Ever17 -The Out of Infinity-

[harukamae]

Wow, I was completely blown away by this game - I was so hooked by the final path that I didn't realize how late it had gotten until I finished! This is easily my favorite visual novel.

Spoiler for Thoughs on Coco path:

There were parts, especially in the ending scenario, where some of the explanations and events felt a little cheesy and forced (the scene with Takeshi's "revival" under the ocean being the biggest one, and then the fact that YuubiseiHARUkana and Ryogo gave up 17 years of their lives just for this) but over-all I felt like this story was executed so well that the farfetched explanations fit right in. The final shot with Coco and the others waving to "Blick Winkle" especially made me smile - the explanation of his "role" and the reason there is more than one "ending" was really a unique way of taking advantage of a visual novel.

I also felt this game was nice because it's accessible for people who've not yet played a renai game or visual novel. There's so much to it one can enjoy it whether you're interested in the possible romances or not.

Has anyone else done the other ~infinity games? I know Wiki says they're in the same universe, but is there anything else common between the games?

Also,

Spoiler for Tsugumi/Sora epilogue...:

I'm still lost on Tsugumi/Sora's epilogue. It's just a few CGs of Coco with some German that (if the internet translation I got was correct) doesn't seem to have impact on anything.

Now if KyoAni would just animate this game...

[Elvin]

Originally Posted by harukamae

Now if KyoAni would just animate this game...

That'd never work;

Spoiler for ending storyline:

the storyline is only possible because you can't see Takeshi and Kid, or else the fact that the adult Ryogo wasn't the same Takeshi as the one in the Coco path and how Kid wasn't the same as child Ryogo in the Sara/You path would have been revealed. The only possible way for this to happen is to either not show the face of the main character (from the neck down) or to have it first person. For those who pay attention to details, you might have noticed that in the Tsugumi/Sora bad ending that the Takeshi in their path had blue hair instead of brown. It showed his hair colour when You was dying, which was clearly different than that of adult Ryogo's.

[Featherine B.]

Almost done with Sora's good ending. So far, I love it. That whole concept of artificial intelligence who doesn't know what love is until... well, you know.
It's a bit soon, but I wanted to focus on some points that were kind of disappointing in my opinion. Don't get me wrong after reading this; I love this game. But of course Ever 17 isn't perfect, so I had to point out some things here and there that didn't please me so much thus far.

Spoiler for Containes spoilers concerning Sora's and Tsugumi's paths:

Transitions : I noticed, particularly in Sora's path, that sometimes a couple of scenes didn't have anything to do with the previous event. I know it's because there are two paths and all, but still... It's been bothering me for a long period of time. Like, in Sora's path, when Takeshi and Tsugumi are on the Jellyfish-Gondola ride, Tsugumi actually tries to kill him (she also kisses him...). I mean, that's not something that would happen everyday... But right after this scene, Takeshi, who I thought became inconscious after what Tsugumi tried to do to him, Takeshi says that he came back to the Confederence room, and slept as if absolutely nothing had happened... That's not something normal. I wouldn't even sleep if I were him. I mean, Tsugumi tried to KILL him and she also KISSED him ?! It's just... not coherent. At all. There are a couple of times where the transitions bothered me, but it's gotta be the one time where it troubled the most. It made more "sense" in Tsugumi's path, where she didn't actually tried to kill him (but she squished her hamster, dammit !!), but still, I don't think such event could be forgotten that easily...

Musics : Not very important, but I just thought I might as well label it as "disappointing"... The musics are "good"-there aren't the best, that's for sure, but they are played at the right moment and that's what's important. But... during the tragic moments, like the scene where You dies or when Tsugumi is crying like crazy because she doesn't want Takeshi to die, if I remember correctly, the musics were... um... I don't know how to express that, but when I usually play a visual novel, I expect a tragic moment to have a good music. It contributes to what the player is supposed to feel. Sad, that is. Of course, I felt sad during those moments (as if anyone couldn't...), but... it lacked impact. I wanted it to have a strong impact on me; making me cry, for example. Generally, it's the music, added to the event itself, that makes me cry.
Also, there isn't that many tracks; the musics are usually the same over and over again. Well, most of the time I don't pay attention to the music, so I might be wrong, but that's my opinion.

