Doki Doki Literature Club Review: Doki Doki My Heart

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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do do do do de de dee de de..............

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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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Classic Literature Review: A Clockwork Orange

            Before I start this review, there are a few things that need to be discussed first. For the majority of you, this will not be a surprise what I am about to say, but for those who do not know, Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange is a controversial novella in the subject matter it uses to convey it’s overall message. I will still be discussing these controversial aspects and will not censor them, so those who are uncomfortable hearing about brutalities may wish to read something else instead. The second part is that, in my personal opinion, to review this book I do have to spoil several sections of it. Most importantly, the ending and the aspects revolving around it. The ending is fairly common knowledge for some people, I knew the ending before I read the book myself without feeling letdown by a massive spoiler. However, if you wish to read this book without the prior knowledge, please pause reading now and resume at a later time when you’ve read it.

            Now on to the review itself.

            A Clockwork Orange is a first-person narrative about teenage criminal Alex. I do not use the term criminal lightly, and far harsher words would be more appropriate. While it is not a stated rule, a good deal of fiction features a hero as the protagonist. Whether or not there is a proper antagonist, the protagonist is almost always the hero. Sometimes the protagonist is allowed to be the villain, and Alex may very well be the darkest and most vicious version of this kind of protagonist. Alex is a rapist, a murderer, one section even broadly shows the reader he is a pedophile. His reason for doing all of what he does is, compared to the general rule of fictional villains, is absolutely nothing. Alex runs on something that exists in real life but is not always shown as graphically as it is here.

             Alex is having fun, and nothing else. He enjoys breaking people’s property. He enjoys drinking milk spiked with drugs. He enjoys gang-raping a woman to death in front of her husband, whom he also beat mercilessly. Alex is devoid of sympathy, his existence spits in the face of altruism and kindness, and he is seemingly aware of this fact as he’s loving every minute of it.

            Villain protagonists are not nearly as rare if you personally seek them out. I understand why you might, and my experience is from my own writing. While I can’t exactly back up the claim at this point in time due to my status as amateur, I tend to write a lot of villain or anti-hero protagonists. Recently, I’ve been interested in going towards more traditional heroes. Because even bucking the system can be old hat, and make you want something fresh. So in a sea of mostly heroic novel or novella characters, Alex become one of the most fascinating characters I’ve ever read.

            It’s funny, because you’ll never ever like him. He’s disgusting, foul, arrogant, cruel, immature, and uncontrollable. So instead of liking him, you are fascinated by him. You don’t care if he lives, and wouldn’t be unset if he dies, except maybe if you felt he deserved fare worse than whatever fate he’d gotten. For as complex and as three-dimensional as Mr. Burgess made him, there is only one word to describe him: Evil. He is nothing but evil made flesh. He has never done anything besides evil, and never will. You can’t take your attention off of him for it.

            Alex is eventually caught during one of his crimes, abandoned by his gang in the process, and sent to prison. In prison, the government handpicks him for their new project; the Ludovico Treatment. Alex is forced into a chair, eyes held open, and watches horrific acts of violence whilst listening to Beethoven and other classic music, two things Alex loves more than anything. These constant viewings trick Alex’s brain into disgusting him whenever thoughts of violence or the sound of classic music occur to him. Every time, he goes to vomit, but is somehow incapable of actually doing it, meaning the feeling is also a writhing pain. Thanks to whom he is, you don’t exactly feel bad about his state, but are now interested in seeing how this will change him. He’s effectively been brainwashed into being a model citizen.

            The novella’s main theme is that this is wrong. Even the most disgustingly evil people must still be allowed to be human beings. That brainwashing is itself horrific and no better than the criminals it could be used on. Moreover, it also does not work.

