局的其中一步？ 或者換個角度想，優夏也只是基於 先前經歷的無數次循環，而説出彼此之間感情早已超過數億年而已......她本身并沒有發動循環的能力，今後也只是伴隨著悲痛繼續愛著男主，即使雨不會停，彼此也一同伴隨著走在其中，相互給予著幸福，于悲痛中。[/spoiler]) [spoiler]其他路綫則是男主爲了愛戀而戰勝自身的恐懼，更努力地力挽狂瀾，最終迎來了光明，不必多説。 大結局内容裏面醉酒的優夏，也默默反映出了，她再度迎來了失戀。 鈴鐺存在的含義，則是爲了提醒，如今依然處於循環中，唯有戰勝枷鎖的意念，方可拯救一切(起碼的一步)，循環被打破，鈴鐺也一并碎裂。[/spoiler] [spoiler]作爲循環系列的開頭作，可以看到一定的粗糙和不足，也正因此為系列後作立下了更扎實的基礎，從而更好的成長。[/spoiler]

打越鋼太郎氏関連作品としてはハンドレッドライン(2025年)にヒロインの一人として参加していた井上喜久子氏(17歳)が遡ること25年前にメインヒロインとして参加していたのが本作。 他にも今にしてみればレジェンド級なキャスト陣ということで一見の価値あり。 シナリオに関してはSFというよりも恋愛ADVとしての色が強い様に思える。 テイストとしてはクロスチャンネルが近いか。 選択肢を選んでルートが分岐するというオーソドックスなADVではあるが分岐条件はかなり複雑に感じる。 幸い攻略サイトは2025年9月現在にも存在するがいつまでもサイトがあるとは限らないので気になる人は要チェック。 キャラデザは正直に言えばかなり古い印象。 ここから数年でADVジャンルに限らず、二次元美少女のデザインが一気に垢抜けた印象があるがその少し手前の時代を感じる。 逆にもっと時代を遡るとドット絵職人の芸術の領域になってくるのでCGの過渡期とでも言うべきか。 そんなこんなでADVジャンルの歴史を感じるような作品だった。