The Normanic Vault: Unboxing: Clannad - Kickstarter Exclusive Limited Edition (Visual Novel)

Back in 2014 a company called Sekai Project acquired the rights to release the popular visual novel Clannad to English fans. Later that year they put the game on Kickstarter to allow fans to help bring it over to the west. It was successful and I pledged a good amount for the physical copy (which upgraded to a special set) as well as the Clannad: Hikari Mimamoru Sakamichi de side stories and the Anthology Comic. The game was released on Steam in November 2015.

However folks (like myself) who backed the kickstarter but lived outside of United States and Canada received a 4 month delay due to shipping and customs, after its release in February 2016. And now it's finally here, alongside the extras I pledged which also helps.

This game is and has always been rated All-Ages so it's a suitable visual novel for everyone.

Clannad is one of the most popular and well-known visual novels to fans in the community. The game was developed by Key, published by Visual Arts and written by Jun Maeda. Key has worked on other popular visual novels including Air, Kanon, Little Busters!, Rewrite and the upcoming Harmonica, with the latter scheduled for Steam in English first. Clannad was made in 2014 for PC when then followed by numerous ports/remasters including PlayStation 2, Xbox 360 and the PlayStation Vita.

The game also received a spin-off in the form of Tomoyo After: It's a Wonderful Life, which focused more on the character Tomoyo and includes eroge content (though Visual Arts are bringing the game over in English as an All-Ages game). An anime adaptation was also made; two in fact. One animated by Toei as a feature-length film, and another by Kyoto Animation with 2 seasons both containing 20+ episodes each. Both of these anime adaptations have been licensed by Sentai Filmworks for North America.

As mentioned this set came from the Sekai Project kickstarter campaign. I pledged for the main game first which was just a physical copy, then received a free upgrade to a special replica of the first print edition that Japanese fans received; a box with an arranged original soundtrack and guide book alongside the physical disc. The disc itself you'll be pleased to hear is DRM Free after fans responded to Sekai about it - Key apparently wanted it to have DRM but managed to be convinced otherwise. This release doesn't come with a Steam key by the way.

As for the bonus items, these were separate tiers. I pledged for these when the BackerKit was released. One tier was for the side stories, simply known as Hikari Mimamoru Sakamichi de. This was originally exclusive to PlayStation Portable as two volumes, but after the kickstarter campaign reached this tier Sekai Project was able to bring the side stories over to PC. The other tier I backed was for the Anthology Comic manga, which was a simple add-on that provides stories in manga form.

Both Clannad and its side story are presented in High Definition 960p. The guidebook that came with the box covers a variety of content from character descriptions, images, staff notes and the entire list of backers from the kickstarter.

Visual Novel Specs:

Format: PC

Language: English text, Japanese voices

Exclusive: Yes (In English)

DRM: Free

Eroge Content: No

PC Requirement Specs:

OS: Windows Vista/7/8/10

CPU: Pentium 1.2GHz

Memory: 512MB

Resolution: 1280x960p

Graphics: DirectX 9.0c+

HDD Space: 7GB (3GB for Hikari Mimamoru Sakamichi de)

And that's it for this set. It's a really nice package overall, with my only complaint being that they should have added a cover for the game's case so that way fans can put the game on the shelf to match the other visual novels like they have done with the Hikari Mimamoru Sakamichi de set. Overall it's worth the price that I paid. Unfortunately for those who missed out on the kickstarter, the release is digital only via Steam so there's no way you'll be able to acquire a physical copy which is a shame (and one reason why I hate the idea of visual novels on kickstarters).

Photos for the guidebook are not the best due to how it's designed, apologies for the camera angles.

Main Box