Boyfriend Dungeon, the latest game from Kitfox Games, is a combination of dungeon crawler and dating sim where you play someone going on vacation in a small sunny town with the underlying goal to meet new people and potentially date them. The twist here is that these people can also turn into weapons that you use to fight monsters representing your own fears inside “dunjs” scattered across town, so you use them to fight as well. A neat twist on both genres, I had a good time with Boyfriend Dungeon! The pacing was a bit weird, but there was a lot to smooch here!
You start the game by creating your character - the hardest part for me was choosing a name - and then are dropped into beautiful Verona Beach, where mostly everyone is nice and Down To Fence. You meet a few characters - one of which I already knew was the bad guy of the story because of the discourse that surrounded the game on its release - and then start going to the ‘dunj’ to train. You then meet some of the blades in there, fight a bit and inevitably get defeated by the enemies and get sent back home. I really enjoyed how even tho you were fighting strange creatures in weird locales, the game made sure you had no pressure by having no consequence for dying.
The way the dunjs work is pretty straightforward; You need to get to the bottom floor and fight the boss. Each floor has a few random rooms where you’ll have a miniature date with your equipped blade and pick a few dialogue options, most of these are very cute. You’ll fight in challenge rooms to get special rewards, like crafting recipes, money and materials, until you get to the next floor, or lose. You can switch weapons between floors, which is a nice way to allow you to get love ranks on everybody instead of being locked on only one blade. When you get out, you get experience which seems to increase your health, but you get way too much. It wasn’t out of place for me to get out of the dungeon and get 5 levels or more in one go, which gave them way less impact than they could’ve had.
The battle system itself was fine, you have a light and heavy attack and can chain combos that have slightly different effects, like a bigger AoE attack, you can dodge roll (but I felt there was a weird delay on the dodge), you can use healing drinks (bubble tea!) and special ‘zines’ that are use-limited special moves, I felt that they fell pretty flat, the first one you start with could be described as “The World’s Saddest Fireball” since all it did was shoot a small fireball that disappeared when it encountered any geometry. The other zines you got later on were not much better, I wish they had more “oomph”. The enemies you fight are all electronics and they are very cute, phones trying to bite you, turntables throwing sharp disks, and the game can get pretty hectic at times. The boss fights by comparison are quite easy, there are plenty of healing items and often you only have one bad guy to focus on, rather than the big pile of foes you often fight in the dunj rooms.
Besides fighting, you can go on dates with your blade friends when their love ranks is maxed (so there is a loop of going to the dunj to max it out, then go on dates outside), and you talk to people through text messages otherwise. These are fun to read and feel pretty natural most of the time. The cast of blades you get to date is pretty good and everyone will probably have their favorite. The dates themselves vary depending on the characters, sometimes you help them with their problems, sometimes you just hang out and make grilled cheeses, you can give them gifts that you craft or buy and ultimately they gain new abilities to help you fight better as they rank up. Sometimes I felt like there was a disconnect between what I said and how people reacted, like a storyline where someone was “breaking up” with me, although all I told them the whole time was how they were a friend to me.
Ultimately, I felt like there were a few pacing problems that made the experience feel like it went too quickly for me. I didn’t mind the fact that there were two dungeons to fight through, but the way that the game required you to have a love rank 6 weapon to finish it felt weird to me, I feel like that mechanic could’ve been used beforehand to prevent me from just completing the two dungeons almost as soon as I had access to them. The map and various locations you can go to where full of charm but beside buying clothes, gifts and crafting materials, money almost had no use and I felt compelled to hoard it because the things to buy didn’t feel ‘right’ to me. Still, the power of the characters, their stories and the battle loop which was quite satisfying propelled me forward.
I had a good time with Boyfriend Dungeon! The writing was good, the dungeon mechanics showed promise and I really enjoyed being able to smooch all the blades I wanted! I’m not sure if I’ll go back to it when (or if) more content is added, but I certainly don’t regret playing it. Try it out! It’s real neat!
