Ever17... Spoilers up ahead!
So recently, I've been playing Ever17 on the PSP. Yes, you read that right -- not the computer, but the PSP. I really didn't like the English text translations, but more importantly, the PSP save data can be used to link the series together (series being Remember11, Never7, and MAYBE 12Riven).
For those not in the know, Ever17 is one of the most popular visual novels internationally, considering that it's one of the few that's actually been translated into multiple foreign languages. It's by Cyberfront, formerly Kid, and translated by Hirameki International, I believe. Premise? You choose between the POV of a college kid, Takeshi, and an amnesiac kid, appropriately nicknamed Kid (or Shounen) while they are trapped in an underwater amusement park with 4 other people. Of course, there's crap going on with outside forces (ie, water slowly seeping into the park, electricity outages), but then there's also a lot of conflict and interaction between the different characters. Depending on the choices you make, you get a different route, and there are several different endings. True to the way most v.novels work, most of these routes centers around one of the other girls (because Kid and Takeshi are the only guys in this whole mess).
OK! General stuff over! Time for spoilerifics =P This is just my ramble, so don't worry if you don't understand anything =P
So I was just playing the game today, and I'm almost done with it. At the epilogue of Coco's route before my batteries ran out (curse you, PSP, curse you!!).
Let me just say...Wow.
I was expecting something, and I was guessing like crazy, but certainly wasn't close to the truth at all.
First, let's go into the parts that felt weird between Shounen's route and Takeshi's route. These were things I noticed while I was playing the game, so it was before I even hit Coco's route.
1.) Takeshi interacts a LOT more with Shounen in the latter's route than the former's. It's like Takeshi actually bothers to act like an older brother and talk to him rather than just talk to him whenever they happen to meet.
2.) Tsugumi is the angst-bunny (the ANGRY, SCARY angst bunny) for different reasons. In Takeshi's, she wants to die. In Shounen's, I forget the exact thing she said, and she was very hateful, but I distinctly remember she never said a thing about wanting to die.
3.) Koko knew what Tsugumi knew what Sara knew. Shounen knew what Takeshi knew. Certain events and phrases were just repeated in the different scenes, but obviously the situation was different and certain things happened differently.
4.) Yuu's name I admittedly didn't realize was different until the second time she said it in the game (ie, in Coco's route, at the very beginning) when she goes Yuubiseiakibana. I was like "wait...I distinctly remember "Haru/spring"!!", but that's neither here nor there. What I DID notice was that Yuu-Haru actually kind of believed in the occult, while Yuu-Aki blatantly states that she doesn't, even though she's kind of a maniac when it comes to it. (From her words, she needs the knowledge to combat other maniacs and dispute against them.)
My theories ranged from reincarnations (like, possession of a spirit to a body, from Coco to Sara) to cloning (Shounen from Takeshi) to parallel universes (how else are you going to explain how things are different between Shounen and Takeshi's routes?). Discrepancies always happened though, like Tsugumi's presence was a constant, whereas Sara/Coco wasn't. Coco knew things Sara knew, but Tsugumi did too (namely, the lullaby). I even considered that perhaps it was like... memory cloning or something, but that didn't really hold up water either. What else... The trick from Remember11 made me think that Takeshi and Tsugumi DID time travel somehow, and was reliving the same event over and over again, but there were so many holes with that...
And then there was the fact that Sara's pendant clearly had Takeshi on it, simply because the clothes were the same. Yet the kid said he didn't recognize Takeshi. It was...really odd.
When I saw Shounen's real body (Hokuto), I practically had a heart attack. Shounen DID have a heart attack (well, figuratively, as well, but he fainted for a few hours =P). And when I realized who "Takeshi" from Shounen's route really was, I was shocked. WTH. So, in effect, Takeshiroute!Shounen (whose name I really can't remember) is the Takeshi in Shounen's route, and the two POVs are two ppl you've NEVER seen pictures of up until Coco's route because you only ever see one from the other's POV, and and... Well, Cyberfront did an amazing job covering up their tracks that it was actually two timelines =___=
So, questions:
1.) How does Sora have a real body? (this I think'll be answered in the near future. I'm almost done! Almost!)
