Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! – Review

Doki Doki Literature Club was born as a free game, released on PC in 2017, and greatly appreciated by an ever-growing enthusiastic circle of fans. This new version attempts the leap on the console and asks users for an entrance ticket of about $14.99 to bring the Literature Club to a new audience. Renamed for the occasion Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!, the game has all the credentials to establish itself not only as an excellent visual novel but in general as one of the hardest and most alienating videogame experiences of recent years.

To what may seem like a fan’s emotional hyperbole, you can’t even answer in rhymes, given that the heart of Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! it lies precisely in the intimate and hidden nature of its narrative. If you don’t know the game, then you can’t know how difficult it is to talk about it without making spoilers, even unintentional. Producing in a single adjective apparently out of place, starting with a paragraph by writing a “before …”, and in general expressing even veiled judgments on the narrative structure, are all potentially harmful elements for “unlikely” usability of the game.

The great farce

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! is (apparently) a simple visual novel, which traces the stereotypes of the genre and offers an (initially) very simple narrative, filtered by the usual anonymous protagonist, yet capable of making every woman who comes within range fall at his feet. The narrative incipit is precisely that Literary Club that gives rise to the title of the game, a meeting point for the player and four beautiful girls, lovers of books and literature in general.

After school activities, we can meet at the Literary Club with Sayori, the exuberant childhood friend of the protagonist (excessively talkative, to tell the truth), Yuri, a shy and dreamy lover of mysterious stories (but what will she think?), Natsuki, a peperino always ready to respond intensely and sarcastically (but too defensive) and finally Monika, the club’s founder: beautiful, intelligent, and always willing to help others, a practically perfect girl (but does perfection exist? ).

Any stereotype that comes to mind in drafting a story with sim-given themes, here it is: from the fleeting glances to the involuntary touches, from the sudden redness to the itchy but never too detailed thoughts of the protagonist. Yet, the sagacity with which the protagonists are outlined seems evident as if to represent well-defined pieces of an invisible chessboard. The game is decidedly linear in its dynamics, almost cyclical, and the intention is precise to instill a sense of chronic continuity in the player. A pleasant sensation in its routine, so much to favor an ever-stronger bond between the members of the Club. On the other hand, only what seems indestructible displaces us when it falls apart.

Poem exchange

One of Doki Doki Literature Club Plus’s main elements is the exchange of poems between the various members. Every evening we have twenty words to use, choosing from many adjectives, nouns, and verbs. By using words that match the character of certain girls, we have a better chance of impressing them. The reciprocal reading that takes place day after day highlights the inclinations and preferences of the protagonists, highlighting poems with an increasingly abstract, distant, and illustrative look. On the other hand, our works are never really read but left to the free interpretation of the player through the comments of the girls. Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! makes a very important premise during the splash screen: “This game is not suitable for children or impressionable people.”

Also, by announcing that this is a spoiler, he asks the player if he wants to know in advance the adult and controversial nature of the narrative. In any case, you can also activate an option that warns you whenever you are about to face a “strong” scene; so it is not surprising that the game is classified with an explicit PEGI 18 and that the team itself calls it “the # 1 psychological horror experience”. These are the clues that should stir the curiosity of every gamer: in the face of what seems like a very innocent visual novel – unless you are particularly sensitive or impressionable people – Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! It is an experience to try, without any doubt. In the box below, we will talk about the innovations introduced in this new paid edition, so if you don’t want spoilers, skip it and go directly to the next paragraph.

Going on talking about the very classic structure of the game or the reflective aspects of the protagonists is practically impossible without falling into the spoiler trap. However, the opposite is also true, on closer inspection. All this “don’t say” could generate a load of out-of-the-ordinary expectations. At that point, some cynical player might feel justified in snorting and opinionated: “that’s all?” (even if I don’t believe it to the end, I could bet on this if the entire recording wasn’t a gigantic castle in the air).

For these reasons, it is necessary to take a real leap of faith to approach the work of the developers with an anarchic spirit, whatever version you decide to play. Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! it is brave, experimental, corrosive, and cruel, one of the most intelligent, alienating, and well-written video games of recent years, regardless of its genre. Essential, as long as you tolerate certain very strong and potentially destabilizing themes of a psychological nature.

 

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Verdict

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! compared to the free experience already on PC, it adds a lot or nothing, depending on your point of view. Pragmatically one could argue the futility of the expense required in the face of mostly identical content available for free. However, this is not the point: whether you want to reward developers after the experience with the free edition, or if you want to get closer to the game by taking advantage of its “improved” edition (despite some insurmountable limitations),

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus ! remains a work of extraordinary emotional depth. A video game capable of making the most of the means of the media to which it belongs and masterfully manages to turn the narrative – and the exclusive use – against us. The game brings with it difficult topics, subtly lowers our defenses, and hits directly in the stomach, catching us unprepared. It doesn’t matter how and where you want to play Doki Doki Literature Club: the important thing is that you strongly consider doing it, regardless of the cost undertaken or the medium used. As with any masterpiece worthy of the name, any choice will be fine.