This game will bring you back and beyond your childhood memories! Many years ago, I believe in 2017, I had downloaded Doki Doki Literature Club for free from a website and comparing my distant memories of playing during that experience to the experience I just had today years later is mind-boggling, the game has improved so much throughout the years! So without further ado, let me unravel Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! About Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! (DDLC Plus!) is an extended version of the Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC) visual novel - a video game industry leader in the genre of psychological horror. DDLC Plus! features: 6 side stories irrelevant to the main story, a music player, BGM, CGs, poems, concept art & sketches and more additions that weren't available in Doki Doki Literature Club. In DDLC Plus!, you'll be playing as a male main character who decides to join their school Literature Club following the invitation of their childhood best friend Sayori. In this club consisting of 5 members including yourself, you'll be learning one another's literature interests, personalities and share a poem you've written with each other. It turns out that on paper, your writing style may resemble another club member's style at times...or for some reason, you may be physically closer to one member than the other. I'm not sure if the other club members will be so happy to see that! Play to find out if they are! If you haven't heard of DDLC or seen: videos of DDLC character cosplayers, DDLC fanart and DDLC fanfictions circulating on the internet by now, then I'm genuinely surprised. My Review of Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! Let's get onto the juicy part worth reading. When I played DDLC years ago, it was just DDLC and my own computer files. Now, it's DDLC Plus! and a virtual machine. A plot within a plot. You can picture it as an egg. The egg shell is one plot and the egg yolk is another plot. Let's dissect the inside of the egg - the yolk, first. The yolk represents the main story & side stories. The main story wasn't really touched throughout the years, however, I believe a few: CGs, lines and secrets were added because I don't recall them (ex. the Ghost Menu ). The 6 side stories have to first be unlocked by creating poems in a way that it'll relate to a specific character. Each side story is divided into two parts. When you unlock them all, they'll be listed in chronological order on a UI. You definitely should play the side stories in chronological order because they are connected to one another. The side stories take place before the main character joins the Literature Club, so, I consider the side stories as prequels to the main story. The first 3 side stories share how Sayori, Yuri and Natsuki joined the Literature Club while the last 3 side stories delve deep into moral lessons about forming friendships, understanding, controlling & conveying our feelings properly and lastly, letting changes occur in your life for the better & realizing that you're worthy of others love. The game officially states that there are 6 side stories, but in reality, it's actually 8. The last 2 are really short. I wouldn't really call the last one a story though. The side stories helped me connect with characters better. Here's what I learned through side stories: Sayori has an uncontrollable problem where she gets really upset when people worry about her and she prefers everyone around her being happy instead since she knows that worried people wouldn't treat her the same anymore. She felt comfortable expressing her true inner feelings at the club and nowhere else (other than that one time directly to the main character in the main story). Yuri feels as though anyone nicely engaging with her is doing out of pity from feeling that she's weird. She has trouble believing someone can accept her for who she is. She wants to be treated like any other normal person but doesn't expect as she believes she doesn't act like one. She wants to learn to get along and stop ruining things for herself. Natsuki joined the club as she couldn't enjoy what she's into without people making snotty comments about it and also because she likes writing. She wants to feel welcomed and accepted for her passion of reading manga. Getting onto the plot of the egg shell, which is foreign to me and a bit difficult to comprehend, after having read a series of emails I received within a virtual machine the game provides you with, from my understanding, a company named "Metaverse Enterprise Solutions" has been developing a small-scale virtual machine ("VM1") - the one you'll be provided with, and through this virtual machine, they've basically created the DDLC universe. They treat the DDLC girls as "entities" and the company intentionally granted Monika "highly elevated access permission" which explains how she was able to fiddle around with the universe. The company is observing the DDLC universe for data collection. Specifically, they want to know how elevated access affect's a person's emotional state, values and goals, and how they navigate, weaponize and experiment this access, what actions contribute to the destruction of the universe and how can observations be applied to our own universe. It's also suggested that the main character that we play as is manufactured by Monika herself as a way for her to interact between herself and the user (player). and lastly suggested that a single virtual machine can contain multiple universes. In other words, I think the egg shell plot is just canonical confirmation that DDLC Plus! is a simulation and that none of the girls and the universe they are in is real. Understanding. Balance. Reflection. Self-Love. are beautiful & empowering words! Suggestions for Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! If this game is re-explored, please consider implementing these suggestions: - I felt you left out important context regarding character history . I wish childhoods were explored. I remember years ago I played a mod exploring Natsuki's history with her papa's abuse. It would be fulfilling to learn: when and how Natsuki's issues with her papa developed, what exactly drives Sayori into depressed thoughts, when and how Yuri's obsession with knives and cutting developed and how Monika became popular and seeing Monika's experiences coping as the popular girl in school. Maybe the girls used to be completely different people as children and became who they were later on in life, who knows! It would also be interesting to see some side stories of the main character before joining the club! I would love to see a side story of the main character and Sayori having a good time! These sort of side stories could be implemented before the first current side story! - Let us hide dialogue in side stories, especially during CG reveals at the end as CGs can transition to different forms while the CG gallery only displays one CG form. - Add CGs throughout the side stories instead of just at the very end of them. Signing off with iconic quotes: "This is the Literature Club. The Literature Club is a place where everyone gets to be themselves. We all have our own interests, and our differences. It's my vision to let us freely express that. And...it's my goal to respect everyone for them. So, I just want to learn about the things that make you happy. I think that you deserve to share that joy as much as everyone else does." "We share things because we want to express ourselves. Sharing experiences allows us to share emotions." "...Just move your hand. Write the way into your heart." - Monika Overall Rating: 10/10
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