2.) The order of things. Order is a horribly vague word in this game, so here's a better way to put it... Blick (your POV, and for the most part, Hokuto) was "born" in Shounen's route. And everything that you see in Takeshi's route is more or less a vision that appears after that. So why were the two events made to be the same? I get that to call Blick, the two had to be made the same, but why THAT event? Was it because AN event happened twice, almost the same, that called Blick, or was it because he was "born" in that event, and because of that he could see back to the first event? If it's the second one, then was he coincidentially born in that second event or was the event going to occur anyways? In other words, cause and effect -- was he the reason the event was repeated? Or was the event going to occur anyway and he was called because it was a repeat ... which was a repeat because him from the future told Yuu-Haru to make it the same?
3.) Who the hell are Coco and Takeshiroute!Shounen? Coco describes herself as having "supernatural powers", and really, they're not unlike Blick's own abilities, but ... so, is she just a human with the "Third Eye"? In that case, is the same for Takeshiroute!Shounen? He definitely has something -- the infravision may have only been in Shounen's route, but Takeshiroute!Shounen could kind of predict when bad things would happen. Did he have special powers too?
4.) On a random note... Where was Blick's name first mentioned, I wondered? I probably missed it... It kind of, just suddenly appeared...
Random stuff:
-I don't really like the real Takeshi's look. Rather, I don't really care about his looks, but his expressions are very bland compared to Shounen!Takeshi. It's almost like the artists didn't put too much effort into it.
-My favorite route is still Sora's route, even after having played the others. It's also the route the most ppl dislike. It's completely noncanonical, but still! (This isn't counting Coco's route, because obviously that tells the most story and truths and is a default fave anyways =P)
-When I first played, I'd always felt that Takeshi's route was more about the characters and romance and him interacting with others whereas Shounen's route was more about discovering himself and the story. Turns out it was more the other way around, because the "present" is at Shounen's point and Takeshi's just a flow of events in the past.
-...The appearances thing was ingenious. It completely threw me for a loop. I wasn't even suspicious when they cut off the top half of Takeshi's head whenever they showed him in an image because that's what most v.novs do to their protagonist. It makes them more relatable in the same way a silent protag does. However, I did find it strange that Hokuto!Shounen looked the way he did in the images... I could've sworn he had shortish hair, and then all of a sudden he looked kind of like Takeshi! ...Hence why I thought they were clones >_>
-With Hokuto's new image, I could definitely see how he's related to Sara. With Takeshiroute!Shounen's image ... ... eh... .... ... No.
-Tsugumi's route was a biatch. I kept getting the bad ending. The only way to get the good one for me was redo the whole thing from the beginning. Seriously, I got everything from day 2 onwards correct, but before that, I had screwed up something that made me permanently geared towards the bad ending. Bah.
-I was so rooting for Sara and Shounen. But then we realized they were siblings. Sadness.
-Gotta wonder what Yuu-Haru thinks when she realizes Yuu-Aki and Shounen escaped on their own without realizing anything. Poor Coco and Takeshi...
-I'd also been wondering why in the world Shounen never went through the Himmel door. Guess we now know why -- the elevator to the lab underwater was already destroyed 17 years ago. It was also why Sora told Hokuto!Shounen to forget about the lab -- it was already gone way back.
-How in the world did they manage to break the same things in the same order the second time around? Takeshiroute!Shounen must be really good at what he does...
-The concepts in this game are really interesting:
o The Third Eye - Since you can only see things in 3D with two eyes, if you have three, you'd see in 4D (including time)
o Blick - You are in the 4D universe. You, as the player, because you know what's going to happen, you can go between routes, and you're not just confined to one timeline. Really, is this the way we are with all games? If they're in a 3D world, does that make us 4D beings for playing those games and reading those books?
-Finally, this game's connectiong to Remember11, which I played earlier. ... ... Really? I can't find one. But the two games definitely occur in the same universe, seeing as how they share the same timeline, so we'll see when I upload this data to R11. I'd considered that something funky with time was happening with the crew, but that didn't seem to be the case.
-...This series is obsessed with Tunas.