"Voice Actors" : Just a little something I wanted to point out- it doesn't concern all of the voice actors, but one in particular; Tsugumi's. In the last scene of her good ending, she's supposed to be crying and yelling because she doesn't want Takeshi to go. The problem is, she doesn't really sound like she's crying. She's sad, but not crying, which doesn't really match with the descriptions and the CG... It could have been much better if she had cried exactly like she did in the end of the gondola scene (after she tried to kill him). It's nothing, really, but I just wanted to point it out, because I was kind of disappointed that the seiyuu didn't act as if she was crying, in such a situation...

Grammar and other errors : Um... I was very pleased with the translation overall, but, geez, how many of grammar errors are there in this game ?! Didn't they have someone to check their translations ? That's awful. A lot of "your" instead of "you're", lots of missing letters or even words, and I also noticed a lot of extra question marks that popped up in some sentences. Well, that's... not good. Not good at all.

Originally Posted by Elvin

Spoiler for ending storyline:

For those who pay attention to details, you might have noticed that in the Tsugumi/Sora bad ending that the Takeshi in their path had blue hair instead of brown. It showed his hair colour when You was dying, which was clearly different than that of adult Ryogo's.

Spoiler:

I've been wondering the exact same thing. On the second DVD cover, there is a picture of Takeshi with Tsugumi. And he has BLUE hair. For a moment I thought it was a different person. So now I know they are the same person... I couldn't help but read that spoiler, nyoro~ (but I didn't understand a thing except that, obviously )

[harukamae]

Originally Posted by Elvin

That'd never work;

Spoiler for ending storyline:

the storyline is only possible because you can't see Takeshi and Kid, or else the fact that the adult Ryogo wasn't the same Takeshi as the one in the Coco path and how Kid wasn't the same as child Ryogo in the Sara/You path would have been revealed. The only possible way for this to happen is to either not show the face of the main character (from the neck down) or to have it first person. For those who pay attention to details, you might have noticed that in the Tsugumi/Sora bad ending that the Takeshi in their path had blue hair instead of brown. It showed his hair colour when You was dying, which was clearly different than that of adult Ryogo's.

Gah, good point - that completely slipped my mind. A lot of the suspense would be lost without that aspect kept secret...

Originally Posted by Bernkastel

Grammar and other errors : Um... I was very pleased with the translation overall, but, geez, how many of grammar errors are there in this game ?! Didn't they have someone to check their translations ? That's awful. A lot of "your" instead of "you're", lots of missing letters or even words, and I also noticed a lot of extra question marks that popped up in some sentences. Well, that's... not good. Not good at all.

That was always one of Hirameki's weaknesses, but towards the end, they seemed to have improved a lot over their earlier games.

[Grimkill7]

Originally Posted by Bernkastel

Spoiler:

I've been wondering the exact same thing. On the second DVD cover, there is a picture of Takeshi with Tsugumi. And he has BLUE hair. For a moment I thought it was a different person. So now I know they are the same person... I couldn't help but read that spoiler, nyoro~ (but I didn't understand a thing except that, obviously )

Honestly, it's a good thing you didn't understand it. The spoiler under Elvin's tag concerns possibly the biggest plot twist in the game. You learning it prematurely would have ruined all the fun of the final route.

[4as]

Originally Posted by Bernkastel

It's a bit soon, but I wanted to focus on some points that were kind of disappointing in my opinion. Don't get me wrong after reading this; I love this game. But of course Ever 17 isn't perfect, so I had to point out some things here and there that didn't please me so much thus far.

Spoiler for Containes spoilers concerning Sora's and Tsugumi's paths:

Transitions : [...]
Musics : [...]
"Voice Actors" : [...]

Something not normal? Well, Takeshi somewhat understood her and forgive that.
Huh, people cant identify with character and end up saying it is inconsistent, but truth is everyone's different - Takeshi acted this way and, I think, so would I.

As for music and seiyuus, I think they are perfrect.

[Featherine B.]

Originally Posted by Grimkill7

Honestly, it's a good thing you didn't understand it. The spoiler under Elvin's tag concerns possibly the biggest plot twist in the game. You learning it prematurely would have ruined all the fun of the final route.

