[Review] Hatoful Boyfriend

Today is Valentine's Day, a day in which most people go out to a restaurant with their significant other; buy chocolates, flowers or other things for them; or just watch a romantic movie; there's also the ones that prefer to play visual novels and dating sims. We decided to review Hatoful Boyfriend becuase not only it's a game fitting for the date but it also has a fairly unique concept. Want to know more about it? then continue reading.

Hatoful Boyfriend is an otome visual novel in which we take the role of a girl (or a boy depending on how you name the main character) who has just enrolled into the prestigious St. PigeoNation Institute and, as time passes, our character would find love among their peers. So far nothing seems out of the ordinary, right? Well, things take a turn for the weird as soon as you realize you're the only human who's attending the school and all your classmates and staff are pigeons. Yes, pigeons. Of course each bird will have their own distinctive personality. You have the snobby one, the timid one and the creepy doctor, among others. The game also gives you the chance to see their human personas in their profile, which is a nice touch.

Though I wonder whether the human form or the birdie
is the creepiest of the two.

Regarding the story, at first glance it seems goofy given the premise and the fact it's a pigeon dating sim, but as soon as you start playing through the different routes you start learning little by little about the world and you realize that deep within it's actually an emotive story. It also has an extra route which is unlocked once you finish the rest of the routes and it's then when it abandons all it's inherent silliness and you get a better insight on the world and why the pigeons behave like they do.
On another note, the soundtrack of the game is decent, neither bad nor good. Though some tracks get a bit repetitive over time. Also it'd have been a nice touch if the game was voiced.

Quite a fitting name, isn't it?

Would I recommend this game? I'd do so to any fan of visual novels given it's uniqueness and good storytelling, but anybody who's not used to this kind of game might find it a bit too weird.

Extra information:

Developer: Hato Moa, Mediatonic (remake)

Publisher: Devolver Digital
Language: English

Available Platforms: PC, PS4, PS Vita.

System Requirements:

- Windows XP with SP2 or better - Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 or later - Ubuntu 12.04 or later

- Memory: 1 GB

- Graphic card compatible with DirectX 9.0c and Shader Model 2.0

- 300 MB of available hard disk space

- Sound card compatible with DirectX

- Windows Vista is not supported.