This article is not intended for children
2017 saw the release of many a fanstastic game. Super Mario Odyssey, LEGO Marvel Superheroes 2, Cuphead, so many that a quick glance at any game journalist or YouTuber's list of "Game of the Year" titles could easily convince you to put all of those games on your backlog if you missed them.
My game of the year is a different choice than many, even if it is gaining in popularity, having been downloaded over a million times already. My game of the year is Doki Doki Literature Club, a free visual novel dating sim. My new favorite game within it's genre.
From left to right: Sayori, Natsuki, Yuri, Monika
You play as a high school boy whom you name whatever you like (I named mine Turd), the next door neighbor of Sayori, the vice president of the Literature Club. Sayori worries that the main character may have no social skills after graduation, so she convinces him to join the club.
This is where the game play comes in. Those of you who have played visual novels before may be worried about playing this one when it comes to game play. Many an infamous visual novel completely lacks game play; the point is supposed to be that the player can choose an outcome, similar to a choose-your-own-adventure story, but there are some that simply lack the choice at all, save for many one button to click at only the very end of the two-to-three hour "game". Do not worry, I assure you there is nothing about the game play of Doki Doki Literature Club to make it infamous, you have my word.
There is real game play, you choose specific words to write a poem. Depending on the words you choose, you will write a poem that pleases one of the girls. Well, one of three, for some reason you cannot write a poem that specifically pleases Monika.
Whichever girl you pick, she starts to open up to you. You learn her backstory, watch her grow through character development. You'll get a different scenario with them based on which day it is, so if you mix-and-match, there is still merit, don't worry so much about only appeasing one of the girls the entire game if you don't feel like it. It's more dynamic in how it plays out than others in it's medium, the game does remember if you suddenly changed your mind, instead of acting like you only treated one girl kindly, the latter of which I've seen happen before, it breaks the immersion by a lot and sometimes means you end the game without any closure.
It's the sort of thing I have wanted many visual novels to have, but so many didn't. Massive kudos to the developer for creating completely fleshed out characters for this game, I wish that was not something so rare in visual novels, but for my money, it can be. I believe the creator has similar feelings on the subject.
The girl I chose was Sayori. I was spoiled for a massive section of the game, and I just felt right finding out the most I could about her before future replays.
Monika sometimes interrupts you just when you're making headway with the girl you chose to spend alone time with. The little devil.
There is so much more I'd like to talk about the game, but sadly, there are spoilers to follow. If you have not played this game, and would rather play it without any forewarning or spoilers, please log off of this blog post and go to the game's website here:
https://ddlc.moe
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And now this is the part where I tell you this is actually a psychological horror game.
NOTE: The foreshadowing is heavy and obvious. Which is good, subtle foreshadowing can feel like a waste of time. Obvious foreshadowing can make you feel like an idiot and in the BEST way. Hell, I did it here, the game needs it and loves it.
This game, man. This game.
Holy crap.
So like I said above, I found out ahead of time that Sayori commits suicide and the game suddenly bugs out. She's erased from the games files, you can go into the files for yourself and see her character file is completely gone. The games bugs get SO much worse, so much that the suicide becomes one of the tamest things the game has to offer for you.
AND, they depend on the choices you make in the next poems you make. AND, there are some out-of-knowhere scares that are triggered RANDOMLY. You can play through the whole game and not get them. There's no way to activate those scares, one way or the other. Nothing you can do to get them on purpose, nothing you can do to avoid getting them. You are at the mercy of what the game just feels like setting off.
In my playthrough, Natsuki's eyes turned black, blood flowed through her sockets, a wide slasher-style smile suddenly appeared across her face, her neck cracked completely to the side, and she just rushed as me leaving this scream that somehow seemed quiet and directly next to my ear. This was ONE scare, all of it together.
I am not the kind of person who loses sleep over something scary. This game caused me to lose sleep. Yuri's blood-soaked eye, the glitchy faces, the rapid reveal of the characters broken home lives and minds capes, the game straight-up tricking me by no longer obeying the rules of it's game play at any moment. This was the first time I did not trust a video game. The game told me it's mechanics, and let me get used to them so much, that once they stopped working I didn't know what to believe anymore. One time, it forced my cursor so I could only hit one of the three buttons, but I thought to myself "what if I hit up on the arrow keys, and then enter?". Even though you don't select in the game using those buttons, and it actually worked! But, then the game quickly replaced those three options with a long list of the same choice it wanted me to choose, so many the screen couldn't show them all.
I sorry I don't have any more screenshots for you, I was so fascinated and terrified that I simply stopped taking them. The game had my complete interest, and my fear on the end of a string. This is, and this is only on a personal level of course, the scariest thing I've ever experienced in all forms of media.
I have a high fear tolerance, so I do heavily enjoy when something really scares me. Mostly, what scares me is surreal horror. Hellraiser, Escape from Tomorrow, I don't have too many examples that terrified me, and this game is now on the top of the list. I have to play it again soon!
Also, just so you get a real taste of this game's horror, I found out about a scare I either didn't get, or that I didn't notice. During one of the poem sections, Yuri's face can be replaced with a horrific nightmarish face instead. Briefly, brief enough to convince you she didn't. This face:
Some of you may not find this so scary, but here's the thing. You now know this face is possible, you'll go look for it. Because it's so sudden, will you actually see it? Will you convince yourself you saw it? Plus, yeah it is rather creepy and a FAR cry from the usual sprite. Simple changes to what he know can truly mess with us, the uncanny valley affect. Elongated arms and legs, alien-looking eyes on a human-looking head, horror is often the unknown, but also the unknown mixed with the easily known.
Although to be fair this Yuri face is far more terrifying
I didn't get this one either, but I knew about it when doing research for the blog post. It's super rare, BUT, the Game Grumps were unfortunate enough for it to happen. I beat the game before they got to the scary stuff, and I was handling their play through well enough, but when this popped on my TV (was using Xbox One app) I straight-up had to sit down and pause the video to calm my nerves. NEW UPDATE: Of all scares this is one of the ones I got when I played Plus!!!
So yeah, go play this game. Like I said, it's free from the game's website via Itch.io. It's also available for free on Steam, if you feel like using that. You can donate money to them, and if it's ten or more dollars, you get a soundtrack and an art book. You can also just buy the fan pack directly through the store they link on the site.
By the time you read this, I will have donated thirty-five dollars. I believe the game deserves nothing less from me, and I may even give more later. There are posters and key chains of the characters you can buy as well from the site's store page, and I'm not a key chain or even a poster guy, but I saw an amazing Monika poster that I have to buy (there's also a real chance I'll be getting the others posters too because I went back to look at them all and I ended up liking them all more the second time). Speaking of, hey Dan Salvato, if you end up reading my dorky blog post about your game, I would pay good money for plushies of all of these characters. Even if they're like 45 bucks a pop. Even Yuri, and Yuri was personally my least favorite even before she scared the shit out of me. HELL, even the nameless main character, and I don't know what he even looks like.
The title says review, so here's my review score:
10/10
Game of the year.
My favorite horror game.
One of my favorite games in general.
And tune in soon. I forgot to talk too much about Monika, and honestly, she deserves her own post. I have that much to say. They all deserve a post, now that I think of it.
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