Thursday, December 14, 2017

Doki Doki Literature Club vs. Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator


Free Indie game vs. free Indie game!

Click here to donate to my Patreon! If you read my reviews and want to see more and want to be a Patron for a site I love, please donate and become a supporter!

Hey everybody! Who likes free things?

Everyone!!!

It's not every day that a developer decides to release a free game. Usually when a developer does this, the game is probably a flash game or something simple that didn't take a lot of time to create. 2017 though has introduced two new games that have way more similarities than I ever thought they would, and both of these games are absolutely free! So I figured that instead of writing two reviews and spending more time working during the holiday season, I just said to hell with it and here we are! Doki Doki Literature Club versus Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator!

Now just to warn anyone going into these reviews, I'm going to discuss some spoilers. I'm not going to get into the plot or the twists and turns each game takes, but I'm going to at least address the genre and methods that the games take. For example, I'm not going to talk about the quirks of the characters in Doki Doki, but I will talk about the classic FNAF gameplay that appears in Pizzeria Simulator. If you want to really enjoy the games blind and come back to read this review afterwards, by all means go for it. You can find the link to Doki Doki here and the link for Pizzeria Simulator here. They're free. Just go and play them. It'll take about 2-4 hours for each game. Just do it.

So let's get to know our two games before comparing them, shall we? First off we have Doki Doki Literature Club, a visual novel dating sim where you are able to talk to a bunch of girls in your high school's Literature Club and write poetry to impress them. Then we have Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, a restaurant management game where you manage a pizzeria and try to make it as profitable as possible. Oh by the way, horrifying things happen in both of these games that may or may not scar you for life. But which is the better free Indie game?

STORY
Still here? Played both games or seen a play through? Alright, let's discuss.

So both of these games are pretty disturbing horror games, but for entirely different reasons. I'll talk about FNAF 6's story (and yes, I know it's called Pizzeria Simulator, but let's just call it FNAF 6 for simplicity's sake) first since it's the easier of the two surprisingly.

So you're a manager of a pizzeria and have to contend with the psychotic animatronics that want you dead. Some are programmed that way, some are possessed, and some are just undead humans that want to kill you. Honestly, none of this will make much sense unless you're already familiar with the franchise and like previous FNAF games with the exception of Sister Location, you're gonna have to dig for the details. The story is bad per se, but most of details are in sections that are going to take you an eternity to find. For example, there are three "lore minigames" in different locations, but the chances of you getting to them are a mixture of skill, repetition, and blind luck. It doesn't make the rewards satisfying if you can't reliably get the information. The main plot is fine enough, you're gathering animatronics for your restaurant for a particular reason, but the story isn't the focus of the experience, unlike Sister Location.

Conversely, Doki Doki is all about story. It kind of has to be for a visual novel. You're forced into dialogue trees and scenarios from the very beginning, and while you think your actions will have major repercussions as the game progresses, it's all an illusion. The main story will still progress and the main story is unavoidable. Yes, it does take a while for the game to become engaging when the first act concludes, but after that? Nothing will tear you away from Doki Doki. The plot will have a hold on you unlike any other game and will make you both eager to see what happens and terrified to see what happens. Point goes to Doki Doki.

Doki Doki: 1            FNAF 6: 0

AESTHETICS
I decided against doing a "Graphics" section because of how little they actually apply to these games. These aren't graphical powerhouse games, but instead they're able to impress with how well they look for a game with a shoestring budget. Besides, I'm not really a graphical horsepower kind of gamer. I'd rather see a developer work around system limitations to make their game visually memorable. 

FNAF 6 is definitely a creepy game to look at, that's for certain. Like pretty much every other FNAF game, you have a mixture between Atari style minigames and static hyper detailed animatronics coming out to kill you. But the you have the added benefit of seeing the pizzeria with all of its bright animations, colorful menus, and cartoony little cutscenes sprinkled about to keep players engaged. 

