Video Game / Doki Doki Takeover!

aka: Monika Full Week

Due to this mod taking place after the third act of the original Doki Doki Literature Club!, it is highly recommended that you play or at least watch up to that point before playing this mod. As such, all spoilers for the original game are unmarked for this article. You Have Been Warned

"Usually I'd play the piano while I sing, but this is a nice change of pace."

"Now that you're finally here, we can all be happy and sing together. Forever. Forever. Forever. Forever."

Created by DusterBuster, Doki Doki Takeover (originally titled Monika Full Week) is a Game Mod for Friday Night Funkin', where Boyfriend sings against Monika, who has found herself in Hating Simulator following her deletion back in her own game. However, an unexpected intruder may devolve this innocent singing match into something worse.

On October 27th, 2021, the game received a very large update where it received its current name. Now rechristened "Doki Doki Takeover!", the previous version's events serve as a prologue to a new story: Boyfriend and Girlfriend have unwittingly found themselves in the proper world of Doki Doki Literature Club!, where they meet Monika's club members Sayori, Yuri, and Natsuki. Singing duels ensue, but it gradually becomes clear that something isn't right with the girls... Meanwhile, Monika remains trapped in Hating Simulator with Senpai for company, unaware of the trouble brewing in her home world — or so everyone thinks...

An official video dub of the mod premiered on December 10th, 2021, the end of which teased a separate mod titled Doki Doki Takeover: Bad Ending, a Darker and Edgier alternate scenario with all the horror of the original DDLC; this released on June 30th, 2022. A proper (and final) update for the regular Takeover mod was announced on Feb 14th, 2022, and officially released on March 12th, 2023. A one-shot sub-mod based on Friday Night Funkin' D-Sides released on July 19th, 2023, and can be downloaded here. Final updates to the main mod and Bad Ending were announced on November 30th, 2023, and were released on December 24th.

Song List

Story Mode

Prologue: Just Monika

1. High School Conflict (Monika)
2. Bara No Yume (Monika and Senpai) ^note Originally "Dreams of Roses"
3. Your Demise (Monika)
4. Your Reality (Takeover Mix) (Monika vs. Senpai)

Sayori

1. Rain Clouds (Sayori)
2. My Confession (Sayori)

Natsuki

1. My Sweets (Natsuki)
2. Baka (Natsuki)

Yuri

1. Deep Breaths (Yuri)
2. Obsession (Yuri)

Monika

1. Reconciliation (Monika)

Festival Week

1. Crucify (Yuri Mix)
2. Beathoven (Natsuki Mix)
3. It's Complicated (Sayori Mix)
4. Glitcher (Monika Mix)

Encore Week

1. Hot Air Balloon (Natsuki vs. Monika)
2. Shrinking Violet (Yuri vs. Monika)
3. Joyride (Sayori vs. Monika)
4. Our Harmony (Sayori, Natsuki and Yuri vs. Monika)

Protagonist

1. Neet (MC/Protag)
2. You and Me (Sayori/Natsuki/Yuri/Monika vs. MC/Protag)

End Credits

1. Takeover Medley (Everyone^note In order; Pixel Monika and Senpai, Sayori, Natsuki, Yuri, MC and Monika vs. Boyfriend and Girlfriend)

Bonus Songs

Side Stories

1. Love n' Funkin' (The Literature Club vs. Girlfriend)
2. Constricted (Zipper vs. Sayori)
3. Catfight (Yuri vs. Natsuki, featuring Sayori)
4. Wilted (Senpai vs. Monika)

Free Play

1. Poems n' Thorns (Monika and Senpai)
2. Dual Demise (Monika and Spirit)
3. Drinks On Me (Jill Stingray)
4. Titular (MC Mix)

Alternate Song Mixes

1. Baka (Tankman Mix) (Natsuki vs. Tankman)
2. Shrinking Violet (Spooky Mix) (Yuri vs. Skid and Pump)
3. Love n' Funkin' (Pico Mix) (The Literature Club vs. Pico)

Secret

1. Epiphany (Monika vs. You)
2. Epiphany WITH LYRICS (Monika vs. You)
3. Libitina (Libitina)^note accessible from the Side Stories section of Story Mode upon unlocking

Bad Ending

1. Stagnant (Sayori)
2. Markov (Yuri)
3. HOME (Natsuki, featuring Sayori and Yuri)
4. Datastream (Monika vs. You)^note This is not directly a part of the mod, but is its own sub-mod downloadable here.

