2017 was a great year for video games. Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, Persona 5, NieR: Automata all stormed the game releases last year, and with good reason. They were all outstanding games.

So of course I’m not talking about ANY of them as much as I would love to. This week I’m jumping out of my comfort zone with games and talking about an unexpected favorite of mine from last year.

Welcome to Doki Doki Literature Club. Released around mid-late September of last year on Steam (for free), if people payed attention to internet fads, this one was around for a good breath of the end of 2017. But why? On the surface it’s another visual novel/dating sim involving just some high school girls and the literature club they have. But it’s a hell of a lot more than that, and this is what I’m investigating today. And be forewarned that
1.) Some topics here are very sensitive and not really for the faint of heart
and 2.) MAJOR SPOILERS for the entire game so if you don’t want it spoiled because you’d like to experience it, just go download it on Steam. It’s free.

Anyway, let’s talk literature.

A Fun Assignment

So, what is there to say about a visual novel type game. It’s basically as it sounds, more of a reading experience than a video game. You play as a generic guy whose name you pick and have to join a club in high school. You decide to join a literature club with 4 wonderful girls.

From left to right in the above image you have:
Sayori: Childhood friend who you always leave hanging when you walk to school. Rude
Yuri: Probably the sharpest student in the club, and also the oldest.
Monika: She’s just Monika. Popular and President of the club.
Natsuki: She makes cupcakes, I’m sure her dad is proud.

Now, the core of the game is just, reading along and at certain prompts making “poems” of 20 words from a selection of about 12 per page. To determine which girl you get events with the next day, you have to pick words that correspond to them. So, for the 3 main girls:
Sayori: Happy words, stuff like sunshine and others
Yuri: Sorta mysterious words, like ambiance
Natsuki: Cute words, like kitty and similar words

So, you pick them, and get events. The game goes smoothly until about the 3rd day.

The Sound of Your Heartbeat

Anyway, on the third day, your childhood friend of Sayori drops a huge bomb, not only on the Main Character, but on the player as well. She goes in depth on how she’s spent her whole life with depression and puts on her happy facade not to clue people in on it. Unfortunately, you had made plans the previous day to spend the weekend with either Yuri and Natsuki working on a culture festival for the school. So, you’re left with an empty feeling after the Sayori event. And, after the weekend time, Sayori breaks down in your arms, and you get left with the most important question.

You can either accept her confession of love or say that it’s better with the two of you being friends. No matter your answer, she runs to her house, and you continue to the next day.

You get to school the day of the festival, and Monika says that y0u left Sayori hanging by not walking with her to school. After realizing something is… off about Sayori’s poem, MC runs right back to her house and… (I’m not embedding the image because it’s disturbing, so click the link if you dare.)

ummmm yeah

SO, after that bombshell, the game starts to glitch out on you, and you’re booted back to the title screen, but the image of Sayori is all… weird and creepy.

A World of Infinite Choices

So, you start the game over, and you continue to see all the scenes, but in all of them, the game messes up in various instances: Such as music distortions, character models jumping in and out of frame, or other extremely weird things. At one point, a poster in the classroom shows off Sayori and her… yeah it’s WEIRD. But it doesn’t end there.

Yuri, the most stoic of the cast, ends up obsessing over the Main Character and saying some… less than safe for work things about him. You get a similar event where you can either accept her confession or deny it. No matter what you choose, she stabs herself and kills herself.

Pretty F’d up right? You sit there for a while until the game continues, Natsuki throws up when seeing the body, and then Monika shows up.

Just Monika

So, Monika does a lovely exposition dump and tells you that, she knows she’s in a visual novel. She loves, not the main character, but the actual PLAYER. But, the game’s code only allowed for 3 ‘routes’: for everyone except her. So she figured to make the other 3 girls as unlikable as possible to make you, by proxy, like her. Unfortunately, the game isn’t coded to give her an ending, so she physically deletes EVERYTHING in the game, until the only thing is you and Monika. Wild. At risk of going further and spoiling much of the punch of this game, plot recap is done.

But… What Does it Mean?

Obviously, this game/Visual Novel is in no way a case study on humans or anything. I’d more-so call it expectation subversion for the genre. You don’t expect a visual novel, normally just a casual experience to not be so heavy handed in topic matter. When I played it for the first time, me not being a big fan of these types of games, took it as a little ‘haha’ adventure. Hence me naming my character in game ‘Iwannadie’. You can imagine how bad I felt when I got to certain points in the game.

Overall, this game is quite an experience. There’s a lot to talk about it, but it’s honestly best experienced by watching videos on it than explaining. I thoroughly enjoyed this game despite not being my cup of tea, so if anything, just know it’s a niche genre-defiant that makes you think. Anyway, for your listening pleasure if you ever want it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL06he43t3E

 

Anyway, next week in the 1-year anniversary of Fire Emblem Heroes, so my next 3 blogs are a triple feature of Fire Emblem: Fates so..

Hoo boy