Doki Doki has a more anime aesthetic that it uses incredibly well in order to accomplish its scares. Yes, most of the game will reuse the same images again and again, but the slight distortions between each image will certainly do its job. The game will occasionally glitch (intentionally mind you) to freak you out, and it's when the game decides to break its traditional aesthetic that Doki Doki really starts to get into your head. Moments like those are peppered in here, but they aren't the defining experience. If it was just a single horrifying art style throughout, the game wouldn't be that scary. You would get used to those moments, effectively allowing the player to expect horror and disturbing imagery. It's only when that style is broken that the game becomes something special. 

But while I do enjoy how Doki Doki breaks its aesthetic for the thrill of it, FNAF 6 really does just make a more compelling world to be scared of. I look forward to the pizzeria sections where I know I'm safe, but I dread the nighttime sections where I know the animatronics are lurking. It really comes down to which is better; having an okay style that is destroyed to scare a player, or having naturally disturbing style that gets under a player's skin, but it doesn't change? Personally, I think that Doki Doki isn't as memorable for a visual standpoint. The scares work because the anime world is tampered with, but that implies that the visuals were flawed to begin with. You can't make scares out of the world as is, so it needs to be modified. FNAF 6 is just naturally scary. I'm afraid of locations because they're meant to be foreboding. I don't want to stare at an animatronic because they look horrifying and they look like monsters, plain and simple. Point goes to FNAF 6

DOKI DOKI: 1            FNAF 6: 1

GAMEPLAY
By nature, a visual novel's gameplay is boring. All you do in a visual novel is click to continue the story. That's it. Oh sure, the story could still be absolutely riveting and encourage players to keep reading, but that's the key word; reading. You want to READ more. You don't want to PLAY more. 

I will say that at least Doki Doki tries to make playing a visual novel more engaging. The poetry sections offer you more options to think and form a response, and how the game messes with you can also effect how you navigate the menus of the game, but that's really all there is. You still click to move through a series of text boxes. 

FNAF 6 is the clear winner in this department just for how varied the gameplay is. Yes, you have the pizzeria sim where you can buy items, place them in your restaurant, upgrade their safety features, money making features, and cleanliness. You can get sued, buy discounted items, raise your "fun" meter, buy four whole catalogs of items, play minigames, decide whether or not you want sponsorship deals (God help you if you do!), and of course deal with the animatronics. 

The actual sections where you're locked in a small room and have to survive against the machines is undeniably the best part of the game. You have several tasks that you have to go through, and each task takes a significant amount of time, makes noise that alerts animatronics to your location, and can only be accomplished one at a time. You have 11 things that need to be taken care of, and you need to deal with two vents where the animatronics can get into. If they get too close, you can turn off your vent to decrease noise and turn off your computer to stop all noise, but that raises the temperature and stops you from attending to tasks respectively. There's a ton of nuance and management elements in this game and makes it the most varied game in the series to date. Even when I was dying (and I was dying a lot), I never had a problem with the mechanics. Compared to Doki Doki's static text screens, FNAF 6 is just more of an engaging experience. Point goes to FNAF 6

DOKI DOKI: 1            FNAF 6: 2

HORROR
What would a horror game be if it didn't have any scares to them? Both of these games are unique for how they go about scaring you, and yet both of these methods couldn't be more different from the other. 

Once Doki Doki decides to play its hand, the game goes from being a bright and happy dating sim to something more... unsettling. Every minute something happens that just makes me more concerned that something terrifying is going to happen. I can click on a text box, and one of the characters may say something off, or the background might change slightly, or maybe something fundamentally wrong just happens that makes me question what I'm even playing. 

FNAF 6 is just your standard FNAF game. Now while that may sound bad, it's still a master class example of how to edge players closer and closer to being scared. If order to even complete the night tasks against the animatronics, you need to be listening constantly. You need to turn your volume up to listen to everything, and you need to make sure that you're sacrificing speed for efficiency. If you die, you can't help but feel it's your own fault and that you're to blame for it. You rushed, or you forgot about one of the mechanics, or maybe you tried to risk too much and it backfired on you. You are in control of when you live and when you die. 

