Back in September of 2017, I stumbled upon a little game on itch.io: a freeware dating sim called Doki Doki Literature Club! At the time, I was broke, dumb-as-rocks teenage weeaboo who really didn't wanna do their Algebra II homework, so I decided to spend the afternoon checking it out. It looked cute enough, and it was free, so what was the harm (besides the damage to my GPA)?
Well, if Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! now being billed as a psychological horror game didn't already tip you off, you can probably guess how that afternoon went.
So why bring this up? It's because despite my best efforts to re-evaluate Plus with a new frame of mind, that one September afternoon is too deeply interwoven with my opinion with the game. Before it became yet another contentious western Visual Novel, before it became the subject of hundreds of Let's Plays and Game Theory videos, before it became a line of marketable merchandise you could pick up at your local retail fashion store, it was just a subversive freeware horror game I was absolutely enamored with. The absence of discussion around DDLC at the time I played it meant that the glitch horror and surprise metafiction angle caught me completely off-guard, and all of it's Creepypasta-tier parlor tricks and 4th-wall-breaking meta-puzzles worked wonders on me, since I had yet to have been exposed to that kind of storytelling in my games. It was the most mind-blowing thing in the world when I figured out how to finish Act 3. I didn't even really think that games could do shit like that!
But at the time of writing this, that was 4 years ago, and a lot has happened since then: My interests have changed. I'm a different person now. I've expanded my palette and I've dipped my toes into so many other genres and experiences. But even barring that, DDLC, which was dated at the time by the likes of Eversion, Irusu Syndrome and You & Me & Her: A Love Story, is even more old-hat as glitch and meta-horror have become their own saturated brand of storytelling on the internet. The air of both success and contention afforded by the conversation around it and its legacy hangs heavy in the air now. Revisiting this after so long, a small part of me was worried that coming back to this with a fresh pair of eyes would retroactively ruin it somehow, like finally beating your dad in a game of basketball: He was never that good at it, you were just younger and more inexperienced.
And I guess in a way, it was ruined. The scares that caught me off guard years ago fell flat, both because I was now expecting them, and because the overt jump scares and glitch effects were so juvenile and cliché. The cynicism in the text is more apparent looking at it now, it's sly jabs at "anime and dating-sim tropes" taking on a more overtly cynical tone when taking into account the game's origins: It was born out of Salvato's love-hate relationship with slice-of-life anime, and the fact that the parody aspect of the game generalizes all visual novels as dating sims shows a level of both ignorance and contempt for it's own medium and the history behind it. It's a trend we've seen before with other developers holding a certain level of contempt for their own medium and it's inspirations (see: Necrobarista, YiiK, etc.), but what's most ironic is that in DDLC's case, its strengths shine much brighter when it's indulging in the tropes it's trying to poke fun at.
Despite the supposed horror elements being at the forefront of both the marketing and the cultural legacy of the game, it's when DDLC is trying to be a pastiche Visual Novel that it succeeds the most. Even if the main girls fall into the generic pitfall of "cute broken girl for generic MC to fix via high school romance," the main cast and their struggles are relatable and the grounded depiction of depression with Sayori is something that hit very close to home for me and many others (even if something like Yuri's self-harm is treated a little more exploitatively in the narrative.) With Plus' new side-stories removing the horror elements and focusing on a more realistic and slice-of-life story about communication and mental illness that's treated with tact, it becomes a lot more engaging and heartwarming in a way that, ironically, becomes what it once sought to decry with the base storyline.
Separating me from the equation for a second however, I don't think I would ever recommend DDLC+. It's horror is weak and old hat nowadays, and since that's the angle the game is marketed with and most well-known for, it's impossible to really get much enjoyment out of it approaching it from that mindset. It's confused with what it wants to be, and even if it's strengths lie in everything else it does, hardcore VN enthusiasts are not going to be impressed with what both DDLC and Plus contains. It's a game I honestly think you just had to be there for to fully enjoy. But even if I wouldn't recommend it, I don't think I can bring myself to call it bad with the vitriol everyone else seems to have for it now. It was important for me, as a gateway to VNs and a game in general. It reminds me of a time in my life that, even if it wasn't wholly positive for me, was important nonetheless.