            Alex is not a changed person in the slightest, he is just restrained. I hate to spoil more of the book, however, I need to discuss one section as quick as I can. Alex’s parents have kicked him out after his arrest, which he only learns after returning home to find their new roommate. After his parents painfully explain the reasons to him, showing they still love him despite finally realizing who he is and fearing him, Alex’s first reaction is to attack the roommate. He is unable to falls ill. So instead, he cries his eyes out in front of them. His reasoning is that he feels betrayed by these people who love him, and he leaves making everyone feel somber.

            Except Alex himself. His emotional state was a lie, he simply wanted to make them feel horrible. Even under torture and mind control, Alex finds a way to be a monster. It’s poignant, it’s helps with the overall theme, and continues your hate-interest in the character.

            I’ve talked a lot about Alex, that’s because this is a first-person narrative story. We as reader’s are not allowed to learn anything about the universe of this story outside of its effect on the protagonist.  All the reader has to go on is what Alex himself tells them, be it the situations, the scenery, or the other characters. It is all about him, as it is purely his take on every single aspect of the story. Not only that, but all of these descriptions are written in Nadsat.

            Nadsat is the fictional slang created for the novella that Alex and his gang speak in. Or, in his words, he and his droogs speak in. The language was based on Russian, so Russian speakers may figure out the meanings faster, but as someone who doesn’t speak the language, it took me not all that long to figure it out either. Admittedly, the first time I opened the book, the presence of Nadsat confused me enough to put it away and come back to it sometime later. If you open it and think you’ll be confused, the words will make enough sense after some repetition, and some versions have a dictionary in them, although mine did not.

            And now, for the ending. The ending was originally censored in the American release. Alex is freed from his brainwashing, the government pays him off so he doesn’t blab that it was a failure, and he goes back to becoming the monster he always was. However, in the original version, which my version keeps intact, the story continues on for one more chapter. In this final chapter, it is years later. Alex has a new gang with new teenagers despite being an adult, but something is different. He’s now becoming bored with his typical brand of merriment. He shoes them away and meets up with former droog Pete, and they reminisce about old times and the other droogs George and Dim, who died young and became a corrupt police officer respectively.

            Pete is now married. This sparks in Alex what he wants to now do. Be married himself, have a son, and ponder if said son will be as vicious as he was.

            Several people are of the opinion the edited version is better. The debate is on Alex being redeemed, and the possible implication that he was only evil because that is part of being a teenager. Opinion are opinions, and I respectfully disagree. I prefer the original.

           For my money, Alex is not redeemed in this ending, he is simply bored. Redeemed would mean he felt regret, that he would make up for past transactions, and the story makes it clear he does not and will not in the slightest. The only thing that has changed about him is his motivation and general interests. There is nothing, in fact, stating he may get bored of this new lifestyle as well.

            As for the implication of aging, I feel that may be a stretch, especially in a novella that is blatant in its messages and all the better for it. Remember, Dim was a teenager too, and the least intimidating or evil, yet he grew up to continue being horrific in his own right. In fact, the novella seems to argue Dim became a worse person as he got older. Alex did get older, but that may or may not have anything to do with his new passions, and those new passions do contain a connect to his old ones as he is not worried if his child will be a monster, only interested in finding out. Pete was never given enough time outside of Alex’s vision for us to see if he grew, learned a lesson, always hated the gang, or anything of the sort. Pete is flat, but that works considering that was all he was meant to be, a character we forget about until he makes the most important part of the ending happen.

            I know at the start I gave a warning about the content, meaning I know full well it makes the book not for everyone. Yet, with that in mind, I feel that this piece of classic literature is a must-read. There exists nothing else like this, and it has stood the test of time. If you have not read it, perhaps you will want to consider what I said about the endings and choose a copy based on that, or a copy with the Nadsat dictionary included if you so wish. This book is a masterpiece, and if you are too squeamish for it, at the very least try to read a few of the tamer scenes or find a more in-depth recap than I gave. This book is worth knowing and understanding.