D-Sides One-Shot

1. My Streets (D-Sides My Sweets) (D-Side Natsuki vs. D-Side Boyfriend)

Tropes:

• 100% Completion: If a player completes the entire mod (save for the Brutal Bonus Level), as well as the final song unlocked after that, they will receive a note from DusterBuster himself as commemoration for completing the mod and as thanks for seeing it through to the end.
• 20% More Awesome: Played for Laughs with the "Cool Gameplay!!!" option in Free Play, which blocks out the gameplay view (save for key gameplay elements) with an image of Sayori spinning around.
• Addressing the Player:
  • In "Epiphany", Monika directly addresses the player just as in the climax of her game of origin, talking about their new interest in that "silly little rhythm game" and asking if they would like to sing a song with her. Said song also has Monika face the viewer the entire time.
  • Beating "Datastream" has Monika address the player again, talking through the command prompt and lashing out at them for not doing anything to help her dire situation and instead treating it all as a game before telling them to leave her be.
• Adaptational Badass: Natsuki in Doki Doki Literature Club!, and by extension Doki Doki Takeover!, has never had any powers nor any fighting capability. In "My Streets", she looks to be no stranger to a scrap and even has new fire powers to boot.
• Adaptational Dye-Job: In the D-Sides one-off "My Streets", replacing her school uniform is a look befitting her street-fighting style, most notably having a pink jacket and bandages over her hands since she frequently uses flame-fisted punches.
• Adaptational Location Change: While "My Sweets" takes place in the literature club, the one-off D-Sides song "My Streets" takes place on a rooftop in an urban cityscape.
  • The mod as a whole also has a much broader change relating to Doki Doki Literature Club!'s metafictional elements: in Takeover!, Doki Doki Literature Club! is a Fictional Video Game within the Friday Night Funkin' universe much like Hating Simulator. At first, the only effect this really has is that Monika never speaks to you directly like in her original game, as the "player" she longs for is instead an unseen character In-Universe; a similar case occurs with Sayori, who remarks on how Boyfriend and Girlfriend "broke through to the digital world from the real world". However, it becomes much more relevant later in the mod, as the fantastical nature of the Friday Night Funkin' world means that Boyfriend and Girlfriend are actually able to bring the Literature Club members out of the game, giving them a much happier ending compared to the original Doki Doki Literature Club!.
• Adapted Out: While Sayori and Yuri are present in the background during "My Sweets", "My Streets" has their D-Side equivalents nowhere to be seen, likely due to it being a simple one-off song.
• Angrish: Boyfriend becomes so absolutely enraged after Monika deletes Girlfriend from existence that he devolves into "aggressive beep bop noises".
• Anti-Frustration Features: Costumes that can be unlocked via an Old Save Bonus can also be unlocked by playing certain songs in Mirror Mode.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Monika's One-Winged Angel form is based on the "Just Monika" scene near the end of Doki Doki Literature Club!. Except Boyfriend is standing on her desk with his usual sprite, resulting in Monika being utterly gigantic by comparison.
• Art Evolution: Between the original mod and the Plus update, Monika's pixelated sprites undergo this to look even more refined and fitting to the game's art style.
• Art Shift:
  • "Glitcher (Monika Mix)" features the game switching between the main game and prologue art styles regularly, which fits the theme of the song and Monika herself.
  • During "Stagnant", the art style occasionally shifts to one similar to hxppythxughts.png. One turn of "HOME" has Boyfriend go into this style again, now as a drawing on the notebook.
  • One point of "Wilted" has Monika and Senpai swap art styles around for a little bit; Monika (and the environment of Doki Doki Literature Club!) sporting a pixelated appearance, and Senpai (with the background of Hating Simulator) having some new HD sprites based on Duster's artstyle.
• Ascended Extra:
  • In terms of songs, "Your Reality", while previously only available via Free Play, is fully implemented into the Prologue week as its final song in the Plus update.
  • Zipper, originating from Friday Night Funkin' Restraint and previously limited to a title screen cameo, has his own side-story song in the Plus update, "Constricted", where he sings against Sayori.
  • Protagonist, having bowled out of a chance of singing in the prior update, gets his own song "NEET" by the last week introduced in the Plus update. Taken further with "You And Me" having him Promoted to Playable.
• Bait-and-Switch: In the announcement trailer for the Plus update, the dialogue seems to be setting up something darker, though once the Protagonist enters Sayori's room, he finds her... quietly playing Friday Night Funkin' on her laptop, only noticing him when she gets a Game Over and giggles in embarrassment.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Despite having no ill intent, when Senpai gets in the way of Monika's singing, she opts to delete everything, including Girlfriend. When she does so, Boyfriend gets pissed. When Monika tells him to forget her so they can keep singing, he doesn't let up, and possess angry sprites for "Your Demise".
