When it comes to visual novel-style games, I will say that Doki Doki Literature Club is one of the most memorable that I have ever had the pleasure to play. Seriously if you were to look at still images from this game, you would think it was just another erotic kind of store where you are trying to hook up with girls. Let me tell you, that is not the case as this is more of a psychological horror story and one that will greatly disturb you!
Doki Doki Literature Club: Character files. (Possible Spoilers) CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK. My sister Lilly and I, decoded everthing below after I noticed that the text within Yuri’s “.chr” file resembled (that of) Base64. 11 Doki Doki Dimensions True hardcore fans of DDLC know that in this game, there exists a hidden image in Monika's character file that decrypted looks very out of place and sci-fi-esque. This may have inspired the creation of this mod by u/Chiffmonkey. In this mod, the player is part of a team who travels across different dimensions. Instead of finding image files, I noticed all of our favorite Dokis character files had different sizes from the original game. Further inspection discovered that every.chr file was a zip file! Inside each was a single picture. 12sc74.jpg for Monika, keeptrying.jpg for Natsuki, look.png for Yuri, and finally, goodbye.png, for Sayori. If you’re playing the Steam version, right-click Doki Doki Literature Club in the my games section of your Steam library, then click properties, local files, browse local files, characters. When the game progresses to the title screen, select ‘New Game’ and continue playing until you reach this ending.
Join The Club
Ok, so I am going to try really, really hard to not spoil anything here as the story that Doki Doki Literature Club tells is one of the most amazing I have experienced in quite some time. The basics of the story here are that you are a male high school student and you have been persuaded by one of your friends to join the literature club that is at the school.
This club is populated by four girls, four girls who all seem super happy and who have it all. This is not the case at all and within a very short period of time, the story takes a very dark turn when one of the girls kills herself and the game restarts. Only the protagonist is aware that this girl was ever alive! It is messed up stuff that thanks to the well-written story really does hit home.
The Choices You Make
As a visual novel style game, Doki Doki Literature Club has you make a few choices as you progress through the story. These will lead you to different outcomes and as a result, there is a fair bit of replay value here. However, I will say that the first playthrough really is the most amazing as you are really not prepared for how the story in this game is.
More Than Just A Story?
As is the case with most other visual novel-style games, you do not have a ton of gameplay here (although the story certainly interacts with you) however, they have put in a mini-game. This is kind of fun and is a poetry based mini-game where you need to mix the right words together to make a poem that will be well received by a member of the club.
This mini-game has these lovely chibi-style characterizations of the character which at first are cute, but when you realize what this game is really about they are actually kind of disturbing!
I was really not prepared for the emotional roller coaster that Doki Doki Literature Club took me on! Safe to say this is a game that I will probably never ever forget! It is one of the most amazing experiences I have had in quite some time and if I had to suggest just five visual novels for a person to play, this would 100 percent be on that list. One suggestion I will give is to not spoil the story to this, go in as blind as possible!
Final Score: 9.5/10
Pros:
- A truly amazing experience
- An amazing story
- It has a twist you will never see coming
- The cute art style is offset with the very dark subject matter
- Different endings
Cons:
- It is pretty twisted
- Cannot think of another con!