What Did We Play Yesterday?

Doki Doki Literature Club is a freeware indie EVN by Team Salvato that has generated quite a bit of buzz. As of this writing r/DDLC has more readers than r/visualnovels. This is a game best played blind, but it is not shy about its secrets; you will be given multiple content warnings.

I recommend this one to anyone who is generally comfortable with psychological horror titles, emphasis on psychological. (If the repeated content warnings make you anxious, this probably isn't the game for you, Salvato really isn't kidding.) At the beginning you are treated to a bog-standard bishōjo premise as a guy who joins his high school's literature club and is happy to discover all the members are cute girls who want to get to know him better. I personally found the beginning a bit slow, I was eager to get to the good stuff. Well, you won't have to wait long. Stick with it.

I recommend this one to fans of psychological horror, subversion, or really... anything unique or different involving genre expectations/game mechanics. The attention to detail is pretty awesome, and as someone who is familiar with the ins-and-outs of EVNs and this particular engine, I was impressed by the level of thought that went into it. I'll leave it at that.

I did several PTs to get all the endings, but I think one full PT is effective and the way the game is structured you get most of the content in the first run. I think you can get the full experience in 3 to 4 hours.

Sound of Drop is a indie horror JVN by aiueo Kompany. It uses Ren'Py, a fact I didn't realize until the credits rolled. It's about a schoolgirl named Mayumi who visits Manten Aquarium at the urging of her best friend Himeko, who is obsessed with urban legends. Manten is rumored to be the site of strange phenomenon and Mayumi is reluctant to go for personal reasons but she acquiesces. Shortly after arriving, she get experiences the strange phenomena firsthand.

This indie VN has refreshingly solid production values, with a limited but effective soundtrack. It's an unvoiced branching game with a total of 31 endings, 4 of which are true endings. Four playthroughs are required to complete the entire story. Red choices possibly lead to death and blue choices don't affect the storyline. There is a neat feature to auto-quicksave before each choice, which can be useful when ferreting out the bad endings. The translation is a bit stiff.

This game feels like Corpse Party at certain points. It's not as visually gruesome, but it features haunted spaces, fueled by grudges, that overlap with our reality. I really enjoyed the eerie imagery, and the corpse-party-vibe exploratory segments are the strongest points of the game. Unfortunately, there are too many bad endings and some are repetitious and don't add to the story. After the first ending the metaphysical explanations and rules for the Aquarium's state become more convoluted and a little difficult to follow. I wasn't sure if that was the script or the translation or both.

I finished my first PT in about 5 hours and 100% the game in 12. Looking at the cheev stats, 42% of players have started the game, which is unsurprising since this was in a Humble Bundle. Probably 20% beat the game once, 15% start a plus game, and 10% fully complete the game.

This was a game on my list that happened to be in a really juicy Sekai Project bundle. aiueo Kompany's next game, Fatal Twelve, should be out in English this month. It sounds more like a supernatural mystery/thriller than a horror title, and I'm interested in trying the demo, but I'd like to see a stronger translation.

My love of the Danmaku Unlimited series is well known in these parts. I have commented before that both of these games and my other bullet hell favorite, Crimzon Clover, are really hard on my hands. Sometimes remapping the controls helps.

Danmaku Unlimited 2 and 3 are both available on Android/iOS so I picked up DU2 on mobile to try out the touch controls. It's a different game this way and it makes for a relaxing diversion. I don't feel very competitive about it because of the lack of precision. Even on a larger screen, like a tablet, I sometimes found my finger obstructed the hitbox and I felt I couldn't make incremental adjustments nearly as well as with a controller, but I'm happy to have it as a mobile diversion.

A number of Neo Geo shooters are available in the Nintendo Switch estore, all with TATE mode. I picked up Gunbird and it's fine (Imagine me saying this is in DA2 Fenris' post-coital voice). It's good, clean fun with no surprises. I suspect a lot of these older shooters are fairly interchangeable and I have set my sights on newer ports. I was excited to learn Aka to Blue (which I cannot play because my devices don't support it, boo) has been confirmed for Switch, but there's no release date yet.

I was also looking forward to the Switch version of DU3, which dropped 03/13. The game looks great and plays great. I was slightly disappointed DU3 does not take advantage of the Switch's touch screen to provide touch controls as well, it would be really great to be able to switch between the two. Naturally, this game has TATE mode.

The good news is the Switch screen naturally compliments TATE mode, or portrait orientation. The bad news is the Switch only allows joycons to be used horizontally when unattached and there is no official grip. This seems like an oversight for such a versatile console, especially considering the prevalence of vertical shmup ports in the estore, until one considers how the Switch's heat vents are positioned.

The "work around" is to leave the bottom joycon slightly undocked. It's an inelegant solution, not only because the controller isn't fully secure but because the Switch is undeniably top-heavy in this configuration. The small joycon buttons actually worked in my favor, sparing my thumbs, but the top-heaviness was hard on my wrists and I missed having a D-pad (heresy, I know, but I do occasionally change it up).

ClydeRadcliffe uploaded a 3D printer schematic for a nice-looking Switch vertical grip. I think I could have it printed for about $5 at the library, however, the grip covers the vents so I'm concerned about the unit overheating.