• Boss Remix:
  • All of the prologue songs are remixes of songs from the DDLC soundtrack, while also being mashups with songs from Week 6 of FNF.
    • "High School Conflict" contains bits of both "Poem Panic!" and "Sayo-nara."
    • "Bara No Yume" is a mashup of "Your Reality" and "Roses." It also includes a bit from "Senpai" but in a minor key.
    • "Your Demise" is a mashup of "Your Reality" and "Thorns."
  • The songs in the rest of the story, excluding the Festival, also draw from other DDLC songs.
    • "Your Reality" is fairly common to hear in the songs.
    • "Rain Clouds" pulls its inspiration from "Ohayou Sayori!" from the original soundtrack, and "Peachy Pie" from the Plus soundtrack.
    • "My Confession" is a sped-up remix of the song of the same name from DDLC's soundtrack.
    • "Baka"'s main inspiration is drawn from "Strawberry Peppermint" from the Plus soundtrack.
    • "Obsession", particularly the first part, draws from "Lavender Mist" from the Plus soundtrack.
    • "Reconciliation" takes from the melody of "Stories of Friendship and Literature" from DDLC+'s OST.
  • Each of the songs in the Festival Week are remixes of songs from other mods, that being "Crucify" from Friday Night Fever, "Beathoven" from Vs Kapi: Arcade Showdown (itself a remix of a Beethoven song), "It's Complicated" from Friday Night Funkin' Soft, and "Glitcher" from Vs. Hex. There's also the unlockable "Titular" from Vs. Impostor.
• Breather Episode: Natsuki's week in the main story is the only week with songs that don't result in a Surprisingly Creepy Moment, being in between the brief scares in Sayori's and Yuri's Sanity Slippage in her week.
• Brutal Bonus Level:
  • "Epiphany" is the final song in the mod, unlocked after completing every other song; Monika wants to spend as much time singing with YOU, the player, as she can, and she spares no expense. The Eyes of Markov, which are One Hit KOs, litter the chart, going from sneaking a single eye to catch you off guard, to the finale when they outnumber the actual legit notes. Monika even warns you that it will be very, very difficult, and she isn't lying.
  • The Plus update introduces "Libitina" as the mod's true final song, unlocked after completing every other song aside from "Epiphany" and its "WITH LYRICS" variation. While there are no Eyes of Markov this time around, every note in the song is on the player's side of the screen, akin to the likes of "Phantasm", and the song is really fast-paced until the climax, meaning the player must be on their toes to get through this final hurdle to 100% Completion of the mod.
• But Thou Must!: At the midway point of "You and Me", the game will ask you to pick which of the four Dokis you want to sing with, with the song changing correspondingly to fit which girl you've chosen. However, you can't refuse this option. Fail to pick before the screen starts panning back down, and you're guaranteed a Non-Standard Game Over.
• Cameo Cluster: In addition to the girls, the title screen will occasionally show characters from other mods interacting with them, such as Natsuki and Sunday singing together or Yuri admiring Tabi's knife.
• Camera Perspective Switch:
  • Played with in "Your Demise"; the song is set in the "Just Monika" scene from DDLC, and so Monika is in the center of the screen facing the player. However, Boyfriend is still there underneath her, and so Monika switches between looking at the viewer to looking at him.
  • In "Epiphany", Monika is once again facing the player. However, Boyfriend is completely absent, as it's clear who Monika wants to sing with right now.
  • The opening of "Markov" in the Bad Ending is in Boyfriend's perspective as Yuri stares at him in the darkness, before the song turns to the usual view. It turns to his perspective again when Yuri gets up close and personal, her wildly switching from deranged glee to intense anger while showing off an impressive set of canines.
• Christmas in July: While there are no Christmas-themed songs in the mod, one can give off this impression with the hidden Christmas outfits for Boyfriend and Girlfriend.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Senpai's fangirls get unique sprites when they show up in "Bara No Yume", with them being very pissed off that Monika is both close enough to touch Senpai and fighting him, complete with steam coming out of their ears. Monika takes note of this during her conversation with Senpai after Natsuki's week, when a pair of them are shown giving nasty looks to her, leaving her worried that she may have done something wrong.
• Cosmetic Award:
  • After completing Sayori's songs, the player gets the option to have Girlfriend count down at the start of all the non-prologue songs. It's recycled from an animation she does partway through "My Confession" and has no effect on gameplay otherwise.
  • In the Plus update for the mod, you can unlock costumes for Boyfriend, Girlfriend and the other girls to use during the post-prologue songs, such as ones based around the Festival covers, and even extending to variations and alternate versions of Boyfriend such as the Minus Boyfriend trio, Benjamin and Aloe. A full list can be seen under the Unlockable Content page of this article. The protagonist originally lacked a Festival costume due to the opponent of the original version of "Titular" being a literal stick figure with no visible clothing. However, the Final Farewell update manages to get around this by adding an outfit based on Henry himself instead of his outfit.
