CLANNAD Side Stories

[h1]Short Review[/h1] CLANNAD Side Stories is less a game and more an audio novel that was ported to Steam with minimal effort to make it function like one. Some of the stories here are worth experiencing if you're a CLANNAD fan, but the way this thing is put together is genuinely baffling. No dialogue differentiation, no control over pacing, barely any visuals, inconsistent audio, and no save feature. I ended up watching the rest on YouTube after putting up with it for a while, and I felt like I wasted my money. Just watch it on YouTube. DO NOT purchase it here unless if you want to support the devs for a mediocre experience. [h1]Full Review[/h1] CLANNAD Side Stories is a collection of linear side stories originally released on PSP that cover things not explored in the main visual novel or the anime, like how the Furukawas met, more background on why characters gravitate toward Tomoya, and other bits of supplemental lore. Some of that content is genuinely interesting if you care about the world. The problem is that the way this thing is presented on Steam is one of the more baffling experiences I've had with a visual novel, and I've played free VNs that handle the basics better…

A useless experience. The side stories themselves are fine, although they greatly vary in quality. The issue is that the stories themselves are just a bunch of videos. The far superior experience is watching the videos elsewhere at twice the speed.

I'm only 30 minutes in, but I HAVE to leave a review because of how many things this VN gets wrong. Especially after how fantastic the original VN was. I have 3 major problems with this game as a VN: 1. There is absolutely nothing to distinguish any of the dialogue. No varied fonts, no bold or italicizing, not even Quotations Marks to separate what's being spoken. So narration, inner thoughts, and dialogue are all exactly the same, even between different characters, having to rely on voice acting to even tell who is speaking. Something that the original VN excelled at. 2. There is no way to advance dialogue. Even if you have the text set to instant, it doesn't move along until the voice acting is finished. And it also moves along whether you are finished reading or not. You are stuck at the pace the game has decided on. Once again, something the original allowed you to decide on. 3. For the majority the time, there are no character portraits on screen. Even when two or three different characters are speaking, you better have their voices memorized. Very lovely art does pop up for each chapter, but its not always up and some art only lasts for a small percentage of the time the …

As someone who loves this universe and Anime I found this very enjoyable learning little more series stories and character interactions. If you like this world and anime, give it a shot.

[spoiler] Nagisa Furukawa [/spoiler]

Clannad Side Stories, developed by VisualArts/Key and published by Sekai Project, serves as an affectionate companion piece to one of the most beloved visual novels ever created. Rather than acting as a sequel or an extension of the main story, this collection functions as a mosaic of short vignettes, each illuminating quieter, more personal moments from the lives of Clannad’s characters. It is a work made for fans who have already walked through the emotional journey of Tomoya and Nagisa and now wish to linger in that world a little longer—to see the small smiles, the gentle conversations, and the fleeting memories that once existed at the edges of a grander narrative. While it doesn’t aspire to replicate the sweeping drama of its predecessor, Clannad Side Stories succeeds in deepening the universe’s emotional resonance through sincerity and subtlety. The structure of the game is immediately distinct from the traditional visual novel format. Each chapter is a self-contained short story, told in a kinetic novel style, which means there are no branching choices, no dialogue trees, and no decisions to make. The reader presses play and simply listens, reads, and absorbs the tale as i…