Doki Doki Literature Club has always easily been my top 10 favorite games of all time. Through the visual narrative that it tells, the cast of characters and watching them develop as the story progresses, and fully displaying the bone-shivering horrors of school romance, it proved itself to be a game-changer in the gaming industry.
With Doki Doki Literature Club Plus it brings back all those charming elements with a new HD look, new side stories that let you go deeper into the backstory with your favorite “DDLC” girl *cough* Natsuki *cough*, and it allows console players to enjoy the story as well this time around.
DDLC Plus‘s story plays out the same way as it did in the original title. You play as the main character and your childhood friend Sayori wants you to get involved with a club at your high school and she recommends that you join the literature club. In the club, you have Sayori who is full of nothing but positive energy and vibes, Natsuki who likes to act tough but is in love with everything cute and loves to bake cupcakes, Yuri who is the vice president of the club who loves to read nonstop, and Monika who’s the president of the club and overall wants you to enjoy yourself and have a good time. While you’re in the club you write poems each day that you share with each of the club’s members. To do this you play a minigame where you select a variety of words on different sheets of paper to form your poem. It’s important to pay attention to the words you select because each of the girls caters to a certain theme to the poem, so if there’s a certain girl you fancy, make sure you look at their character chibi in the bottom left of the screen to see if they react to your word choice. One feature that I would’ve like to see is being able to read our own poem’s that we’ve written for the girls.
After the minigame ends you will be brought back into the classroom the next day to share your poem with the girls. Here you then experience the horror of school romance as you hope that the girl your after likes your poem. Can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve panicked because I thought Natsuki didn’t like my poem. From then on out the cycle begins to repeat itself and as it progresses things get more and more heated with your relationship with the girls, which I absolutely adored every second of. If you want to play the story through more than once or maybe see the variety of different choices to make that option is available to you as there are countless save files. The story itself is very engaging and has earned itself a very special place in my heart and left me wanting more. It’s a good thing that DDLC Plus provided.
In DDLC Plus the new additions that come with it is a desktop feature where you can access different types of pictures that you have earned throughout your playthrough, different music tracks, check on emails that you have received, look at the game files which can be filled with little secrets, and also play through the different girl’s side stories. The side stories themselves made me love each of the girl’s even more than before as they provided backstory about themselves and their relationships with one another. There are 6 side stories in total and no girl is left out as each of the stories allows them to interact with everyone at least once. So if you wanted too see a story between Monika and Natsuki, Yuri and Sayori, Natsuki and Yuri it’s all there. After spending a little over an hour playing through the side stories I left feeling emotional and very grateful that the addition was made to the game.
The art style of DDLC and DDLC Plus is out of this world. I have nothing but props for the art team who all deserve recognition for the amazing job that they did – you can find them at their Twitter handles here: @_Satchely / @SquChan/ @lu_cid_sky/ @VelinquenT/ @_klaeia/ @steevinlove (If I’m missing anyone please let me know). The character models look beautiful and are so full of color and emotions and the scenes are fully detailed and play a vital role in the storytelling experience. It honestly immerses you into the DDLC Plus experience and doesn’t let you go.
The DDLC soundtrack has always been amazing but this time around with new additions it has gone above and beyond. @variendarkgirl Put everything they had into composing the OST’s cause I’m still jamming out to them and probably will for the next couple of weeks, maybe even months.
Longevity wise DDLC Plus delivers. I have put in well over 10 hours trying to unlock every single screenshot and every achievement which is very time-consuming, but where’s the fun in it if it was easy? I’m definitely going to be trying to earn that 100% completion.
Conclusion
Doki Doki Literature Club Plus is a title that more or less has impacted me as a gamer and shown me to not be afraid to try something new. As off-putting as visual novels are to some people I highly recommend giving DDLC Plus a try as you can tell that the hearts and souls of everyone on the team went into this project. Maybe it’ll become a part of your reality as I let it become a part of mine.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox One console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.Want to keep up to date with the latest Xt reviews, Xt opinions and Xt content? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
