VN - Others - Completed - Mojika - Truth Rears Its Ugly Head [v1.00] [NITRO ORIGIN]

Mojika is black metal in the form of a visual novel. It's cold, disturbing, disgusting even, but if it grabs you, it'll inmerse you in its nihilistic and entropic world like some hallucinogen drug.

It's very experimental. You'll be seeing your foot for the entirety of the game, OST is (extremely good) ambient music*, and it has this heavy, onirical and dark feeling, kinda similar to manga/anime Aku no Hana (The Flowers of Evil). As for the story itself, it's weird, with all routes ending with this oppresive, ominous feeling, urging you to continue reading. A very nihilistic revenge story about a man hating the world, in a world that shows him nothing but hate. It reminds me a lot of All Night Long, Tokyo Decadence, and all those pesimistic jp movies from the 90s.

This game is mindblowing, but only for the right people, as you can see in some of the reviews. And also as you can see in some of the reviews, it won't leave you indifferent. It's not very graphic (fair warning tho: it has one of the most painful scenes you'll see in your life), but it's very psychologically unconfortable so don't go in with your thing out of your pants. But if you like depressive art, stuff that punches you good right in the brain, you won't forget the ride.

*check out Hata Yuusuke, Mojika composer, music. He's "Cruyff in the Bedroom" singer and guitarist. It's on Spotify.

I’ve been waiting months for this visual novel, and I finally got to play it! Like everyone else, I went in blind—no guides, no spoilers. I explored all the different routes myself and basically uncovered everything except the final route, which was way more convoluted (but in a good way, no spoilers!). Honestly, this is one of the best stories I’ve ever experienced in a visual novel. The protagonist’s dialogue stays short and snappy, making it super easy to read, and the pacing is just chef’s kiss. My only gripe? The lack of realistic… ahem… penetration sounds. They really leaned on the voice actors to carry those scenes.

Spoilers below, FYI!


I’m hoping this studio works on something even more twisted next time, maybe with time mechanics that force players to investigate clues around the clock. And make it a full-on revenge story, y’know? 10/10, no notes.
Let me know if you’d like

Mojika - Truth Rears Its Ugly Head is one of the games of all time. Seriously, this game is something else entirely and focuses primarily on the idea of

If you are born in darkness, can you ever really be "normal"?

Mojika goes to great lengths to find out the answer to this question. It is NOT for the faint of heart. It won't pull punches and will make you squirm in your seat.

Plot:

Mojika is an utsuge game and is similar to titles like Saya no Uta and DDLC. Hopeless, depressing and miserable. The plot will try it best to make sure you know that there is no happiness in this world. Everyone is out to get each other, everyone wants something back, no one gives a shit otherwise. Who is our MC by the way?

The MC is an orphan and INCREDIBLY ugly to the point where he gets assaulted simply due to his presence near people. He lives looking down and he dubs it his "120 cm world". Unfortunately, he is also a monster that barely cares about people's suffering. His ideology is that since he has lived a horrible life, he can do whatever he wants.

There were a lot of interesting story points in this game, but they're all locked behind a door of edge that is the MC's monologues. You have to trudge through the thoughts of someone who has never once been genuinely loved in their entire life.

Back to the plot, it was down right uncomfortable at some points with the stuff that was happening on my monitor. What makes it all the more horrific is that canonically these are 16 year old's.

Some of these scenes are just softcore torture porn.

Gameplay:

MC spends the majority of the VN looking at the floor. I swear by the end of it I was a master at recognizing Japanese floor patterns. The gameplay loop basically comes down to if you want to make MC look at people's faces. You know, so that he can use his broken mind read ability. Which he sucks at using.

MC: I am so ugly and sad... should I look up at this girl and find out if she thinks I'm ugly and sad?

*Chooses look up*

Girl: OMG HE IS SO UGLY AND SAD!!

MC: I will destroy this world!!11!

9/10 times MC then proceeds to get the living shit beat out of him... or he assaults the girl.


Music

Pretty great. It does its job of creating mood. Unfortunately when playing this game multiple times for its complicated routes, it does get repetitive.


Overall

This is very well made visual novel with great design and art though the idea behind it is incredibly twisted. It's depressing at best and horrifying at worst. I didn't ever think a visual novel could make me have such a reaction but I've been proven wrong. It's like a slow moving car crash and you can't stop watching because you WANT TO SEE THE END.

4/5 stars for being a very original, well made, and interesting game. But its too much for me.

I really wish this game was as interesting as it sounded.

Visually, it's great. The premise was something I thought sounded interesting when coupled with how they presented the text in game—but, unfortunately, the visuals and sound design are just about the only place this game shined for me.


With that all being said, I think parts of this game are enjoyable. It just takes far too long to reach those enjoyable parts with what you have to put up with to get there. Some people might like it, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't looking to crank it to depression and doesn't mind dealing with an insufferable MC.

