Everlasting Flowers – Where there is a will, there is a way is the first full-fledged new visual novel title from developer Sprite in over a decade (based on Japanese release date). As someone who became a pretty big fan of their previous work in Aokana, I’ve been excited to see what they’ve been cooking up in the time since. With this release, Sprite opts for a rather different direction from their previous works in terms of style and presentation, with this also being their first simultaneous worldwide release. This is set to be the first in a series of what Sprite are calling “cinematic novels”, shorter stories focused on “quality and visual presentation over length”.
A Different Approach
Unlike their past two visual novels, Love, Elections & Chocolate and Aokana – Four Rhythms Across the Blue, Everlasting Flowers – Where there is a will, there is a way is not an 18+ eroge. Rather than being predominately structured around still backgrounds with character portraits in front of them, much of Everlasting Flowers’ runtime is scenes full of CGs with panning shots to give it a more cinematic and animated “motion graphic novel” feel. It’s also a much shorter story than their previous work, and is a straightforward kinetic visual novel with one route and no decision-making to influence the story.
To get this out of the way pretty quickly, despite what the screenshots on Steam might suggest, this work is very soft yuri at best. The entire cast is female and the focus is heaviest on its two main female characters, but if you’re expecting a girls love story, you’re likely to be disappointed. Anything that is there is ultimately pretty light. I personally don’t mind stories more focused on friendship than romance, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel misled by the choice of promotional material.
Getting Away From It All
Everlasting Flowers focuses mainly on two characters, Mina Sakashita and Ran Seino. Prior to the events of the story, Mina experienced a lot of ostracism from the students at her prestigious school, which led her to a severe depression. She stopped going to school or even associating with the people around her for nearly a full year. Her parents slip a form under her door to suggest she take a temporary summertime job at a lodge/restaurant far away from home. Though initially resistant, Mina decides that she’d rather just escape to somewhere nobody knows her and try to start over from square one in the hopes of breaking the monotony and isolation that has become her life.
Upon arriving at the lodge, Mina finds out that it operates with a somewhat unconventional format. She’s made to wear her school uniform (which she despises) and has her cellphone confiscated, effectively cutting her off from outside contact. Here, she meets Ran, a bleach-blonde girl who Mina feels is everything she’s not: outgoing, pretty, confident, and most of all, forward-looking. The story mainly follows Mina’s developing friendship with Ran over the short summer, as well as the deal behind the lodge job and the older woman and granddaughter who run the place.
Presentation
A key aspect of Everlasting Flowers is its overall package. Its cinematic and CG-heavy presentation makes it feel rather animated compared to many other visual novels. In total, there are over 700 CGs throughout its short runtime, although many of these are variants of existing ones (e.g. characters looking in different directions). There are still scenes of still backdrops and character portraits in the foreground as is typical for VNs, but these are more the exception than the norm. There’s also distinctly heavy whiteness to much of its color palette in many spots, which gives it this sort of brightness to it that captures a particular vibe the novel is going for well, one I can describe as a sense of transient stillness. The art style is pretty nice to look at throughout.
The music also captures this vibe a lot. Like with their previous works, Sprite went through Elements Garden sound team for their music, and they provide a soundtrack heavy with piano and occasional strings accompaniment. The music is rather pretty and fits the mood pretty well to elevate the experience, with a flavor that is distinct yet similarly excellent to their work in Aokana.
While there aren’t many characters in Everlasting Flowers, it’s fully voiced (outside of internal monologues after the prologue), including both Mina and Ran during sections from their respective perspectives. The voice cast is comprised of actresses more known for their roles in major anime and video games than for more niche visual novels.
English localization was handled by Frontwing. Thankfully I saw extremely few typos or typesetting errors, and its rather condensed setting and somewhat subdued tone meant few pop culture references or puns to translate. There were a couple of translated bits of meaningful wordplay used here and there but those were carried through adequately as far as I could tell. Honorifics are mostly maintained from the Japanese script.
A Brief Escape
Everlasting Flowers is a pretty short story, running me only about 6 hours to complete. I sometimes see visual novel writers struggle to make short stories work without getting too ambitious, but I actually think Everlasting Flowers does this better than many. Its scope is kept to a short time period and a very small nucleus of characters, and it actually ties in its short runtime to its themes.
