A potentially minor DDLC removal

[StrymULTRA]

If this gets moved to a normal CRT I wouldn't mind, dunno if this qualifies for self-evident CRT but I feel like it does considering how simple the idea is.

So, there is this thing that has me bothered from quite a while, so this is both a minor CRT and a Q&A thing.

Breaking the Fourth Wall (Generally shown of being aware of the fictionality of her universe and its metafictional components, notable cases being her reffering to the Player from their actual username and talk about the game's download page, her explicitly stating to break the 4th wall or also her being aware of the game being recorded)

The piece of dialogue in question is this from Act 3, and says:

"Wait..."
"You do know I'm aware that this is all a game, right?"
"Could it be possible that you didn't know that?"
"That doesn't make much sense..."
"I even told you right on the game's download page, didn't I?"

And the statement in question from the download page is this:

Sayori, the youthful bundle of sunshine who values happiness the most;
Natsuki, the deceivingly cute girl who packs an assertive punch;
Yuri, the timid and mysterious one who finds comfort in the world of books;
...And, of course, Monika, the leader of the club! That's me!

I'm super excited for you to make friends with everyone and help the Literature Club become a more intimate place for all my members. But I can tell already that you're a sweetheart—will you promise to spend the most time with me? ♥

The problem is that this statement comes from the vanilla DDLC, which we all know it was retconned ever since Plus came out thanks to the introduction of MES which completely changed the entire basis of the lore that used to be just a character being self-aware in a Visual Novel that was downloaded in a common website, and now became a whole experiment from a company to see how to manipulate the game reality of their own world, with the Player being an employee working for them.

This matters because the statement disappeared from DDLC Plus and also the recent Mobile port, which instead became this:

"Wait..."
"You do know I'm aware that this is all a game, right?"
"Could it be possible that you didn't know that?"
"That doesn't make much sense..."
"That's what I've been trying to tell you all along."

This was also reflected from the fact that unlike in the original game's download page, there is no Monika intervention in neither the main DDLC Plus site, nor the Steam page, the Epic Games page, or even the back of the physical edition.

This was a deliberate, permanent decision, and Monika's ability to alter the download page was removed in two more recent versions of the game with all the official stores reflecting that, meaning that two things have to be removed:

The first being obviously the mention from the 4th wall break justification.

The second being her range, which becomes from "Low Multiversal" to just "Universal+, possibly Low Multiversal", aka from this:

Standard Melee Range physically, Low Multiversal with her powers (Implied to be able to reach also the Player's world due to her managing to edit the download page of the game or to get a real Twitter account, although the latter was only possible due to the help of a MES employee. VM2 is a simulation larger than VM1, which is the universe where Monika resides, with her being supposedly able to reach also the files of VM2, however it's unclear if it's solely due to issues regarding the MES servers)

to this:

Standard Melee Range physically, Universal+ (Has obtained control on a Kernel level of the reality of the game world, which is a universe with its own flow of time, as showcased by her being eventually able to completely erase it by deleting all the files of the game), possibly Low Multiversal with her powers (VM2 is a simulation larger than VM1, which is the universe where Monika resides, with her being supposedly able to reach also the files of VM2, however it's unclear if it's solely due to issues regarding the MES servers. Implied to also be capable of accessing files outside both VMs due to her managing to get a real Twitter account, although it was only possible due to the help of a MES employee)

And this affects Sayori too ig.

 

[Enter_Bluey]

Wow, ddlc+ truly ruined the immersion of our self aware girl...

 

[StrymULTRA]

Wow, ddlc+ truly ruined the immersion of our self aware girl...

That's one of the main reasons why people don't like the additions of Plus, they made waaaay too much lore to the point that the game's original idenity and message got a full 180° flip :V

 

[TheGreatJedi13]

That's unfortunate, but yeah. This makes sense.
Although I'm not sure this is self-evident

@Lilybitdun @MrKerf what do you guys think?

 

[Enter_Bluey]

That's one of the main reasons why people don't like the additions of Plus, they made waaaay too much lore to the point that the game's original idenity and message got a full 180° flip :V

Yeah they did too much to the point it ruined the purpose of her character. Downgraded her awareness to 3.5 wall awareness and replaced the "player" with actual in lore devs smh...

 

[Nonynho]

wow, i haven't played DDLC+ and after this i definetely am not going to lmfao

unfortunately, agree

 

[Lilybitdun]

That's unfortunate, but yeah. This makes sense.
Although I'm not sure this is self-evident

@Lilybitdun @MrKerf what do you guys think?

It might be a bit more than self-evident since it's effecting the abilities and ranges of two character

The OP itself looks good tho

 

[Nonynho]

It might be a bit more than self-evident since it's effecting the abilities and ranges of two character

one is a removal which we pretty much have no space to debate because of how unfortunately clear it is and the other is a wording change, so i think calling it a self-evident change may be doable by our standards

 

[MrKerf]

Question here is: Was the game really retconned by the second one, officially and all. Because Steam's quote:

Welcome to a terrifying world of poetry and romance! Write poems for your crush and erase any mistakes along the way to ensure your perfect ending. Now’s your chance to discover why DDLC is one of the most beloved psychological horror games of the decade!

Now, the original mind-shattering DDLC experience is packed with tons of new features and content exclusive to Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!

So, it isn't a remake per se, but a second-parter. As far as I understand, we treat both of the games as primary canon, but since the plot changes in Plus a bit, removing the stuff you mentioned would harm the first game's presentation of events.

