I finished Kanon!
I've played a lot of (proto-)VNs on the Famicom and modern VNs, so it was cool to check out something from the late-90s. Amazing aesthetics and vibe. Some thots...
Fans of visual novels have surely encountered developer Key. Best known for their tearjerker "nakige" storylines, Key's 21st century visual novels (namely Clannad, Little Busters!, Rewrite, and Summer Pockets) have been officially translated, widely distributed, and subject to all sorts of critical acclaim. However, the outfit's first two releases, Kanon and Air, remain relatively obscure but are still favorites among ardent visual novel fans, as both were fan-translated and physical copies remain relatively "easy" to track down.
Kanon, the subject of this particular review, graced the VN scene in 1999. While a smorgasbord of Japanese adventure titles already existed at this time, Kanon is one of the earliest examples of what most would recognize as a "visual novel" today. That is, it's a video game (loosely speaking) largely centered around reading dialogue and narration via text boxes, visuals that alternate between static sprites on backgrounds and CGs (full-screen images), and a "route-based" structure popularized two years prior with Leaf's To Heart. Following its initial '99 PC release, Kanon was ported to the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, and the PSP. Some additional PC variants also followed. This review covers the PC "Standard Edition" which is pretty close to the original, just on DVD-ROM as opposed to CD-ROM and with a couple of additional graphics lifted from the console ports. I applied the English patch, but not the one that adds (the console) voices.
Visual Novels are known for (and criticized for) their utilization of "self-insert" protagonists, but Kanon takes things to new levels. The protagonist is not only virtually faceless but basically nameless as well, as players are granted the opportunity to enter their own name (as an alternative the default of Yuuichi Aizawa may be used). To those that proceed with their own name, note that you will be called by "last name first" in the typical Japanese tradition. Yuuichi (or "you") is said to be around eighteen years old (like every VN character...) and has returned to his hometown after a long absence. An admittedly lazy plot device is employed: Yuuichi seems to be in large part an amnesiac, likely due to some repressed trauma. He inhabits a house with his cousin Nayuki and his aunt, (re)adjusting to school life, making friends, and exploring the potentialities of blossoming romance.
Above all else, this is a "comfy" visual novel. It's slow-paced without crossing the line into boredom territory. Taking place in January, the unnamed Japanese town is blanketed in a layer of fluffy snow, while interior settings exude warmth and coziness. There are no "chapters" in Kanon; instead the days trickle by with a flip of the calendar. Environments are few and far between, with nearly the entire game taking place within a house, a school, and a shopping center. In line with most popular late-90s and early-00s VNs, it's a chill experience largely devoid of visible action and dramatic calamity.
Yuuichi himself has the standard visual novel protagonist personality, which is to say he can be affable but also overtly sarcastic and annoying. The female supporting cast is naturally designed to steal the show, with each lady coming with her own noticeable eccentricities and charm. Cousin Nayuki is perpetually sleepy, always late for school (insert running with toast in mouth joke), content to just stay home relaxing in jammies. There's Shiori, a subtly coquettish girl who eats ice cream outdoors in mid-January and hides a devastating secret. Mokoto, I regret to inform you, is another amnesiac, who stumbles into Yuuichi's house and has a penchant for (poorly executed) pranks. Mai is deceptively serious, but always willing to discuss the particularities of local cuisine or her favorite animals. And the star of the whole thing is Ayu, a clumsy girl who engages in petty theft and seems to actually reside somewhere within the town's shopping district.
The actual script is oddly paced. The earliest "days" are longest and packed with choices, while the final days become truncated and click by rapidly in tandem. And the writing quality varies wildly, with the earliest days feeling distinctly different from the "routes" -- and with the routes themselves feeling inconsistent as they were the product of two different authors. In terms of structure, Kanon features a very short "common route" (mandatory reading section) as the game splices into distinct heroine routes within the first couple of hours (in fact, Mai isn't in the common route at all!). There are five such heroine routes, each dedicated to the aforementioned ladies. There's additionally a secret route dedicated to a minor character, one that can't be accessed on an initial reading. Bad endings are here as well: how many remains a mystery. Walkthroughs don't even bother to list 'em, as the bad endings offer up no additional plot elements or CGs. Instead they just fizzle rapidly with an unceremonious boot back to the title screen. I unearthed a single bad end by simply acting aloof in all situations and never attempted to dig for others.