You have no control in Doki Doki. Because of the linearity of the experience, you have to keep trucking through. You have to expose yourself to the world and the characters in order to progress. There's no other way to finish the game. It's possible to beat FNAF 6 without dying once, but it's impossible to not be scared by Doki Doki. Doki Doki gets under your skin. It becomes something more the further you play, and you will be in stunned silence at everything that happens. Not only that, but you aren't going to see everything the first time through. If you play the game a second time, you'll get completely new scares and moments that will play with your mind and subvert your expectations. FNAF 6 will always be the same whenever you go back to it, and while that isn't bad, it isn't as special and effective as Doki Doki. Point goes to Doki Doki

DOKI DOKI: 2            FNAF 6: 2

MEMORABILITY
Which was a better experience? Which was the game that stayed in my mind the longest after I left?

This may seem like an odd category to include, but really thinking about horror movies and games. We don't remember them for their plots most of the time. Sure, there are exceptions to every rule, but if you were to ask me, horror, especially horror games in particular, are defined by their moments. Those brief sections that cement in your mind what they're all about and will haunt your dreams for years to come. It has Pennywise causing constant terror, Alien has a chestburster, Silence of the Lambs has Hannibal Lecter, Silent Hill 3 has it's rooms, Resident Evil 4 has the opening village, you get the idea. A horror experience's memorability comes in all shapes and sizes, but we remember them for a reason; they got under our skins. 

So when it comes to both of these games, which one is the more memorable experience? And no, I'm not going to knock FNAF 6 down because it's the sixth game in the series. Sister Location last year proved that it could be completely memorable while trying something different and new, so why not FNAF 6? And to its credit, FNAF 6 does inspire some memorable moments. Seeing horrifically mangled versions of Freddy, Baby, and Springtrap are true nightmare fuel, and the isolation is pretty memorable when you're left alone with them. The game also deserves a special shout out to those sections where you're left alone and have to salvage them and you're just left staring at them for minutes on end. 

Doki Doki does try to make it's plot more memorable than other horror games, but its the characters that steal the show. Each character has their own chance to shine and shine they do. Plus with the benefit of having only four girls, each of them will grow on you as they terrify you the more you play. 

But if I'm being perfectly honest here, this category isn't even a contest. As much as FNAF 6 can provide interesting moments and gameplay, Doki Doki obliterates it. The worst part is is that I can't even tell you which moments stole the show for me. There are a ton of moments, but if I was to explain each moment individually, it would ruin the game for many. I can explain the scares of FNAF 6 because they are pretty easy to follow and explain. They don't require investment or emotionally attachment. A monster comes out and yells boo. Scary, yes, but not exactly memorable, even if it is a rotting machine with the souls of dead children running it. 

Doki Doki gives you brief flashes of insanity and unease before returning to normal, making them all the more memorable. They never overstay their welcome and they're all completely different. Plus the final moment of the game with one character is so chilling with how it messes with you that it left me completely invested in what was going to happen. I actively went on Youtube to see people react to this game. I wanted to see other people experience Doki Doki just so that they can experience one of the best horror games of the year. I think FNAF 6 is a fine game at the end of the day, but there's no contest here. Doki Doki Literature Club is simply the better free game. Play both of them, but be sure you play Doki Doki first. 


2 comments:

  1. This is a great inspiring article.I am pretty much pleased with your good work.You put really very helpful information. Keep it up. Keep blogging. Looking to reading your next post.
    http://gainfreestuff.com/ 

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have visited numerous sites yet this is the best so far.It has the substance which everybody is looking for.I have taken in a ton from this post which will help me in future. We also share this site piknu about instagram with you.

    ReplyDelete