Episode 016: Boyfriend Dungeon
“Date your weapons! Romance swords, daggers, and polearms to level them up in this “shack-and-slash” dungeon crawling adventure.”
The game was released in August 2021 and was nominated for the Games for Impact category for The Game Awards 2021.
This week we are going to be reviewing Boyfriend Dungeon, a single player game created by Kitfox Games that blends dating sim and dungeon crawler elements. I recently came across the title on my GamePass and absolutely fell in love with it, and since we haven’t reviewed a videogame on the show yet, this felt like the best time to do it!
You can either listen to the podcast above, or you can read below for a majority of the transcript of the podcast! Now as always, our discussion will begin with a brief summary of the game followed by spoiler free thoughts and feelings. This will be followed by an in-depth discussion of some of the key plot points that occurred and we will then finish off with my overall rating of the game and a heads up about what we are looking at next time. If you have not had a chance to play Boyfriend Dungeon Rift and don’t want to hear any spoilers, then please feel free to skip the detailed section and listen to it afterwards if you so wish.
The game came about from a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised around 272,000 USD and even had one of the characters designed by the artist from Hatoful Boyfriend, another dating sim that is set in an alternative world where you are dating pigeons. The game is currently available for Windows PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, so the version I played for this review was the Xbox One version.
Overall it's my favourite style of game, single player cause I hate people, and it is done through an isometric perspective as you run around town and the various dungeons. For the dungeon crawling part of the game, the fights are real time but never super complex like some games can be (not that the boss fights don’t require some tactics) and then outside of dungeons it takes more of a visual novel style sequence for the dating section.
So with any game there is usually a suspension of disbelief on one or two elements to make the buy into the fantasy world, and this game is no exception. For this game it is just an established fact that some people in life can transform into sentient weapons. At first I did find this really bizarre at how cavalier people were in game towards this, but actually, the concept grew on me and after an hour I was invested in the premise! Like it still leaves so many questions that maybe don’t get fully answered in the game, but who needs to know how everything works to enjoy something?
The story itself is fairly easy to grasp once you have accepted that premise. You are spending the summer over in a seaside city with your cousin in an attempt to help you process some of the issues you are facing, which takes the form of you getting out there and dating people while also fighting through dungeons with a human partner who transforms into a sentient weapon. Dating helps increase the powers of each weapon, and unlock different combos you can perform with each of them. There is also a small crafting element to the game, where you can create new outfits, spells, or items to give as gifts on your dates.
Since half the focus of the game is around dating, it is great to see that the characters are all quite fleshed out and feel like real complex people, each with their own likes, dislikes, and mannerisms. Going through the game, every person will obviously have their own style of play and different things will appeal to different people, and it does feel that out of the seven potential datable characters (or ten now with the additional content that is out), there should be at least one person that appeals to each player. It is also a really nice feature that each individual you are dating will have their own story arc that plays out the further along you get their dating arc.
In terms of representation, all the dateable people are available for you to date regardless of the gender you pick at the start of the game, so in effect every person can be seen as pan-sexual since there are female, non-binary, and male characters that can be dated. Also regardless of the gender you pick for your character, you can wear any clothing you wish when exploring the city and dungeons, so I spent my time playing my game presenting as male but wearing a beautiful black dress which left really refreshing to do in a game.
I also appreciated the fact that the game doesn’t limit you to just one person to date at a time, but you can actually date all possible people concurrently if you so wish. It even comes up in several conversations with dates, and you can be quite explicit in your polyamory, which is again really refreshing to see this not just represented in media, but done so in a fairly positive light!
Final part for the spoiler free section, there is a feature available if players feel comfortable with it being on, and that is a mom character who will just text you positive messages every now and then. At the start of the game there is a trigger warning about this and players have the option of turning it off if they wouldn’t be comfortable with the feature, which is very considerate of the designers to include. I left the feature on and found it to be quite a nice aspect of the game having a caring person reaching out every now and then, plus made it feel more realistic since I wouldn't just be in a different city all summer without one parent messaging me.
Final Feelings and Recommendation
For recommending this game, I would suggest that anyone that enjoys playing video games should give this a try, unless you specifically hate dating sims AND dungeon crawlers but even then I would still say it’s worth a shot.
Overall, I would say that this game is a a solid 10 out of 10 abandoned weapons laying on the streets. I have never really played a dating sim before and dungeon crawlers aren’t really my thing, but this game really blended them both well and earned the hours I put into playing this.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Now, just a reminder that at this point, I will be going into a more detailed analysis of the game which means there will be spoilers! If you haven’t managed to play Boyfriend Dungeon yet and you don’t want anything spoiled, then this is your last chance to avoid the discussion. Or you can go ahead and close the page, go play the game and then come back afterwards to finish reading. I promise we won’t mind. Still here? Well then, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Since a lot of the game will go according to each individual's choices on who they pursue as a dateable character, I won’t go into too many specifics around each person since half the fun of dating them is getting to find out more about them. With that said, my favourite weapons to date were:
Seven, a K-pop idol who suffers from clinical depression that transforms into a Lasersaber, as although he did start off as quite standoffish and aloof, once you got to know him he seemed really lovely and had a few common interests.
