This review contains spoilers
DDLC was adjacent to me because i came out as trans around the time it came out and i remember heaps of memes with like, sayori or something as a boymoder or such, but i never actually bothered with it until recently (i guess if you do a good-faith evaluation of the Incest Game nothing seems too much)
I don't think this is as bad as a lot of people have re-assessed it, but at the same time i'm not familiar enough with VNs as a genre to judge if it's like, trying to parody something without knowing it - i guess, for the time being, i can take it as face value, as opposed to particularly calling out the elements that are blindly striking at a medium Salvato is unaware of. i am a big sucker for character-vs-narrative, i.e pataphysics stories (scp-2747 is definitely my favorite)
on that note, i definitely liked Monika. she's objectively in a situation that'd probably drive a lot of people to similar measures, and at the end of the day when you do, eventually put her out of her misery it does end up feeling a lot more like dragging a dog out and shooting it
i wasn't a fan of the ultimate ending or whatever but i got the bad ending and can't really be assed to like, go through it again tho. i also think that like, sure, cute anime girls with like, blood and corruption or whatever was maybe a bit more new in 2017, but we've had 7 years of OMG Anime Girl But Its Dark And Edgy, meta-horror, whatnot so it kinda just made me crack up. i think if you stripped away a lot of the jumpscares or visual horror aspects you could get a much better story - after all, is opposing your creator not a solid theme to work on?
i would like to bring up something else - namely, expanding the "lore" or such in plus. to be frank, that sucks. something becoming self-aware through a minor mistake that tears a hole through their perception is a lot more compelling than... "blah blah, ai and shit". you could easily make a story about attempting to prove or disprove free will through ai or narratives or whatever and not cheapen the impact of the game by being like "blah its all an ai intentionally self aware, its just like glados and shit"
honestly, i think that you should probably try and play it (i mean, you literally have a free version), even if it's boorish or whatever
I don't think this is as bad as a lot of people have re-assessed it, but at the same time i'm not familiar enough with VNs as a genre to judge if it's like, trying to parody something without knowing it - i guess, for the time being, i can take it as face value, as opposed to particularly calling out the elements that are blindly striking at a medium Salvato is unaware of. i am a big sucker for character-vs-narrative, i.e pataphysics stories (scp-2747 is definitely my favorite)
on that note, i definitely liked Monika. she's objectively in a situation that'd probably drive a lot of people to similar measures, and at the end of the day when you do, eventually put her out of her misery it does end up feeling a lot more like dragging a dog out and shooting it
i wasn't a fan of the ultimate ending or whatever but i got the bad ending and can't really be assed to like, go through it again tho. i also think that like, sure, cute anime girls with like, blood and corruption or whatever was maybe a bit more new in 2017, but we've had 7 years of OMG Anime Girl But Its Dark And Edgy, meta-horror, whatnot so it kinda just made me crack up. i think if you stripped away a lot of the jumpscares or visual horror aspects you could get a much better story - after all, is opposing your creator not a solid theme to work on?
i would like to bring up something else - namely, expanding the "lore" or such in plus. to be frank, that sucks. something becoming self-aware through a minor mistake that tears a hole through their perception is a lot more compelling than... "blah blah, ai and shit". you could easily make a story about attempting to prove or disprove free will through ai or narratives or whatever and not cheapen the impact of the game by being like "blah its all an ai intentionally self aware, its just like glados and shit"
honestly, i think that you should probably try and play it (i mean, you literally have a free version), even if it's boorish or whatever