Prior to developing Clannad, Key has released two immensely popular dating simulation games, Kanon and Air. While Kanon sets stage in a snowy city, Air takes place in a coastal area in the summer, Clannad starts at spring term in a school located on the top of the slopes.
The hero Tomoya is a delinquent with a strained relationship with his father. When he gave up basketball, one of his passions in life, after wounding his shoulder during a fight with his parent, he has lost his aims. Unwilling to go to school, he dawdled at the bottom to the slope only to meet Nagisa, a girl who is just as hesitant as he is about going to school.
Nagisa has been sick all her life, and during her third year of high school, she has to take a year off to nurse herself back to health. Due to this, she is not only a year older than the rest of her classmates, since her friends in her class have all graduated, she is all alone in class.
Key specializes in interweaving all sorts of human relationships into their plot, aside from the growing romance between Tomoya and Nagisa, the protagonists' relationships with their parents and friends are included to form a well rounded and touching story.
A Huge Slice of Life (This review is for the PS2 version "Best" edition) As the title indicates, Clannad is HUGE. This visual novel can easily consume 300 hours of your life. The 48 episode anime series based from this is a severely abridged version of the story, just to give you an idea. As for the visual novel, this version is full-voice for every line of dialogue spoken, including material from bit characters that are not even shown. There are thirteen endings, twelve of which must be completed to reach the conclusion to the entire story. There are NO dirty scenes in any version of Clannad, so you don't have to worry about such content being shoe-horned in like you see with so many visual novels. All-in-all, Clannad is fantastic, and you'll feel like you've lived through a different life once you've gone far enough into it. (NOTE: A proficient Japanese reading level is needed for this game, and a strong understanding of the spoken word will help immersion. There are fan-translation patches for the PC version, but no such option is available for the PS2 release)
peacelovehappiness13(16) on 03, Sep. 2009 01:21 (HKT)
Achievements I don't know any Japanese, but this game is great for achievements! And is the whole reason i bought it!! If you use the fast forward mood this game can be done in 4hours! however if you play it like it was meant to be its a 100+ hour game
MainCompton(25) on 05, Feb. 2009 07:05 (HKT)
Details Included :
2 UMD Discs and features option to install BGM to Memory Stick. Clannad System differs from the PC, PSP & the Xbox 360 Versions. Though, this is my favorite version, since it's portable and can add more replay value.
