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Not being given the power of Paragraphs. >:D
*Is nosy and scrolls further down* "Hair tropes in Japanese media"
If I had a picture of a bunny tilting it's head in puzzlement, this would be a pretty great time to drop it. Also here's a freebie: Black, spiky hair = Boring overpowered protagonist who always wins.
Hahaha, that'd be a cute pic. It was a fun analysis to do. One of the things that came up was that black hair tended to be strongly linked with traditional role models, elder siblings and the like.
I may as well make it the most detailed ever! So, here goes:
As I was boringly scrooling over the 'Store', I came upon this... cute-looking visual novel (for it was free, yes recently I have been interested in them, kind of to draw inspiration from). So, without further ado, I took a closer look at it.
And well, in those tags, you could see 'psychological horror' tag. It got me curious, as to where could that horror be? Someone commited suicide there? Who knows, but the warning text "{...}you are at least 12 old" and "not {oversensitive}{...}" did kind of make it look fishy... Something is sure to be strange there... It surely may not be those cute goody-goody stories that are being written in books 'for children'...
Finally getting some time, I started to play it... {Here goes spoilers}
At the menu, the same 12 year old and mental stability warning appeared. Well, that means that something in this game can be really... strange. I was curious as to what could it be? So after I checked at the settings, 9X6 save slots, (hoping that something might be interesting there, but there was nothing, really, as usual), oh, and the music, it sounded cute, but even so, I got kinda annoyed by it... (Although, it did reminded me of some... renaisance-era (if I'm not mistaken) music that I have listened to during music classes...) And those over-enthusiastic animated figures kind of... With that 'horror' in mind, how can they be happy? So this mystery is left only for the main character to solve..? I pressed the 'New game' button.
Write your name.
Well, what should I type in? (This area really reminded me of Cinderella phenomenon - visual novel, in which you can give a name for the main character)
The user name? Nah, maybe something else, not my real name either(No, I don't like playing as 'myself'). I assumed that the protagonist will be a male character, so, to make his name to be... Not some @$$#*l%, or some other similar swear... Emanuel... Yes! Definitely Emanuel.
And so the story began... The BG was not something really amazing - looked kinda synthetic, those dark rural-zone houses and grass... Some weird horizon - as there were no terrain irregularities or some other surface objects, aside from walls around the houses...
The protagonist has no sprite of himself (I often meet this in visual novels... Perhaps male sprites are really hard to make..?), but apparently Sayori, his friend, has. This is where I was thankful that I did gave the character my own name - he really was too naive... (But still, this is kind of giving me the feeling of a 'typical' visual novel - the story in which the more 'smart' but without clear opinion protagonist is forced by his/her more 'opinion-clear' friend to do something...)
After this worthless talk with his friend, they finally went to school... Clubs... Well, it was obvious by then that he will end up in that literature club somehow, you could guess it by the name of this game...
And here he is acquainted to the rest of the characters... (Natsuki... She is not like the one from Lucid9...) Just why his thoughts are so obviously stupid? (This is where I got the feeling that this game is supposed to be a joke about visual novels...)
Ah, choices... 'Which one do you like the most?'... Relying on Sayori is kind of... pathetic, even for someone different as myself...
Monika's tip of the day... I kind of not understood it - like, don't keep on pressing the same place? {Well, I sure kinda want to try out what it looks like to fail in writing...}
Alas, the poem writing feature looked... Promising. (Lack of Monika has been noticed...)
Poem sharing... I kind of got the question, does it matter with who the poem is shared first? (Just why Monika is an option?) But alas - it seems the protagonist has to share with all of them, regardless.
CG with Sayori... Some time after, I saved the game, And quit, as I had more important things to do...
To be continued!
Right, where was I?
Oh, right... Let's get back to spoilers...
So, Sayori... Back at Sayori, but let's get a few detours - firstly about Yuri.
Yuri is not like the one from "Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge".
