i love fluff. i don’t always need a deep plot or a large-scale problem, sometimes i just want to see fun characters interacting in fun ways without any issues. when i watch anime, i usually pick adorable slice of life stuff over anything action-focused. it’s not that those shows are bad, it’s just that i don’t always want to watch them.

so, when i booted up doki doki dollmaker, i was excited. from all of the promo material, it looked extremely cute, and exactly what i was looking for at the time. i had just finished umurangi generation macro, an extremely distressing game, so i was looking to just have some fun and enjoy some cute boys dancing around their feelings.

doki doki dollmaker is a romantic visual novel, emphasis on the novel. it’s basically a linear adventure with some slight changes depending on the character you choose. even the ending is basically the same, with a little bit of dialogue and some different CGs that change based on your partner of choice. there’s literally no gameplay outside of choosing a couple of dialogue options, but that’s fine. it knows what it’s going for, and aims to tell a story over creating any sort of intriguing gameplay. i do wish there were something else, but i won’t nitpick.

but, once again, i came into this game wanting pure fluff. gameplay be damned, if i thought this game was cute enough, i could ignore most of my other problems and focus on the pure cute factor of it all.

and, the first hour to hour and a half is exactly what i was looking for! the character interactions are adorable; they mostly focus around establishing how each doll interacts, what their interests are, their general designs, and their personality as a whole. you get to see facets of each character depending on which options you pick, with really great looking CGs and some really nice music behind it all. it’s all extremely wholesome, and it was lovely.

each romanceable character is pretty staunchly different, though they can all fall into common tropes. desifer is your common jock, confident in his body and extremely smooth when he tries. torrin is the gentle giant, an intimidating guy who has a penchant for animals and cute things. ellery is… i don’t really know, he’s mature in his attitude, but doesn’t have the skills yet to fully act on that maturity. he’s also really, really boring. rook is the child trope, where he acts just like a 10 year old despite his age, and kahvel is the stereotypical nerd. they’re not complicated in theory, but there’s enough interesting details scattered in to at least make them unique enough, y’know?

the second half of the story, though, focuses a lot less on the individual character dynamics and places a bigger focus on the overarching plot, how our main character’s health is being put in jeopardy over these dolls being alive. the player-character, lyle, begins to have some pretty serious health problems, as the dolls are running on his heart instead of their own. it ties in the whole “red strings of fate” trope, and it would be a lot more interesting… if it didn’t take away from the character interactions, and cause a lot of random, unnecessary conflict.

up until about halfway through, there was almost no explanation on how these dolls came alive, and no indications that those questions were going to be answered. and that’s totally fine! this story still would’ve been satisfying without those questions answered, especially because they’re only brought up after you’ve spent the rest of the game pushing them to the back of your mind.

there are some other characters involved in this aspect of the plot, and they’re fine - cole is lyle’s older brother, and mr. mendoza runs the doll shop - but they feel much less like characters and more like plot elements. they’re not fleshed out well enough, and they receive very little development outside of the purposes of aiding/worrying over lyle.

this game sets itself up as complete and utter yaoi fluff, and it would’ve been better had it leaned into that fluff instead of leaning out of it. the conflict involving lyle’s health didn’t add to the story in a very meaningful way, and the relationship between lyle and any of the romance options would have progressed much more naturally had the health conflicts not come up.

either way, most of the game is still pretty light, there’s some decently fun romanceable characters here, and it’s still cute, regardless of its narrative problems. it’s aesthetically really nice, the CGs are great, and there’s some really lovely character moments for every route. so y’know what? if this is your thing, go for it. you’re supporting a tiny dev team, and you still get a wholesome, fun romance story out of it. why not, right?