Full disclosure: Despite the rating I actually think this VN is closer to 4 stars objectively speaking. But given how this is a dying genre it may as well be 5/5 and I do think it’s worth checking out even if it’s just for idle curiosity.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Presentation ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
People in the know refer to Mojika as an ‘Utsuge’ (depressing game), not to be confused with a ‘Nakige’ (which is also a depressing game except in a more sentimental, wholesome way) If I had to describe this story it would be something like a dark modern retelling of the ‘Ugly Duckling Story’. For the longest time I thought this VN would be untranslatable, it has a lot of text messages in single cgs, stylized graffiti, floating text separated from the usual dialogue box, etc. The VN is also uncensored albeit with a legal notice watermark in the corner (which you can remove with a patch).
A lot of effort was put in this on top of an already unique VN experience. Which I'll elaborate further down.

If the synopsis sounds mildly interesting to you I do highly recommend you check it out as blind as you can, however, do be wary that this is going to be a tough read depending on your sensibilities and tastes. Know that behind all the doom and gloom there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Gameplay ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
On paper this plays like any other choice based VN with a common route and branching paths. The interesting part about this is how the game handles choices. Our MC is someone that is loathed by his peers for several reasons, he also has the dubious privilege of being able to read people’s minds by looking at their faces. Since he is heavily bullied and ostracized people think a lot of mean things when they see him so he ends up just staring at people’s shoes for a good chunk of the introductory section of the story, So the way you get to act upon anything is by looking up and reading people’s minds (this is not always the best choice as you’ll find out) In a way you navigate this game by putting yourself in the MCs place and figuring out when would be the best time to use your “powers” to your advantage.

My recommendation is to play along as far as you can and only look up a guide when you feel like the game is starting to spin its wheels. But if you pay attention, the path to the ‘True Route’ will be fairly obvious after playing through some of the routes.

★ ★ ★ ★ Sound ★ ★ ★ ★
The music is stellar (imo), but it does get very samey. I do enjoy this type of droning depressing music but I can see it being grating for some people after a while.
The sound effects are well executed and are a highlight, if I had one complaint here it would be that the voice acting performances can get way over the top and for me they started landing on comedy territory at times.

★ ★ ★ Writing ★ ★ ★
This sadly is the weakest part of the whole thing, not that it’s bad mind you (I genuinely think this VN is a solid 8/10), it has a lot of genuinely tense, gut wrenching, cathartic moments. And it’s interesting and fresh but then the story starts meandering on the same topics or the MC would start acting retarded, missing the big picture leading to unsatisfying outcomes. And then there’s some padding on plot points that seemingly go nowhere.

I would describe the writing as messy but it’s more like the story has these beads of intriguing/entertaining moments, connected by a long string of bland perfunctory babble. Still, I quite enjoyed it and reading the ‘True End’ was satisfying enough for me. Your mileage may vary depending on how you approach the story as you may get more or less out of it.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Visuals ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
The main artist is Hamashima Shigeo, if you are familiar with his works you would know that he is often associated with off the grid extreme eroge content (Guro, scat, etc.). Most of the art here is surprisingly normal tho, with a few exceptions. If someone told me this VN looked ugly I would agree, the colors look washed out and some of the girls have this plain Jane look to them which makes them appear “normal” but I think this is to the benefit of the whole package and adds to the overall experience, so when something beautiful pops out it’s really eye catching and it works the same way when the truly grotesque rears its head.

★ ★ ★ ★ Porn ★ ★ ★ ★
There’s a lot of porn, and it comes early, the porn doesn’t work if you only ctrl-skip and/or unlock the gallery. Context is very important here for setting up the mood and circumstances that led to every scene in the first place. It has a lot of things that you can’t find anywhere else (mind reading while sexing as a quick example), and to get the most out of it you’ll have to be a seasoned porn game enjoyer (That enjoys reading). In a way there’s something for everybody, For me? I enjoyed it because I like revenge hate fucking as a porn setting but I wasn’t too enthused when the MC did something mean to a girl that didn’t deserve it (as much). If you are more sadistic than me then you’ll have a blast with this for sure but do be mindful that it goes both ways sometimes
And if you are asking “Is there NTR in this?” The answer is, not really. But if NTR makes you shit your diaper you're better off skipping this regardless, in a way it goes further than that since bad, cruel things happen to most of the girls (and the MC for that matter), this is not for the soft hearted by any means. There’s just one scene with mild guro and there’s no scat.

-Final thoughts-
I wish more VNs like this were made nowadays, we are living in the twilight of a dying genre with low effort moeslop and ntrslop getting shit out every other day. If you enjoyed this VN you can get it cheap from Jast’s store. My main goal with this review was in part to bring attention to this in the hopes that we keep getting interesting visual novels in the future.