-Favorite scenes...
o The epilogue where Coco and Hokuto mob Takeshi (he's just like T____T in a confused way)
o Playing Pretend Chick. ... ... Takeshi's narration was the best thing ever. "Dear mother and father. I am currently 34m under the sea, pretending to be a chick. I am having a great life here." *snicker*
o Sora's ending scene, where Takeshi compares him and Sora to the myth of Pygmalion. That made me sad, especially with the "Karma" OST >_>
-Least favorite:
o Tanuki!Tsugumi scares the frick out of me with its glowy eyes.
o Any of the developing scenes with Tsugumi in Takeshi's route, really, because she's so ... set on her dying... She turns out OK though. Makes things better that that's practically the canon route, too.
o Takeshi about to hit Shounen in Takeshi's route. Really, I don't want to choose to hit him, but to get 100% text choices... *squirm*
OK! I am now done... for now! Yeesh. Long rant XD
I liked this game a lot. Not my FAVORITE, but it's definitely a great game. I really like the way it's thought out (two POVs, making the two the same but different, infinite loop), and the way it was presented (I didn't suspect a THING. Other than the obvious fact that something was blatantly wrong, of course).
Oh, and they pulled off a time paradox. Or rather, in avoiding a time paradox. This is the only story I've seen do that successfully...
edit (8/4):
So now I know why Sora is the way she is.
I love the ending scene, where everyone is together.
I also love the PSP version, with all its extra pictures =D
Another point I forgot to mention earlier that I had noticed during the course of the game that set some alarms in me: The two Shounen's act differently. Takeshiroute!Shounen is a bit...whiny, and I was actually really surprised when I first played Hokuto!Shounen that he wasn't like that. It was odd...
On another note, I wonder how Takeshiroute!Shounen (I think I should just call him Ryougo or something, to save me typing time...) deals with the aftermath? He lived his life to get Coco and Takeshi back, but now that they are ... now what? What's his "purpose," so to speak, now? And then, how do the others interact with him? He sacrificed a part of his life for two, and he tricked 4 others, and he devoted himself to another. Hmm...
Uploaded the data to R11. Nothing really connecting, but it's there. We'll see if something pops up after I REALLY finish that game...
For those not in the know, Ever17 is one of the most popular visual novels internationally, considering that it's one of the few that's actually been translated into multiple foreign languages. It's by Cyberfront, formerly Kid, and translated by Hirameki International, I believe. Premise? You choose between the POV of a college kid, Takeshi, and an amnesiac kid, appropriately nicknamed Kid (or Shounen) while they are trapped in an underwater amusement park with 4 other people. Of course, there's crap going on with outside forces (ie, water slowly seeping into the park, electricity outages), but then there's also a lot of conflict and interaction between the different characters. Depending on the choices you make, you get a different route, and there are several different endings. True to the way most v.novels work, most of these routes centers around one of the other girls (because Kid and Takeshi are the only guys in this whole mess).
OK! General stuff over! Time for spoilerifics =P This is just my ramble, so don't worry if you don't understand anything =P
So I was just playing the game today, and I'm almost done with it. At the epilogue of Coco's route before my batteries ran out (curse you, PSP, curse you!!).
Let me just say...Wow.
I was expecting something, and I was guessing like crazy, but certainly wasn't close to the truth at all.
First, let's go into the parts that felt weird between Shounen's route and Takeshi's route. These were things I noticed while I was playing the game, so it was before I even hit Coco's route.
1.) Takeshi interacts a LOT more with Shounen in the latter's route than the former's. It's like Takeshi actually bothers to act like an older brother and talk to him rather than just talk to him whenever they happen to meet.
2.) Tsugumi is the angst-bunny (the ANGRY, SCARY angst bunny) for different reasons. In Takeshi's, she wants to die. In Shounen's, I forget the exact thing she said, and she was very hateful, but I distinctly remember she never said a thing about wanting to die.
3.) Koko knew what Tsugumi knew what Sara knew. Shounen knew what Takeshi knew. Certain events and phrases were just repeated in the different scenes, but obviously the situation was different and certain things happened differently.
