Do you know what a regular summer camp is? No, you don’t unless you are from USSR. This large and pretty strange country was full of various paradoxes. A summer camp there was a cool place where children could rest during their holidays. Each camp had a lot of clubs by interests, sports fields, stages of entertainment, strict schedule, fair or unfair camp leaders, a lot of beautiful girls and cool boys. Camps were really interesting.
Well, there is another question. Have you ever felt some kind of depression or isolation? Maybe, you wanted to rest alone near your PC or laptop chatting with anonymous strangers and watching anime? Was there the feeling that you are nobody, and that your life is in stagnation? Frankly speaking, a lot of us can answer «Yes!» now. This situation is less interesting and intriguing than summer camps in USSR, you know. But it’s important.
The thing is that two features marked below – summer camps for pioneers and social isolation – creates the basis for Everlasting Summer. The game called «Russian Katawa Shoujo» and «the best Russian visual novel» was created by the really small group of enthusiasts. Guys wanted to create a specific piece of art for imageboard culture, but during 5 years of tense developing Everlasting Summer turned into something really unusual and unique.
Synopsis
The entire story always comes along with spoilers, so here we will reveal only the basics of the plot. If you want to explore everything just be sure to check other articles about Everlasting Summer. For now, it’s enough to know that your hero is Semyon, another regular man from Russian without social relations, permanent job or family. At some point, Semyon travels to the past during strange bus ride. He jumps right into the summer camp somewhere in USSR.
It’s pretty interesting start, isn’t it? Even more, everybody in the camp thinks that Semyon is another pioneer, but he feels something strange here. Players have an in-game week to find answers and return Semyon home. The gameplay here is quite similar to all visual novels as you can choose how to reply to NPCs in dialogues or where to go in the camp. These choices lead to one of 13 endings. Last finals are available only finishing at least 6 routes.
That’s the most important part of the game’s mechanics. Some sides of Everlasting Summer are described in more detailed way below.
4 reasons to play the game
Everlasting Summer is a magical game, really. But only for people who realize what the summer pioneer camp is. The game focuses on the sense of nostalgia, so everybody from USSR can close this article now and install this visual novel to enjoy it. Other readers – members of imageboards, admirers of anime, fans of visual novels – should continue exploring. Point is, Everlasting Summer can fifty-fifty impress anybody or leave indifferent.
- Outstanding backgrounds.
The visual part of the game is cool. No, it’s really cool! Backgrounds are the best among all existing famous visual novels. The style of pictures here is quite minimalistic, but it looks wonderful. Some scenes are also very detailed, as well. Also, players can explore backgrounds in the gallery along with special unlockable pictures. Each background here matches specific episode and specific character. Just forget about unnecessary details forever.
- Wonderfully atmospheric music.
Backgrounds are not the only part that creates the unique atmosphere of Everlasting Summer. Music surrounding created by Sergey Eybog is pretty simple but impressing. Songs and tracks in the game are full of ethnic Russian motives rethought for the modern world. Music generates the mood of each event from peaceful and funny to scary or, for example, sensual episodes. It should be interesting that one of the songs is dedicated to Hatsune Miku.
- Unique Soviet stylistic.
Actually, the game about Soviet summer camp cannot decline Soviet stylistic. But Everlasting Summer creates an unusual version of the past keeping the best things and hiding controversial parts of USSR history. In other words, the game tries to return players in their ideal childhood or show this wonderful time to youngsters. The world of Everlasting Summer is attractive both for players from post-Soviet republics and for ones from all over the world.
- Routes that can blow your mind.
We will cover the gameplay, characters and their routes in next paragraph. But you should know that certain endings and stories in the game are totally out of the ordinary. Everlasting Summer cannot intrigue players forever, but some hints help the game to gain the attention of players. Be ready for odd routes with time travels, horror episodes, supernatural entities, dreams, love and… Yes, there is a cat-girl, as well.
4 reasons to ignore the game
Everlasting Summer is not an ideal visual novel. During 5 years of developing the game changed the plot several times. Different artists and writers worked on this project at different times. The result is a bit uncoordinated, full of plot holes and unanswered questions. The final version of the game even with patches and official modes doesn’t look like a solid project. That’s why a lot of fans are unhappy of main routes, final hidden endings and main explanations.
- Mediocre character designs.
CGs and sprites are different from magical backgrounds. The thing is the design of characters was created by another team of artists. Pictures of main and secondary heroes are too plain, lines of CGs are thicker and colors are paler in the negative sense. Moreover, different girls who must be completely unique look like the same person only with different hair. This contrast between atmospheric backgrounds and simple CGs is only the tip of the iceberg.
- Extremely dull main hero.
Semyon is based on a typical visitor of imageboards. He is asocial, unambitious and even stupid. His life is full of nothing. And even in the camp, he continues to think like a regular emo-boy. Players have to read tons of pseudo-philosophical thoughts from Semyon’s head and even more. Dull actions of the main hero lead to awful consequences and we can do nothing except watching for this! Fans hate Semyon for his behavior, especially, during bad endings.
- Boring and dissonant plot.
If simple CGs are just visual part plot is more important. But Everlasting Summer has the main problem in the story. It’s just boring. Players have to unlock at least 6 endings before you can reveal some mysteries… Without final answers! Hours of bumbling flirt lead to another sex scene, another ending in Semyon’s room in his own world. The skip option is useful as it allows passing already seen parts of the story but it also ruins the atmosphere.
- Not ideal localization.
The game is originally made by Russians and for Russians based on Russian culture. Means it could be difficult for foreigners to understand each joke and hint. Surely, Everlasting Summer creates its own world, so everybody can dive into the game even without understanding some cultural aspects. But there is another problem. English version of the game is not balanced, it has several typos, errors and misspells. This ruins the subtle atmosphere, as well.
Summary
Let’s start with numbers:
- Story – 6/10. The plot is intriguing and fresh, however, it has a lot of unsolved mysteries.
- Gameplay – 4/10. To finally complete the game players have to repeat it a lot of times.
- Graphics – 9/10. Backgrounds are unbelievably beautiful when CGs are not so cool.
- Sound – 9/10. The magical music matches and emphasizes the atmosphere.
In conclusion, we have the final rating of the game – 7/10. It reflects the main impression of Everlasting Summer. The game starts like another common harem simulator in unusual decorations. Then it shows some hints intriguing players to continue their journey. But after several repeats, any interest will disappear, so near the true end of the game almost every player is tired, he only wants to get answers. The game is cruel here. It doesn’t give any clear solutions.
Yes, you can say that Everlasting Summer was created by various developers with a lot of argues and problems. Even under such conditions, smart folks from Soviet Games created a pretty consistent world with the wonderful atmosphere. Yes, you really can enjoy this game as we did. But always there will be that feeling of incompleteness: in unfinished CGs, in odd final routes, in dim protagonist etc. The game requires a lot of patience to complete it.
Sorry, but we only can imagine the ideal version of Everlasting Summer. But anyway, try this game. Maybe, you will become a huge fan, who knows?