Video game review: Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD

Game played on: PlayStation 4

Is a remaster of a game originally on 3DS

I've been playing games in the Kingdom Hearts franchise since the original title. While the original is still one of my favorite games, my opinions of the overall series highly differ between what I am playing. Some I highly enjoy for their gameplay or story, and some I can barely wrap my head around and end up cursing the bizarrely implemented controls. Remember when Kingdom Hearts II decided we needed the ability to skateboard? I mostly remember that it never came back as a mechanic.

With a series as complex, convoluted, and contended as this one, allow me to be a little bit more relaxed in this review than I normally would. Now, the truth of the matter is that I did not play the 3DS version of this game. I'm fully aware that all games in the franchise have important plot points, that skipping out on one game can leave you completely in the dust. I learned this lesson when I originally skipped over Chain of Memories, which led to complete confusion during Kingdom Hearts II up until I played the remake on PlayStation 2. But before I finally played Dream Drop Distance, I did make sure I was up to speed, with some minor exceptions due to my increasing frustration in certain boss fights of games I had beaten once before anyway.

Also, to be frank, I knew several of the story's spoilers before I went in. I don't tend to care about spoilers, at all, so I learned everything about this game's story just by random searching about the franchise's plot. Anyone who has played only a couple or even all of these game will admit that isn't a horrible idea. The series does make sense once you ingest everything, but even then, there's nothing wrong with a guide by this point.

Due to the spoilers, I didn't think I'd like this game.

I was wrong. I really loved playing this game.

The first thing to catch my attention was the combat. I was not a fan of the command deck from Birth By Sleep, and it returned here, but this time it felt much more straight-forward and easier to figure out. It still had it's glaring problems, but I didn't hate it this time around, and it was much easier to decide which attacks I should keep stocked now that I did not have to level them up along with my character.

The real star of the combat show was the flowmotion. Flowmotion involves Sora or Riku dashing against a wall, streetlamp, or other surface. Suddenly the character glows, and you are given a possible attack where you get to spin around, hit very hard, and cannot be hit from what I could tell. The franchise had been getting more and more unfair boss fights as of late, and this equally unfair style of attacking has made it so we are back to being on equal playing grounds instead of just hoping you might win.

Flowmotion also allows you to jump again in the air, then dash again, and continue until you reach the top of the wall you dashed against. Similar to Saints Row 4, it is very cathartic to know that any item you want is now easy to get, even if it's on the top of a tall building.

There are certain commands that can allow you to interact to certain objects and weakened enemies, and they are different depending on the world. Take for example the image below, where the command lets you encase an item or enemy in a large bubble, and you can use said bubble to trap further enemies in until it pops, a lot of the time instantly killing anything inside.

Your companions are now little battle monster style creatures you create with the synthesis method, which meant they gave a purpose to synthesis that I finally liked and did not feel nearly as tedious.

It's also surprisingly fun to play with them. And the original game came out before Pokemon X and Y, so it did Pokemon Amie before Pokemon did.

The graphics and the framerate are also quite nice. True, nothing is particularly beautiful, especially for PlayStation 4, but even without playing the original game I can tell this port looks far better. All the vibrant colors the series loves to employ are still here, and they still look very good, even if they are not beautiful this time around.

Now, the story. For many players, the story this time went too far. There were a couple of explanations that didn't make sense and did not fit with the previous games. The overarching villain became so overpowered and seemingly flawless that players are calling him badly written. I kind of agree.

Behold the awesome power of balloons.

But I also kind of really like that.

The original Kingdom Hearts is, again, one of my favorite games. One of the reasons is because of how much silly stuff is in there, even stuff that wasn't supposed to be. I'm a little more than done with the harp strings and the single game plots that branch off fifteen different ways. The plot is getting stupid, so to me, by all means let it get stupid. I enjoyed this story so much. The moments I thought were moving, did move me. The moments I thought didn't, made me laugh or otherwise enjoy myself. It had been a while since a Kingdom Hearts game had a good mix of fun game play and fun story telling, and this one did it for me.