Secondly, about poems... Yes, they sure are quite an interesting feature... I rememeber the ending of Natsuki's poem the best:
"... But that's about it." Though others were indeed very interesting to read as well. Even if they haven't left the memories or impression.
But back to our dear Sayori... Though, what more to add? Other than indicating her wild (and even in immoral ways, one could say...) style?
Finally there's an argument between Natsuki and Yuri... Seemed like it could influence which character the protagonist leans to the most, achieving another CG with that person... (Monika was not on the list though...) Now which one did I chose for the protagonist..? I guess it was Natsuki.
And it was not so surprising that I got a CG with Natsuki on the next day, after some poem writing (seems that the game skips the rest of activities at school and goes straight to literature club...). What else... Well, this is where Sayori became... More silent, less active anyways. Probably not much, that game kinda lulled me into it... I still tried to chose Sayori... Then Monika... But to no avail... So went for Yuri. (A bit about poems... This time Natsuki's was less impressive than the first, but still, have you noticed how music changes when you read the poem? I remember Natsuki's the best...)
So, CG with Yuri... It seemed kinda weird that it did not seem like night - well, that is, outside it was not dark, it was still daytime, while inside the house, it kinda felt fit to be somehow late...
And guess what? Ol' Sayori coming up asking a big question... I remember about Monika's tip about saving, though frankly, it was a bit late for that (I didn't know this at that time - but who cares? I went for the story - collecting CG's, poems and other stuff was pointless as there is no "extras" section in game so... Yeah.
We're friends Sayori - I even predicted that this is probably gonna be a bad end... Seemed kinda obvious... Though why some of the times screen is black? Is there some missing content or just... It was not painted? Well, regardless...
The day has come... And once the protagonist started to talk to Monika - the music had stopped. It was quite obvious that something bad has happened. Heh, probably that Sayori killed herself...
And guess what? I was right... Albeit the picture unsettled me a bit still - I couldn't notice the details, aside from screen getting some static...
The End of Part II...
To be continued!
Oh... Hm... Maybe I should write a poem about this..?
The houses were green,
But scenery - dull,
Who lived there anyway?
Dear friend Sayori
Roughie Natsuki
And Mysterious Yuri...
While Monika there,
Often pushed away,
Talked to Sayori,
Just before death...
More than any other type of plot twist, it makes it hard to do a second playthrough, at least in my opinion. If a plot twist is foreshadowed well, being spoiled by it doesn't hurt as much because while you're reading you get building anticipation. DDLC does foreshadow it pretty well, it's just that the plot twist by nature is so severe that it's hard to get the same level of enjoyment no matter what you do. You could argue that the first full playthrough is the only one that matters, but I like to take into consideration how enjoyable subsequent playthroughs will be when deciding a score. I can't rate DDLC 10/10 for this primary reason (though I have secondary reasons like Natsuki being a bit underdeveloped and other minor nitpicks like imperfect pacing that are enough to bring the score down to 8/10. That's not anywhere close to a bad score or even an average one as my favorite pure VN, Muv Luv Alternative, only gets a 9/10 by my unreasonable standards. DDLC is definitely a great VN.
Oh... Back from my slumber... That sure does take time...
Right, let's see...
It seems that after the initial schock of seeing the corpse of Sayori, I kind of didn't noticed about someone's response about... I don't know. Still, I remember that I did 'unlocked' a secret poem.
Oh, I kind of forgot to mention, that Sayori's poem when she was gone, was indeed quite disturbing - it further confirmed the feeling that Sayori is about to suffer...
But regardless what the poem was - you know, there is no 'extras', unlike in some other visual novels, - I ended up back at the menu screen... With Sayori's CG ripped to little pieces, as well as where the 'new game' button supposed to be - a strange combination of letters, that could not be read... The save also disappeared...
