I can’t say anything that hasn’t been said, because while I’m a bit late to it, it’s still genuinely great at the psychological aspects, and mental health presentation that gradually distorts as the game is tampered with. However, I do think some of the twist factor’s botched when you play on Steam. Any of the meta aspects, like file deletion, are tied solely to an in-game thing as opposed to the general file manager. And honestly, that weakens it a lot. Having had the twist spoiled like, fucking seven years ago, I think this version just loses the mindfuckery of that execution and so it hits a bit less hard for me. It’s like, imagine playing ONESHOT without all of the fuckery of its clever use of your computer’s files. It wouldn’t inherently work, IMO. This doesn’t equate DDLC in its sum to be bad, it’s obviously well praised for a reason, but this version feels like it maneuvers around such a riveting twist a bit less gracefully.

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! is better than I anticipated.

I don't like the cutesy visual novel part of it, Act 1 is a drag to get through, but I firmly believe that the horror wouldn't be nearly as effective without it - keep in mind, though, the psychological horror is very much overrated. It's decent for the short length of the game (I believe I did everything but the good ending in under 3 hours, I'm a relatively fast reader), but nothing much beyond that.

I would bump this down to a 2.5 stars but I really appreciate the effort and thought that went behind this title, and I commend Team Salvato for their skill in subverting player expectations and the game's uniqueness.

I didn't play the substories in Plus! and I have no intention of doing so - personally, I feel that all of the characters are developed enough during the main game, albeit requiring some inferring from the dialogue, but I'm much more interested in DDLC+ as a HORROR game and nothing else.

High 5/Low 6 / 10