Similarly, the statement from the original game links the Plus game, but also says "Or, check out the original game below..." So it's not like its treated as non-canon.

As such, I'll probably disagree, at least for the time being.

 

[StrymULTRA]

So, it isn't a remake per se, but a second-parter. As far as I understand, we treat both of the games as primary canon, but since the plot changes in Plus a bit, removing the stuff you mentioned would harm the first game's presentation of events.

Similarly, the statement from the original game links the Plus game, but also says "Or, check out the original game below..." So it's not like its treated as non-canon.

As such, I'll probably disagree, at least for the time being.

I think you're being a little too meta here. When we deal with heavy 4th-wall breaking verses, we only use what the verse in question uses in its narrative and not literally everything that can potentially happen just because it can be done by the Player.

I do not think that a self-promotion really makes things canon, as the game itself always takes priority over the secondary sources. The Twitter stuff for example is still usable because it's still mentioned on Plus from even her creators.

Personally this stuff leads me to think that what's kept in Plus has to stay, and what's removed has to go, as it reflects Dan Salvato's perception of the character, and if he changes his mind on stuff, then we have to respect that.

Was the game really retconned by the second one, officially and all.

Some things were indeed retconned however.

In the original game each of the .chr files of the girls used to hide a secret, and Monika's file had a message that said that something was supposed to happen in 2018 (something that was probably related to the Project Libitina stuff found in Sayori's file).

BUT... two things:

1. These secrets could be found only through using the functions of the irl pc to mess with these files. In Plus you're forced to use the in-game PC which is far more limited.
2. The mails of the MES are all dated in-universe as happening in 2019, which leads me to believe that whatever was supposed to happen in 2018 was abandoned. (remember that the original game was released in 2017 and Plus was in 2021).

This also made me realize that we gotta remove the "If attempts to re-insert Monika's character file in the game after her erasure are made, she'll delete it by herself" from her NEP as that also relies with messing with the files in the vanilla version which we cannot in Plus.

EDIT: I did realize that Monika's Twitter has posts dating to even before the game's release if you scroll down, the earliest from 14/02/2017. So I am now unsure as that is still treated as fully canon from Plus.

[This also means it won't be really self-evident anymore probably]

 

[KirbyFan03]

Yuri is best girl.

 

[StrymULTRA]

Can y'all not derail this with random things now, thanks.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I don't think this is self-evident since it deals in contradicting information from the game across editions, but this does seem to be fine. Approve.

 

[TheGreatJedi13]

I have moved the thread to regular content revision.
And also awaiting MrKerf's response

 

[StrymULTRA]

I have moved the thread to regular content revision.
And also awaiting MrKerf's response

It's 48 hours since CRT creation, I'll wait as well to be fair here.

 

[MrKerf]

I think you're being a little too meta here. When we deal with heavy 4th-wall breaking verses, we only use what the verse in question uses in its narrative and not literally everything that can potentially happen just because it can be done by the Player.

It's not the self-promo part from the in-universe perspective I am talking about. I mean... it doesn't matter that Monika talks there. Rather, even after launching the Plus version, the author still considers the original to be canon. Not a demo, not a discontinued version, not... idk, beta...

Personally this stuff leads me to think that what's kept in Plus has to stay, and what's removed has to go, as it reflects Dan Salvato's perception of the character, and if he changes his mind on stuff, then we have to respect that.

The Plus, even by its own descriptors and promos is considered an Addon per se (literally "Plus"). If you want to make such argument - that's fine, but that would mean that Monika, for example, becomes different character and more so warrants a new key rather than a downgrade, since both versions are still valid.

Some things were indeed retconned however.

Same as above.

Plus, you yourself said it. Her Twitter is canon to both versions, same Twitter, and... it's our Twitter... What else to say?

 

[StrymULTRA]

It's not the self-promo part from the in-universe perspective I am talking about. I mean... it doesn't matter that Monika talks there. Rather, even after launching the Plus version, the author still considers the original to be canon. Not a demo, not a discontinued version, not... idk, beta...

The author considers it as official, yes. Why would the author not promote the original game when the Plus is just the paid version with exclusive lore and other content?

However official does not mean that is usable, I just said it's retconned due to the more recent editions changing the dialogue. We do remove retconned information all the time, Marvel and Dragon Ball are examples of what I mean.

The Plus, even by its own descriptors and promos is considered an Addon per se (literally "Plus"). If you want to make such argument - that's fine, but that would mean that Monika, for example, becomes different character and more so warrants a new key rather than a downgrade, since both versions are still valid.

The issue is that the "addon" changes the dialogue and the change remains the same in the more recent release of the Mobile port.

Plus we do indeed prioritize the more recent version over the outdated one. The more optimal option is to of course prioritize the Plus over the original due not only it being more recent, but also because fundamentally the characters being the same outside of those lore drops, making different keys for super marginal changes is just bloating the profile (no, a single statistic is not significant enough to warrant it).

The real thing that actually changes here is the Player due to the whole MES lore additions, but making a new key just to add more stuff when it's really just the same entity with more elaboration is just absurd.

 

[FoxySonicMaster108]

Agree with the CRT (GRAAAH I HATE DDLC PLUS!!!)

 

[StrymULTRA]

Enough time has passed and enough staff agreed with this. It can be closed.

 

[Lilybitdun]

Enough time has passed and enough staff agreed with this. It can be closed.

Closing