What could this be? A bug? Or is it something else? The music as well was sort of... off, kind of like drunk or otherwise damaged. Well, even if it is a bug, wouldn't it be interesting to find out..? And so, I pressed the letters...
And the story started again... Just like the first one - the protagonist Emanuel was with a friend... Wait, what? What are these weird letters? What is the name of this character? Or is it a scream of some sort? And that grotesque thing appeared in visuals... The pieces of Sayori... Put in such a random way, that it sure does look creepy... Her text also is often unreadable...
But soon, this nightmare ended (That was hardly even a nightmare - more like, an inconvenience). Now the old scenery of the rural houses was replaced by quite... an open field, with the protagonist commenting how he goes alone...
So, the Sayori seems to be missing here...
At the school, the Emanuel is greeted by Monika... Well, this means the story will still revolve around the Literature club, right? She sure does mention it soon afterward.
And once again, according to the protagonist, "cute girls" prevented him from not joining the club... Though, the text seemed to be sometimes magnified and surrounded by some darkness - that sure looked creepy... At least it indeed looked unpredictable - it still was not clear of what is the difference and what exactly is going on... Aside from Sayori's absence of course.
Some of the text also could be fast forwarded... So, something is repeating here... But it seems that the dark text does have influence on how the story goes... Sometimes it quickly dissapears before I could read it. Taking a look at 'history' does not really help...
Still, the story went on... Looks like the poems are the same, all is more or less going like the first one, just without mentally-crippled Sayori, right?
Not exactly - Yuri's behavior was quite... excessive - perhaps I focused too much on Yuri's preferences with poems?
The argument between Natsuki and Yuri was... Much more verbally abusive - the Yuri's swearing kind of got me wondering - are the swears really became so widespread that they don't require age limitations more than just 12 years old..?
Needless to say, that sure made me decide to focus on Natsuki instead - though without Sayori, it kind of seemed confusing as to which one likes which word? Seemed that Natsuki took most of Sayori's preferences with herself...
Further going with the story, Yuri's behavior grew ever more disturbing, now even some strange visuals as well as broken music, static or silence sure did not made the atmosphere lovely - more like made me think "when will it end?" but I pressed onwards - willing to reach the end of the story...
The poem sharing... At some point even Natsuki pointed out the dangerous closeness to Yuri, she even wrote the poem about this - it actually was a warning text. Monika also confirmed that Yuri is fond of knives, and for such a strange individual I would really NOT give any... Even for Emanuel, I did not want to see the screen going red with his blood, brains and other things, so...
Regardless, the CG with Yuri, was there...
Or wait... Nah, nevermind. The thing is - the further this story went, the less and less you could see the response or some verbal activity of the protagonist... It seemed like the girls now decided everything, and Emanuel just blindly followed their statements...
Monika's statements kind of colmed the atmosphere down, but not to the point of extinguishing it completely - how does she knows this stuff? Why should I trust her?
The grotesque pictures appeared, often more disturbing as the story went - even it seemed at one point that there was reverse in the story, when Emanuel wandered off to fing Yuri, as to where she could've went...
Still perhaps Natsuki was not exactly on the best terms with her mind either? With ever stranger peoms appearing, the Yuri's unreadable - even with blood - peom really...
Oh, well - I should have picked Natsuki or Monika first...
Some blood suddenly pouring out of the Yuri'sright eye, without anyone but the reader himself noticing... And the scene before, the one after the chocolate story, certainly was... Some crazy affection.
And here comes the final moment - to accept this confession or not... Heh, almost feels like before..?
NEVER! Never with such a crazy thing - thank goodness she killed herself after that.
The text also looked unreadable... At least, until I took a look at the 'history' - the the same welcoming text at the start of the game, no, before playing it, over and over again... After a some clicking, I finally noticed a capability to skip forward...
You could even see the day/night cycle... As well as Yuri's face slowly dissipating...
And finally - Natsuki arrived, only to be schocked and getting her stomach inner cntents out of her mouth...