So, three of the heroine routes were written by one Naoki Hisaya, with Jun Maeda (now a Key regular) tackling the other two. First, the Hisaya routes. The Nayuki route feels pretty normal (as normal as romancing your first cousin can be) and lighthearted (as lighthearted as romancing your first cousin can be) and ultimately serves as a teaser and a preview for bigger (and maybe better) content. Shiori's route is a tearjerker without going overboard. Meanwhile, Ayu serves as the ultimate tearjerker in the "I can't believe a decades-old video game about anime girls manipulated me like this" sort of way. A lovely character, she soon became something of a "mascot" for Key material, showing up in a plethora of merchandise. Ayu's route also serves as a de facto "true ending" so save affections for her until the very end.
As for the Maeda routes (Makota and Mai), they're absolutely out-there. Excessively long and overwrought, such routes become dedicated to supernatural elements, yokai, and Japanese folklore. It's all pretty fantastical. One problem: no foreshadowing whatsoever! One moment you're walking home from school and the next you're told that demons may lurk the hallways and that a certain someone may or may not be an actual human! It's clear that much of the writing here is meant to be allegorical but the scenarios presented are so bizarre that it's hard to take them seriously.
Oh, yeah, this is an 18+ VN with the good ol' h-scenes. Kanon is notable for being an early VN to feature occasional sexual content without being a "straight-up pr0nz" game. That's actually a good and noble thing, and a template for VNs to come, but here in Kanon it means that said h-scenes are so random and lack context to the point that they're wholly pointless. The female characters are also so neotenous that "lewding" them feels like maybe not the best idea. It seems as if these scenes were added in just be removed later, and they were off course stripped from the console ports (and doing such a thing dropped the game's rating all the way down to a CERO 12/B -- basically the equivalent to the North American T rating). Final reminder that Nayuki is the protagonist's cousin.
Character designs and character art were handled by Itaru Hinoue, and to say that her work is an acquired taste is a colossal understatement. Everyone in Kanon has giant eyes. No, not just "anime eyes" but ocular orbs that consume most of their faces, juxtaposed against baby-sized noses and mouths. I actually like it, but it's not for everyone. Hinoue continues to illustrate Key games, though her work has gotten less distinct in recent years. The backgrounds, few as they may be, are lovely. Though someone needs to tell me why there's a sunlight-obscured sign that says LOLICON in the shopping district. Is that... a joke? Maeda also took on composer duties in Kanon and did a fantastic job, crafting some beautiful, pensive pieces. I also can't help but think about how Kanon was released before "VN music" was really codified and how so many of these tunes would fit nicely into an old platformer or JRPG. A small negative: there are just a couple too many wintery and "Christmas-y" tracks that are a bit cheesy with their "jingle bells" and whatnot. As far as the game's UI goes, well it's actually rather primitive. Kanon lacks unique in-game menus and instead makes use of Windows context menus (think about what you see when right-clicking on a Windows desktop). It's all functional but feels a bit odd laid over the game graphics. When choices present themselves they simply appear in the text box and are of the "pick one" binary variety. Still, a walkthrough is recommended as some later choices can be on the ambiguous side.
Some have mentioned that Kanon is a decent "starter" VN for those looking to get into the (modern) genre. It's not the worst idea. While many of the ideas presented here are admittedly cliché from today's standpoint, such clichés were in fact created by visual novels such as this. As it stands, Kanon is unlikely to be anyone's favorite visual novel, but it's a sweet cuddly nostalgic trip to a simpler time. Best suited for those long winter days.
(Next up for me is Witch on the Holy Night)
