With Halloween nearing I always try to watch a few campy horror movies or invest in a short game full of jump scares, but what I got myself into this year was exceptionally different.
Doki Doki Literature Club at first glance looks like a run of the mill sub-par anime dating sim, which looks worse due to the fact that it's a free download on Steam. At first glance why was a game that looks this cute showing up under the Horror tag alongside Cute, Romance, Dating Sim, Visual Novel, Anime..... Violent, Gore, Psychological Horror. Quite the interesting mix... I look a little further and see that it is ranked "Overwhelmingly Positive" and at the time of me writing this had a 97% positive rating over an astounding 12,125 reviews. The mix of tags and positive reviews was enough for me to give it a chance. One of the first things I note on loading up the game is the disclaimers you must agree to before starting a game.
At this point the game already has me. I haven't even started yet so I want to see this through to the end. Let me start by saying I will try to be as vague as possible here in the hopes that if you chose to play this little gem, it would spoil as little as possible. The characters on the load screen are the only 4 girls you, as the protagonist, will interact with during the game. Just from their appearance you can likely guess the standard anime tropes they would fall into you. You have the happy go lucky childhood friend, the book reading dandere, cute tsundere, and athletic, popular, and beautiful club president. It starts with the feeling that it's a story that we've all heard many times before. The decision making begins by writing poems to share during literature club -- you essentially choose your romantic pursuits by picking the words to appear in your poem you believe would appeal to your desired girl. This is continued while you slowly learn more about each girl through their poems and writing styles for the first hour or hour and a half of the game. At this point I thought that the tags and warnings were a joke and the literature club would have met my fears of being a generic dating sim, but then things start to get dark in a hurry.
The second half of the game escalates quickly into a sense of hopelessness where I questioned each decision before and after I made them and hesitated at every turn. While it does have a jump scare here and there, I felt more like I was getting played more than I was playing the game. As the decisions mount, I could only wish to go back to the start to determine the error in my ways, but this desire was pitted against the need to see how it all plays out. I wanted answers, but questioned myself and the world more than ever. I was uncomfortable, I was easy, and at times I got the chills. The music I initially thought was overly repetitive warped in a way that added to my anxiety. Without spoiling any plot, I will say that the game itself is one of the most unique visual novels, or games in general, that I have ever played in terms of end game play and I believe it deserves recognition on a creative level even if it's own brand of horror doesn't impress you.
Overall Doki Doki has my highest recommendations as a free indie game and I look forward to future developments from Team Salvato. Total game play can range in time depending on how quick of a reader you are, but the entire experience took me about 4 hours so pretty short, but highly satisfying for something of this length. If you decide to jump in, don't watch any videos and avoid all spoilers if possible - even writing what I have I feel like I've built a certain expectation that I didn't have when playing.
Sit down, open your mind, and enjoy your time as the newest member of the Literature Club
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