Oh, wow! It's my first ridiculously long post for this game! It was bound to happen. I always end up doing this. Sorry-not-sorry. Okay, "let's get right into it."
I have to be honest, I don't understand why people are finding it so weird with the format of the non-canon bad ends.
Let's set aside that this game is openly inspired by a more well known game that's been around for like two years and works exactly the same way, just without a futa.
Ignoring that, there are lot's of AVN's and other types of adult games that have bad ends. That's really all this is. They're obvious bad ends, that are easily avoidable, and have a specific type of content, but that's still all they are. It's really not that uncommon. There are even games where the only content comes from bad ends.
There are lots of AVN's where the choices don't really matter. Hell, I once read a lengthy article on "the art of the illusion of choice." It's a skill that some AVN authors actually utilize on purpose. So, even if it's a more extreme example, I don't think saying the choices don't matter is really a valid argument for kinetic, if we're gonna get technical about it.
To be fair, I don't care a whole lot about that argument, because I think the two terms are confusing. Visual Novel vs Kinetic Novel? They both have pictures, so they're both visual. Doesn't kinetics have to do with movement? Wouldn't it make more sense for the one with choices to be called kinetic? It should be more like:
Visual Novel: no choices, it's just a story, with pictures
E-Gamebook: computerized version of adventure books where choices determine the path of story
On the canon thing:
Saying anything like non-main-story, non-moving-forward-with-that-path, not actually part of the story-- it's all clumsy. Saying non-canon might annoy the inner grammarian in some of us, but it's close, it's relatively clear, and it's convenient.
Didn't the author refer to them as non-canon? If the argument is about the author's approval, doesn't him saying "it's not canon" mean that it's not?
It's kind of like alternate scenes that were fully filmed being included on a DVD as extras. "This isn't how we decided to go with this scene, but it was fun, so here it is." Just because it's made by and released to public by the creator, doesn't necessarily mean it's canon. If Don Coscarelli released a series of humorous one-panel comics that all depicted the Tall Man making cute animals out of Play-Doh and acting out them having tea parties, the fact that Don made the comics himself would not automatically mean they were canon to the Phantasm films.
As far as I know, canon means whatever the creator decrees to be canon. A fan could pitch a great backstory about a character that doesn't have one yet and the original creator could just say, "you know what? I like that! From now on, that's his real origin story!" Boom. It's canon.
NTR... that damn NTR tag... here's the thing.
People who are fans of NTR and might be looking for the tag on purpose, tend to like the emotional and psychological aspects of an NTR story. If the NTR doesn't dive deep enough into the turmoil created for the protagonist or doesn't progress through a lengthy process, they may be unsatisfied and say "that's not NTR, I was cheated."
People who hate NTR and might be watching for the tag to avoid it, tend to not want any part of any living being (or possibly even inanimate objects) to come within striking distance of any potential love interest, which includes any female, even an inflatable doll. If they see a dick that doesn't belong to the protagonist entering a potential LI and there wasn't an NTR tag, they will cry foul.
There is SO MUCH room in between those two extremes. So, how do you label the majority of games that fall in between? There's no winning. Someone is going to be disappointed. Thus, all you can do is ask, "what is the basic premise of NTR?" Answer: someone who is not the protagonist getting one of the protagonist's girls. By that definition, anything even vaguely resembling NTR needs the label. That's not gonna please the NTR fans, but at least there's some logic to it, and it's a simple rule.
This game is best enjoyed if you are someone who neither hates nor loves NTR but rather is able to laugh at it, because, much like Power Vacuum, those scenes are designed to be funny.