Valeria, a painter who has previously been in a poly relationship with a brother and sister that transforms into a Dagger, as her sense of humour (especially when it came to ducks) was very endearing.
Sawyer, a business student that has no clue how to cook that transforms into a Glaive, as they seemed really excitable and full of joy even if they can maybe be a hit too hectic at times. Plus they got some bonus points from me for being non-binary and ahhh the fact my gender has rep in a dating game is amazing!
I don’t know what you can read into my own personal preferences with my top three dates, but that is not to say the others aren’t also fairly enjoyable to interact with as well.
Isaac, a financier who is both religious and extremely charitable can transform into an Estoc. He is fairly warm as a person although we witness an extremely frosty relationship with his father over the course of the game. Although not necessarily my cup of tea, I could see him being a nice friend in life to have.
There is also Rowan, a non-binary mystic with their pet crow Crowley who can transform into a Scythe. They were not the easiest to get to open up at first, so they were probably one of the more challenging people to date just due to their fickle nature. For Rowan there is actually a puzzle element to this, as you receive a riddle that has to be solved before you can properly start to date them.
And last but not least, there is Sunder who is one of the owners of club La Rosa and can transform into a Talwar. For Sunder he is the very definition of Katy Perry’s song “Hot n Cold” and it later turns out that there is a strong reason for this, what with being a vampire. I don’t know why but that kind of shocked me even though I am playing in a world where people turn into actual weapons!
As well as all of the above, there is another weapon you meet later on that you can only be friends with, and that is due to them being a cat called Pocket (who does transform into Brass Knuckles). Obvious why this isn’t a romance option, but it’s great to have the ability to build this friendship up with a cat via several meetings, although I don’t know how many cat owners text a stranger saying they let their cat out and they looked like they were going to a certain place since we all know cats can be very independent creatures!
As well as going through all the dungeons and people to date, there is a bit of a narrative in trying to determine why people that transform into weapons are being kidnapped and chipped, as well as why these dungeons keep appearing in town. It all turns out to be related to what Eric, the owner of Naked Steel (the weapons shop) has been getting up to.
When we first meet Eric, it is supposed to be as a date but we, or at least I, quickly found him very pushy and clingy, and on further interactions with him he also seems to be racist and/or xenophobic since he claims people that don’t turn into weapons are better than those that can change. Any interactions with him he comes across as too much and really does read as a stalker with the times he sends unwanted gifts or fawns over us during any chance encounters. Overall he is set up to give quite a strong red flag to us, and this all leads into him being the reason for the big bad of the game, Katana.
Katana is the final boss of the game, and it turns out they have been created by Eric from chips he has taken from each of the weapons you have met throughout the game. This apparently is due to Eric always being rejected by people and so has decided to create his own person from all the other people that won’t accept him in a bid to finally not be so alone. It was actually quite the fight I found even after thinking I had become quite the dungeon master at this point in the game, so it did feel really satisfying to beat this final boss.
In terms of feelings towards Katana and Eric, I can definitely feel sorry for both of them in some ways. Katana is basically a fucked up experiement that shouldn’t exist and so even if it needs to be destroyed due to the danger they present to everyone, its not essentially their fault that someone selfishly decided to create them in a very fucked up non-consensual metaphor. As for Eric, I appreciate it can be hard to be rejected and during my playthrough the character did realise he needed to work on himself and stop blaming other people for what's occurred. Nobody in life owes you anything really, so if people don't want to date you, you can't take that out on the world. So I can feel empathy for Eric, but that doesn’t mean I forgive him for the way he has acted throughout the game.
Now I do want to touch on a certain issue that has come up because of the game. The person that provided the voice for Eric has received quite a lot of online hate as people have taken the position that since he provided the voice of the character, he supports the actions of the character he helped portray. Can people not be so bloody stupid about this? Just because a person helps portray problematic characters, does not mean that they are advocating what that person about. Hate the character that is portrayed, not the person that is just doing their job and providing the acting to make that character feel real!
And finally, once all the dungeons are conquered, all the weapons romanced, and the final boss has been defeated, there is only one thing left to do. A finale which involves a day at the beach before you head back home as summer is over. It was lovely to have an animated sequence in the style of all the weapon reveals as the final piece to the game, giving me closure with each of the characters and the person that I went into the last boss battle with. It was a very lovely way to wrap up quite a joyful game!