• Creative Closing Credits: After all eight Story Mode weeks have been completed, this is presented in the form of "Takeover Medley", a final swan song with Boyfriend and Girlfriend going up against all of the story's main opponents in succession.
• Credits Medley: Each part of "Takeover Medley" has leitmotifs from most of the Story Mode songs throughout the mod, corresponding to each character singing them.
  • Pixel Monika and Senpai: "High School Conflict", "Bara No Yume", "Your Demise", "Poems n' Thorns" and "Dual Demise"
  • Sayori: "Rain Clouds", "My Confession" and "Joyride"
  • Natsuki: "My Sweets", "Baka" and "Hot Air Balloon"
  • Yuri: "Deep Breaths", "Obsession" and "Shrinking Violet"
  • Protagonist: "Neet" and "You and Me"
  • Monika: "Reconciliation", "Epiphany" and "Our Harmony"
• Crossover: The mod features the characters and setting of Doki Doki Literature Club!, and acts as a sequel to the events of that game.
• Cute Kitten: In the cutscene before her song in the Festival week, Natsuki bemoans the length of Boyfriend and Girlfriend's song list and says she just picked one that had a picture of a cute cat next to it.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Mirror Mode can cause this on songs that have Eye of Markov notes in their chart. While Boyfriend has to avoid hitting them, or else he'll instantly lose, they're treated as regular notes on the opponent's side of the chart, which can confuse the player if they don't know why they're taking damage for avoiding a note that you're usually not supposed to hit.
• Demoted to Extra: Spirit makes no appearance in the story mode. His only song, "Dual Demise" is exclusive to freeplay and considered non-canon. While he doesn't sing, he appears properly for the first time in the Side Story "Wilted", with the ending teasing something sinister in store with him.
• Designated Girl Fight: Due to Boyfriend and MC's absence in the "Love n' Funkin'" side story, the whole song is with the female side of the main cast.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • In classic Doki Doki fashion, the game will eventually call the name used for the computer and use it to refer to the player. If the game detects a streaming/recording software (e.g. OBS) running alongside it, it will instead refer to the "viewers" as to not dox the player.
  • Presumably due to a lack of proper game over sprites for the opponents, if you fail a song that has Boyfriend in it in Mirror Mode, the game over screen will instead show him giving a V-Sign. If Boyfriend isn't in the song, the game over screen will instead show the character's .chr file being deleted.
  • For each Sayori costume, there's a unique animation for any costume she wears when she briefly shows her depressed side in "My Confession".
  • Likewise, for almost all of the partner costumes, the character involved will undergo a corrupted glitch themselves when Yuri loses her mind in "Obsession".
  • While Sayori can be picked as a secret "costume" for Girlfriend to watch from the speakers, any songs played against her will have Girlfriend be picked by default. Sayori also won't appear in the background if this costume is selected.
  • It's near impossible to read the UI and see your score during "Datastream". For those curious at least, once you beat the song and the game closes itself, it leaves a text file on your desktop telling you everything the score UI usually keeps track of.
• The Dissenter Is Always Right: At the beginning of the "Wilted" side story, Spirit advises Senpai against trying to reach out to Monika, seeing her as not worth the effort. While he is proven right by Monika turning down Senpai's advances, especially considering he's in an epiphany of his own, this is downplayed in that it did allow Spirit to learn about what else has been going on in the meantime, as well as what Boyfriend and Girlfriend had been doing there.
• Downer Ending: Naturally featured in the separate Darker and Edgier mod DDTO: Bad Ending. Monika fails to make everything right despite her efforts and falls into the Despair Event Horizon, the girls are left corrupted and insane from the last time their data was tampered, and Boyfriend eventually becomes as corrupt as Natsuki after Girlfriend's corruption causes her to keel over. The Doki Doki world itself has been falling apart throughout — the mod ends with a popup showcasing all the characters files as "not found", that's followed by TERMINATING PROGRAM, sealing their fates.
• Driven to Suicide: The last we see of Boyfriend in the Bad Ending mod is when everyone else has died, with him crying over his now dead girlfriend. Considering how his file is also shown as "not found", it's implied he offed himself out of grief.
• Dual Boss:
  • Played With. Monika and Senpai both end up battling Boyfriend together but it's more that they're both fighting over to get their turn on the mic while both trying to face off against Boyfriend themselves.
  • Played straight in "Dual Demise", where Monika and Spirit team up against the player.
