By clone, I meant a quite literal clone. Everything from Yamaku academy to the nurse, to the time period being before the cultural festival. A complete lift of the setting. Your statement actually reinforces my point as well. KS is its characters, if you cut out the main girls, then why hang on to the skin of Yamaku? The only supporting character with anything like an interesting personality is Kenji, so a game keeping the framing of Yamaku but devoid of the main girls would only really make sense if it were about Kenji (which might actually be really awesome). If you make an entirely new cast, and they are well written enough, then there isn't really any reason to still put them in Yamaku. That would make it feel like a copy even if its unique enough to stand on its own. Heck, it could be set in SPACE, and if it was well written enough, it would be just as good (or more so since its in space).Worthington wrote: But...it's a VN. A "clone" doesn't apply. If there were "clones" in VNs, about 99% of them would be clones of whichever the fuck the first VN was. The strength of KS is it's characters, actually that's literally the only thing KS is, so as long as the new characters are as interesting and well-written than it really makes no matter.
On the subject of Rin. She is already considered a bit of a weirdo. the "problem in your pants" statement was a very gender specific one though. It was said in the context of a female Rin to a male Hisao, and doesn't make as much sense in any other combination of those genders. That specific incident is an example of something that doesn't and wouldn't be carried over to a genderswap. That said, what makes Rin interesting is her nature as a cloudcookolander and her penchant for non-sequetors. Thats what makes her dialogues fun, if hard to follow at times, and that would still be true if she was a man, woman, or squid fish monster.
On the subject of Hanako. Why can't male Hanako still be Hanako? She is a deathly shy, shrinking violet with a self image complex. Why can't a man be like that? Because its not manly? I would say that attitude is rather misandrist, in much the same way that claiming Shizune's strong and competitive personality isn't womanly would be considered misogynistic. Girls in media have slowly expanded to encompass everything from shrinking violet to action hero. Why, then, must men only get saddled with only the action hero end? As long as the writing is done well enough, I see no reason why male Hanako couldn't keep his original personality.
