O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
I’m not much of a fan of visual novels and barely ever play them. I tend to prefer adventure game titles, so even if the VN-part of the game is still there, it’s not the focus is instead the game just uses the format to drive the story forward, while emphasizing choices and actions you make. Nonetheless, back in 2007 or so I got curious about Kanon, a game that at the time never had an official version released outside of Japan. And also a game that in most (if not all) PC versions was an eroge. I don’t remember why exactly I got interested in playing it, most likely a combination of hearing that the story was pretty good and also seeing the “ugu~” jokes/references on the internet. Though, remembering myself at the time, I won’t completely discount horny interest too. But point was – I did get the game via dubious means and played it with a fan translation. While very simple, it did click with me, so much in fact that I decided to then also watch both anime adaptations of the game.
Now, the game is finally officially available internationally on PC 25 years since its original release. And I had to replay it and see how I feel about it today.
As expected from a visual novel today, this title is a story driven “interactive book with pictures”, where everything is told via text in a special text window (and sometimes via cutscene-like inserts) which feature a background of the location you are in and a character who is speaking as a static picture. Most of the time the story just moves forward with no choices available but sometimes you are presented with several choices of what to do or say, which branches the narrative into numerous different possibilities. Being an eroge VN originally and released during the height of popularity for romance focused adventure games and dating sims, the main paths available to you focus on becoming a boyfriend to one of several key characters, while learning more about them. Due to which, usually the first half of the game is more open in terms of characters you meet and talk to, but as soon as you get “locked” into a path the second half of the game is more linear and focuses almost purely on that character you’ve decided to pursue. Which can end in a proper ending, a failed ending or a generic ending where you just continue living your life as normal.
The main draw of Kanon specifically is in its central story and the characters you get to pursue. Specifically, the big mystery the game hooks you with is the idea that the main character is returning to a town he used to live in many years ago, but for some reason he can’t remember much from that time. And glimpses of that time hint at a big mystery, while most of the key characters you meet have something mysterious about them as well. While full of tropes and occasionally dumb story moments, the story is genuinely entertaining and gripping. It’s full of completely unexpected revelations, sad moments, cute slices of life and a lot of witty sarcastic jokes from the main character, who is occasionally too rude, but is often truly entertaining. As such, your playthrough of the game will most likely be about getting locked into a particular mystery you prefer, then following it til the end. Then restarting the game or using any save and fast forwarding over all of the sections you’ve seen to watch what other story branches bring. There is no branching timeline view in this game, so it’s all about the skip functionality and making saves, if you want to “optimize” the story unlocking.
Which… is kind of what the game becomes in the end to the determent of its own strong storytelling. Due to how at least half of the character stories are tied to one central mystery of the past (while the rest are also tied to the past, but more self-contained) and due to how the game forces this to be a romantic pursuit if you want the best ending, you have to get the story piece by piece by replaying it multiple times and pursuing all these love interests. Including your cousin, because of course a game that used to be an eroge would have the cousin fucking. Ugh. Point is, I feel that if this title would’ve been made today and focused specifically on its strong premise and cool characters, it would’ve instead tried to give you some sort of “true path” where you can solve problems and become friends with all characters in one playthrough. And have one of them be your girlfriend or even let it all be about power of friendship and keep it at that. And… well, that’s what the anime adaptation does. Which gets the whole story of the game across much better. Without the need to just boringly fast forward through text and checking out options to see what that will change.
I still think that the story and the writing of Kanon (with some questionable groan inducing exceptions) are great and worth experiencing… Just, maybe the anime adaptation is a better choice than playing the VN? I dunno, maybe for someone who’s truly into the genre, this is still extremely awesome and just the experience of the interactive storytelling is fun. So, for me – I was glad to revisit Kanon and see that its story still holds up for the most part. But at the same time, I’m not sure if it’s not better to experience it through the adaptation instead of playing through the game.
P.S. Oh and obviously the erotic content has been cut. It was pretty awkwardly shoehorned into the original releases anyway and it feels like the developers did it more because that’s what sold, not because they wanted to. Weird that the special feather-like cursor of the older releases is gone, though, it was really nice.