Fans are gonna hate me for this.

8/10.

Pokemon Moon Review: Different Can Be Good?!

I was a child in the 90's. There really wasn't much of a choice when it came to knowing about Pokemon. I watched the TV show, I collected a few of the cards, and starting with the second generation I have played every generation of the games. For a better reference, I have played Silver, Gold, Ruby, Emerald, Firered, Platinum, Soulsilver, Black, Black 2, X, Omega Ruby, and now Moon. After graduating college and personal soul-searching, I ended up questioning exactly how much this franchise does mean to me. I thought back on each game, and I realized I only liked half of the ones I played, and all due to similar reasons when it came to dislikes. This was mostly set off by Pokemon X, which I personally felt was not only a let down, but the first legitimately bad game in the series. I decided to give this latest game a chance, and also decided that should I not like this game either, I would be done with the series. It would be time to give up pretending that really liking some of the games meant I liked the franchise.

My expectations flip-flopped constantly with this game before release. The trailers looked very promising, and I could not help but get excited over them. However, my excitement did not always last, and far too familiar warning signs seemingly creeped up.

I bring all of this up because it looks like Gamefreak knew there were a lot of players like me. Who for years have had complaints even when they did really like the end product. My biggest hope for the game was that it would not be a return to formula. My biggest hope was that it would take all of the problems this series has had, and finally take them head on and fix them.

Allow me to tell you a few of the ways that they did just that.

Gone is the gym leader system. Instead, you fight wild Pokemon known as Totem Pokemon, who are super-powered and have incredibly strong moves. When you fight enough of them, you fight an actual trainer known as a Kahuna, and they are also very tough enemies. Each Totem Pokemon is foreboding and challenging, and every single Kahuna is packed with personality. Also, you do not just happen by the Totem Pokemon, you are given a Trial from trainers known as Captains. The Captains are also full of personality, and each Trial feels unique and memorable. Gone are the days of a Gym Leader with one stock personality trait, whose gym is truth-be-told not all that different from the last one you were just in. The more unique Gym Leaders were always a favorite amongst players, and this time, every single Trial Captain and Kahuna has every bit of personality those popular Gym Leaders had, and more.

Speaking of the Trial's difficulty, this game truly addresses a problem I have had since the very beginning and am glad they finally addressed it. Pokemon games have never been known to be completely easy, however, myself and many players found the difficulty to be random and sporadic. It was not uncommon for a random trainer to be ten times stronger than a Gym Leader you just fought. Difficulty is one thing, but Pokemon tended to go for cheaper and more unfair versions of this. There would be many times where you would lose and it would not even be your fault, as the game just decided to stack itself against you for little to no reason. They tried addressing this in X, but the result was that the game became too easy. It may sound weird to complain it was too hard and then complain it was too easy, but what I'm trying to say it that the gradual balance of difficulty was not used to good effect either way. The games that were too hard were full of sudden difficulty spikes you could not prepare for, and the very easy X and Y felt as if it never grew any form of difficulty as it went on. Instead of an upward line on the graph, it stayed completely flat the whole way.

 In Moon, random trainers do not tend to be very hard up until the very end sections of the game. The Trials, however, are quite difficult and require skill to master. Once you see the word "Trial" appear on your screen, you know what you are getting in for, which means you can prepare yourself for what is about to come. To me, this was the most challenging Pokemon game I've ever played, because while other games were harder, this one was one I could understand and adapt to, so I could actually focus on what was being thrown at me, and I would actually have to think everything over instead of just throwing myself into the fire. I have never strategized  in a Pokemon game as much as I have in Moon, and I am very happy for it.