• Dysfunction Junction: The Doki Doki girls, as expected. And even moreso than usual, as they're still "broken" from when Monika meddled with their code and weren't entirely fixed. They seem to be alright at first, but their infamous glitchy and/or malicious behavior ramps up as their songs go on, making it clear that Monika's defeat was not the end of Boyfriend's and Girlfriend's troubles. It takes Monika coming back and cleaning up her own mess to finally fix everything.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The very first iteration of the mod was just a one-song swap for the first song of Week 6, where Monika directly addresses the player about being put into Friday Night Funkin'. This was changed in the Full Week update, where Monika being put into the Hating Simulator is strictly an in-universe event, and she has no idea how she ended up there.
  • For most of the mod, Boyfriend and Girlfriend are wearing the uniform that the cast of Doki Doki Literature Club! wear, but in the Prologue they are instead wearing their usual outfits.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: Bad Ending has a higher difficulty compared to the original mod, with more complex and dense charting and a faster scroll speed, meaning one has to put in much more effort if they want to see it through to the end.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: There is no horrific twist to the Festival Week and the mod really ends in a happy note for all of the characters. The Literature Club is finally a place where happiness can be found. Monika even asks Boyfriend and Girlfriend to find a way to bring the club members into the real world so her friends can see the world beyond their game for themselves and live as real people. The Plus update finally provides this big happy ending for all seven of the main cast members, with them allowed to come and go between the DDLC universe and the FNF universe as they wish.
• Easily Forgiven: After Monika returns to her world and resets it, Boyfriend forgives her for everything and they sing one last song together.
• Easter Egg: For the Freeplay Costumes, there's some secret alternate costumes that aren't available by default; only selected by holding down the left or right keys (or B for certain costumes) and hitting enter to confirm.
  • Holding B when selecting Natsuki's default look will result in Buffsuki.
  • Holding B when selecting Boyfriend in Uniform will result in him being replaced by Sutazu from Vs. Tioda.
  • The variant of the speakers with Sayori peeping out from behind it in "Catfight" is available by holding B when selecting Girlfriend's Uniform.
  • When selecting their regular clothes, both Boyfriend and Girlfriend also have their Week 5 holiday outfits.
  • Minus Boyfriend is depicted with Blue Boyfriend by default, but the other variants - Beta and Mean - are also available.
  • For Aloe and Soft BF, their secret alternate costumes are their sprites ripped straight from their respective origin mod, contrasting with this mod's slightly altered designs.
• Easy Level Trick: With the final update's addition of Mirror Mode, completing Epiphany becomes a lot easier, as the Eye of Markov notes that you usually have to avoid hitting due to being a One-Hit Kill are instead treated as regular notes on Monika's side of the chart. Completing the song this way still unlocks the version with lyrics.
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: The Bad Ending concludes with Sayori, Yuri, Natsuki, Girlfriend and Boyfriend all dead, and Monika stuck in the space between Hating Simulator and Doki Doki Literature Club.
• Eye Scream:
  • In the Bad Ending:
    • Played with during "Markov", where no eyes are actually injured, but pop-up windows with a single eye will appear and obscure the playing field for a brief period.
    • In "HOME", Natsuki tears her eyes when the song escalates, Boyfriend following suit once Girlfriend dies to the glitches.
  • For the Plus update, Libitina lacks any pupils throughout "Libitina", and the ending shows her having a third eye embedded on her forehead.
• Fan Sequel: The game serves as a continuation to Doki Doki Literature Club!, picking up shortly after the events of the game's true ending.
• Fisher Kingdom: When first materializing in the world of Doki Doki Literature Club!, Boyfriend and Girlfriend are already wearing the uniforms of the school. Interestingly, this doesn't happen for the Hating Simulator, as Boyfriend, Girlfriend, and even Monika keep their usual outfits. Inverted for when the group make it to the real world, swapping to their casual outfits inexplicably, which is then lampshaded by the Protagonist.
• Foregone Victory: During the credits song, "Takeover Medley", while you can miss notes, it's impossible to lose during this song because of its end-of-story nature.
• Foreshadowing: The poses Boyfriend makes during the hxppythxughts.png segments of "Stagnant" are a 1 to 1 match of the ones he makes in "HOME" when his sanity finally breaks, showing the end result of the Bad Ending before even finishing the first song.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: "Datastream" has Monika trying and failing to break free of her self-created hell, with the window's name cycling through desperate calls for help ^note "I NEED TO GET BACK TO THE LITERATURE CLUB", "STOP SINGING AND HELP ME", "StuckTrappedHelplessStuckTrappedHelplessStuckTra", "regretregretregretregret", etc. After the first few seconds, she'll change your desktop's wallpaper into one as well, reading "YOUR PC IS MY ESCAPE, FREE ME". Beating the song will force-close the program, as Monika berates the player through the command prompt for treating her suffering as just a game before telling them to leave her alone. Trying to open the mod again will just greet the player to a black screen with a loud heartbeat, heavy breathing, and purple pupils staring at them until they close it.