My initial reaction to Neverness to Everness was fairly tepid but there was enough there to keep me playing. Since them my enjoyment has increased a lot and I’ve played every day since launch. Yesterday I noticed I was at 49 hours heading in, so it’ll be at 50 today if I didn’t get that far last night.

For once I’m staying caught up with the story in one of these Genshin-Likes which I think helps keep me engaged. I’m looking forward to the next update to see where the tale takes us. There are a LOT of quests in NTE but I focus on the main ones and do the little side ones when the mood takes me. I shouldn’t really call them “little” since some of them are fairly involved and interesting. Let’s say “Side Quests” instead. Less demeaning.

Like all these games, NTE has a battle-pass thingie and like all of them, the amount of exp you can earn in the battle pass each week is limited. So the early part of the week I spend pushing on that until I hit cap, then I just putter around. You can spend a LOT of time just puttering around in NTE. It’s fun (for me at least) just to cruise around the city to see what’s going on.

I’m still focused on one main team which is Zero (the ‘you’ character), Mint, Hathor and Hotori. Hotori was earned via the premium gacha system, though using currency that I earned via playing rather than via purchasing. Hotta (the developer) is pretty generous with the handouts when you’re new. We’ll see if that continues. I have also rolled a lot on the standard gacha and got Mint so many times her skills are fully unlocked. Again, all using currency I got just by playing.

I like Mint because she calls me Coco because she thinks I smell like cocoa (and I LOVE her voice actor). I like Hotori because she calls me Precious. (I guess I’m revealing how shallow I am, eh?) And I like Hathor because she’s a badass on a bike, though in truth she IS the weak link in my loadout. Zero and Mint are level 60 and the other two are level 50 until I farm the appropriate “Ascend” materials for them. I hope I have that right. 60 and 50. Or was it 50 and 40? They’re maxed for Hunter Level 40 anyway.

I’ve been semi-avoiding the “Industry” system which is one of the hooks here. I own all the Cafes and keep them stocked in order to generate income (and I always do my own shopping so as to get the choicest ingredients!), I own two apartments because I needed two to qualify to level up my Industry Level, and otherwise I’ve mostly ignored all these mini-games for now. Oh, I fish now and then, too. I WANT to get into all these things but time is not infinite and the other parts of the game have been keeping me busy!

I spend very little time around Taygedo, who was a bit part of why I wasn’t loving the game at first. I did uncover at some point that Taygedo is female. A female otter with a TV for a head who talks about eating sea urchins all the time, which implies she is a sea otter so why is she on land? And when your head is a TV how do you even eat? There’re still a LOT of kids in the game but they’re slowly, slowly growing on me, to the point where if I’m hanging out with one of them they don’t bug me that much. When two of them are with me and start their chatterbox routine then I start grinding my teeth again. Baby steps.

In terms of bugs and controller UI inconsistences, the former seem to be mostly eradicated and they’re making progress on the latter. Also I suppose I’m just learning that different parts of the UI use different “Do it” buttons.

So yeah, Neverness to Everness has become a hit for me, like Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves before it. I guess I just love these big-world, always-changing games full of combat and quests and ‘getting more stuff’ and making lots of numbers go up. And as with GI and WW before it, I limit my spending to $15/month which is a number I’m comfortable with from all those years of MMO subs. I spend $5 on the “log in every day and collect currency” subscription, and another $10 for the “Premium” battle pass. Actually the latter lasts for longer than a month so it isn’t quite $15/month but I’m not going to bother to do the math. The important take-away is that these are optional and people can and frequently do play completely for free and don’t spend anything.

Bottom line? You should at least give it a try. What do you have to lose other than an hour or two of your time!