Monday, August 10, 2015

Game Review: "Hatoful Boyfriend"

Hatoful Boyfriend is a dating simulator where you’re the only female human attending St. Pigeonation’s, a seemingly all-male pigeon school. It’s as ridiculous and wonderful as it sounds.  

You play as Hiyoko Tosaka (or any name you choose), a female human living in a cave who is about to begin her second year at St. Pigeonation’s.  After meeting the cast of characters on her first day, you’re taken through a series of events over the course of her sophomore year.  With each event comes a number of choices to make depending on which of the pigeons in your life you’re trying to woo. Do you join the student council or the library staff?  Do you talk to Ryouta or Kazuaki?  Who do you invite to the festival?  These are all important decisions for a young girl in a pigeon’s world.  


Image from Steam
Now based on your choices and which bird you want to romance, your story will branch to different paths and lead to 1 of 14 endings.  I won’t get into spoilers but there is a bigger plot afoot that will come together as you experience each ending. Once you’ve finished all endings, you’ll unlock the ability to play through the true, final ending that takes the game even further off the rails.

I played the game mostly on Vita and I did notice some technical glitches.  There were some moments were the game would lag or feel like it might crash. I personally never had the game crash on me but there’s been multiple reports of the game crashing and it did happen a few times to a friend also playing on Vita.  With the little bit I played on PS4 I didn’t notice any technical issues.  It’s a shame about the Vita issues as this doesn’t appear to be a technically trying game and it feels like the perfect game to take on the go.  If you don’t have either system it’s also available on Steam as well.

Hatoful Boyfriend is silly fun with a lot of replayability.  It’s one of the games that I can’t seem to stop talking about with everybirdie.  If you’re willing to buy into the premise you’re sure to enjoy yourself.  Just watch out for punkgeons.  Those birds are dangerous.



Review by Rich Belsan

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