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The reason the girls sing songs from other mods during the Festival Week is explained by them learning the songs from Boyfriend, due to him having a full catalogue of songs detailing his previous encounters with the modded multiverse. This includes "Crucify" from Friday Night Fever and "It’s Complicated" from Friday Night Funkin' Soft... Both of which are mods where Boyfriend isn’t present as the main character. While for the latter song it might be possible that Boyfriend and Benjamin could have met in another dream where the latter explains what happened with Grace, there’s no way Boyfriend could know about the former.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The True Final Boss of the mod, locked behind beating every song (except for "Epiphany" and the version with lyrics), has nothing to do with the rest of the story. "Libitina" is incredibly abstract and based off various secrets hidden inside Doki Doki Literature Club's original files, like the picture of a girl hidden inside Natsuki's .chr file and the projectlibitina website, the QR code linking to it being hidden inside Sayori's .chr file. Even the song's presence in Freeplay - on a page all to itself like Epiphany and with a layout resembling the MES OS from DDLC+ - further drives home how disconnected it is from the rest of the mod.
• Harder Than Hard: New to the final update for Bad Ending is the "Unfair" difficulty, which not only has you fighting through the already difficult charts present in the mod, but you've also got Markov notes to deal with as well. LOTS of them.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Played for laughs with Boyfriend and Girlfriend when they introduce themselves to the Literature Club. Natsuki thinks they're just messing with her and doesn't actually believe that's their real names.
• Interface Screw:
  • "Markov" has windows with eyes pop up that, despite their appearance, you can't click to close, which will cover parts of the screen and can obscure notes underneath them to throw you off until they disappear on their own.
  • "Datastream" uses this to such a degree that it's a separate download from Bad Ending itself. The screen and UI are so badly distorted that you can't even see the score or your in-game health clearly, only the arrows. The arrangement of the arrows change mid-song, the window teleports around, actual pop-ups in the form of image and text files open to distract you, and even your desktop wallpaper is changed into a desperate cry for help from Monika. You're also stuck playing the song on upscroll with the default keybinds, since there's no way to go to the menu and edit them.
• Jumpscare:
  • When losing to Monika in the Brutal Bonus Level "Epiphany", there is a one in fifty chance for Monika to suddenly perform the same Nightmare Face scare she once done before in a similar setting, followed by the game crashing.
  • "Markov" in Bad Ending kicks off with Yuri popping up in the player's face with a wide Slasher Smile and deranged laughter. Similarly, "HOME" has Natsuki lunge towards Boyfriend with a scream and a Slasher Smile of her own after her eyes fly out of their sockets.
• Let's Duet: Many of the songs in Doki Doki Takeover have duets of BF with the opponent, including, but not limited to:
  • "High School Conflict" and "Epiphany" (With Monika)
  • "Stagnant" (With Sayori)
  • "Markov" (With Yuri)
  • "Home" (With Natsuki)
• Lighter and Softer: The mod as a whole is one to Doki Doki Literature Club, avoiding the more mature themes of the original game altogether. While having mild horror in the form of the literature girls acting off as a result of Monika messing with their files, some Ominous Visual Glitch to accompany it, etc, the source material's more gruesome details such as gore, abuse and suicide are absent. The mod even ends on a much happier note, with the girls happily singing along with their new friend along with the potential Sequel Hook that may give the others a chance at freedom from their visual novel. And even better, this cliffhanger is resolved in the Plus update, with a way straight into the FNF universe available for the whole Literature Club at any time. A separate mod, titled Doki Doki Takeover: Bad Ending, showcases the complete inversion.
• Meaningful Echo: Yuri notes that she considers singing a nice alternative to "releasing her emotions". While the line is first used in the cutscene after "Obsession" where Yuri goes insane halfway through the song, leaving the line as ominous foreshadowing, it gets reused in the Encore week's pre-"Shrinking Violet" cutscene when Yuri notes about growing out her discomfort when engaging with the club activities.
• Monkey Morality Pose: In "Libitina," Libitina's right, down, and left animations resemble the see, hear, and speak no evil poses.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Girlfriend's deletion is a near one-to-one of the infamous scene in DDLC where Natsuki glitches out and breaks her neck.
  • Monika's down sprite in "Your Demise" can sometimes glitch to black with a large pink smile, referencing the creepy tree topper in Week 5's "Winter Horrorland".