4.) Yuu's name I admittedly didn't realize was different until the second time she said it in the game (ie, in Coco's route, at the very beginning) when she goes Yuubiseiakibana. I was like "wait...I distinctly remember "Haru/spring"!!", but that's neither here nor there. What I DID notice was that Yuu-Haru actually kind of believed in the occult, while Yuu-Aki blatantly states that she doesn't, even though she's kind of a maniac when it comes to it. (From her words, she needs the knowledge to combat other maniacs and dispute against them.)
My theories ranged from reincarnations (like, possession of a spirit to a body, from Coco to Sara) to cloning (Shounen from Takeshi) to parallel universes (how else are you going to explain how things are different between Shounen and Takeshi's routes?). Discrepancies always happened though, like Tsugumi's presence was a constant, whereas Sara/Coco wasn't. Coco knew things Sara knew, but Tsugumi did too (namely, the lullaby). I even considered that perhaps it was like... memory cloning or something, but that didn't really hold up water either. What else... The trick from Remember11 made me think that Takeshi and Tsugumi DID time travel somehow, and was reliving the same event over and over again, but there were so many holes with that...
And then there was the fact that Sara's pendant clearly had Takeshi on it, simply because the clothes were the same. Yet the kid said he didn't recognize Takeshi. It was...really odd.
When I saw Shounen's real body (Hokuto), I practically had a heart attack. Shounen DID have a heart attack (well, figuratively, as well, but he fainted for a few hours =P). And when I realized who "Takeshi" from Shounen's route really was, I was shocked. WTH. So, in effect, Takeshiroute!Shounen (whose name I really can't remember) is the Takeshi in Shounen's route, and the two POVs are two ppl you've NEVER seen pictures of up until Coco's route because you only ever see one from the other's POV, and and... Well, Cyberfront did an amazing job covering up their tracks that it was actually two timelines =___=
So, questions:
1.) How does Sora have a real body? (this I think'll be answered in the near future. I'm almost done! Almost!)
2.) The order of things. Order is a horribly vague word in this game, so here's a better way to put it... Blick (your POV, and for the most part, Hokuto) was "born" in Shounen's route. And everything that you see in Takeshi's route is more or less a vision that appears after that. So why were the two events made to be the same? I get that to call Blick, the two had to be made the same, but why THAT event? Was it because AN event happened twice, almost the same, that called Blick, or was it because he was "born" in that event, and because of that he could see back to the first event? If it's the second one, then was he coincidentially born in that second event or was the event going to occur anyways? In other words, cause and effect -- was he the reason the event was repeated? Or was the event going to occur anyway and he was called because it was a repeat ... which was a repeat because him from the future told Yuu-Haru to make it the same?
3.) Who the hell are Coco and Takeshiroute!Shounen? Coco describes herself as having "supernatural powers", and really, they're not unlike Blick's own abilities, but ... so, is she just a human with the "Third Eye"? In that case, is the same for Takeshiroute!Shounen? He definitely has something -- the infravision may have only been in Shounen's route, but Takeshiroute!Shounen could kind of predict when bad things would happen. Did he have special powers too?
4.) On a random note... Where was Blick's name first mentioned, I wondered? I probably missed it... It kind of, just suddenly appeared...
Random stuff:
-I don't really like the real Takeshi's look. Rather, I don't really care about his looks, but his expressions are very bland compared to Shounen!Takeshi. It's almost like the artists didn't put too much effort into it.
-My favorite route is still Sora's route, even after having played the others. It's also the route the most ppl dislike. It's completely noncanonical, but still! (This isn't counting Coco's route, because obviously that tells the most story and truths and is a default fave anyways =P)
-When I first played, I'd always felt that Takeshi's route was more about the characters and romance and him interacting with others whereas Shounen's route was more about discovering himself and the story. Turns out it was more the other way around, because the "present" is at Shounen's point and Takeshi's just a flow of events in the past.
