

HATOFUL BOYFRIEND ACHIEVEMENT GUIDE ARCHIVE
As you unlock more endings in the game, the title screen’s archive is filled with snippets of information about the true BBL path the game offers. There’s also a bonus epilogue you unlock after BBL if you have completed all the other endings.

The normal routes are great for learning more about characters but BBL is where you understand everything. I never thought I’d get emotionally attached to birds until I completed this route.
HATOFUL BOYFRIEND ACHIEVEMENT GUIDE FULL
The BBL route is full of plot twists and strong emotions. This route is much longer than any other route in the game and is the real deal.Īfter I finished 7 endings, the game presented me with the Promise or Normal option and this is where I truly experienced the awesome story. These sections have purple interface colours for the dialogue boxes and say HURTFUL BOYFRIEND. Selecting the promise option will result in the game playing out differently. After completing certain endings, the game presents you with a choice before beginning a new game which lets you either play a normal game or fulfil a promise.

The normal routes in the game are accompanied by a blue theme in the game interface with the dialogue background text being HATOFUL BOYFRIEND. The birds you meet and interact with in your story are all unique there’s even a female love interest for a female protagonist for the first time. The normal “campaign” is quite short, and it can become a little tedious if you try to get all the endings for the achievements. Decisions like which elective class to pick for a day or which fortune to wish for affect your story. These short endings sometimes result in many unanswered questions and involve a lot of repetition. The gameplay branches as you make various decisions throughout, aiming for one of 14 endings (the true ending is only unlocked after completing a few of the normal short endings.) Most of the game paths involve you getting to a know a character better and usually falling in love with them. As the story progresses new characters are introduced with a brief description, and you are presented with choices to make that affect your stats – displayed in the top right of the screen – and bring you closer to a specific character ending. You start the story by meeting your friend Ryouta, who is a rock dove. Even the understated menu music is catchy. Hatoful Boyfriend is full of charm that extends from the art design to the dialogue and descriptions of the various characters you interact with. Each character is represented by a portrait with dialogue in a box below, and it includes an option to display human male portraits for the birds as well. Since this is a visual novel in the purest sense, there are no character animations. PigeoNation’s Institute as the sole human student in an all-bird academy. You play as a female protagonist, Hiyoko Tosaka (the name can be changed) who joins St. All I had seen prior to playing were screenshots on the Steam page, and so I didn’t really know what to expect when I launched the game, marketed as a “pigeon dating simulator”. An otome game, or one targeted towards a female audience like Hatoful Boyfriend, is even rarer in this genre. One of my favourites, Stein’s Gate, wasn’t even available in English officially until earlier this year. Visual novels are not too common in the west, since very few are localized. It’s an HD remake of the original game with a few notable additions, like an all new ending and more choices and interactions.

When a game is described as a visual novel with dating simulation elements involving pigeons, how can you not get excited? Devolver Digital always picks unique and fun games to publish and Hatoful Boyfriend (a play on the word hurtful, as “hato” actually means “dove” in Japanese), by Mediatonic, is a great experience.
