Boyfriend Dungeon Review

Three years after emerging on Kickstarter, Boyfriend Dungeon has finally turned up for the first date. Dabbling into all elements of the dating world, from good to concerning, Boyfriend Dungeon attempts to tackle difficult themes in a realistic manner. All whilst you use the people you’re bashing to bash your way through dungeons.

Boyfriend Dungeon is an open-ended dating simulator, meaning everyone and their cat (literally, even a cat) is willing to give you a shot. Gender is a non-issue, with all romances open to your character no matter your identity. That accessibility is a recurring theme in the game. There’s a trigger warning before the games start, the ability to turn off supportive messages for a character called ‘Mom’. A lot of effort was put into making this game feel safe. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot more than so many companies would be willing to do. Everyone wants to get to know you, whether that’s at the beach or in the dunj is up for the player to decide.

There is the gimmick of Boyfriend Dungeon, the entire cast of datetables has the ability to transform into some kind of melee weapon, allowing you to wield your partner in combat. Very satisfying combat, I must add. Each partner offers different combinations, different movement styles. Throughout Boyfriend Dungeon you’ll find some characters enjoyable to interact with, and some enjoyable to fight with. For some, you get a nice overlap.

Getting active in the dunj is enjoyable. It’s an important element for the story as levelling up in the dunj allows you to push your romance with characters to the next level. Each level essentially acts as a door to unlock the next piece of each individual's story. It seems daunting, as Boyfriend Dungeon can be relatively challenging as you hit the shallow depths of the dunj. Thankfully, beating a dunj seemingly isn’t a strict requirement for progression. If you’re struggling, you can just grind your romance levels in the early steps of a dunj and progress your character that way, until you’re ready to venture further down. You find new romance partners to unlock scattered amongst the game's two dungeons. Wait, there’s only two dungeons?

Sadly, yes. It seems a bit shallow for me, that the game only has two dungeons. Neither of which is particularly deep. Despite them both having relatively unique enemies to each other, the variety in each of the two dungeons is weak. Even with the dating aspect being the centrepiece, it was a slight disappointment to see the action parts of the game limited to two areas. In fact, there’s parts of the game's world that are rarely, if ever, explored. Hacking and slashing is fun in Boyfriend Dungeon, I just wish it would have given me more.

Admittedly, the characters and world are thrust into the forefront. The dunj is only a portion of the fun to be found. You’ll split your time away from the dunj texting and dating the game's characters. For the most part, it’s good fun, with some solid writing and most characters being fun to be around. We all have preferences towards certain types of people, but it’s clear to me that the quality of some characters is far beyond that of others. Which isn’t to say the characters are bad, the issue for me is they conflict with the game's message.

The antagonist of Boyfriend Dungeon plays the role of an obsessed lover. Constantly ignoring your request for space, appearing regularly in day to day life. It’s a character that exists to help display the warning signs of that kind of behaviour. The problem is, the entirety of the male cast you can date in Boyfriend Dungeon follow a similar behavioural pattern. Dedicating a villain to the idea of boundaries not being respected is a good idea, and the character is written well. It’s just a bizarre narrative choice to have them share those traits with so many of the supposed ‘good’ characters.

Every romance option can be filled out in a playthrough, although you can pick only one ahead of the game's final fight. Any character you do pick will have to be at the max romance level, and it’s worth seeing everyone’s stories through until the end. As I said previously, I think it’s clear that certain characters have a higher quality of narrative, but it’s worth seeing everyone’s story to completion.

It’s worth it just for the character art alone. Each romanceable partner has a stunning introduction animation, and the further you progress into each one's story you get, the more unique art you unlock. Whether that’s characters in different attire, or detailed art of the world you otherwise wouldn’t get to see, everything is very well done. Visually it’s stunning, but the music does get a bit stale. It often feels like each of the two dungeons only has two or three audio tracks each, and they’re pretty tedious the first time around, so hearing them on a constant loop can be a bit of a drag. There are points throughout Boyfriend Dungeon where I can’t help but think a fair bit of content must have been cut.

Ultimately, I enjoyed my experience with Boyfriend Dungeon. I do think my complaints about wanting more are valid, but it’s always a good sign that I did want more. It felt like the game could still offer up four more hours of content without becoming dull. All of the characters are interesting to learn about, but it’s clear that some have a much stronger narrative behind them, but it’s still disappointing to see some of those characters conflict with the game's deeper message. Overall, given it’s short length and accessibility, I found Boyfriend Dungeon to be a game I highly recommend, and would happily jump back into any future content it may get.