NTE: Neverness to Everness

NTE is a game that feels like it’s constantly pulling you in different directions, yet somehow still holds together as a cohesive experience. It wants to be a gacha RPG, a city life simulator, a driving game, a management sandbox, and a narrative-driven anomaly hunter all at once. And instead of collapsing under that weight, it actually becomes a strong foundation to support how its systems interact and flow with each other. Of course, that ambition isn’t perfectly refined yet. Some systems still lean a bit too simple and story pacing can break immersion when level locks interrupt momentum. But even with those rough edges, the important part is that NTE never feels aimless. It commits to what it is trying to be—a multi-layered city RPG where everyday life and anomaly-driven chaos coexist.

If you like urban open worlds with life sim elements, then it’s impossible not to recommend NTE right now. This game has one of the most beautiful, vibrant sandbox settings I’ve seen in some time – and despite some irksome characters, I’m generally enjoying its plot so far, which blends slice of life mangas with sci-fi horror. The gacha business model is understandably not going to resonate with everyone, but at launch this is one of the more generous games in the genre thus far. And the sheer number of things to do day one, from managing coffee shops to beating down possessed DJ decks in DDR-style rhythm battles, is simply unprecedented.

Neverness to Everness is an ambitious open-world gacha game overflowing with content, whose greatest strength lies in the city of Hethereau and the wide variety of activities it offers, ranging from exploration and management to combat. The gacha system is surprisingly generous compared to the standards of the genre and helps make the experience accessible even to free-to-play users, while the sandbox structure can keep players engaged for dozens of hours. On the other hand, some fairly evident limitations emerge: the combat system is functional but lacks depth and fails to compete with the best titles in the genre; the narrative struggles to find an engaging pace in this 1.0 version; and the cast of characters does not leave a particularly strong impression, either in terms of writing or character design.

It’s a game that requires a lot of improvements before it can be truly great. I think that if you have the teeniest bit of curiosity, there’s nothing that should stop you from trying the game out for yourself. As a gacha game, its monetization isn’t aggressive, and playing it myself throughout this month was an experience I found decent, although it barely hits the passable bar. I’ll be closely following the development of this game because I do see the vision that Hotta Studio wishes to craft, and I truly hope the team can bounce back.

The audio department is less impressive, featuring music that serves a functional role within the gameplay—with a few tracks that actually manage to stand out—while the sound effects and voice acting (which we sampled in both English and Japanese) do little to push beyond the typical limitations of the genre, offering many stereotypical performances.

NTE: Neverness to Everness delivers a stylish and surprisingly varied gacha experience, packed with activities and strong presentation. While none of its systems truly stand out, the mix of vibes and accessible progression make it easy to sink hours into. The real test will be its long-term support, but for now, NTE has all the ingredients to become a lasting hit.

Neverness to Everness delivers a stylish, lively city packed with plenty to do, and its generous gacha system makes it easy to enjoy everything it has to offer without constant frustration. But beneath all that charm, the bloated gameplay formula starts to show, especially in its story and combat, which struggle to stand out in an already crowded field of other known gacha giants. If you’re already invested in similar games, this can be a fun, low-pressure addition to your routine. Just don’t expect it to reinvent the wheel since it’s more of a comfortable, content-rich ride with a few slightly annoying bumps along the way.

i love the story and boss battles from this game but begin was slow but if you playing longer its become more fun and great i want give this game 100/10 content is great too i hope make more content with it

Updated review after 1.1: Most of my general complaints about the game were patched, so that's good to see from Hotta Studio. There's still some weirdness on PS5: - housing system is awful - a lot of the daily minigames are busted/half-working - your character's default thought is "I should start climbing" and getting out of that loop once you've superglued yourself to a building is a bit strange. - random other small bugs The biggest downer is that there's not much to do once you've cleared out the vanilla quests, and the 1.1 patch quests were like 5 minutes of gameplay. So, there's a big city to explore but nothing to really do daily other than spending your gacha energy on the same few things. There are other things available to do, but they're so poorly designed that you just ignore them and repeat the same handful of dailies instead. I still think it could be a good game with more time. The combat is simple but kinda fun when you have a good party. The world itself is neat to exist in, etc. The gachaness of it is also laid on pretty thick, which you probably won't see until after the honeymoon phase wears off.

