Doki Doki Literature Club Plus — Is it worth it?

Method again in 2017, Dan Salvato unleashed Doki Doki Literature Membership onto the world. What appeared as simply one other trope-filled, cliché-ridden visible novel clogging up Steam truly turned out to be one thing a lot completely different. The sport is among the finest horror video games ever made; a really psychologically disturbing expertise. With it being free on Steam and in a position to run on even essentially the most low-spec pc, the sport noticed large success. Earlier this yr at E3, an up to date model of the sport was introduced, with Plus! tacked on. And this brings us to this text’s titular query: is Doki Doki Literature Membership Plus value it?

Earlier than I get into why, I’ll begin off by answering that query instantly with an unequivocal sure. The primary recreation is unchanged outdoors of latest HD illustrations that every one look very crisp. Doki Doki Plus options all-new sprites and backgrounds, in addition to new and remixed music all through. There’s even a music participant in the primary menu.

The largest new addition to the sport are the six aspect tales that add plenty of background on the 4 major characters. There isn’t a horror contained in these; it’s pure character constructing, however with the identical degree of top-notch writing that made the primary recreation so affecting. These aspect tales are unlocked by enjoying by way of the primary recreation and specializing in particular ladies when writing your poems after every day. Similar to the primary recreation, they take about 4 hours to do altogether. They’re additionally non-interactive, and play essentially the most like a conventional visible novel.

Simply…

These tales happen outdoors the primary canon of the sport and discover how every of the 4 ladies, Natsuki, Yuri, Sayori, and Monika met and joined the Literature Membership. Once more, these sections aren’t scary, and as an alternative deal with simply character constructing items — they’re all nice. By the tip, you get a significantly better sense of who the 4 ladies are. It additionally makes the horror facets of the primary recreation hit a lot tougher, as you construct a stronger reference to the forged.

The aspect tales, like the primary recreation, don’t draw back from coping with some precise points, both. Melancholy, self-worth, and extra real-life issues that have an effect on younger persons are addressed with a deft hand. Nothing feels exploitative. There may be nonetheless no voice performing within the recreation, and whereas some might imagine that may be a draw back, I disagree. When shit hits the fan in the primary recreation and it begins getting disturbing, no matter you hear in your head goes to sound so much higher than a voice actor making a “spooky voice.” Plus, an enormous theme of the sport is communication, and the shortage of a bodily voice actually helps to drive that time dwelling.

There may be additionally a brand new in-game desktop to entry the sport’s recordsdata. This characteristic was added solely so the sport may work on consoles since you possibly can’t entry recreation recordsdata on a PlayStation or Swap. I’d truly suggest not touching that half when enjoying on PC. It lessens among the impression of the factors the place these recordsdata turn into related. Additionally, since they’re really easy to entry from the primary menu, they might additionally include large spoilers for brand spanking new gamers.

Monika…