Oh my, there were some really interesting discussions in this thread that it feels kinda embarrassing that I can’t say much about the common route other than how I found it to be tedious at times. T.T
I wasn’t too keen with the galge scenes found here; as much as I like Kotomi, I found the scenes with her, so far, to be boring. And I didn’t find the scenes in the Illusory World, effectively did it evoke mystique, to be particularly immersive. Nagisa nor Ryou hasn’t stood out to me yet. The Tomoyo gags worked the first time, but it got repetitive fast.
I guess that’s just what happens when I expected it to have a high entertainment value, especially when my first experience of Clannad was the anime. I noticed this from, of all people, Fuuko. I remembered her being my favorite character in the anime because of the hilarious shenanigans with her, but I can’t seem to feel it that much here. Props to the anime in vastly improving her entertainment value. XD
Man I must have sounded harsh here, but I did found something to like here. I surprisingly found the savage Kyou to be a highly entertaining character, so she was instantly my fave girl in the VN as far as common route is concerned. I also really like how extremely modest Misae is, repetitive the martial arts joke got. Sunohara is quite entertaining. His joke got repetitive, too, but not as tiring as Tomoyo’s.
And then the two characters in the limelight for being easily the most entertaining characters here: Yoshino and Kappei. Yoshino’s corn is just too much to handle, and Kappei is just the right kind of wild for me. XD
But comedy isn’t just the merits I can give to this route. The scene where Nagisa was beholded by an desolated classroom was a standout moment that I really like. Fuuko’s revelation of her prime motivations is a really touching moment that made me remember why I like Fuuko a lot.
For the baseball route, I followed faithfully this forum’s walkthrough. I like the baseball route a lot, and there were heaps of really fun moments here. Looks like a lot of people here agree that Misae being FWATCHOOO years old was so darn hilarous, but Yoshino making a corny speech only to get a strikeout was just as funny. It was pretty jargon-y though, but it helped that I knew a little bit of baseball so I managed to understand half of what was going on. P: Nagisa and Fuuko actually doing better than Sunohara was fun too.
I really liked the end scene though, where he was encouraged to swing rather than pull off another sacrifice bunt. It’s like the story is hitting home that Tomoya need not to sell himself short, and treat himself better.
Mygad this got long even though I wasn’t really saying much. I’ll try to get this shorter next time I get back here.
PS: Totally love the remastered tracks, especially Baka Futari.