And that is not even discussing the new Z-moves. One time per battle moves that can be used by any Pokemon that now an attack with the same typing as the Z-stone, and some of them are exclusive to just certain Pokemon in general. Once you use the move, that is it, you cannot use another one until you have a new battle. If it didn't work the way you were hoping it did, you had to think on your feat. Versus say the Mega evolutions from the last generation, which stayed in their form for the entire battle. These were all one-and-done, you could not simply hit the button without thinking too hard like myself and many others did with Mega evolution, and this is coming from somebody who originally expected Mega evolution to become a feature he would love.

As the many trailers pointed out, this game also introduced regional forms for certain Pokemon. One thing that has bothered me for quite some time is just how many times I would play a new Pokemon game, and yet I barely found any new Pokemon compared to the old ones. With regional forms, these older Pokemon were given new life, and felt as if they were brand new. Their new typing helped to do so, and in some cases even fixed the problems those older Pokemon had. For example, I was always a fan of the poison type known as Grimer and it's evolved form Muk. While I liked them, I was aware they were not useful in battle, it's stats did not match up with it's typiing very well. In Moon, it gains the Dark-type, and it's move set is changed in a way that makes it a very formidable ally or opponent. It can now use a very powerful Bite and Crunch, learns more useful poison-type attacks, and is completely immune to the Psychic-type that is used to take immense damage from. I caught a Grimer early on, and it ended up being one of the six Pokemon I took all the way to the end.

This was taken before I entered this game's version of VIctory Road, but notice even here that Muk was one of the highest levels. Because I kept using him for anything it had an advantage against, or something that nothing had an advatange against so I hit it hard instead.

There are many other things I could go on about. How this was the first time that a comedic villainous gang actually worked for me, how it no longer asked you twice on whether or not you didn't want to learn a new move, that the mechanic of Sun usually being set in the daytime when you play and Moon being set mostly at night means there is finally a real reason to get either/or copy, or that the final villain of the game manages to be truly menacing and terrifying.

There is, however, only one thing that should be the focus of what this review is about. When it comes to story and character, this is the most in-depth the series has ever gotten. Many people who loved the original games will proclaim up and down that the vague hints at story was some of the best story they ever needed, despite the fact it really was little to nothing. Fans of the fifth generation point out that the deconstruction of the series formula and the dynamics of it's characters make it the most fleshed out, and there was a time I agreed with them. Sun and Moon once again go for deconstruction, and it pulls it over even better than the last time.

When I first started playing this game, I noticed just how well the cutscenes played out, how well-explained and free-flowing the gameplay was, how the characters worked off each other. Pokemon games were always their own thing, and from the start I felt like this was the time one I could call a full-on video game. This is not a diss on those older games, as I do still love the ones that I love, but they never felt so much like video games as they felt like their own thing; Pokemon games. This one bridges the gap, and by doing so, they made an unforgettable video game that I recommend above any other game with the Pokemon name slapped on.

I cared, during this game. Typically, I would place emotions into the Pokemon friends that I caught, that was all I needed. By the end of my journey, the characters I had grown to know felt like actual characters. I felt like the protagonist I was playing actually mattered in the world, as did everyone she knew.

When the infamous Sonic Boom came out, video game critic and pundit Jim Sterling said that the game was so bad that it reminded him that he was going to eventually die along with everyone else and that nothing he did really mattered. Playing to the end of Pokemon Moon felt like the positive opposite of that. Pokemon Moon made me realize that it will eventually be over, but that my precious little time mattered so much and was worth every second I will get out of it. I usually replay these games, do self-imposed challenges, but my experience with this game was so personal that that would feel like I spit all over it. I loved this game so much that I am preserving the memory of my time with it by never playing it again. Any second playthrough would feel like stepping on a loved one's grave. I can't bear myself to ruin something that became something so special.

-Final Score-

Pokemon Moon gets a 9 out of 10. It would have been a solid ten, but there is an issue where the framerate drops every time there are more than two Pokemon in a battle, and sometimes it lags just a little bit if a two Pokemon battle lasts too long. Should they fix it, it's a solid ten, and even without a fix this is my second favorite Pokemon game ever made.