It's a good time to be an English-speaking fan of esteemed game writer Kōtarō Uchikoshi. While he may be best known internationally for the Zero Escape and AI: The Somnium Files series internationally, he first made a name for himself with his work on Infinity, a series of visual novels by the studio KID in the 00's. Of the five games, Ever 17 was the only one to ever get an English release. While it received critical acclaim and developed something of a cult fandom, it was held back by a clunky translation and an Anglophone audience that had yet to accept games that were comparable to a digital choose-your-own-adventure novel.

The times, they are a-changing: visual novels have a niche but robust international following, and Uchikoshi is a recognized name within that. With this, Spike Chunsoft is releasing the first two Infinty games, Never 7 - The End of Infinity and Ever 17 - Out of the Infinity on Steam and Switch. While both of the games have been ported to several different platforms, Never 7 has never been available internationally and Ever 17 has long since become difficult and expensive to track down for those who didn't get it the first time around and don't want to fiddle with emulators or patches to make programs written for obsolete OSes work on modern systems.

Although both are bishoujo visual novels, with a cast primarily made of cute girls other than the male protagonist, each with their own storyline determined by the player's choices and have some common themes, the two games differ heavily in their storytelling. Of the two, Never 7 is far more traditional in its story and execution. The protagonist, Makoto Ishihara, is on a retreat for his psychology seminar with three of his classmates, two of whom are female. Through the story's events, he meets three other girls on the island. Every one of them is romanceable, and Makoto earns their affection based on how he responds to different situations.

Never 7 does have an overarching plot, as each route unfolds another aspect of the mystery. Though no year is specified, it takes place in the near future where cloning technology has become commonplace and is used for human reproduction. However, the bulk of game time is devoted to Makoto's relationship with each girl, which becomes the mechanic through which the story is filtered – this was mandated by the director Takumi Nakazawa, who believed the focus on dating would be necessary for the game to sell. Like most romance-based VNs, the first few hours of the game are a common route, which then splits into one of several potential paths based on how Makoto behaves toward each character. While the girls were cute, I never felt particularly compelled by the dating aspect; in some cases, it even made me a little uncomfortable, because Makoto is kind of a sexist ass and you gain points with some of them by being a jerk.

The main determiner of my interest in each route came down to the story of each one. While they're not interlocked in the way later Uchikoshi games would largely come to embrace, some only unlock after achieving a certain number of happy endings, forcing them to be played in an order where they build on one another. While I wasn't drawn in by, say, Haruka's route compared to Yuka's, I pushed through it to find out more about why Makoto kept experiencing premonitions. The conclusion is a little sloppy, but I did come out of it feeling like it was worth my time.

Ever 17, on the other hand, only has vestigial dating elements. Set in an underwater amusement park in the year 2017, there are two common routes: Takeshi Kuranari, a 20-year-old college student, and an amnesiac teenager who the others dub “Kid.” These two are among a group of young adults who find themselves trapped in a collapsing underwater theme park after an accident. They have approximately a week to find a way out before the space they're in falls to pieces, taking them along with it. As they're limited by the structure's mechanical capabilities, the group has both a short time limit and a surfeit of free time. Between crises, they assuage their boredom by getting to know each other and playing games like Kick the Can. However, as is so often the case in these situations, many of them have come here with an agenda of their own.

Although the company ultimately failed, it's clear to see just why Hirameki chose it for their early foray into localizing visual novels. The story is one of the best in the genre; to this day, few games come close to reaching its heights. Like Never 7, it deals with time loops; however, this time, each route interweaves and stacks upon the others in a way that will have you hitting the progress button frantically to find out what happens next, including twists that make brilliant use of and are in conversation with expectations of the medium. Although he operated in mostly a supervisory role, Uchikoshi's storytelling quirks are on full display: themes and ideas that would continue to recur throughout his work, and characters with a habit of expounding on thought experiments at the slightest provocation.

You'd hope that Spike Chunsoft would put a great deal of care into the first-ever English release of a classic game like Never 7 and a rerelease of a game as influential and treasured as Ever 17, but unfortunately, that was not the case. There are some neat quality-of-life features, including an automatic quicksave mechanic that ensures going back to change a choice is as simple as possible and adjustable transparency for the dialogue window. However, it lacks a flowchart, which has come to be a basic feature for games with branching storylines. Good thing there's a skip mode… which has been implemented in a fairly slapdash way, making it so that you end up playing through certain scenes over and over, including ones that don't do much to drive the plot forward. I also found it much too easy to hit the left shoulder button, especially since I played a significant portion with my left index finger wrapped in gauze due to an injury, and inadvertently ended up fast-forwarding through quite a bit of dialogue.

The translation was especially disappointing. The quality of the phrasing was fine – it didn't exactly soar, but it didn't have any clunky constructions and unnatural phrasings that tend to plague poor Japanese-to-English localizations. However, there is a distinct and damning lack of quality control. Line breaks seem to have been inserted at random; typos abound, including one at a crucial choice in the game; it appears someone was one row off on the number pad, and nobody caught it. Tsugumi is referred to as “Tsumugi” for an entire scene. It breaks my heart that even high-profile visual novel releases are being churned out with, apparently, a single pass by a copy editor.

But don't let that dissuade you – it's frustrating, but doesn't make the games not worth playing. While Never 7 may not grab you unless you're into bishoujo games or, like me, an Uchikoshi superfan, Ever 17's reputation as one of the greatest science fiction visual novels of all time is well-earned. I'd love to see the other games in the series get their first-ever English release as well.