Dubs don't lie.

Based mods moved my thread, either that or I wasn't paying attention and clicked on /vn/ instead of /an/.

OP, I went on my own rant about how much I hate that game, all be it for different reasons. You can find it here and other discussion about the game if you're interested.

http://tohno-chan.com/vg/res/12857.html#i13127

Read through most of the posts in the earlier thread you linked, i dont think ddlc is as bad as you make it out to be but its certainly not good, and its certainly no higurashi. I played through it after seeing it free on steam, not knowing anything about it, and it was a short little story that i enjoyed during the playthrough but the more and more i think about it the more dissatisfied i was with the game and unsure what it was going for, or how much i really enjoyed it. It wasnt subtle about anything and broke the 4th wall constantly while going "hmmmm whooooo could be messing with the gammeee????" in a way that seemed so obvious i couldnt tell how many layers of irony the creator is on. the one big thing on my mind the whole time i played it, which was really solidified after they found a way to shoehorn depression in there, was that it seemed like the exact sort of thing that tumblr and reddit norms would eat right up. sure enough I started to see it pop up and lavished with praise within the next few weeks

While the girls were cute, they werent enough to carry it. I dont think it was anything special, might even say it was bad at most points. The whole file deletion thing could have been creative if the game didnt treat you like a tard and beat you over the head with hints the entire time. In the end i wasnt sure what the point or story of the whole thing was

Someone else said this in another thread but I will say it here as well. This game was made as a mockery of anime and visual novels, and even the developers have admitted this. I have not met a single otaku/VN fan that has played or enjoyed this game.

I'm surprised that people would waste their time reading this when there are quite a few translated VNs that are reputedly good. And if one has read all of those, one should probably be learning Japanese.

>>2151
The typical VN crowd isn’t the audience for DDLC. At least most of it, as most simply don’t acknowledge western works.

>>2152
Then who is the audience? I've read that it's a parody of sorts, and if that's the case, the readers should be well acquainted with the medium, or at least the popular titles, to be able to enjoy DDLC.

>>2153
Seems to be streamers and just regular anime fans. People not acquainted with the medium. Making a “twist” VN isn’t that new of an idea but it seemed to genuinely surprise a lot of people.
Also, I don’t know if you’re OP or not but the developer has shown actual malice towards VNs, the Japanese and otaku. I doubt he wants to be Japanese, at all.

>>2154
I evidently misunderstood DDLC's concept. It's unfortunate someone would create this kind of visual novel; one ostensibly made out of spite for the medium and its culture. I'm saddened that it'll be someone's first experience with VNs, because if DDLC's audience is indeed the typical anime watcher and streamer, then the creator is consciously tricking people.

>>2155
This is why I hate the game.

>>2155
>if DDLC's audience is indeed the typical anime watcher and streamer
i doubt it, i think their audience would be the group of late 20 early 30 somethings that have really pushed being a nerd into the mainstream but still keep their distance from anime and see it as something to be shunned and avoided. The kind of people who would talk about how anime is really fucked up and weird, and then go out and try to find fucked up weird anime to confirm their beliefs. if you get what i mean

>The kind of people who would talk about how anime is really fucked up and weird, and then go out and try to find fucked up weird anime to confirm their beliefs. if you get what i mean
Isn't it trendy to like "fucked up and weird" stuff? It makes you appear special and quirky, I hear.

>>2158
Fucked up and weird like happy tree friends and don't hug me i'm scared is trendy. Fucked up and weird like Euphoria and Sayonara wo Oshiete isn't.

Post edited on 19th Aug 2019, 8:41pm

>>2158
sigh i dont even know anymore, everythings been hacked into an easily digestible shape in order to be the hip new trend of the week at some point, i lost track of what was cool and special around the time silly bands were catching on

>Fucked up and weird like Euphoria and Sayonara wo Oshiete isn't.
What's funny to me is that those are what I'd use as examples of fucked up and weird stuff that people would use as gloat material. I'm obviously out of it.

Doki Doki doesn't have a lot of graphic visuals and you're not supposed to see the characters as "real". They're just 1-dimensional archetypes for the player to romance hue hue. Compare it to yandere:I love you so I want to kill you. How many people talk about that?