-...The appearances thing was ingenious. It completely threw me for a loop. I wasn't even suspicious when they cut off the top half of Takeshi's head whenever they showed him in an image because that's what most v.novs do to their protagonist. It makes them more relatable in the same way a silent protag does. However, I did find it strange that Hokuto!Shounen looked the way he did in the images... I could've sworn he had shortish hair, and then all of a sudden he looked kind of like Takeshi! ...Hence why I thought they were clones >_>
-With Hokuto's new image, I could definitely see how he's related to Sara. With Takeshiroute!Shounen's image ... ... eh... .... ... No.
-Tsugumi's route was a biatch. I kept getting the bad ending. The only way to get the good one for me was redo the whole thing from the beginning. Seriously, I got everything from day 2 onwards correct, but before that, I had screwed up something that made me permanently geared towards the bad ending. Bah.
-I was so rooting for Sara and Shounen. But then we realized they were siblings. Sadness.
-Gotta wonder what Yuu-Haru thinks when she realizes Yuu-Aki and Shounen escaped on their own without realizing anything. Poor Coco and Takeshi...
-I'd also been wondering why in the world Shounen never went through the Himmel door. Guess we now know why -- the elevator to the lab underwater was already destroyed 17 years ago. It was also why Sora told Hokuto!Shounen to forget about the lab -- it was already gone way back.
-How in the world did they manage to break the same things in the same order the second time around? Takeshiroute!Shounen must be really good at what he does...
-The concepts in this game are really interesting:
o The Third Eye - Since you can only see things in 3D with two eyes, if you have three, you'd see in 4D (including time)
o Blick - You are in the 4D universe. You, as the player, because you know what's going to happen, you can go between routes, and you're not just confined to one timeline. Really, is this the way we are with all games? If they're in a 3D world, does that make us 4D beings for playing those games and reading those books?
-Finally, this game's connectiong to Remember11, which I played earlier. ... ... Really? I can't find one. But the two games definitely occur in the same universe, seeing as how they share the same timeline, so we'll see when I upload this data to R11. I'd considered that something funky with time was happening with the crew, but that didn't seem to be the case.
-...This series is obsessed with Tunas.
-Favorite scenes...
o The epilogue where Coco and Hokuto mob Takeshi (he's just like T____T in a confused way)
o Playing Pretend Chick. ... ... Takeshi's narration was the best thing ever. "Dear mother and father. I am currently 34m under the sea, pretending to be a chick. I am having a great life here." *snicker*
o Sora's ending scene, where Takeshi compares him and Sora to the myth of Pygmalion. That made me sad, especially with the "Karma" OST >_>
-Least favorite:
o Tanuki!Tsugumi scares the frick out of me with its glowy eyes.
o Any of the developing scenes with Tsugumi in Takeshi's route, really, because she's so ... set on her dying... She turns out OK though. Makes things better that that's practically the canon route, too.
o Takeshi about to hit Shounen in Takeshi's route. Really, I don't want to choose to hit him, but to get 100% text choices... *squirm*
OK! I am now done... for now! Yeesh. Long rant XD
I liked this game a lot. Not my FAVORITE, but it's definitely a great game. I really like the way it's thought out (two POVs, making the two the same but different, infinite loop), and the way it was presented (I didn't suspect a THING. Other than the obvious fact that something was blatantly wrong, of course).
Oh, and they pulled off a time paradox. Or rather, in avoiding a time paradox. This is the only story I've seen do that successfully...
edit (8/4):
So now I know why Sora is the way she is.
I love the ending scene, where everyone is together.
I also love the PSP version, with all its extra pictures =D
Another point I forgot to mention earlier that I had noticed during the course of the game that set some alarms in me: The two Shounen's act differently. Takeshiroute!Shounen is a bit...whiny, and I was actually really surprised when I first played Hokuto!Shounen that he wasn't like that. It was odd...
On another note, I wonder how Takeshiroute!Shounen (I think I should just call him Ryougo or something, to save me typing time...) deals with the aftermath? He lived his life to get Coco and Takeshi back, but now that they are ... now what? What's his "purpose," so to speak, now? And then, how do the others interact with him? He sacrificed a part of his life for two, and he tricked 4 others, and he devoted himself to another. Hmm...
Uploaded the data to R11. Nothing really connecting, but it's there. We'll see if something pops up after I REALLY finish that game...