Well, if Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! now being billed as a psychological horror game didn't already tip you off, you can probably guess how that afternoon went.
So why bring this up? It's because despite my best efforts to re-evaluate Plus with a new frame of mind, that one September afternoon is too deeply interwoven with my opinion with the game. Before it became yet another contentious western Visual Novel, before it became the subject of hundreds of Let's Plays and Game Theory videos, before it became a line of marketable merchandise you could pick up at your local retail fashion store, it was just a subversive freeware horror game I was absolutely enamored with. The absence of discussion around DDLC at the time I played it meant that the glitch horror and surprise metafiction angle caught me completely off-guard, and all of it's Creepypasta-tier parlor tricks and 4th-wall-breaking meta-puzzles worked wonders on me, since I had yet to have been exposed to that kind of storytelling in my games. It was the most mind-blowing thing in the world when I figured out how to finish Act 3. I didn't even really think that games could do shit like that!
But at the time of writing this, that was 4 years ago, and a lot has happened since then: My interests have changed. I'm a different person now. I've expanded my palette and I've dipped my toes into so many other genres and experiences. But even barring that, DDLC, which was dated at the time by the likes of Eversion, Irusu Syndrome and You & Me & Her: A Love Story, is even more old-hat as glitch and meta-horror have become their own saturated brand of storytelling on the internet. The air of both success and contention afforded by the conversation around it and its legacy hangs heavy in the air now. Revisiting this after so long, a small part of me was worried that coming back to this with a fresh pair of eyes would retroactively ruin it somehow, like finally beating your dad in a game of basketball: He was never that good at it, you were just younger and more inexperienced.
And I guess in a way, it was ruined. The scares that caught me off guard years ago fell flat, both because I was now expecting them, and because the overt jump scares and glitch effects were so juvenile and cliché. The cynicism in the text is more apparent looking at it now, it's sly jabs at "anime and dating-sim tropes" taking on a more overtly cynical tone when taking into account the game's origins: It was born out of Salvato's love-hate relationship with slice-of-life anime, and the fact that the parody aspect of the game generalizes all visual novels as dating sims shows a level of both ignorance and contempt for it's own medium and the history behind it. It's a trend we've seen before with other developers holding a certain level of contempt for their own medium and it's inspirations (see: Necrobarista, YiiK, etc.), but what's most ironic is that in DDLC's case, its strengths shine much brighter when it's indulging in the tropes it's trying to poke fun at.
Despite the supposed horror elements being at the forefront of both the marketing and the cultural legacy of the game, it's when DDLC is trying to be a pastiche Visual Novel that it succeeds the most. Even if the main girls fall into the generic pitfall of "cute broken girl for generic MC to fix via high school romance," the main cast and their struggles are relatable and the grounded depiction of depression with Sayori is something that hit very close to home for me and many others (even if something like Yuri's self-harm is treated a little more exploitatively in the narrative.) With Plus' new side-stories removing the horror elements and focusing on a more realistic and slice-of-life story about communication and mental illness that's treated with tact, it becomes a lot more engaging and heartwarming in a way that, ironically, becomes what it once sought to decry with the base storyline.
Separating me from the equation for a second however, I don't think I would ever recommend DDLC+. It's horror is weak and old hat nowadays, and since that's the angle the game is marketed with and most well-known for, it's impossible to really get much enjoyment out of it approaching it from that mindset. It's confused with what it wants to be, and even if it's strengths lie in everything else it does, hardcore VN enthusiasts are not going to be impressed with what both DDLC and Plus contains. It's a game I honestly think you just had to be there for to fully enjoy. But even if I wouldn't recommend it, I don't think I can bring myself to call it bad with the vitriol everyone else seems to have for it now. It was important for me, as a gateway to VNs and a game in general. It reminds me of a time in my life that, even if it wasn't wholly positive for me, was important nonetheless.
2 Comments
@Doucet182 No problem! My relationship with this game is a little more personal than most, so I'm glad that kind of emotional honesty came across in my writing. Thank you for the kind words!
NewVegasNick
2 years ago
I really enjoyed reading that. Thanks for sharing :)