I beat
Boyfriend Dungeon, it was inconsistent and short so Gamepass was perfect but I'm glad I played it and have some thoughts.
Two characters I have bad thoughts on, one of which you've probably heard about if you've heard of the game.
(this spoils the overall plot of the game FYI)
The stalker character is what sparked a lot of discussion and it's definitely out of place in this world. However, the reason I found it so out of place is that the writing for the stalker is much, much better than the dialogue for other characters. While other characters are extremely predictable in their dialogue and you don't always feel like your choices changed what they say/do, the stalker is very attuned to you. It's well-written enough that it makes me pretty sure someone on the team has been stalked. But I will note that as someone who has been the target of this behaviour (both of my parents too), it did not make me panic or upset me, I was fine playing it. The issue is that it's so accurate and well-done it does not fit in with the tone of the overall game AT ALL. I absolutely understand why someone wouldn't want to play it and definitely think this should have been done differently. But I think the backlash on the studio is shitty, and it's especially shitty that people are harassing the voice actor over this!
But ultimately he didn't bother me much, the character that did was
Sawyer. Nonbinary supposedly college student who is every "ditzy helpless clingy high school girl" trope in one character. "Oops, I tried to boil an egg and it didn't work!" "Oh, you have to use water to boil things, haha, silly me you're so smart for knowing that". It's awful and grating and the character felt
very uncomfortably young to be dating due to how helpless they are. But what really made my skin crawl was
their pestering to date you and ignoring your decisions. With the adult characters once you make the platonic/romantic decision (which is frustratingly unclear in the dialogue selections sometimes) the character respects that. But if you tell Sawyer you just want to be friends they continue to ask "oh is this a date? Oh is this a date?" over and over again. To me it was far more stalker-ish than the actual villain in the game. I ended up finishing their track out of curiousity if it gets better but it does not (in the final two stages of the relationship you help them
cheat on a test and then beg their professor to bend the rules because Sawyer is dumb and missed a deadline, ick). I appreciate that if I didn't want to date them I could have completely ignored them, which I think is true for all characters.
But there were things I like and if you have Gamepass or see this for under $5 (maybe even under $10) I'd recommend it if you're okay with what I noted above, because there are some really fun things being done here and I did have a good time. Minimal spoilers below.
Isaac and Seven have my favourite character arcs and both deal with massive life changes in very different ways, they really were made to be unique characters. They both start out appearing to have it all, but as you get to know them you see the cracks and see completely different approaches and resolutions that feel true to the characters. I was dating both of them at the end of the game.
The remaining characters were all good and fun and really varied (everything from
rogue art painting to running around town searching for
a crow familiar), and of course the
cat weapon friend is hilarious. I believe you can choose platonic relationships for everyone too which I like very much. And (with the exception of the character above) being platonic is just fine with everyone which is very refreshing, I'm also glad it doesn't affect the weapon abilities you unlock.
The combat is pretty fun, I do wish they had reassigned the weapons between characters as the later characters are non-swords and really mix things up and would have been great earlier in the game. The magic/items are fun and wacky and let you try some pretty different things, and you really, really benefit from becoming better friends/lovers with the weapons, some of the later abilities are crazy. And of course you can wear silly hats and outfits, most of which also grant perks.
There isn't a ton of voice acting but what is there is well done which is nice. And ProZD is this sexy sword dude who I can't talk about without giving away major spoilers but he's fun too: