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Review of Tomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful Life~

SubjectTomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful Life~
ByHelpfulness: 8
Vote: 2
primate541 on 2020-11-08
ReviewA massive disappointment. If this were a route in Clannad, it'd be easily the worst written of them all. It reads like bad fan fiction, full of absurd contrivances, cliches and established characters acting out of character for the sake of creating drama. The entire scenario set up is so poorly conceived that the world they live in fails to resemble any sort of convincing reality, and moreover they undo the character development established in Clannad. The few things that do work well in this game, such as its humor and music don't do anything to save this game.

I did not finish this and I don't intend to - it just gets worse the further you get into the game. If you want more Clannad or more Tomoyo, just replay that instead, or find some bad fan fiction, which will cost less.
8 points
#1 by onorub
2020-11-08 at 14:11
< report >I think the most bizarre thing about it is how this After Story made Tomoyo's chemistry with Tomoya go the opposite way as Nagisa's one. Nagisa went from having weak chemistry in school portion to off the charts chemistry in the After Story so i'm surprised things went so differently for Tomoyo.
#2 by forever-here
2020-11-08 at 15:50
< report >yes its extremely bad. they're basically tryharding to kill Tomoya and use that as an utsuge material while using mumbo jumbo magic as a disease for him to die.
#3 by Cenri
2020-11-13 at 21:46
< report >
I did not finish this and I don't intend to

I read it completely a few years ago, and yes, the best thing you can do is stop and pretend this story doesn't exist.
#4 by mondblut
2021-01-08 at 02:43
< report >
I did not finish this and I don't intend to

You are missing out. I don't know how far into the VN you dropped it, but the second half is significantly better. Tomo's ending was truly wholesome and heartfelt, the true ending absolutely hits hard like a truck full of bricks. I agree that Tomoyo felt out off character, but in the final arc she somehow resembles her Clannad personality more and there are many callbacks to her route in Clannad.

I think you are too harsh on the VN... I personally found it much better than her route in Clannad... and I liked her there already the most.
#5 by Telashar
2024-01-14 at 03:21
< report >I finished it... sadly. It really feels like devs spit in your face with it. Key has their formula for vns, and it works. The problem is, they apply it to everything, it worked in Nagisa's route, because Clannad's plot was prepared for it. Tomoyo After is like after thought, because Tomoyo was so popular, but they still decided to use same formula and changed after story into a tragedy with some h-scenes in it. The fact that artstyle looks essentially worse than in base game doesnt really help either (it feels like smooth version of it, at least to me).

Ps. Kyou's ending = best ending.