A key theme to Everlasting Flowers is of transience and impermanence. Mina clearly wants to change her life, but a lot of her struggles stem from thinking that her new temporary home is to serve as a sort of a reset button that it really isn’t. This is not meant to be an ambitious and grand story, but rather a chapter in the life of its characters about the issues with running away from their problems and seeking short-term solutions instead of the difficult process of committing to change for the better. I actually think this is a novel approach to telling a short story set in a small time frame, as it’s likely to take up much of your free time when compared to longer visual novels and thus doesn’t provide a ton of the sort of escapism that its own main protagonist initially seeks.
Coming To Grips
Unfortunately, its actual story is a much more mixed bag. While there are good moments in Everlasting Flowers – Where there is a will, there is a way, many of them come near the end. Mina herself is a remarkably face-up protagonist in a lot of ways that failed to really grip me (if not annoy me outright). At times I found her internal monologue and behavior to be relatively relatable, but at many others, it was very heavy-handed or written rather blandly. There’s a lack of subtlety to her as well, with her spouting a lot of really obvious lines and changing quickly after characters around her tell her what the story feels she needs to hear. This often comes without much internal consideration or interesting emotional conflict to make development feel very earned or convincing.
Ran has some interesting traits as a character, and occasionally perspective shifts over to her to mix things up, but she’s not a ton better. There are aspects of her character I appreciate, such as how many of her cracks show through that slowly whittle Mina’s idealized perceptions of her, but several of her scenes and lines feel somewhat forced in order to move the plot along. She also isn’t particularly compelling herself.
There are three other characters in the story, those being the lodge owner, her granddaughter, and a confidant of Ran’s. The lodge owner, Michiko, comes off as strict but with a kind heart, but she only rarely gets to show off much in the way of actual character (though with a couple of good scenes). Her granddaughter Himari is cute as a button and offers a bit of additional dynamic with Mina and Ran in several spots, something I wished for a bit more. The last character is sort of more just there to move the plot forward and give Ran some extra backstory.
Alas, there just wasn’t a lot for me to really latch onto here. This isn’t a particularly high-concept epic, but rather a short journey through the lives of a few characters. They have their moments, but the main two did little for me. Without really nailing the characters, Everlasting Flowers struggles to really stick the landing on what it’s trying to do. It doesn’t help that it’s also woefully predictable from start to finish. While I don’t think a story needs to be heavy on twists to be compelling, Everlasting Flowers doesn’t offer up much else outside of a few standout scenes.
I should also point out a couple of other issues. For one, the Steam release has several achievements requiring incredibly superfluous actions. For example, there’s an achievement for completing several chapters a second time, however, there are no differences between a first and second playthrough, making this pointless. And while needless achievements in visual novels on Steam are nothing new, these choices felt particularly odd as they would suggest there might be more to Everlasting Flowers than there actually is. I shall also note that originally upon release, you would be unable to make progress reading without an internet connection, which was quite annoying for a rather solitary entertainment medium like a visual novel. This was thankfully patched out the day after, but if you’ve seen any complaints about this matter, that would be the reason why.
Verdict
Everlasting Flowers – Where there is a will, there is a way is a tepid story with high-quality presentation. It has its moments here and there of solid storytelling and some relatable character moments, but there’s not much to take away from it either. The visual novel medium is one of the more stagnant in the greater landscape of gaming and I appreciate Sprite’s attempts to make a shorter and more cinematic story that breaks somewhat from the typical mold of presentation but it ultimately doesn’t quite have the substance to match its style.
Sprite is calling this the first of what is set to be a series. There are some foundational pieces and ideas to work with, and I think they have the potential to do better with this idea. But for a price tag of 30$, I’m hoping for better than my six hours spent on this title.
WAIT FOR SALE ON EVERLASTING FLOWERS – WHERE THERE IS A WILL, THERE IS A WAY
If you are looking for another visual novel with girls romance, you might want to check out UsoNatsu ~The Summer Romance Bloomed From A Lie~ or Lilja and Natsuka: Painting Lies. We have also covered a wide variety of visual novels both original to English and localized from Japanese, which you can check out here.
This review is based on the PC version. At the time of writing, the console versions are only available via the Japanese eShop/PS Store.
Been playing games since my papa gave me an NES controller in the early 90’s. I play games of almost all genres, but especially focus role-playing, action, and puzzle-platform games. Also an enjoyer of many niche things ranging from speedrunning to obscure music from all over the world.
