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Boyfriend dungeon controversy8/19/2023 For instance, I was only really interested in the male characters even tho it seems like I’m the main target for this game (based on the title), there are only really three options. Unfortunately, since the game is from a smaller team, this inclusivity comes at the expense of variety for players who are only interested in a certain type of character. I appreciated the effort they went into to make it feel actually inclusive of various sexualities- I played as a male romancing male characters and there were voice acted lines referring to the protagonist of words like “man” and “boyfriend,” which is something a lot of other games like to try to work around to provide an illusion of inclusivity. It’s really cool that the dates had such good diversity, not only in terms of gender/sexuality, but also in relationship dynamics with the protagonist. Among the partners that are there, they have clear enough personalities to stay distinct from each other. The boyfriend part was of similar quality to the dungeon portion. Especially since each gift can only be crafted once, and some of the partners’ reactions to certain gifts don’t seem to clearly correspond to their personalities. It adds extra incentive to the dungeon portions, but isn’t particularly good exciting beyond that. The crafting system is similarly surface-level. The zines mechanic is kinda cool, but again it wasn’t deep enough to feel too interested by. I did die several times, but I think this was mostly due to XCloud lag haha. I never found them particularly challenging, and was particularly underwhelmed by the boss fights. The dungeon combat and exploration feels p good and is fun, but there isn’t a huge amount of variety. I mean, the protagonist has problems with social interaction but apparently he has no problem dating 6 sword-people at once? It turned me off of the game.ĥh 47m PlayedOverall, everything that’s here is good, but none if it feels satisfyingly deep. In fact, I kinda felt violated with everyone throwing themselves at me like that. If the game is trying to get an insecure protagonist to open up it's going about it very aggressively. But then every character you meet is immediately flirting with you and very in-your-face about the whole thing. The protagonist hasn't dated yet, probably because of some fears and insecurities. Again though, for a game that want to be "woke" and all-inclusive and nice it kinda misses it's mark again. Why that is, is up to your own imagination, but again insecurities are openly discussed here. Because you, the protagonist, have never been on a date before. The cousin is apparently on a mission to get you a date. The first person you meet is your cousin. Everyone is in good shape, has a nice head of hair, is young and vibrant etc. Personal preferences aside, everyone here is goodlooking. While every gender and preference may be welcome here in Boyfriend Dungeon, ugly people are not. However there's another part of the game that directly opposes the all-inclusive attitude. That made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. So again, it's kinda nice to have a game that basically tells the player you should be okay with who you are, whatever gender or sexual preference you have and that everyone has fears and that's okay too. These monsters, so the game explains, are actually the manifestation of your own inner demons, fears or insecurities. The gameplay is very casual but good enough for this game. One of the first things you'll do is go to a "dungeon" (a mall) and slay monsters. So immediately the game is open for every kind of LGBTQ+ you are or want to be. The game already tells you here that this does not affect who you can date. Then you get to choose you pronoun (your gender basically), people can call you he, she, or they depending on your preference. You create a character and can pick a few clothes and haircuts. However, the developer must have included these messages because they felt it added something to the game so I felt they should be included. This might be meant for multiple playthroughs but the way the game formulates it, it's as if they feel having "mom" sending messages might be too close to home for some people and they wanted to give the option to not get the messages. For instance when you start the game it states there's a mom character that will send you supportive messages, the player is then given the option to exclude these messages from the game. This is apparent from the first minute and in my opinion it's sometimes obnoxiously so. The whole point of Boyfriend Dungeon is to be all inclusive and non offensive. Boyfriend dungeon is part dungeon crawler action rpg, part visual novel.
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