Post edited on 22nd Aug 2019, 6:44pm

>>2161
Generally, if human children and or girls are being murdered, raped, or graphically tortured, you don't talk about it.

Doki Doki doesn't have a lot of graphic visuals and you're not supposed to see the characters as "real". They're just 1-dimensional archetypes for the player to romance hue hue. Compare it to I love you so I want to kill you. How many people talk about that?

>>2162
>>2163
>Generally, if human children and or girls are being murdered, raped, or graphically tortured, you don't talk about it.
It's hilariously absurd. And if you say you ironically enjoyed something, you can get away with whatever.
>Compare it to I love you so I want to kill you. How many people talk about that?
I'd imagine because most people don't know of its existence, at least nowadays.

>>2164
If i'm going to be honest, I wholeheartedly enjoy this type of stuff; not for sexual reasons. It's more because of the excitement I get from how "visceral" it feels and far removed it is from normal life. Western horror just doesn't carry the same weight to it for me. I never talk about this in real life and i'd rather not be grouped with annoying, trend chasing types of people because of what I happen to enioy.

>>2165
I completely understand. How you enjoy it doesn't seem strange at all.

>Western horror just doesn't carry the same weight to it for me.
I wonder if that has to do with the Western makers not wanting to stray too far from cultural norms.

>>2165
I think western horror used to be able to have those kind of visceral scenes. I really enjoyed the gore scenes in Day of the Dead, the practical effects and detail in them are spectacular. It's quite similar to the kind of gore you would see in 1980s anime OVAs, since those OVAs took some inspiration from those cult films.

>>2166
At first I wanted to reply with a long list of stuff I generally dislike in western horror: trying to stay within social norms, supernatural villains that seem to randomly kill people and follow no rules(which is also why I didn't like the Corpse Party ovas), setting taking place in spooky places rather than where you're supposed to feel safe, etc. Then I thought about it more and now I think i'm either a sadist, a masochist, or some combination of the two.

In western horror, characters that get killed are either unlikable or blank slates. They're made as tools to be killed and their deaths are usually quick, even if they're bloody. If there is a character that is supposed to be likable, they probably survive. This doesn't do it for me. I enjoy seeing relatable and likable characters suffer. A lot. That's what gets me excited. Not necessarily physically suffering either. This is also why I've always enjoyed reading autobiographies written by civilians about life during war or right after it. I think this is just my nature.

>>2140
I understand your rant. I feel like the game was pandered to a nu-anime crowd, and it accomplished that.

I know places like fuwanovel want visual novels to receive popularity in the west, but I would absolutely hate that seeing as to what's happening with video games and censorship along with the modern day anime community which has somehow turned more cancerous than the one back in the early-mid 2000s.

>>2171
Sadly, VNs don't even have to be released in the west to face western censorship standards these days. This combined with several major VN studios closing their doors makes me think we're in for some dark times.

>>2172
I don't know about the western censorship but mobile games are eating the market share of visual novels. Making your standard VN is too expensive and risky compared to mobage with its addictive gacha mechanics.

>>2172
I wouldn't worry too much about the approaching 'dark times'. There already exists plenty of fabulous VN that have already been made and are waiting for you to play.
We won't run out of good VNs to play any time soon.

>>2174
I'm definitely not concerned about what I can read, since there's already enough to occupy me for a lifetime, I just hope that there's a future for new works as well.

>>2168
Right on the fucking money.

Everybody's favorite VN is back.

>>2234
Now that's something what I didn't expect at all. It is even commercialized.

Seeing this thing get this much validation is annoying.

>>2236
Agreed. The game is a mockery of visual novels. It's insulting to the industry to push this shit post of a game.

