Update Ninety-Three: 10 December 2017

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Oh man, this one’s a weird one.

So, for what it is, CLANNAD Side Stories is just that - it’s a bunch of vignettes from the long as hell VN CLANNAD. There’s sixteen of these side stories - one for every major character (and Botan), and two kind of big group stories. It’s varying degrees of interesting, cute, and frown-enducing, depending on how much I originally liked those characters and how much sexualization of high school girls happen (also, minus twenty points for the weird anime trope of girls joyfully discussing each others breasts. That… that really does not happen.). Some stories happen before the original novel, some after. There’s no sprites in this one (We’ll get to that in the moment) but in each story there’s four to five new CGs, which are of really high quality and are very cute.

But this visual novel is weird. It’s beyond even the realm of kinetic novel. Once you start a story, there’s literally no other input from you allowed. The game is auto-auto, meaning it advances like you’re watching an anime - only after a character is speaking their lines. And, since there are no sprites, you’re mostly just staring at the backgrounds. You also HAVE to listen to the voices, because there’s no nametags or even quotation marks, so without the differences in voices it’s impossible to tell who’s speaking to whom, or who’s narrating. Even then it’s difficult, because some of the girls have very similar-sounding voice actresses. Oh, and you can’t save in the middle of a story - you have to pick a chapter or sit through it till the end.

This was hell for me. It was like watching a very very very boring anime. I read very fast, so there was large gaps in between me taking in each sentence and the story actually progressing. I got through this as fast as I could because I really just wanted to get it over with. I know there are some people who enjoy playing VNs like this, but I have the complete opposite preference. I don’t regret playing (….. er. Watching) this VN, but I felt relief it was over and I don’t think I’d play another one set up in this way.

Next up: I played the prequel - time for the real deal. I hope they improved!

See you soon!