Arstechnica just ran an article about this and highlighted efforts by Fangamer and Jeremy Parish to design a vertical grip. Unfortunately, their current design also appears to obstruct the heat vents. Supposedly the Switch manages heat well so I would still be interested in trying something like this.

I ended up picking up a $9 Switch stand for a tabletop fix. Playing DU3 with a controller and a stand isn't exactly the portable bullet hell experience I was hoping for, so I look forward to an announcement from Fangamer or a chance to print off that 3D grip.

Nameless is an otome about a teenager named Eri who collects dolls and loves carbs. She has lived alone ever since her grandfather died, but she has her dolls to keep her company. Then one day, they come to life.

The game is fully-voiced with CGs and full intro and ending FMV. Playing through one of the three unlocked routes opens two more and there are over 20 endings. The player pieces together the entire story through all routes as well as diary entries that are periodically unlocked. Nameless uses Unity and the main technical issue is a lack of keymapping or controller support. There is a somewhat arbitrary quiz minigame as well as a match game.

The translation needs polish and the script seems a bit more rushed in the later routes but it doesn't detract from the story. There is a bit of repetition in dialogue, but they do add new things to the common route each playthrough and there is a skip button. One thing that does bug me is the game uses a few filtered photographs for backgrounds, and these clash with the drawn backgrounds.

I was originally going to do a master post, but this game has quite a bit of meat to it so for now I'll just cover the first four.

Lance is a prickly doll in the midst of an existential crisis. I played his route first because he kept saving Eri from Yuri's lurid weirdness, which endeared him to me. Lance's insecurities, which stem from being a really popular mass-produced doll, were compelling and Cheritz did a good job with the concept.

When Lance takes over the play, I lifted my fist, my eyes shining, and whispered, "There is a God." Alas, no CG of Lance in a dress (and apparently no LancexRed kiss), so maybe there isn't a god after all, but I enjoyed the route. The parent in me screamed silently when Eri and Lance moved into the same room, but eh. What are you gonna do. Lance's "doll" bad ending is gravy. I should add that I felt like several of the choices in Lance's route are quite arbitrary, but that's a common issue in this genre.

The highlight of Yuri's route is his VA, who utters delightful endearments such as, "darling," and "my honey." I did not like Yuri at first. He's a consummate ladies' man who consistently invades Eri's space, but I found his common route dialogue funny (and Lance always shoos him away, so his up-close-and-personal act isn't terribly distressing). I decided to play his route second with the understanding at any given point I might be compelled to take off my slipper and throw it at the monitor. After I got to know him his antics didn't bother me at all. It's just Yuri.

I'm a bit on the fence about his route. Some aspects of it were really interesting. It bothers me that Eri felt the need to dress up for him and change herself (Lance verbalizes my concerns, actually), but when you add in the weirdness of their relationship--he is the doll accustomed to being dressed up, she is the owner--it just adds another layer to it. Yuri liked being dressed up by Eri, and now he is dressing up her--it's more complicated than "girl makes herself over for guy." The route felt really uneven overall, and that might be because I kept hitting one of the bad ends so I kept having to replay various sections until I got it right.

Yeonho is a cute, younger-looking doll who calls Eri "Master" and is terrifyingly codependent. Eri bought Yeon-ho as a used doll and we are perhaps not so surprised to learn his previous owner has left her mark.

This one went about as I anticipated. I personally found the route pretty claustrophobic, but we got some interesting clues about the main plot and some of the bad endings were D: It wasn't always obvious how to handle Yeonho's abandonment issues, so that's an aspect I liked.

Tei and Red are locked routes, which means they have more goodies, so under a cut they go. (Tei, anyway, I haven't finished Red yet.)

If you play this game "right" and play Tei's route fourth after getting the previous bad endings you go into it knowing the guy is some flavor of psychopath. One thing I really liked about the setup is Cheritz does a great job of telegraphing before the player picks the route (unless they play Lance -> Tei, in which case you go from tame, fairly standard otome to WHEEEEE). Unlike Toma in Amnesia, who masquerades as "the well-balanced guy" and ends up, you know, we get the red flags on Tei.

The thing that's kind of great for Tei's route, for me personally, is his background actually helps quantify his behavior while making it no less creepy. Tei is an extremely high-functioning psychopath, a result of solitary confinement and psychological conditioning. He is categorically dangerous and I don't feel like the game makes excuses for him, but he is sympathetic. I actually have more to say about him, I'll probably do it in a separate post. Let's just say I have complicated Tei feels, but also, I felt like his route still doesn't explain a lot of what's going on with him.

Overall, Nameless is a fun and delightfully creepy otome. The concept presents an owner-doll dynamic which allows tropes to play out a little differently. It's long, though I admittedly idle quite a bit I've already got 30 hours logged. 35 hours might be a good average playtime.

A friend kindly gifted me a copy of Nameless ~ The One Thing You Must Recall ~ and I am wallowing and/or thrashing about in it. I am not ready for a proper review, but I would like to mention I just finished up Yuri's route/endings and I am s h r i e k i n g and it has nothing to do with Yuri at all.

Like what the fffffffffuu

Is there a WORD for this thing Otomes do? That moment where you're abruptly creeped out and intrigued in equal measure, and you're like, That person appears to be a psychopath. Let us date.