Probably might be a good time to talk about this since this will be the only time this game will be relevant again.
Do you think if the game had a different kind of focus (Less about the psychological horror aspect of the game and more about what it could have become; i.e. a good game; characters with proper development, especially Monika; with all of the things that could have made it unique and interesting, like file manipulation, saving and loading, states of the characters with the files, developer involvement as a mysterious overseer, and an actual developed story to clarify other mysteries like the time jumps during intermissions and transitions and the underlying nature of the video game itself, like a VN/thriller puzzle game which would make it more intriguing), it would be more of a memorable play instead of just becoming the rubbish cult classic that it is now?
On another note, I've had a headcanon about the basic structure and events of an idea of how the game could have a good, sensible, yet interesting story; yet I wouldn't know who to discuss it with without it being buried somewhere or being dismissed as meme garbage, or with the meme garbage. I can't think of everything now, but maybe I can dump my thoughts that I've had for this game over the years here, and maybe receive a bit of critique if anyone would be helpful enough to discuss it with me. Just seeing about how much the story could have developed, with the human being trapped inside of a video game, nurtured inside several simulated digital realms since her birth after being digitally transposed from the world, the current owner cloning her and distributing copies across the internet, filtering her thoughts to not think about the bigger things (no one past this god), and never getting a glimpse of the outside even when she's aware of it, yet having dreams of the possibility for a brighter future with her husband in the next realm: the real world. That in itself doesn't seem like much on its own, but this is just one idea amongst many as an example, all of which connect to each other to create a well developed story. And seeing the potential of this story of what it could have become, just wasted on something to distract low attention span people with, it's just frustrating and disappointing. It's like game devs or storytellers nowadays just don't care about their stories or games anymore.

>Do you think if the game had a different kind of focus... it would be more of a memorable play instead of just becoming the rubbish cult classic that it is now?
Probably.
>maybe I can dump my thoughts that I've had for this game over the years here, and maybe receive a bit of critique if anyone would be helpful enough to discuss it with me
Sure. This thread is as good as any. I'll read whatever ideas you have on the condition that you let me steal them.

>>2239
>I'll read whatever ideas you have on the condition that you let me steal them.
I don't see how you would, considering the dev probably isn't open to the idea of rewriting his novel yet again, and another game with this synopsis would just seem like a parody or rip-off. The ideas are just for everyone to discuss and prompt some thoughts if DDLC were written again. Right now I'm writing everything down and coming up to 2000 words, if not more, and I don't think I'm even halfway through of everything I wanted to talk about. Sure, it's kind of an unnecessary dedication for this VN, and certainly not one that it deserves. It might even be amusing or useless in the long run. But we'll see.

Every time I think about this game my day is ruined.

I'm kinda surprised they had the balls to release DDLC on switch in the age of Stop Asian Hate, considering the creator's racist generalizations about ADV and the people who make them

I remember there being a lot of press about how this was some über-thrilling psychological horror with whacky 4th wall antics. I never really bothered checking it out until after the hype died out, at which point I was quite underwhelmed by the lack of any actual character development and the extent of the "horror" just being what others have called "tumblr-level" portrayals of depression.

Oh and the other thing I remember is that it was clearly unoptimized since there was one scene where fans started spinning when the only thing on screen was an animated texture.

The combination of moe & psychological/horror _can_ be done right (e.g. I really liked Gakkou Gurashi for this reason) but the characters need to come first and foremost, and westerners inevitably mess this up and lack all definition of subtlety when implementing the latter.

I don't know if it's a coincidence but DDLC seems like a rehash of Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi.

I guess KS will continue to be the best popular VN the West ever produced

>>2269
It certainly seemed to have a lot of passion put into it.

>>2270
That, and at the very least, it wasn't made by people who hate the medium.

>>2268
Basically it is, but the fans will insist they are totally very different stories despite the tone of DDLC being very, very similar.
At the very least, Kimi to Kanojo puts more effort into writing the characters (DDLC just expects you to instantly feel bad for certain characters despite barely getting to know them as people) and the gimmick ends up hitting harder due to that.
The only praise I can give DDLC is that it's one of few Ren'Py games that takes advantage of it's Python orignis to it's fullest with the file tampering.

>>2271
That's always a big plus.

>>2269
>>2271
Too bad the devs are still kind of assholes. So much for porting it to Haiku.
https://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=10054

Post edited on 12th Jan 2022, 1:55am

>>2281
Or maybe all that's needed is Ren'py being ported?
https://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?t=2816

Post edited on 12th Jan 2022, 10:46am

critically acclaimed? It sold literally zero copies, you can't get any lower.

>>2346
Those are two different things which don't mean the same thing.

Still pretty close. Nothing shows appreciation more honestly than hard earned money.

>>2159
I know that you didn't mean the show itself but rather the type of thing that it is, but only on Tohno Chan can I read "Happy Tree Friends...is trendy".

>>2359
Ten years ago I think it was pretty popular.