One game I forgot I played in 2021 was Boyfriend Dungeon by Kitfox Games. It came out in late August and I played it in a couple of days. The dating sim was great and the fighting part was adequate. I never warmed up to the latter, but it was fine. I wrote a quick impression of it after I played an hour or so as well as a full review and critique after I finished the game. I gave it an award at the end of the year, and I considered it all said and done. I knew there was going to be DLC, and I was pretty sure a character I met in the original game was going to be in the DLC (and I was right).
I found out that it had come out with little fanfare on August 17, 2022–nearly a year after the original game had been released. To recap, thee was a controversy over the inital release because the marketing for the game (come to the ‘dunj’ and fight the mons with your weps, that you can also date!), which was perky and upbeat, did not gel with the very real and disturbing issue of (*spoiler*) stalking that is a mainstay of the game.
To be clear, the majority of the game is bright, colorful, sexy, and jovial in tone (though many of the characters are depressed and have issues). But there is one character who is a complete asshole–racist against weapons, obsessive, and just horrific in nature. I hated him. I wrote about how I refused to do any of his content. I still haven’t because I hate him so much. And he still showed up in the DLC and was the major asshole he had been in the main game.
It’s weird, though, because *MASSIVE SPOILER* he was the main antagonist of the vanilla game and, as I remember it, I defeated him (and the uber-weapon he created) at the end of it. So, having him in the DLC being his normal dickish self was weird. It made me wonder about the purported timeline of the game/DLC.
But, as I wrote before, I hate that the controversy pretty much tanked the game. I thought Kitfox Games dealt with it well, but there was no winning. People wanted the ability to block the stalking content, and there really is no way to do that as it’s integral to the story.
Being a minority sucks in part because you desperately crave representation. Then, when you get a little bit of it, you want more. For example. In the game, I chose they/them pronouns, but I would have preferred not to use any at all. In addition, I would have liked more body diversity as only one guy–Jonah, the Axe, was allowed to be chunky. The rest were all slim or just hard-bodied/fit.
When I started playing the DLC, all I knew was there would be two new weps. Waait, what, three? Apparently, one was added who was created by Ikumi Nakamura (famous dev) and voiced by Loserfruit (Australian Twitch streamer I had never heard of). Dr. Holmes. A whip.
I met Jonah right away–he’s the one who was teased in the main game. Big, burly, surfer guy who changed into an axe, but did not feel good about it. He was a bit of a wet rag, I’ll be honest. He moped a lot and dumped all his angst on me, but I bonked him, anyway, because of course I would.
Then, I met Leah, who was a hammer. I kept thinking she was an ice hammer, but I think she’s just a hmamer. And an ex-figure (pairs) skater who blew out her knee and was now a coach. She owned the gym that had always been available. I did all of Jonah’s content first and then Leah’s.
There was a new dunj, too, the college. My cousin, Jesse, (who I met in the base game and who let me use his apartment for free because he was living with his girlfriend. She contacted me at the start of the DLC because her employer (a scientist) was missing in the new dunj (the college).
Of course, her boss turns out to be *spoilers* the big ‘baddie’. In quotes beacuse she’s fighting you for research and you can date them (they go by she/them) at the same time). Honestly, they are one of my favorite to date, but fighting them is…not great. That’s not her fault, though. That’s the combat in the game in general.
I mentioned it before, but the combat is strictly adequate. Stridently so, in fact. Because of the graphics, I have a hard time gauging where to strike the enemy. And, there are mobs–which I hate. In addition, there are some enemies that can kill me in two shots. I hate that. It really should not be possible. Plus, again, because of the graphics, it’s easy to be surrounded and not be able to get away. In addition, for an embarrassingly long amount of time, I forgot that there is a helm that gives you one revive. Phoenix Cap, and feel like it’s a nod to Final Fantasy. I had changed my outfit to something purely cosmetic at the end of the main game and did not remember to change it back until the final boss fight.
I liked that the college was the dungeon because the enemies are themed to the dungeon. The first was a mall, and the enemies were technology-based. Cell phones, regular red phones, tablets, etc. The second dungeon is a nightclub, and the enemies are drinks and such. In this dungeon, there are staplers, computers, and pens as enemies (and more). There are also transporters to take you from one area to another or to another room, and I hated those. They weren’t precise (sigh), but more to the point, there was no need for it. It was unnecessarily complicating things.
I never warmed to the combat because let’s face it–combat is hard. It’s not something that you can just do in your spare time. It was pretty clear that the dating sim was the more important part of the game–or where the devs wanted to put their energy.
I really appreciated that you could date all the weapons (except the cat, obviously) or none–I’m assuming. I seduced everyone I could and sometimes simultaneously. That was a bit weird that no one ever commented on the fact that you were sexing up everyone in town, but I dug it.
Back to the final boss fight. It had lasers that took half my life each time it hit me. I could roll under them, but we all know my reflexes suck. It took me several times to realize that the ‘boxes’ that were dotting the landscape blocked the lasers. And there were transporters, which as I have said, I hated. The conceit of that fight is that she was testing your mettle and analyzing you.
Oh, by the way, you could date Dr. Holmes while all this was going on. Which, ok. Kind of took the mick out of the actual battle. I really like them, though, and I was massively disappointed that you could not wield her. I kept wondering when she would become available to fight, and she never did. There is an in-story reason for it, but it was still a disappointment.
Honestly, I feel like the wind went out of the sails of Kitfox Games when the controversy hit. Apparently, they had promised DLC in the Kickstarter, so they had to do it. I will admit it felt a bit obligatory. You can give gifts to the weps, but in the DLC, it was so easy to level them up, gifts were not needed. And, for Jonah, you could give him three of the same thing. In the base game, there were enough unique games to give each person a different gift every time it was possible.
During the DLC playthrough (which I did in four or five hours in one day), I revisited several of the weapons. I will admit I mostly used the new ones so I could level them up. The brass knucks (the cat) were my favorite, and I think that’s what I finally beat the last boss with (or maybe the lightsaber?).
When I was done, I felt a bit empty. It was fun enough and I’m glad I played it, but there was so much more it could have been. Still. I’m glad I finally played the DLC. Oh! I actually had to buy the game between then and now. It was on Game Pass, but expired somewhere in between. I didn’t mind buying it, though, beacuse I’m all about supporting indie devs. I will admit after I finished the DLC, I checked out the achievements/trophies. I need three, and two of them are ridiculous. One is getting all the dialogue between weps (I’m at 68%) and another is winning at the terrible in-game video game. It has tank controls and I think it’s inverted.
I would recommend this game if you can deal with stalking and like a sweet dating sim with passable combat. There is so much heart in it, it’s a shamed it got downed by the controversy.