Cheap Ever17--Out of Infinity (Software) Price

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Customer Reviews of Ever17--Out of Infinity

Like visual novels? This is the cream of the crop...
FIRST UP - THE DISCLAIMER - ever17 is what is termed a "visual novel". This means that it is a story-driven game that revolves around the plot and story, and not fancy graphics, animation, cutscenes, or blowing people up. There is actually little to no animation in ever17, not even moving mouths. If you're expecting to watch an anime episode, you'll be disappointed. If you're expecting to run throgh tunnels and caves with a gun the size of Rhode Island blowing up things, you'll be disappointed. If you're expecting a compelling and engaging story with interesting characters, and don't fret over the thought of reading text and dialogue, you'll be astounded. :) Now on to the review! <
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>The translated visual novel market is a pretty small one in the English-speaking world. There aren't many out, and the ones that are released tend to be ero-games with adult content, which makes the games more niche than this niche market already is. <
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>Luckily, this niche market has one very incredible game now in the form of ever17. While ever17 has some issues, it is hands-down the best translated visual novel/bishoujo game available, and anyone interested in the genre should own it. <
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>For starters, ever17 is packed with very talented voice acting from the likes of Souchirou Hoshi (Takeshi, and the Kid), Kana Ueda (Sara), Yuu Asakawa (Tsugumi) and others. The voices really help make this game even better than the already-incredible story makes it, by adding emotion and humor into it and making it come alive. Similarly, the music in the game is very good, and adds great effect to various scenes, sounding lighthearted, creepy, and intense as needed. The opening song, "LeMU ~the faraway Lemuria~" is incredible when viewed with the opening animation, which is synchronized almost flawlessly with the music and sets the stage for the rest of the game. <
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>As far as visuals go (beyond the opening animation) - ever17 has some fantastic character designs, and each of the characters in the game has a variety of poses and facial expressions throughout the game - they keep the "change the face but use the same body for 90 poses but with different clothes" technique to a minimum, and the game benefits. Throughout, there are some minor lighting animation effects here or there, but nothing major. Additionally, this is a game that's a few years old, and so it doesn't have animated mouths or anything of the sort - characters tend to be static and different poses are swapped around to show movement. <
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>Hirameki, the group that translated and released ever17, has had some weirdisms in the past with translations and scripts (see my review of Hourglass of Summer for some of them :) ), but ever17 is largely translated well - there were a few spelling mistakes and oddly-phrased sentences, but by and large the translation is done much better than their past releases, for anyone who is worried about that. This is a great accomplishment when you consider that a lot of ever17's text is about science, physics, pseudoscience, and philosophical concepts that could be very difficult to translate properly and correctly. I only had one quibble, and that was regarding the translation of a date, which they translated directly as Japanese YY/MM/DD format. I, being a stupid gaijin of course, assumed it was DD/MM/YY format... and so I was pretty confused because of that, until later in the game where it's explained and a lightbulb in my head went on. <
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>ever17 contains a load of unlockable extras when you finish the game's endings - and there are a lot of endings! I believe 11 total endings altogether (perhaps 12, I forget) - including good and bad endings for each girl. With each ending, you get some wallpapers, screensavers, system sound sets that you can use for Windows sounds like shutting down, emptying the trash, etc... and the ability to jump to various points in time during a girl's path - so you can drop right into day 5 of Sara's path, if you want. All in all, this is the most extras/goodies I've gotten in a visual novel so far, way beyond the usual "CG sets and memory scenes" you get in most of these types of games. <
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>Now that all the "side reviews" are done, it's time to tackle the most important quality of a visual novel - the storyline. ever17 starts out innocently enough (as long as you ignore the opening animation, which shows glimpses of what will happen) - a group of young people, anywhere from around age 12 to 24, all happen to gather at an amusement park/underwater theme park - LeMU. Very quickly, though, events unfold that drive the story along, and soon, the player (you get to choose which of two characters to play, each with completely different storylines for 2 of the 5 companion girls) awakens in a LeMU that is largely deserted except for a handful of other stranded folk. <
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>With sections of the park collapsing from the underwater pressure, food in short supply, and electricity and power going on and off throughout, those stranded learn they only have 119 hours before the pressure from the surrounding ocean collapses the bulkhead and floods the entire park, drowning them all. Scenes shift between light-hearted and care-free to intense and thrilling as the main character interacts with the others he's trapped with, learning about their lives, their memories, and their beliefs, all the while becoming closer to them. <
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>Plots revolving around physics, time travel, and geometric perception are mixed with fairy tale imagery of Rip Van Winkle (in the localized version, at least), genetics and inheritance, deadly plagues, and just what it means to "exist", often leaving you wondering just what on earth is going on and what sort of philosophy the game is trying to get at. <
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>After you've gone through the 4 individual paths for Tsugumi and Sora, You and Sara, you'll probably have some suspicions and inklings about what's going on based on the hints and clues strewn throughout - and then when you play the game through the fifth time, your character can finally begin to piece it all together and you'll be heading through the final, and most amazing, storyline. <
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>All four of the seemingly disjoint and different stories are drawn together in an incredible and understandable way that left me speechless at how well it was written. The strange themes and ideas from each branch are explained and worked together into a cohesive story that all culminates in one of the most memorable endings of any game available. <
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>I truly can't say enough good things about ever17 - it was one of the longer visual novels I've played through, with high (actually, mandatory!) replay value to get all 4 of the "original girls'" endings so that you can play through Coco's path for the final and true ending. The overlap in each path is minimal for the most part, since each main character only deals with two of the girls (Takeshi can learn about Tsugumi or Sora, the Kid can come to know Sara or You), and so each path is very new and unique from the others you may have already played, keeping the game interesting and fresh throughout each play-through. And the fifth path, Coco's, walks through a unique amalgamation of the individual paths as your character begins to unlock the mysteries of the events at LeMU park on May 1, finally learning what has happened prior, what is happening now, and even what may still happen in the future. <
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>It can't be stressed enough, but if you enjoy visual novels, ever17 is an absolute MUST HAVE - and even if you don't, I think it would be worth the purchase if you enjoy sci-fi/existential thrillers.

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Mind-blowing story
If you love existential scifi anime and the sort of story where you have to think really hard about what's going on before the pieces slowly come together in a blaze of enlightenment - what are you waiting for? <
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>No, this is not a traditional videogame. There is no "action", you will not blast anything or score any points. You will be reading, and learning, and laughing, and being surprised over and over again, as you try to uncover the mystery behind the events that unfold in front of you. <
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>If you love mysterious anime, you MUST get this NOW!