Provato su Smatphone, PC e Playstation 5 con parecchie ore di gioco posso finalmente dire la mia su NTE. Purtroppo le premesse non sono state rispettate a pieno, deluso su alcuni punti che spero nel corso del tempo cambino il gameplay è bello frenetico e divertente, è uno Stellar Blade semplificato ma non povero di ****. La Grafica su PC è una meraviglia ma purtroppo su Console (PS5) sembra uno dei tanti giochi asiatici (un Digimon sotto steroidi) ha la capacità di far sembrare la console di casa Sony una Nintendo Switch anche se gira molto fluido. Nota dolente su **** e missioni secondarie: la maggior parte dei **** è davvero insopportabile, Nanally tra tutto il gruppo di bambine non è mai interessante, spesso ti viene voglia di skippare il dialogo per le cose insignificanti che blatera, esteticamente troppe bambine e caratterizzate male, si salvano Mint, Hotori (palesemente un copia incolla di Nyotengu di DOA) e Fadia su tutte, il resto è spazzatura, ho apprezzato molto invece Skia il LUPO (estetitcamente). Non ci siamo proprio nelle side quest, ore e ore di una singola missione che è troppo poco interessante, cambia il discorso quando invece andremo ad affrontare le missioni principale e gli spin off. Il mondo di gioco è vivo e spesso ti viene voglia di annusarlo e rimanerci li anche solo per una passeggiata, altra nota dolente è l'assenza dei sottotitoli in italiano. E' il Nikke Goddness of Victory che tutti volevano ma il **** migliore esteticamente su NTE perderebbe a mani basse con un qualsiasi **** del gioco citato in precedenza. Mint e Fadia se la giocherebbero! Spendere soldi su questo gioco non è un sacrilegio ma attualmente per cosa dovrei spendere? ci sono pochi **** e l'80% preferirei non averli.. Si può giocare senza spendere? assolutamente si e puoi anche trovare tutti i **** ma difficilmente completarli al 100%, VOTO: 7 con riserva (attendo prossimi aggiornamenti sperando di alzare la valutazione)

Pros (The Good) • Stunning Art Direction: The visual style is cohesive and polished. • Immersive Open World: The city and environment are well-designed and engaging to explore. • High-End Graphics: Top-tier visual fidelity. • Attractive Character Design: The character models are aesthetically pleasing and high-quality. Cons (The Bad) • Repetitive Gameplay: The core loop feels bland and monotonous (though somewhat expected for a gacha title). • Cluttered UI & Bloated Systems: The menus are unintuitive, and the game is packed with "useless" items and rewards that feel like filler. • Weak Protagonist: The main character lacks personality. A customizable protagonist would have been a better choice for immersion. • Subpar Writing: The story and dialogue are forgettable, leading to a "skip everything" experience. Many quests feel like busywork, and the narrative fails to create any real suspense or hook. • Confusing Gacha Mechanics: The monetization and summoning systems are unnecessarily complicated and hard to follow. • Pandering Character Design: Some characters feature "oversized attributes" (fan service) that feel excessive or distracting.

Neverness to Everness opens with a familiar setup: a mysterious attack, a team of stylized heroes, and immediate combat. While this structure is common in modern RPGs, the execution here struggles to create any meaningful engagement. The game throws players into action before establishing emotional stakes, resulting in a lack of intrinsic motivation. You are fighting, but you don’t yet know why you should care.This issue extends into the game’s worldbuilding. The lore suggests that the world is “new” and culturally undeveloped, but what is shown contradicts this idea. Instead of a believable, evolving society, the game presents a disjointed mix of elements: highly stylized, exaggerated protagonists coexist with grounded, almost mundane NPCs. The tonal gap is striking. Heroes behave like over-the-top anime archetypes, while the general population feels subdued and detached, creating a sense that these characters do not belong to the same **** narrative framing of anomalies further highlights this inconsistency. They are treated as both central and longstanding phenomena, yet the world shows little sign of adapting to their presence. Architecture, culture, and daily life appear largely unaffected. Even symbolic elements, like the antique shop used as a metaphorical anchor for anomalies, feel conceptually mismatched. If anomalies are common, framing them as something rare or “antique” undermines internal logic.Gameplay does little to compensate for these issues. The combat system is serviceable but lacks depth. Team composition offers minimal room for experimentation, and there is little incentive for theorycrafting. Compared to similar titles, it feels stripped down, with only basic buff interactions and limited mechanical complexity.Movement is another weak point. Traversal feels sluggish and imprecise, with noticeable delays in character responsiveness. Climbing and parkour mechanics are frequently interrupted by minor environmental inconsistencies, breaking any sense of flow. The game seems to aim for fluid, freeform movement, but its systems do not support that ambition. The result is frustration rather than empowerment.Side activities, such as racing, suffer from similar problems. Controls feel unrefined, and the lack of customization or progression systems removes any long-term appeal. These features come across as underdeveloped additions rather than meaningful gameplay **** gacha system, while statistically reasonable on paper, is presented in a way that feels unintuitive and unrewarding. The board-game-style mechanic obscures actual probabilities, making outcomes feel more random and less controlled than they likely are. This disconnect between perception and reality diminishes player trust and satisfaction.Ultimately, Neverness to Everness struggles not because of one major flaw, but because multiple systems fail to reinforce each other. The combat lacks depth, the world lacks cohesion, and the presentation lacks impact. While there is potential in its foundation, the current experience feels unfocused and **** players hoping the game improves significantly after the opening hours, it is worth noting that these early impressions are likely representative of the overall design philosophy. Incremental improvements may occur, but the core experience is unlikely to transform in a fundamental way.