Sigh.
Note: I know. It's weird enough that I played this game and felt compelled to write about it. If you know nothing about this game, the title alone is probably making you think, "Jason? You okay man?" No, I don't know what "Doki Doki" means, (according to Google, it's a term meaning a quickening heart rate due to being close to someone you wanna bone down with) and dating sims are about as realistic as shrugging off a bullet wound in an FPS. However....
After so much word of mouth, the Internet version anyway, seeing this game on several "best of 2017" lists, and seeing it listed in Youtube recommendations, I had to see what the big deal is.
This game is very interesting and pretty damn cool. I'm not sure if it's a good game, read below to learn more, but it's unique. I'm going to spoil the shit out of this game in this review. I recommend playing it, (IT'S FREE), if you don't mind playing a Japanese style dating sim with a horrifying twist. That...probably only convinced 0.01% of you to play it but hey. MAJOR SPOILER WARNING.
Also, personal stuff got in the way of updating this blog regularly but I want to get back to writing more. I'm planing on posting about that personal stuff soon because not one but TWO pieces of media I've enjoyed this year relate to my personal stuff. It's gonna come up. Oh, and a Dishonored 2 review I've been had mostly done for 3 months.
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Last Spoiler Warning!!!!!
Doki Doki Literature Club is a strange horror game. I'm not sure I've ever seen a game, or in this case a visual novel, take so long to bring it. The twist in this game is one hell of a twist and it basically changes this visual novels genre. The first half of the game is committed to a Japanese style high school dating sim. Pretty standard stuff. Then, the second half of the game goes off the deep end into meta-game territory (which is all the rage right now*) and becomes an effective horror game.
*I haven't really talked about it but thanks to Undertale, everyone and their mother has made self-aware games the last few years. Okay....that is an exaggeration but it's enough that you have to wonder when the fad will go away, or if this is becoming a genre onto itself.
The game is weird from the Steam page. It looks like an ordinary dating sim but the top tag is "psychological horror". Plus, after the games description, written by a character from the game, there is a disclaimer that says "this game is not suitable for children or whose who are easily disturbed". Once you start the game, there are THREE disclaimers about the games content. The game makes sure you know not all is what it seems with this game.
The rest of the cast is the four girls in the literature club. Club president and popular girl Monika, childhood best friend Sayori, aggressive Natsuki, and quiet Yuri. You get to write poems to show everyone, while getting to read theirs, and choosing certain words will lead to one of the girls liking you more. Natsuki likes cute and simple words. Yuri likes dark and large words. Sayori likes emotional and, for lack of a better term, neutral words.
Who you choose to romance doesn't really matter except for certain CG pictures and extended dialogue with that character. Also, you can't romance Monika. This is played off as she is the president and not available, or "out of your league" as literally said in the game, but this is actually a plot point.
How does your spine work?
The normal visual novel part of the game is okay I guess, some of those aforementioned cringe parts aside. The characters are interesting enough despite being OBVIOUS anime archetypes and not really deviating from that. They get some depth but it's paper thin, with the exception of maybe Sayori. Although, this is like judging a game only halfway through, since these character types get heightened in the second half.
This is because this is not a normal visual novel. This part of the game is a ruse. It's a facade. It makes a few jokes about Japanese dating sims including one translation joke that was actually pretty funny (Japanese puns don't work in English), but regardless of what path you go on, Sayori's depression will come to a front. Sayori is shown as full of sunshine and happy go lucky all the time. Your character even comments on this repeatedly. Sayori is secretly depressed though, and it comes to a head...when she hangs herself.
Um....put a pin in this. I'll come back to it.
Anyway, her death leads to an end screen, which then kicks you back to the title screen, only Sayori is glitched out. This is when the game turns into a horror game.
This is a game just over 4 hours that takes 2-2.5 hours to turn into what it really is, a horror game. I'm not sure if that is brilliant or stupid. On one hand, it does lull you into complacency, to the point that you kind of forget it's a horror game, making the twist just that more effective. On the other hand, I was getting awfully tired of this exceptionally mediocre dating sim and just wondering what the hell the content warning was about. I will say this, it is ballsy. That is the longest lead in to "scary stuff" I've ever seen.
The horror half of this game is interesting, in a good way. No joke. The meta-horror sunk it's teeth in me and got me. It got me good. It's got Anatomy and Oxenfree rolled up into one. Glitches are scares. Creepy sounds, creepy images, game breaking bugs, rules falling apart, random jumpscares, insane shit, Yuri is gonna kill me, cats and dogs living together, the cake is a lie, there is no spoon, just monika, Just Monika, JUST MONIKA......