Spoiler for Just to make sure:

Most of the time, when a spoiler tag has a title with "ending" in it, I become curious, and generally I open it... But of course, since actually I want to avoid as many major spoilers as I can (I know, my statements are kinda contradictory), I just read very quickly through it, not trying to really understand anything; the only part I really read was when it talked about Takeshi having blue hair when we were seeing the story through his point of view while he had brown hair when it was from the kid's. Fortunately I didn't try to understand the rest, as I knew it would spoil the ending (even if I have no clue who this "Ryogo" is).

Originally Posted by 4as

Something not normal? Well, Takeshi somewhat understood her and forgive that.
Huh, people cant identify with character and end up saying it is inconsistent, but truth is everyone's different - Takeshi acted this way and, I think, so would I.

I understand, it's just my opinion on it. I just think that if I were him, I wouldn't have acted that way.
... Meh. Maybe I'm just thinking too much.

Anyway, I finished Sora's good ending. I might be the only one to think that way, but I actually liked her good path more than Tsugumi's. Don't ask me why, I don't exactly know. The endings were kinda similar (in the way that it's supposed to be a good ending, yet it is tragic), yet I prefered Sora's to Tsugumi's.

Spoiler for Sora:

Maybe because I really liked the concept of an A.I. learning what love is and having internal conflicts with her "other" self because this wasn't the way she was supposed to act...

[rg4619]

Music is definitely lacklustre by the standards of PC visual novels. This is partly because it was originally done using PS2 synth, but the compositions are overly simplistic too.

Aside from the low bitrate (which leaves everything sounding hollow), I like the voiceovers.

[p997tt]

I made a simple video with Flash for Sora a couple of days ago and uploaded it on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n3jFeLw9D0

The music I used there was Never Never Sky, which is Sora's song from the vocal album. The song is sung by Hiroko Kasahara, Sora's voice actress who is also a singer in Japan. Youtube degraded the audio quality a lot though.

Don't watch it if you haven't completed Sora's route though.

[dsp2003]

Originally Posted by rg4619

Music ... was originally done using PS2 synth ...

Reeeeeally? O_O I didn't knew that. I'm familiar with several tracker ("Amiga" & Demoscene music - MOD,S3M,XM,IT) formats (actually, it's my favourite kind of music). Could please someone drop me the tracks in their original (not WAF\WAV\MP3) format? ^___^ The purpose is: i wish to try to convert them into ImpulseTracker format and (probably) filter several samples.

[harukamae]

Originally Posted by p997tt

I made a simple video with Flash for Sora a couple of days ago and uploaded it on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n3jFeLw9D0

The music I used there was Never Never Sky, which is Sora's song from the vocal album. The song is sung by Hiroko Kasahara, Sora's voice actress who is also a singer in Japan. Youtube degraded the audio quality a lot though.

Don't watch it if you haven't completed Sora's route though.

That was such a cute video! I love the song. For some reason it made me think of the narcissu 2nd side opening.

I'm now wondering just how big Ever17 was in Japan - didn't know they had character vocal albums. But then again it seems like every series/game gets character vocals or drama CDs these days...

[Archuka]

Originally Posted by Bernkastel

Spoiler for Just to make sure:

Anyway, I finished Sora's good ending. I might be the only one to think that way, but I actually liked her good path more than Tsugumi's. Don't ask me why, I don't exactly know. The endings were kinda similar (in the way that it's supposed to be a good ending, yet it is tragic), yet I prefered Sora's to Tsugumi's.

Spoiler for Sora:

Maybe because I really liked the concept of an A.I. learning what love is and having internal conflicts with her "other" self because this wasn't the way she was supposed to act...

I liked her path as well. In fact, she may be my favourite character of all, though Tsugumi is way up there a well.

Spoiler:

When Takeshi tried to rescue Sora's memories, I was constantly expecting for some kind of miracle to turn Sora into real matter and save both of them from drowning, but noo!

[Grimkill7]

After treading in this thread for a while, I decided to reinstall Ever 17 and play through it again. I'm currently working on Tsugumi's path, and I have a question.

