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Doki Doki Literature Club

Review: Shattered Worlds: Blood Moon

https://www.reddit.com/r/DDLCMods/comments/bs5tqd/the_blood_moon_chapters_chapter_1_before_during/

Shattered Worlds: Episode 3: The Blood Moon Chapters: Chapter 1: Before, During And After The Stories (or a demo for it) is out now. And... I'm happy. I'm happy that this series went so far into the ground I don't have to feel attached to it anymore. I'll never waste another minute of my life playing a Shattered Worlds mod, or anything by Azrathas for that matter. I'm going to go through this pile of dog shit chronologically.

The melodrama in the opening text is disgusting.

"Before the existence of time" - that's already a contradiction in terms.

"There were two beings created. One made of Righteousness and Purity and the other a being of pure darkness and intelligence..."

You know, writer, we are mature individuals who do not need to be, and are not, scared by the villain being introduced in red text telling us how DARK and EVIL he is which we didn't already know because you named him Dr. Dark.

The opening scene is a trainwreck.

The opening scene shows Prime and Dark happy togther in an essential Garden of Eden.

Dark (after being reminded by Prime that they can't die): "Oh yeah! We're Immortal beings! How could I forget?"

He couldn't forget. But the writer could.

We're told Prime and Dark were the first beings created, but that's obviously not the case because they have knowledge of our culture. They talk about Peter Pan and Hook. And then there are modern buildings. Did two people who are essentially Adam and Eve build those? The writer is telling us that Prime and Dark are primordial beings, but *showing* us that Prime and Dark were created as derivatives of our present-day culture and only exist to carry out a poorly thought out plot and make boring jokes and references.

When the beings tell Prime about the prophecy

Prime falls into a cave and gets separated from Dark. He finds a magical stone and touches it and speaks to some beings represented by colored silhouettes of MC. They tell him about the prophecy that Dark will be destroyed and his end will bring about peace.

Prime should be shocked to find other beings. Maybe this wasn't the writer's intention, but I understood "Before the existence of time" to mean that Prime and Dark were the first two beings and up to this point it's not hinted at that they've ever seen anyone else. But Prime acts like there's nothing interesting about what's going on except what he's being told.

Prime shouldn't just accept what they're saying. When a mysterious ghost appears to you and tells you your brother is going to die, you're going to ask for explanation, you're not going to say "I can't let this be Dark's end! He's my brother!" Prime is acting like he already knows about this prophecy.

Regarding the prophecy itself, the writer is now showing us that his entire story is based on a giant knot of non-sequiturs. Prime is told that Dark's destiny is to die and his end will bring about peace in the world. Why? What has Dark done up to this point? The only rational conclusion to draw here is that those beings are evil and want to murder the innocent Dark.

I remember sending Azrathas a DM following the release of Crimson Hearts where I expressed concern at the idea of a prophecy being the crux of his plot, given that it's incoherent. He told me he saw my point and that the prophecy "wasn't really going to matter much in the end". Now we see it's still the crux of the plot. Was I lied to? Does Azrathas have something up his sleeve? After all this, I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Stay away from time travel, please

Prime is insane to decide Dark shouldn't know about it. He wants to protect Dark and these beings want him dead. So he decides to lie to his brother whom he supposedly loves to prevent him from finding out that people are trying to kill him for no reason? Having him apologize later doesn't fix this.

It astonishes me how all of Azrathas's characters just treat it as a given that their friends should never know the truth about anything, like there's no concept of being honest with others by default. Honestly, I'd be surprised if this writer isn't a compulsive liar in real life, as he seems unable to create a character who isn't.

Prime is insane not to try the stone again. He touched it and it did something magical which he needs more explanation of. The stone is still there and looks the same. So he doesn't try it again?

And the rest of this pile of manure...

Time is skipped, Prime and Dark are shown in a modern-like society. Dark is apparently a renowned scientist with multiple facilities under his control. Prime visits Dark and Dark tells him how he found Riyaso, Nikatsu, Riyu, and Akinom and how they became subjects at what he seems to be suggesting is some kind of mental "hospital".

Psychiatry is pseudoscience

Sayori is explained as having "multiple personality disorder". Oh fuck you Azrathas. That's not what the game established and you either know it or don't care. Later, Dark is shown speaking to the girls and explaining that he's going to move them to a facility where they'll be treated more like test subjects and less like patients.

When did other people get created? I guess I shouldn't expect an answer to this given how Azrathas demonstrated he can't remember that he told us Prime and Dark were the first beings, but for some reason I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he would still explain when all this changed.

Is Dark telling Prime about his lies? It's really confusing because Dark is recounting his story to Prime, but the dialogue we're reading suggests that the version of events we're being shown is not the one our POV character is hearing.

During Prime's conversation with Dark, Hydra, the Red Skull, Steve Rogers, and SHIELD are mentioned. For fuck's sake. It's in the Marvel universe. I couldn't believe this. When I was reading it I went on for several lines legitimately starting to wonder if Hydra and the Red Skull were real. I went so far as to look it up because I didn't want to jump to the conclusion that the writer would really do this. Why did I ever trust this writer...?

This cavalcade of unexplained proper nouns (not the Marvel ones I mentioned, there were dozens more) is useless, by the way. I don't remember a single one of them five minutes after playing as I'm writing this. Are these names from the Marvel universe I don't know about?

When Dark reveals his evulness to the girls: Figures, Monika is a hero and puts up a fight to try to protect the other girls while they all act like damsels in distress. I've always been offended at how the Shattered Worlds mods smear every Doki but Monika, but I hoped that the end of Hope For Change where she and MC finally stopped lying to them would be the end of that.

Just what does Dark think experimenting on these girls is going to gain him, anyway? He heard a prophecy from some magical beings at least 15 years ago that he's destined to be destroyed (I'm not sure if it was just 15 or thousands?). Why would he think that experimenting on human girls will give him a way to change his supernatural destiny?

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