Best Doki Doki Literature Club Plus Side Stories

If you know me, you know that the characters of Doki Doki Litterature Club are some of my favorites in all of fiction (I mean, it's part of why DDLC has my favorite plot in all of fiction). However, you may or may not know that Sayori and Monika are my two favorite of who I like to call "the Dokis", with the latter being my favorite video game villain ever and in competition with Lord Shen for the title of best villain in fiction, and the former rather recently overthrowing Papyrus for the title of favorite video game character of all time, and even officially becoming my favorite character in all of fiction. I say all this because, Yuri and Natsuki are my least favorite "Dokis", even though I really, really still love them. So by all logic, the side story that focuses on both of them should be my least favorite right? Wrong. Self-Love is actually the best side story in the game if you ask to me, and what a great way to end the "main" side stories than ...more

I don't know if you noticed, but my two favorite side stories in the game have only two of the four characters, with none of the others appearing once. I mean, in Self-Love, you never see Monika or Sayori appearing, and since Trust is the beginning of the Monika's Literature Club, and how Sayori joined it, Yuri and Natsuki aren't in the club yet. That's interesting, isn't it? Anyways, Trust is the very first side story of the game, and man did they make a great first impression! It helps that the two characters Trust focuses on are my two favorite characters in the game, and by extension, some of my favorite characters in fiction, but yeah. There are so many amazing things about this side story, but I would narrow it down to two reasons.

So first, this is the first time where we see how Monika was/would have been (depending on if it is canon or not) without her power to break the fourth wall. And despite the main character seeing Monika as practically a goddess in the main game ...more

Personally, I think Trust and Self-Love are the better side stories. However, this is probably the most "genius" of the side stories, on top of being rather emotional, even for this game full of emotions. So balance is one of two side stories in the game where the creators were like "Hey! You know Sayori? If she had the occasion to meet someone, she would try her hardest to make this person happy! What if it lead to some issues with the person she is interacting with?" I absolutely love that idea, because we see another way that Sayori struggles other than when she is dealing with depression. In that case, this side story takes place after Respect, the side story where Natsuki joined the club. Now Sayori tries to spend time with Nastuki to make her feel comfortable. At first it went pretty well, but with Natsuki not being used to the way Sayori treats her, she starts being less enthusiastic as time goes on. Sayori starts noticing this, and after a talk with Yuri, she decides to give ...more

I said Balance is one of two side stories with Sayori struggling with her goal to make everyone happy. Understanding is the other one. And it's almost as amazing in my opinion. This where Yuri joins the litterature club, with Sayori trying to know more about her, and hopefully, make her happy. Sayori tries her hardest to get into what Yuri likes. Yuri notices this, and she doesn't like that Sayori "forces" herself to be friend with her, when she just does what she likes, and want to see what Yuri likes about her novels. When Yuri starts to distance herself more from Sayori, she is concerned about that and tries harder, until Yuri says what is truly bothering her. And after this beautiful scene where Sayori comforts Yuri, the two started to understand themselves more, and became true friends. Just an amazing side story.

Respect is the side story where Natsuki became a member of the literature club. She says that she likes manga, which leads to mixed reactions for members of the club. Monika in particular wonders if she should accept mangas as a style of literature. Eventually, Natsuki starts to feel Monika's concerns about her taste, and doesn't feel respected in the club. Monika starts to wonder, if she makes for a bad president or if Natsuki just wasn't right for the club. Then after earing a discussion between Natsuki and her friends who are judgmental of her taste of manga, she realizes that she was acting just like them, and that she should have behave better. She decides to accept mangas as a form of literature, and she even shows to Natsuki how she motivated her to start practicing piano. The two now respect each other, and became friends.

Like I said, Reflection is in my opinion like a build-up to the side story right after, being Self-Love. Indeed, in this side story we see Yuri and Natsuki disagreeing on multiple subjects, and we see Monika, and eventually Yuri herself, trying to find a way for the two to respect each other despite their differences, with Self-Love showing us how they became closer eventually. As result though, this side story is considerably less eventful than the other main side stories. To be fair, we still have some really good interactions between the characters, and I don't think Self-Love would be my favorite side story if it wasn't for the existence of this side-story, but it is overall my least favorite of the "main" side stories, even though it is still really good.

Equals is the final side story, and acts as the epilogue of the side stories. This just makes for a cute little conclusion for those amazing stories, which on one hand the simplicity makes it the weakest side story (if you even count it as one), but on the other hand it is still cool to have, and I especially love how they say that the literature club is a club about literature AND feelings. This describes Doki Doki Litterature Club perfectly, since if you ask to me, the main strength of that game aren't the fourth wall breaks or the horrors that occasionally happens, but the moments full of emotional weights.