………… This isn’t what it looks like, I swear……… Okay, so maybe it is what it looks like, but trust me, this is in fact a horror game. Let me repeat that. This is, in fact, a horror game, a psychological horror game, that screws with anda emotionally and mentally, and tricks anda oleh being something else… So does that mean I can review Doki Doki Literature Club without making myself look less anti-social.



…… Let me repeat myself, this is a horror game. Also, THIS ENTIRE artikel IS A SPOILER FOR DOKI DOKI LITERATURE CLUB! DO NOT READ THIS artikel IF anda PLAN ON membaca THIS GAME! Now, I had no intentions of playing this game previously, because I don’t like dating sims. I find them dull, boring, and horribly cliched, plus romance is something I was never a big fan of… yeah, a horror fan, who doesn’t like romance. The two go so well together. There are some interesting ones out there, like Huniepop, which I think people played for porn, atau Hatoful Boyfriend, which people played to get reactions of, atau the greatest dating sim of our generation and probably of all time, Dream Daddy, but aside from a few, I never had any intentions of playing this game… And then I was told the game was free. Look, anything that is free is either going to be something interesting atau something terrible. Perfect for my series. So, I downloaded Doki Doki Literature Club… and it was so much better than I ever could have expected. Doki Doki Literature Club follows the player character, named whatever anda please, joining the school’s Literature Club, consisting of four other members. Childhood friend Sayori, snide, atau as weebs say, tsundere, Natsuki, the shy Yuri, and the club president, Monkia. anda have a choice of interacting with either Sayori, Natsuki, atau Yuri, but Monika. I’m sure that she was a garbage character anyway. But the game makes it very clear that anda should make multiple saves and see all of the routes of the girls. Hmm, how interesting.



Let me get this out of the way for horror fans. This is a slow game. And I do mean a slow game. anda have to get through the entirety of the first act before anda start to witness some of the horror of this game. That time will be spent talking to the girls in the Literature Club, menulis a poem depending on the words anda select, trying to get one of the girls to like you, and watching all of their scenes. It is a rather slow start, and for someone who is not a big fan of dating sims, this first act was truly the worst part of the game for me. But now, it works pretty well. It gives anda a false sense of security, makes anda feel like this is a warm and happy game before it comes and hits anda with some of the worst things it can do. anda do start to see the horror slowly creep in when Sayori tells anda that she is suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts. And it isn’t until the end of the first act where the game finally begins to get scary, and gets so much better… atau worse, depending on how anda look at it. After Sayori hangs herself, the game tells anda that it is The End and puts anda back at the judul screen, only now, Sayori is a mass of glitchy material, and starting the game puts anda back to the beginning, with Sayori being gone from the game entirely. Now why did this happen, and what caused this to happen? Well, who cares? Write poems!



In the detik act, things get far lebih disturbing. Glitches appear at random, Yuri begins to tampil her unstable and suicidal self, with cuts on her wrists and her want to be with the player’s character, to Natsuki, tampilkan far lebih concern, while at times letting out strange comments, some involving her abusive father. Despite it all, Monika is still smiling away, and seems fine. Now why is that? But that isn’t all that happens, as the game even throws in some lebih disturbing things, like text changing to lebih disturbing words, realistic eyes popping in on characters faces, which, while it can look silly and practical, it manages to be lebih disturbing than anything, and some of the most out of nowhere scares that the game can throw at you. These scares do not hold back. They come at anda out of nowhere and will freak anda out if anda are not careful. Doki Doki Literature Club doesn’t try to use jump scares. Instead, it leaves an image on the screen, and makes anda look at it. It makes anda stare at the image on the screen, and does what it can to make anda uncomfortable. It’s like hearing a drill in a dentist office. No screaming from a kid and no blood. Just the sound of a drill. It may not be threatening to you, but the sound makes anda squirm in your chair. That’s what Doki Doki Literature Club does. It makes anda feel uncomfortable with every scare it uses. And I cinta it so much. But then there’s the third and final act. Something people have called Just Monika.



Monika, as I stated before, is the only one who doesn’t glitch out, who doesn’t have corrupted text, and seems to pass everything off as nothing. This is because Monkia is responsible for what happens. Monkia knows that this is a video game, and with that in mind, she messes with the game files and deletes characters, atau increases their worst traits about them and brings it out for them to see to the player so that he could be lebih interested in Monkia. And this is because Monika is in cinta with the player. Not the player’s character that they named in the real world. The player themself. She knows that anda are playing a game, and will call anda oleh your real name and will tell anda that anda shouldn’t worry about the other girls, because they were never real and that they never existed. At this point in the game, anda are placed in a room, a void like place with Monika, who now only talks to anda about many things. And unlike other games where the text would loop until anda do something else, it is like Monika had a massive amount of text that would go on forever. Some of the things she will talk about are how religion is a strange thing, what it feels like to die, ask if anda are suffering from depression, atau discuss what people want to do with their lives. The things she talks about give off a very philosophical thing. It doesn’t feel like the game is trying too hard. It gives a point, and makes the player think of things that they wouldn’t. She also seems to mention that she has a Twitter account. A real Twitter account that anda can go to, called lilmonix3. She also seems to know if anda are streaming atau not, and jump scares anda and the audience watching. Monika manages to be one of the most disturbing characters in a game just from her disturbing personality and her psychological points. And she’s only a fucking anime high school character. If that can scare me, than anda deserve all of the praise anda get.



Doki Doki Literature Club is one of the best horror games of this year, in my opinion. It manages to lure anda in with false feelings and trick anda with some of the most uncomfortable and disturbing atmosphere I have seen in any video game of baru saja years. Doki Doki Literature Club was met with immediate praise, with everyone wanting to play this game and see what it was all about, and then they all had their hopes and dreams crushed from the depression and horror that this game has. And in typical classic horror game fashion, it manages to have multiple endings. My favorit is if anda hapus Monika’s file before starting the game… Oh yeah, in this game, anda can hapus files and see what happens. If anda do, anda change the game completely. I wish it was done more, instead of giving anda a bonus ending, but aside from that, it really works well. I won’t spoil anymore about the game, especially the endings (Except my favorite, since I need an ending image), so I will let anda play the game yourself. It’s on Steam and it is for FREE! Go get it. And then buy the special pack because this developer deserves money. Take care.