Just Monika
It's cheap garbage but I still dug it. The glitches aren't really in world like Anatomy. They work more like Oxenfree but are out of control. In Oxenfree, glitches work to make the fabric of time seem like it's struggling to hold together. In Anatomy, glitches work to make the fabric of the game's reality sinister. In DDLC, glitches work to scare you IRL because Monika has become self aware and knows she is a character in a visual novel. She is rewriting the script and rewriting the characters so that she gets what is desired and not everything goes to plan.
Sayori is a result of her working behind the scenes, before the game goes full horror. She ramps up what was a mild depression to suicide. During the horror portion, Natsuki goes from aggressive to nutty if you play her route, and Yuri, goddamn! Monika ramps up her obsessive streak to truly creepy levels. If Anatomy instills dread, and Oxenfree uses horror for flavor, DDLC uses horror to max out creep. Everything feels, eeewwwwewewewewe. It's uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable.
Uh. Hey Yuri. How's it going?
Also, the jumpscares are never telegraphed because glitches don't need rules and they always got me. ALWAYS. I'm actually a little angry at that.
The meta-game requires you to look in the game files. Late in the game, Natsuki is erased, Yuri is erased but only after an obscene death scene, and Monika is the only one left. The only way to finish the game is to go into the character files and delete Monika.
The only real question I have is, how did Monika become self-aware? The game kind of glosses over this with her sensing it and just awakening because reasons.* Now, I've defended explanations like this in the past. I'm ok with "because magic" or even "I don't know" in a story but only when the story isn't breaking the 4th wall. When Monika starts interacting with me instead of the character I'm playing as, a better explanation would be better. If this is a self-aware AI IRL, I'd prefer an explanation that seems plausible in real life. .
*Slightly off topic but apparently these girls might be characters from the next game of the developer, only that game is completely unrelated to DDLC. Like, this is P.T. advertising for a future Silent Hills. The evidence for this is buried in the game files and I didn't dig that deep, but other fans did. Here, the reason for Monika becoming self-aware is because she knows she is in the wrong game....I guess.
I'm still pretty torn on the meta-game concept. Things only happen because the game knows it is a game, or in this case, a character knows she is in a game. DDLC actually does try to keep a little of it's spooks in the game world, but the better ones are just simulating software falling apart. If this is a good idea or bad idea, I dunno. It works despite feeling kind of cheap.
Out of context, not creepy.
That is DDLC as a whole. Brilliant and stupid. The horror game, that is this game, is hidden beneath the run of the mill dating sim. The scariest parts of this game is when the game breaks the idea of being a game. It still runs into the, "But what if AI...." trope a little hard. I don't mind this, actually kind of appreciate it as game companies have barely improved AI since every game is multiplayer now, but I want more. If you are gonna go a meta-game concept, go hard or go home. Have the game crash my computer. Have the game look into my directory and alarm my virus protection. I know that is a hard concept to put out, legally and financially, but go hard or go home. Bring it meta-games. BRING IT.
DDLC is a good meta-horror game and a mediocre, leaning toward bad, dating sim. The last 1.5 hours is far more fun than the first 2.5. Bare with it, and you will get something interesting.
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*about that pin*
Games have had a rough time depicting depression and suicide. DDLC is....kinda better.
I'd love to hear from somebody that actually knows what they are talking about here because this game is good and bad about depression. I feel like it's bad that Sayori's suicide is the turning point from "dating sim" to "meta horror game". At the same time, Monika talks directly toward the player on how to deal with depression/suicidal thoughts near the end of the game.* It takes a minute, this is when she is just silently staring at you, but after a minute, she speaks. I got her message two minutes in, her second interjection. I doubt many let's plays show this as you have to let her linger as just Monika, Just Monika, JUST MONIKA.
*Apparently, Monika usually talks to you after a minute or two of silence, and she has enough dialogue to last a full hour before she loops any lines. That is bonkers.
Out of context, it can look like a "depressed character kills herself then a horror game happens" feature would be edgelord bullshit. It's, still kind of that even in context. As soon as you find her poem that is mostly just scrambling the line, "get out of my head", I knew she was dead.
At the same time, I keep finding other reviews that say DDLC handles depression in suicide really well? Their arguments are usually about how the suicide of a depressed friend can come out of nowhere and the aftermath might feel like a horror movie. I get that. I do, but I'm not so sure a foreshadowed suicide in a dating sim that everyone knows will turn into a horror game beforehand is all that related to that argument. I think the suicide was genuinely more shocking to other people but for me it was too heavily foreshadowed, so the desired effect didn't happen for me. Also, Monika made her do it soooooo, is any of this relevant?
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