Kana... Okaeri!

"Lacking in the extra's department, but a beautiful game nevertheless."

Here we go again. It's time to take another emotionally wrenching ride that is Kana Todo and her story.

Background:

“Kana …Okaeri!” was originally a game in development for the Xbox called “Kana Imouto”, a port of the highly acclaimed PC bishoujo game “Kana Little Sister”. Unfortunately, it was canceled due to poor Xbox reception in Japan.

However, all hope for this version was not lost and it was ported again back to the PC to reincarnate as “Kana … Okaeri!” with different character designs, character voices, a couple extra regular CG's, and some moving Hentai CG's.

Story

You play as the protagonist of the story, Takamichi Todo (Taka for short). The basic story revolves around how Taka and his little sister Kana grow in your relationship, from a jealous/hate relationship from Taka's point of view, to more protective and loving feelings.

Kana suffers from Chronic Renal Insufficiency, which is more commonly known as kidney failure. Thus, she can't go outside and meet any new people and the only constant visitor is Taka. Heart wrenching and downright depressing at times, each decision that you make makes you seriously consider the pros and cons. As the story unfolds, Taka becomes more and more attached to Kana until he begins to feel uncomfortable incestuous feelings when he's around Kana. While you interact Kana in the years that she lives, you must teach her to fight, to cherish and most importantly to love. It is truly one of the best stories to ever come out for a bishoujo game, if not the best.

Sadly however, the makers of this new version failed to add in new storylines, so we're stuck with the same endings as before. Each ending does have a certain flair to each, but it would have been nice to have another one or two.

Also unfortunate is the fact that this game was only released in Japan, so no English translation is out there as of yet.


Gameplay

As I mentioned above, Kana…Okaeri! is a bishoujo game. This means that text is on screen while a picture is shown in the background. As you read, you'll periodically come across decisions in the game that alter the game's ending and in some cases, change if you meet some characters at all. But that's basically it. It's the traditional style for a bishoujo game, so no complaints there.

You can also fast forward through parts of the story if you've already read them. There is also an “auto” button you can press to make the text display on its own, instead of clicking each time. As the text displays, you can also right-click to erase the text and admire the background CG's without the text.


Sound

This game has the usual collection of midi's, with a smattering of vocals scattered in. All of the music tracks are clean, crisp, and sound very nice. They help to set the mood and always just seem to fit, whether it is from the simply awesome theme song “White Season”, to the happy and upbeat sounds of “Play a Joke”. However, no new songs were added in this version.

A great addition to this version was the implementation of voice acting. Kana's voice is whispery and fading, Yumi's is loud and each character is basically what you expect them to sound like. Not every line of text is voiced over, but enough that you get the general sense of the emotions of the characters.

Other then that, sound effects are basically nill. There's the occasional rustle of an opening drawer, the chattering of birds, but that's about it.


Graphics
The background CG's are simply stunning. Each is beautiful, with clean textures and appropriate shading. A lot of the background textures have been altered to make the game seem a little bit more “drawn” then painted in Photoshop.

The character designs have been mostly redone too. Kana now has a smaller head, gray hair and looks a bit more her age when she's in the scenes. Yumi looks thinner and her eyes are now violet, instead of blue. Hair for all the characters has been changed slightly as well. The only characters that aren't really altered are Cana and the “Big Four”

We now come to the Hentai CG's. Being a girl, I didn't particularly relish these scenes as much as I probably would have if I was a guy, but they look on par with the rest of the CG's in the game. A couple new scenes have been added to lengthen the “experience”. Another new thing that they added in was animated Hentai scenes, but these were very poorly done. They look exactly like the regular CG's, except that they animate at 7-10 FPS, which in-game, looks horribly choppy.

Length /Extras
Completing this game once will take you around 3-4 hours, depending if you're a fast reader or not. However, if you want to get all 6 endings, and get 100% completion, expect it to last around 20+.

You can still listen to the entire OST in the extras menu and still view unlocked CG's and endings as well, but gone is the feature of having the disc double as an audio CD.



Overall, this game is a nice remake of the original, but lackluster animated sequences, no new story lines, no new music and no English options make this expensive game ($70 for import from Japan) only for the hardcore Kana Little Sister fan.

Story: 9/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Sound: 9/10
Graphics: 8/10
Extras: 7/10

Total Score : 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/07, Updated 09/04/07

Game Release: Kana... Okaeri! (Collection Box) (JP, 11/19/04)