Spoiler for Tsugumi's path:

The psychic, amnesiac kid in the bed next to Tsugumi's at the "hospital". Who is he? I'm not sure, but I think I read somewhere a while back that he was a character in one of the other Infinity games. Any truth to this?

[kgptzac]

Originally Posted by Grimkill7

After treading in this thread for a while, I decided to reinstall Ever 17 and play through it again. I'm currently working on Tsugumi's path, and I have a question.

Spoiler for Tsugumi's path:

The psychic, amnesiac kid in the bed next to Tsugumi's at the "hospital". Who is he? I'm not sure, but I think I read somewhere a while back that he was a character in one of the other Infinity games. Any truth to this?

Spoiler:

probably is nobody.... maybe could it be Tom who first "spread" Cure?

[Chewy]

Originally Posted by Grimkill7

After treading in this thread for a while, I decided to reinstall Ever 17 and play through it again. I'm currently working on Tsugumi's path, and I have a question.

Spoiler for Tsugumi's path:

The psychic, amnesiac kid in the bed next to Tsugumi's at the "hospital". Who is he? I'm not sure, but I think I read somewhere a while back that he was a character in one of the other Infinity games. Any truth to this?

The conclusion drawn by some people was that the boy who contracted CURE they mention in Never7 (sorry it's been a while since I've played so I don't remember the details) is the kid with Tsugumi in the hospital. I don't remember it being that big of a deal though, just a "ah that's cool" connection.

[Takuto19]

I have a question about endings.

Got my copy in the mail on Saturday and i've been doing my first playthrough on Tsugumi's path, although i got the ending.....

Spoiler for Tsugumi ending:

Tsugumi-Sora Version Bad End, says under the shortcut option on the main menu.

Without spoiling the endings of other arcs could someone tell me how many endings there are for each character? I thought there was 2 endings for each character, one good and one bad, then another ending to find, but the ending name suggests that was the bad ending for both Tsugumi's and Sora's path.

Thanks

[Rayneing]

Originally Posted by Takuto19

I have a question about endings.

Got my copy in the mail on Saturday and i've been doing my first playthrough on Tsugumi's path, although i got the ending.....

Spoiler for Tsugumi ending:

Tsugumi-Sora Version Bad End, says under the shortcut option on the main menu.

Without spoiling the endings of other arcs could someone tell me how many endings there are for each character? I thought there was 2 endings for each character, one good and one bad, then another ending to find, but the ending name suggests that was the bad ending for both Tsugumi's and Sora's path.

Thanks

Spoiler for Endings:

• Tsugumi Good End
• Sora Good End
• Tsugumi/Sora Bad End
• Tsugumi/Sora Epilogue
• You Good End
• You Bad End
• You Epilogue
• Sara Good End
• Sara Bad End
• Sara Epilogue
• Coco True End

If I remember correctly.

[Takuto19]

Originally Posted by Rayneing

Spoiler for Endings:

• Tsugumi Good End
• Sora Good End
• Tsugumi/Sora Bad End
• Tsugumi/Sora Epilogue
• You Good End
• You Bad End
• You Epilogue
• Sara Good End
• Sara Bad End
• Sara Epilogue
• Coco True End

If I remember correctly.

Thanks so much, this helps alot heh.

[Xaron]

I just finished this game yesterday. Loved the ending so much... I cried for an hour (I know, I'm over emotional )

Spoiler for tsugumi epilogue:

As everybody else here, I was left cold with this one. What did the german message mean? The coco CGs were to remind that Coco was left in the IBF? What was that noise? Coco crying?

[p997tt]

Originally Posted by harukamae

That was such a cute video! I love the song. For some reason it made me think of the narcissu 2nd side opening.

I'm now wondering just how big Ever17 was in Japan - didn't know they had character vocal albums. But then again it seems like every series/game gets character vocals or drama CDs these days...

That was one of my favourite songs from the album too. Most people I hear like Tsugumi's image song more but I like Hiroko's voice more.

I don't know how big Ever17 was in Japan but its rank is still extremely high on erogamescape (it is still beating all the big titles like Air, FSN, Tsukihime, Higurashi etc) and there was even an Ever17 bus for promotion http://ryoko-a.sakura.ne.jp/ever17bus.htm :P