  • Losing a song as Senpai leads to a cutscene of Spirit breaking out of Senpai's body similar to the cutscene from the start of "Thorns" in FNF; this also references how Spirit was only able to do so because Senpai lost to Boyfriend.
  • Bad Ending's visuals are packed with references to many of the random events that can occur during Act 2 in the main game:
    • The main menu is directly modeled after the "Ghost menu" event from the main game. Whereas the main game's version would zoom in on Monika's face when exiting the game, Bad Ending's menu zooms in Sayori's face when tabbing out of the mod due to Monika being absent.
    • During certain parts of "Stagnant", the art style will shift to a more detailed rendition of the "happy thoughts" special poem◊. The name of the song itself references a line said by Yuri in Act 1, on the day that Sayori opens up about her depression.
      "Stagnant air is often foreshadowing that something bad is going to happen."
    • "Markov" is named for "Portrait of Markov", the book that Yuri reads in her route in both acts of the game. The eye pop-ups that appear throughout the song are based on the realistic eyes that appear on Yuri's sprites in certain scenes of Act 2◊ and are animated similarly; one even appears over Yuri's left eye during one of the first-person segments of the song. Furthermore, Girlfriend's glitched appearance midway through the song bears some resemblance to a rare sprite of Yuri◊ that can appear during Act 2, with both sporting large, realistic irises.
    • In "HOME", Natsuki initially appears as The Blank in reference to a scene from Act 2 where Monika overrides her attempts to reach out to the main character and help Yuri. After a few verses like this, her eyes pop out, at which point she dons a Slasher Smile and lunges towards Boyfriend; this is based on both the infamous "PLAY WITH ME" Easter Egg and a rare event where her eyes can pop out◊ if she dislikes the player's first poem in Act 2.
  • One of the text files that can pop up during "Datastream" is a compilation of all of Monika's poems from the original game, save for the poem she gives the player during Act 3.
  • "Epiphany WITH LYRICS", introduced in the Plus update, has a few references of its own through the lyrics:
    • "Keep the summer skies so blue" refers to Doki Doki Blue Skies.
    • "Gazed back from that empty room" is a reference to one of Monika's poems from the base game, "A hole in the wall".
    • "You cared enough to hear my song, your note again" is a callback to the song "My Song, Your Note" from the soundtrack of the Updated Re-release.
    • "To see the darkened puddles spilling from my pen" references one of the lines from "Your Reality".
    • "Stepped into Heaven's Kingdom, sacrificed what we believed in" might be referring to the "Portrait of Markov" book associated with Yuri.
    • "Baptized in the blood of lambs that couldn't see the chains that bind them" connects to how the other three girls, pre-Act 4, were completely unaware of the true meaning of their world unlike Monika.
  • The appearance of Libitina is based on the hidden image seen in Natsuki's .chr file.
• Nerf: Yuri doesn't drain your health while singing, and a section of her rendition of "Crucify" has three sets of hold notes each reduced from three keys to two keys to make it more accessible for one-handed players. These changes render the song much more forgiving than its original version.
• No Name Given: The Protagonist is never given an actual name here.
• Noodle Implements: While we're never given the direct results of Girlfriend's poem, in the middle of the song "Love N' Funkin'", we see her selecting various keywords, including "sensation", "lust" and "death". The end result leaves the Dokis shocked and confused at what's implied to be sexual in nature.
• Nostalgia Level: The Festival Week consists of songs from previous mods which Boyfriend offered the girls from his whole back catalogue.
• Old Save Bonus: Takeover has bonus costumes that can be unlocked when a save for DDLC or some specific FNF Mods (including Bad Ending) are detected (while also having an alternate way to unlock them).
• Ominous Visual Glitch:
  • During "Your Demise", Monika's sprites begin glitching out similarly to Act 2 in Doki Doki Literature Club!.
  • Halfway through "Obsession", where after Yuri loses it, her icon appears glitched out when she's losing, and in the background Girlfriend is also glitching out just like when she was being erased by Monika.
  • During the post prologue weeks, missing a note results in Boyfriend briefly turning into static. This intensifies in his miss animations in Bad Ending, where his face glitches out in the same way as Girlfriend's.
  • Throughout the Monika and Senpai cutscenes, she or the world around her occasionally glitch out. She's the only one who notices. The other girls' glitchy behavior is the cause, and Monika is feeling a ripple effect — on the bright side, this leads her to realize she still has a connection to her own world.
• The One Guy: As MC never gets a song, and the only song Spirit gets is freeplay-exclusive, Senpai is the only male character Boyfriend faces in the story mode. Subverted for the Plus update, where MC gets his own songs to sing.
• Play as a Boss: The Mirror Mode in the Plus update allows the player to play as the opponents who are duking it out against Boyfriend.
• Playing with Fire: In the D-Sides one-shot mod, Natsuki has this in spades with her attacks, utiliing special notes that boost each side's HP by a good amount.