After her, Monika entered, just with much less surprise...
Just why the Emanuel stood there, looking at her corpse... For almost straight 3 days? Seeing her slowly dissoluting body..?
But back to Monika, she now just deleted all the horrors and ended this torture at last...
Sayori was gone,
Fragments of her - no more,
Emanuel went alone,
Only to find more...
More the story was different,
More the story was creepy,
More the story was strange...
Only three girls were there:
Natsuki, unhappy as usual,
Yuri, insane to the madness,
Monika, more helpful than others...
Strange text of darkness haunted the Emanuel,
Ever stranger the pictures terrified him,
Ever more creepy the behavior it was,
Until Monika Ended it all...
The End of Part III
To be continued!
Did I mentioned that Monika looked as with moustache at one(some) point(s)? Well, it was earlier in tha game, with sprites, when she was sad, I think.
But regarldess, here is where some dreams came true... Or at least, supposed to...
Monika - her huge CG across the screen appeared, it seemed like a school room in the background, though it kind of looked like it was somewhere out in space...
Well, now we're finally being properly introduced... I loughed when I have seen my computer name on the screen (or wait, was it user's name..?)
Well, the Emanuel did not bother responding or saying anything... So, she's reffering to the one a the keyboard - me...
Well, too bad! I play this game as Emanuel, and your pathetic 2-bit tricks ain't gonna work on me! (To the fullest, at least, I still partially was interested in this...) I kind of expected that horrors were not over, kind of expecting the floor to break and to zombie of Sayori or Yuri or Natsuki to appear...
Despite my expectations, the... Eternity, as it seemed more and more obvious, went on... Interesting thing was, that behind the windows you could see some explosions from time to time,
increasingly lighting up the area... Have you noticed that there are some purple things on Monika? On her hand and somewhere near chest? I wondered what could that mean... (After reading a bit about the game out in forums, I guess it something has to do with experiments with... the third eye, or whatever, though who knows?) and that music, no, ambience was like... Hm... Emptyness? Somerythmic banging into something? Some Waves piercing stuff from time to time? Either way, Wasn't sure that this was space...
Now about Monika's talk...
I agree with what she said about creative work (as a... Not very experienced, but still a writer) Indeed it is actually a better idea to work on short stories or even poems (Though these were not regarded so well by my... Countrymen audience, (ahem) readers, I mean), rather than a giant best-sellers... (Oh, well, who reads books nowadays anyway? I kind of though of going for painting stuff...)
Still, after going for a while, quiting game, trying to save, taking a look at options, finding Monika's .chr file... What else? More or less this is where I began taking a look at discussions, trying to find a way to get to the finish... That credits roll.
And, well, despite a relatively nice time together, Monika started to repeat already read things... After about 3 more of them, It now became obvious that there was no other way to advance, aside from deleting her file (I was reluctant to do so, but still, bye Monika...)
Did so while running the game, kinda wondered whether to exit it, or do while on?
Well, turns out there horrors were not 100% over just yet... (Monika's CG got ripped to little bits and pieces, "Help me!" - worthless Emanuel didn't bothered a single thing in here - why do I have to do everything myself...? Soon, the table also disappeared... Followed with a whole building... So, it turns out there is no sun nearby... Were those blue things a sign of black-hole nearby?)
Or are they? I did felt sorry for deleting her... So guess what? When Monika said that there were files of Sayori, Natsuki and Yuri out there intact...
I deleted them.
The Mastermind Monika,
Spent time together at last,
Pleasant chat in a room,
Floating in the depths of space...
Remembered the fallen,
Depressed Sayori,
Yuri the modified,
But where was Natsuki?
Oh and a poem,
Broken and tattered,
Looked like from hell,
But made it to Monika...
Such is the end,
Eternity's end,
Repeating over and over,
Until deleted...
Still, who could've created that lilmonix3 in the first place? Never took a look at it, though...
The end of part IV
To be continued!