Never 7 - The End of Infinity Review

Originally released as Infinity in 2000 by KID, Never 7 - The End of Infinity is a classic sci-fi romance visual novel centred around a group of university students on a retreat. 25 years later, it’s got its first ever worldwide release and official localisation from Mages Inc.

Never 7 sits in an interesting place in history, serving as the first entry in the Infinity series and as an early title in the careers of both director Takumi Nakazawa and writer Kotaro Uchikoshi, both well-regarded for their work on science fiction. I am personally most familiar with Uchikoshi between the two, having enjoyed the Zero Escape series, so it was interesting to look back on this earlier work. However, does this classic still hold up?

The short answer is… not really. This release doesn’t feature much in addition to the story itself, mostly just a collection of CGs you’ve seen and music you’ve heard — appreciated, but not particularly special. With nothing extra to distract from the narrative, it’s left to stand alone, and it doesn’t particularly do a great job of that, especially as the translation comes with a fair number of errors.

Never 7 follows a standard dating sim structure, where you start the story on a Common Route before moving onto character-specific ones for the five different ladies you can have protagonist Makoto fall for. There are two additional narrative branches (originally from Infinity Cure for the Neo Geo Pocket Color and later included in the Dreamcast’s Never 7 - The End of Infinity, which featured all seven) that can be unlocked by clearing certain combinations of the others.

The Common Route is passable, featuring a variety of fun and funny moments with the cast; I quite enjoyed an early scene where Makoto can face off against Yuka, the leader of the retreat, in a game of tennis. Most of the cast is entertaining, but Yuka was probably my personal favourite: friendly, sentimental, pushy, and trying to throw herself into life as much as possible. Without going into spoilers, I saw a lot of myself in her and loved most of her moments.

The rest of the cast is similarly well-written, with the exception of Makoto himself. He’s meant to be this generic sort of dude that any player can project themselves onto so that, when the player makes choices, it feels like it’s actually them making those choices. However, Makoto comes across as flaky, rude, perverted, hypocritical, and, worst of all, boring. He has this sort of rivalry/deep, seething hatred between him and the only other guy in the cast, Okuhiko, a shameless flirt who takes every chance he gets to be a jerk to Makoto. The thing is, I found Makoto to act basically the same as his rival in many situations, making the Common Route a bit unbearable, as it features six in-story days of him refusing to develop as a character.

I was almost ready to drop Never 7 then and there when I made it to my first route, Yuka’s, and all my doubts were answered. Minor spoilers relating to the game’s basic premise, but Never 7 sees Makoto mysteriously travelling back in time. Each route sees him witnessing his love interest’s death and having to redo the whole week to save her life. This acts as a nicely serious moment to jumpstart character growth and turn the story in a new direction.

Yuka’s route managed to use this, alongside the added wrinkle of Yuka herself also time-travelling, to explore the two characters’ relationship and their personal journeys to a really satisfying degree. Most details get explained well, and the two feel flawed in an actually human way. I could have gone for a bit more exploration of the time loop they discuss — perhaps with a few playable loops to see different attempts fall short — but it’s a strong narrative, and it was a great first experience. Sadly, it’s also the best route in the game, and the others fall short to varying degrees.

The others have their own ups and downs: Saki’s feels uniquely cathartic but too disconnected from the overall plot, Kurumi’s is hilarious but a bit too drenched in melodrama, and Haruka’s offers interesting lore but suffers from an exceptionally repetitive ending sequence. The strengths of their characters help to brighten each experience, but none left me entirely satisfied. Izumi’s takes the cake for the worst of them, however, acting like an extended gag reel where half the cast stop acting like themselves for repetitive silly antics to happen. There are some funny moments here, but no charm to speak of.

The bonus routes are better, though also undercooked, with one lacking any personality in its internal monologue for half the story, and the other being too long-winded in places. Both are still great, despite their flaws, and serve as excellent finales for the whole game. However, that still leaves us with only three genuinely great routes out of seven.

The art is more consistent across the board with charming anime-styled character designs that express themselves well, both as character sprites and in CGs, though there are a few odd expressions here and there. Also, this might just be me, but I can’t get over Okuhiko’s hair; I don’t know what it is, but it looks bizarrely fake to me! Regardless, everything from the backgrounds to the UI looked clean and didn’t seem to show its age.

The recordings for the voice actor performances sounded a little old in places, but they were easy to get used to and held a lot of passion. The music from composer Takeshi Abo was similarly emotional and fit the scenes well. A lot of the story’s highs and lows only hit as hard as they did on account of that soundtrack. “Achievement”, for instance, never failed to fill me with relief, and “HARUKA” is simply sweet, bottled nostalgia. Other than a few vocal recordings and odd character sprites, none of Never 7’s presentation aspects show any age whatsoever.

Never 7 - The End of Infinity is an odd piece of history, and I am happy it’s finally got an official translation, but as something to experience now, it’s hard to hide its flaws. There are some fantastic characters in here, alongside a great soundtrack, and even a handful of genuinely great routes, but there’s also a lot of underwhelming writing, with not much to show for a port of a 25-year-old game. At the very least, while it would be too spoiler-y to get into here, the flaws are interesting enough to chew on.