EIGHTY
FOUR
HOURS

Clannad for the longest time was considered sort of the de-facto Best Visual Novel. As in whenever discussing what the best VN is, even if no one would pick it, Clannad was the starting point of that conversation. I call it Ocarina of Time syndrome.

I completely understand why it had that reputation. This was maybe one of the first successful VNs with this much artistic ambition. (I am regretfully not well versed in 90s Japanese VNs, something I hope to change soon, but outside of YU-NO I don't know what else would be in contention.) Considering it in its time, it's a landmark achievement.

I also completely understand why that reputation has faded. What holds it back in my mind is, because it was an early 2000s bishojo VN, it was compelled to adhere to all of those tropes. Choices are often inane with no clear purpose for existing. The protagonist is an asshole who relies on women to save him from himself. The women are happy to oblige to absurd degrees. He is simultaneously constantly aroused and also eerily chaste? His first kiss with his wife happens about a week after their marriage. You figure that one out.

The story also often seems confused about where it's going. Without spoiling, the "point" of the narrative was apparently such a secret that I didn't realize what it was until it was happening. The main routes and the after story are essentially different games which isn't inherently bad, but they don't complement each other well. Too often callbacks fall flat in execution. (Credit where credit's due, there's plenty of clever foreshadowing. I recommend not skipping the Illusory World interludes when route-hunting.) I try not to be in the habit of offering specific changes to a work, but in all of the most emotional scenes I caught myself thinking "There is a version of this story where this scene makes me cry. I wish I could see that one."

I did enjoy it. It's just hard to say how much. Maybe someday I'll check out the anime adaptation. Perhaps the story is better suited to that medium?

This is already a really long entry so I'm gonna run up the score and rank all the main story routes from worst to best. I earned the right. Eighty four hours.

Sunohara - lol it's homosexual isn't that gross ha ha kill me
Kappei - What's the opposite of a deus ex machina? Where everything is going well and then out of nowhere there's a nonsense twist for the sake of drama?
Misae - The best part of this route is when it briefly intersects with two others.
Kotomi - "Contrived" is the word that comes to mind.
Kyou - Kyou and Ryou are twins, and knowing that you've already figured out how this route goes.
Koumura - A legitimately endearing story for a character who gets almost no screen time.
Mei - Mei exists in the other routes as an optional B-plot and her dedicated story doesn't really expand on it that much. Unfortunately. Mei rulez.
Ryou - Like Kyou's route except everything goes according to plan. I wish more stories would let that happen.
Nagisa - Even if you don't know the gist of the VN or looked at the cover art, this is pretty obviously the canon route.
Yukine - Structurally unique, and all of Tomoya's gross teenage boy energy is dumped on Sunohara instead. Almost makes me sad it's so short, but that would mess with its pace.
Baseball - The writing is at its best when it's goofy, and this is by far the goofiest ending.
Fuko - Now this is the kind of tragic existentialism I can get behind. Probably the closest the game got to making me cry. Which is saying a lot, considering, yknow. The rest of it.
* Tomoyo - Tomoyo is in my opinion the most individually compelling character in the game. Comparing and contrasting her with Tomoya is some of the best storytelling in here.

Follow me here on backloggd.com to catch my Steins Gate review when it drops in 2022.

One of the classics of the VN scenes. I could understand that view that many get from this work. However, it is telling that this is mostly recommended for newcomers trying to get into Visual Novels. The prose is short, simple, and pleasant. Very thematically strong in its themes of coming of age and what it entails. To finding refuge in family, friends, and romantic partners and climbing the hill of life/existence as long as you can. However, it is pretty marred down by overly redundant slice of life scenes, and VERY slow pacing. Ironically, although most of the game is written by Jun Maeda, I like Suzumoto Yuuichi (Kotomi's story) style of writing and pacing better. It isn't to say I don't think this is a classic (because it deserves to be one and packs quite a devastating emotional punch) It's just not my thing. Probably especially since I've played better VNs than what most people would actually find in the western world.

Unfortunately, I don't think this VN has aged very gracefully, as a lot of fresh ideas now come off as stale. I think all the main routes are pretty well-written (Kyou best girl) but the side routes range from just okay to outright horrendous (looking at you, Kappei). While I understand the importance of establishing a sense of community, the lack of quality control on these other routes hurt the VN as a whole more than helps since this is already a huge story that bloated to epic proportions because of them.

I also gotta say, this really does feel like a shell of what the anime did. I've always hated Jun Maeda's anime-original works but liked the anime adaptations of his Key stuff, and reading the Clannad VN helped me understand why: the adaptation teams understood the stories better than Maeda ever did. The VN never quite successfully weaves all the routes together in a satisfactory way, and the anime more than makes up for what it loses by trading in the meta components and prose for strong visual direction. It also expands on themes present in the VN but aren't executed terribly well.

I tried not to let my feelings for the anime cloud my feelings too much, and my rating is moreso a reflection of what I think I'd feel if I hadn't seen it first: lukewarm, but still wondering what the big deal was about.

Ignore the first reviews on this site which trash on this game, it rocks but it has its issues.

Pacing kinda sucks if you're not ready for a slow story, there's tons of alternate text which makes every route fairly unique with less skippable text than you'd probably expect.

Certain events expect you to have played other routes in order to unlock them. Sometimes they never play again and there's no way to track whether you've seen an event and it sucks replaying a route just to see nothing happen. Following a suggested route order is recommended.

Love this VN so much, but some of the design hasn't aged too well and I'd definitely recommend using a guide for route order and choices.

The anime is better but being the original source of a 10/10 adaptation it's still obviously really fucking good. It helps that it has some content that the anime didn't touch, some of which is pretty good.

Amazing music, the SoL is probably one of my favourites in VNs as a whole and Tomoya is literally peak protagonist. Very well done emotional moments in general.

Obviously though the main highlight is After Story and is the main reason people love this one and well, yeah it is a sight to behold and absolutely deserves its reputation.

My favorite Visual Novel of All Time. A story that's well expressed through its dialogue and choices, both a very humorous and emotional game with a lot of heart and soul poured into it. It has an amazing soundtrack, probably the second best soundtrack I've ever heard in my life, and while a lot of the characters fall into a lot of tropes and cliches, they are still very well realized and fleshed out. Don't judge this game by its cover, and do not let anyone tell you this is not worth it, because it 100% is. Also remember to 100% this game to get the best experience ever.

I never once thought too myself that a piece of media would have such a significant impact on me...
Until i played Clannad & Tomoyo After, it has such a beautiful story that teaches the importance of family and it shows & follows it's own philosophy of Hedonism. Clannad teaches us how no matter what hardships an individual is fated to face, life is still worth living despite that. Each route follows the main heroine of that route, you become so engrossed with that character, you'll slowly start learning their past and a deeper insight on who that character truly is from within thier heart. Each story route is so fascinating, the majority of it's characters have their own sets of real life problems and there is always one underlying theme and message that you can take away from each route.
I'm not sure if what i wrote here can justify on how much i love this game, but if you didn't get the memo, i frickin love this game from the bottom of my heart.