Hatoful Boyfriend Review

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Reviewed on PC
→ September 5, 2014Hatoful Boyfriend isn’t about skipping classes on bird watching and making out with your pigeon boyfriend behind the gym. It’s about growth, learning to accept oneself, and pudding. It goes far beyond its silly visual novel/dating simulation facade with its wonderfully written plots, characters, and smart dynamics, though certain game mechanics feel a little arbitrary.
Your character is a feisty human starting her second year in the most elite all-bird high school, St. PigeoNation’s Institute. Yes, you read that correctly. No, it doesn’t make any sense, but rolling with the absurdity of it is part of the fun. I was relieved I didn’t have to waste time with the first year of school, as the focus wasn’t on my human character’s entrance into the all-bird institution, but was instead on the in-depth stories and relationships she shared with her classmates.
If you don’t use the fast-forward button to skip through the text, Hatoful Boyfriend takes a little over an hour to play through. To really complete it, however, requires you to replay multiple times in order to explore the alternate paths of the eight datable birds. This didn’t feel like a burden, because allusions to greater mysteries in other birds’ paths did a great job of encouraging me to replay it well over 10 times. I was intrigued by the potential for numerous endings shown in the gallery, and in mysterious documents in the archive that give little details about the world.
Like most dating simulations, Hatoful Boyfriend is a visual novel and only requires mouse clicks to progress, but it creatively uses that very simple interaction to build suspense and add to the mood. While one click usually gets you through a sentence or two of dialogue, sometimes only one word or phrase appear with a click. Regrettably, the stats system misses that mark. Wisdom, vitality, and charisma can be leveled up on elective days and through random events, but it’s not immediately apparent how leveling them benefits you. It was a bit annoying that it took me multiple playthroughs to find a benefit to leveling certain stats.
No matter your desired path, the beginning of each playthrough begins the same: You enter school, meet the datable birds, and rush through your first term. Though the writing is immensely enjoyable, the first term suffers from pacing issues. I bounced between so many events, it felt like time was passing by too quickly, which seemed like a wasted opportunity for me to get to know each of the birds better before deciding which to pursue. However, once you begin to follow the path of a certain bird, the story becomes more focused. The witty writing embraces Hatoful Boyfriend’s silly concept, using words such as “everybird” and “nobirdie,” and pokes fun at some birds’ real-world quirks, like the Fantail pigeon’s attraction to shiny things. However, the best part is the characters.
Hatoful Boyfriend doesn’t pass up on the stereotypical male roles of a dating sim -- the shy guy, the playful bully, the best friend, and the popular guy, just to name a few -- but it pushes its characters past their stereotypes and led me to care and sympathize with each bird’s story. Surprisingly, it’s not awkward to date the birds. Better yet, the protagonist is just as interesting as the birds she pursues. As a self-proclaimed hunter-gatherer and the only human in the school, it’s fun to learn about her interests and personality as she interacts with the birds. In addition to cute new backgrounds that contrast well against the stock-photo pigeons, the Steam release of Hatoful Boyfriend adds a new scene for the only female bird, Azami. Her personality and path is hilarious.



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