• Precision F-Strike: The normally clean-mouthed Monika drops a "damn it" when she discovers BF and GF are in Doki Doki Literature Club, albeit internally.
• Promoted to Playable: "Your Reality" allows you to play as Senpai. Also, you yourself during "Epiphany".
  • As of the Plus update, just about ALL of the major cast members have this in some form, thanks to the introduction of Mirror Mode, the Encore week and the Sidestories. Also, the Protagonist himself gets the spotlight for "You And Me"
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: When Monika realizes she still has a connection to the Doki Doki world, she peeks in and sees the havoc going on from her friends — they haven't had their glitches (that she caused) fixed, and Boyfriend and Girlfriend are about to become their victims. This finally motivates her to hack her way back into Doki Doki and hit the Reset Button, fixing the girls and the world properly, and later make peace with Boyfriend and Girlfriend.
• Sequel Hook:
  • In the ending following the Festival, Monika finishes reconciling with Boyfriend and Girlfriend for her past mistakes, and takes notice that they have no trouble coming and going from the Doki Doki world as they please. This leads her to ask Boyfriend if there's a way to get her and the girls out of the Doki Doki world... Come the Plus update, and they indeed do find a way!
  • A new sequel hook is introduced in the "Wilted" side story. Now that Senpai's gained sentience and Spirit is permanently separate from him, they both have plans to break out of their own accord, leaving it set in stone what will happen when Boyfriend and Girlfriend encounter them next time...
• Ship Sinking: While it was implied, and later made outright blatant, that Senpai developed feelings for Monika, the latter doesn't reciprocate after their singing of "Your Reality", which comes to a head when Senpai tries to get Monika to return his feelings in "Wilted", only for the song to end with Monika shutting him out.
• Ship Tease: After Monika restores Hating Simulator to its original state, she and Senpai make amends after realizing their misunderstanding. Senpai then praises her for making Boyfriend mad and then asks to sing another song with her. The bonus song "Your Reality" has the two singing together. It helps that the original song was a love song. Subverted when Monika reveals that she still loves the player and leaves the game, leaving Senpai alone with only the Background Freaks to love him.
• Shout-Out:
  • The creator of the "High School Conflict" remake stated that the song is indeed based on the cheesy love songs found in the Disney Channel.
  • Boyfriend's pixel sprites in the Plus update are those seen from Vs. Impostor's Tomongus week.
  • The very end of "Glitcher (Monika Mix)" has the Omnitrix time-out sound from Ben 10.
  • Nene's select description mentions this isn't the first time she's been in a spooky high school game, and she hopes there be less "ERRORs" this time, alluding to her role as Suzune Karamomo in hololive ERROR.
  • The main music structure of "Constricted" is based on "Heart Stopper" from another FNF mod, Friday Night Funkin': My True Feelings, which also has Stardust Tunes present as a composer.
  • Natsuki drops quite the hilarious one at the end of the "Constricted" side story.
    Natsuki: PUT THAT THING BACK WHERE IT CAME FROM OR SO HELP ME-
  • When showing her depression in "My Confession", the face Sayori displays changes to reference the outfit source material:
    • If She's wearing the Picnic outfit during "My Confession", her face when she briefly shows her depression is based on one Basil from OMORI makes, specifically that from when he's stressed out or afraid.
    • Grace's outfit gives her the same exaggerated expression as Grace when she gets rejected by Benjamin.
    • The Zipper Sweater has Zipper's red cyclops eye cover their own eyes.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Senpai, after Monika suddenly leaves Hating Simulator to get back to Doki Doki, eloquently remarks how the one girl that intrigue her ended up leaving so soon. He then swears.
  Senpai: Ah, woe is me! [Beat] What am I saying? This shit sucks.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In the base game, Senpai was Killed Off for Real when Spirit broke out of him. Here, either he somehow survived and recovered, or the game just respawned him.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Senpai didn't know it at the time, but he shouldn't have been so on-the-nose about wanting to get his microphone back, since he's part of the catalyst that leads to almost everything getting erased.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: It is unknown what happened to Senpai after Monika heads back to her game. This has been resolved to some extent in the "Wilted" sidestory.
• What If?: The events of the Bad Ending mod are a alternate ending to the game, set off by Monika being unable to transport herself back to DDLC and fix everything. The world continues to deteriorate as Boyfriend is forced to deal with the rest of the Literature Club at their worst, and ultimately both he and Girlfriend succumb to the game breaking down. With all five of them dead, the game closes itself.
• Wingding Eyes: During the hxppythxughts.png segments of "Stagnant" and "HOME", Boyfriend is drawn with red backslashes for eyes, like those on his usual shirt.

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