The video game boy; the one who wins
Gender: Male
Location: Sweden
Rank: Ace Attorney
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 12:22 pm
Posts: 7747
Look what I dug up from page 2. Hopefully I'm not howling into the void. Having just finished the Infinity trinity (Never7, Ever17 and Remember11 I mean) I'm pretty eager to collect my thoughts about them.
Never7: It does have the sci-fi-time-loop-thing-science-stuff I went after having played through the Zero Escape series by Uchikoshi (what is that man's deal with Schrödingers cat?!), but more as a spice to a story mainly about romance. Or several stories, because the routes are independant from each other. Romance, highschool-drama (most of the characters are in college, but that's still the best way to describe it) and slice-of-life-stuff isn't really my cup of tea, but nevertheless I enjoyed this title, even though it took its sweet time. The sci-fi elements are varying amounts of present depending on route, my favourites were those who focused more on it, especially the "true" route. It's not as mindscrewy as other Uchikoshi-titles, but the final route did provide some. Otherwise, it's quite chill and humorous a lot of the time. I found myself laughing a lot and it was pleasant just "hanging out" with the characters. The pro of having routes dedicated to one girl (love interest) at a time is spending that much time focusing on each of them kind of forces the characters to be less one-note and stereotypical (unless it's the one other guy of the group that only seems to be there to be annoying), even if they're not super-deep. The writing is a bit wax-poetic at times, although I kind of take that as a quirk of the narrator, making it quite charming and leaves him feeling less anonymous. Especially since it wasn't like that in the one bonus route where the character Yuka is narrating instead (too bad the story is so focused on guy hearting girl, or else I think she would have made for a better protagonist than the current one). It's not a title that makes me go "holy shit you gotta play this", but if you know what you're in for I do recommend it. I had fun with it, some of the storylines actually were quite touching, and the ending is cool.
Ever17: Reading reviews and opinions about
Ever17 there's always this one thing that comes up: pacing issues. This game is looooong and there's loads of exposition, loads of banter, loads of filler scenes, before one finally gets to the core of the story, the final route, which most people think is more than worth the initial boredom. And yes, the game is a whole lot longer than it would have to be to tell the story. Some of the dialogues are way longer than they would have to be to get to the point (I feel like this is a problem in the Infinity series and ZE series alike: just explaining one simple concept or one simple line of reasoning gets drawn out to no end, but I feel Ever17 is the biggest offender of the bunch). It has five routes and it does not need five routes. That doesn't mean it's a total snoozefest until the final, though. The story moves forward, but pretty slowly. Some of the filler scenes are funny or interesting. The cast of characters bounce off each other well. And the final route is indeed amazing. Now, I can't really judge it in an entirely just way, since I had some things spoiled along the road (and for no real reason other than I got impatient) and above all I knew about THE twist (it has a lot of twists but I think those who have played it know what "THE" twist would refer to) from the very start (which honestly was what drove me to the game), so I have no idea what I would think about it going into the experience clueless, however, it was cool experiencing it from this perspective as well, looking for hints along the way and really seeing the story coming together. Ever17 has a nice setting with a special atmosphere (the soundtrack certainly helps creating that), a philosophical feeling about it, several touching and fun moments, but I think its greatest merit is the storytelling aspect in itself; when the pieces started falling into place I was really excited even though I knew where it was heading, just because it was done in a pretty cool way. It's long, the pacing is off, it drags on, the ending feels a bit cramped, it certainly has its annoyances, but if you're in for a long ride, and like grand twists and philosophical stories, and is interested in narratology, then I absolutely recommend it.
Remember11: My favourite of the bunch. I think this is a game that will stay with me. So has the other two, but especially this one. A big part in that I like it better than the other two might be because it doesn't have what annoyed me in them: the plot progresses steadily and plot relevant things happen pretty much all of the time, it has a sense of urgency going. I don't know how long it is compared to Never7 and Ever17, but it definitely feels shorter, and that is probably why. It also by far has the least romance. The characters feel less like anime archetypes (...instead, they are based on Jungian archetypes). There is less humour, but it is there. The atmosphere is really unsettling, it's definitely the darkest of these three. Yet I found it the most touching, and I'm not sure why. But there's something kind of dream-like and poetic about it when it's not creepy/mindscrewing. Anyhow, the atmosphere makes it the one I find closest to the Zero escape series in terms of the general feeling of it (I got into the Infinity series because of the Zero escape series, so it's a bit significant for me). The unease and feeling of being trapped reminds me of the atmosphere of 999, while the sci-fi aspect of it makes me think about VLR (not the content itself, but the atmosphere). I also really like both of the narrators, and they feel like characters in their own right rather than generic main characters, which helps a lot. Soundtrack is great. But. The ending. I'm personally glad I got into this already knowing that the ending feels unfinished, vague,
very open. I think there was supposed to be more to it but compromising and limited time and/or budget did their thing. So on one hand, it's sad knowing it could have been more if the creators were able to work more on it, on the other hand, taking it for what it is, it's still amazing. And the ending does work for the story, it's just one has to do a fair share of digging through TIPS (explanations of concepts and other stuff) and bad endings (a lot of them are vital to get a grasp of what's going on), and pondering, and interpreting, and reading other people's theories in order to form a somewhat coherent understanding/interpretation of things. Which can be fun! But it's evident it wasn't originally supposed to be that ambigous. Anyhow, I loved this, and as long as one is prepared to do some detective work, I think many Zero escape-fans would enjoy this title.
All in all, I really like this series, and hopefully I can read 12Riven sometime in the near future as well.
(......Ack! I've run out of snide comments!)