MadCap's Game Reviews - "Doki Doki Literature Club!"

Y'know, because my last attempt at playing a visual novel went so swimmingly...

No, I'm still not a fan of the visual novel genre. Hatoful Boyfriend didn't sell me on it, even if I found the game itself completely incomprehensible and bizarre. So, certainly, my opinion will change with a nice, wholesome dating sim that definitely doesn't have any-OH MY GAAAAAAAWD! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR FAAAAAAAAAACE?!

Seriously. This got weird...actually really slowly. It may just be a thing of the visual novel genre, but you'd be forgiven for thinking that nothing's happening for a large portion of the game.

We'll get to that in a minute, though, let's take a look at our set up as if you didn't already know.

Doki Doki Literature Club! is a Trojan horse pretending to be a game. While on the surface it appears as your typical Japanese dating simulator (that is a dating sim made in the Japanese style, not a sim about dating the Japanese - I can't imagine you'd get a moment's peace and can you imagine how all those tentacles would feel?), there's actually a very disturbing and insidious presence lurking under this patchwork of waifus and their short skirts.

That insidious presence? A self-aware waifu and her short skirt...crossed with the T-1000.

I'm not joking, that's literally it. The leader of the Literature Club, who definitely doesn't talk like a robot, wants to make the morning bed with you. Not your character, you. Literally you. That's right, Monika wants you and she's willing to kill the other individuals within the game to achieve that.

I mean, if you wanna seem like a raging egotist, sure.

Oh, yes, the other individuals. As you can tell from the picture above, there are three other individuals in the Literature Club besides Jocasta and yourself. Given that Doki Doki Literature Club! is set out to be a subversion of the Japanese dating sim, you're meant to latch yourself onto one of these lovely ladies and try to either win and smooch or do the no pants dance depending on what the rating of this game is. Give the game credit, all three girls have very differing personalities and are very developed as characters.

On the minus side, you can't save them. Any of them.

. . .oh, that's not the twist, but we're getting there. Also, you sort of can save them, but I'll get to that later.

Each of the girls has some darkness about them, stemming from one thing or another. When you learn their secret, you think that maybe you can save them and help them find light in their life...and then they die. Suicide.

Again, this still isn't a twist. The twist is...the game resets...and the dead character is missing and nobody knows that they ever existed. The game also starts glitching in both the graphics and the text as we begin to realize that something is rotten in the state of Denmark!

. . .Denmark, Japan. Very little-know, made up village. In Japan.

I will admit, when the final twist about Monika comes up, it is pretty damn effective and kind of terrifying. Her control over the game is a little less so when I can just...y'know...turn off my computer or get up and walk away from it. I have not yet played Undertale (yeah, yeah, sue me), but what people have told me about it is that it employs a similar technique in its own game. This works there because people get invested in the characters and the world.

. . .and I really don't feel that here.

Mmmmkay, well, you've broken the universe.
Time to put you in the steel.

The gimmick is pretty alright but, once that's done...that's kind of it. Once I've seen a surprisingly graphic anime-esque depiction of a young woman literally hanging by a noose, fucking around with my graphics settings isn't going to do too much by comparison. When I deleted Monika's file and she ranted and raved at me, I didn't really feel anything.

By the way...I spoiled myself before, don't think you can get clever and go into your files and delete Monika's file early. You can, but the result is...not preferable, let's leave it at that.

In the end, it's another type of visual novel. The subversion is interesting but, once that's done, there's nothing else really to it. But hey, it's free on Steam provided you don't go for the DDLC Plus stuff. Unless you're one of those people who is into visual novels. In that case, go nuts! If not, you might wanna just give this one a pass.