I finished the Tomoyo route of the CCS Cards & Friends GBA game
what I understand from reviews afterward are your choices for routes are "the syaoran route" and "a bunch of other routes, I guess", which makes sense given the original story.
but they really do commit to the bit, writing your highest social link character entirely into the story chapter labeled "Sakura, Syaoran, and the Tsukimine Shrine" in place of Syaoran, who just doesn't appear if you're on someone else's route. You can tell you got some real Branching going on because at one point Sakura says "I feel better now thanks to (PAGE BREAK) Tomoyo!".
it did actually fool me a few times - I recalled the scene in the anime where Sakura confessed to Yukito and was gently turned down (feel free to consider what it'd be like being a 5th grader and hearing "yeah you like me but like... you like your dad too, right? how do those two feelings feel to you?" followed by "yeah you're right I'm actually all about your brother"), but I didn't realize at all that "Tomoyo comforting Sakura afterward and telling her it's OK to cry even when she knows Yukito is right" was a completely original, branch-signifying scene (of course, it was Syaoran in the original).
by the way in order to get Sakura to confess you have to push through three separate dialog branches of "I'm gonna do it I'm gonna confess / Noooo what if I just don't". this is unironically good game design and also emblematic of the "choices" in this VN which mostly come down to "be strong / no I don't want the good ending" (sensibly for a kids' game)
(more after the break)
I really wonder what they did for Sakura's three minor character friends, who all have endings (in addition to Tomoyo, Eriol, and Syaoran), presumably in an effort to pad gameplay. ever wondered what it'd be like if Sakura's bestie was the glasses one with no real standout trait, or the one who was kind of awkwardly hot for her teacher? well do I have a GBA game for you
anyway the game itself is still nice fun in the "this is a visual novel cliffs notes of season 3, the payoff season of CCS, with extremely poor minigames and light What If" sense, now that I am finally old enough to understand Japanese at a 5th grade level (bonus points: shoutouts to every time the game furiganas an extremely basic kanji like nichiyoubi, but doesn't explain all the verbs in tomoyo's flowery new year's card).
I can say it's nice to be back in Cardcaptor Sakura land, a place I've avoided for actually decades, now that I trust myself enough to enjoy having nostalgia-tinged fun without needless anxiety about "ruining my childhood". though if anything I should apologize to Tomoyo for instantly taking her character and running with it in the exact modern way you'd expect (level 1 is "tomoyo is simultaneously sacrificing herself for and attempting to sabotage sakura's true affections", level 5 is "tomoyo is truly selfless enough to honestly be happy when the person she loves is happy loving someone else, but would crack instantly if the person she loves unintentionally gave her the tiniest sliver of hope that they could be something real")
speaking of Tomoyo... the Videocaptor Tomoyo game for the Dreamcast (which is an extremely restrictive Pokemon Snap, effectively) has kind of weird vibes in the same way that most original-GBA-Tomoyo content does not know how to write anything other than "obsessive videographer Tomoyo", but I gotta say that having your game's character narrate the entire menu system, including the "please sit at a safe distance from the TV" screen, is excellent game design