Boyfriend Dungeon Review (Adrie Therin)
Boyfriend dungeon is a dungeon crawling, roguelike dating sim. You get to use weapons to fight in combat similar to Hades and you get to date the weapons. Boyfriend is a bit of a lie because this is not a pure otome game. You can choose the gender of the main character and you even can customize the avatar. The customization is limited, but I appreciate the options we had. Was not expecting that. The weapons you can date are women, men, and non-binary, so it's not just boyfriends. To be fair, Boyfriend Dungeon is a catchy title, but it does kinda make you think that men are gonna be the only options. based on this, i would put the game in the Amare category since it is so diverse.
You play as a person who has pretty bad social anxiety and has never been in a relationship before. You move into your cousin's apartment for the summer to get out of your house and meet new people. Your cousins sets you up on dates to meet more people and get some experience. You can either be friends or be romantic with these people. Pretty early on you have one date that goes pretty weird and turns into a stalking situation. You get stalked in the game, so if that makes you uncomfortable you may want to avoid this game.
You do live in a magical world where there are wielders (people who wield weapons), weapons (people who literally turn into weapons), and normal people who can't either. You are a wielder and the people you date are weapons so a lot of you time spent together is you wielding them in the dungeon. In order to progress the relationship and see dates, you have to go level them up in the dungeon. It's a weird but super interesting concept. Also while in the dungeons you are making some money and facing your fears. Like the dungeon monsters are base don your fears and insecurities. The game has 3 dungeons, but the
This game is regularly priced at $20 on Steam, I grabbed it on sale $10 during Fall 2024, but I have seen it as low as $8. The game is pretty short. I got about 15 hours out of the game but you could probably finish it sooner if you aren't trying to 100% the achievements. I do like to get 1 hour of gameplay per $1 spent, so I got more than my money's worth on sale, but it's hard to recommend it at full price.
There are 9 weapons to have a relationship with. You do not have to date them, you can just be friends and you can date all of them at the same time. I can't comment on the friendship paths because I chose to date everyone. You can be best friends with or date Isaac the Estoc, Valeria the Dagger, Sunder the Talwar, Seven the Lasersaber, Sawyer the Glaive, Rowan the Scythe, Pocket the Brass Knuckles (Pocket is a cat, you can't date the cat, this is not that kind of game), Jonah the Axe, Leah the Hammer, and Dr. Holmes the Whip. Personally my favorite was Seven the Lasersaber who is also part of a super popular K-Pop band. I loved using the lasersaber in the dungeon, and I just really thought his character was adorable and cute. I also really liked Rowan, Sunder, Isaac, and Pocket. The rest I really didn't care for, so I was kind of happy that you could date everyone in one playthrough.
It is a dungeon crawling dating sim but unfortunately it does not really do either really well. It's not a very good dungeon crawling game. Like the combat is not as smooth as it could be and there are only 3 dungeons (1 is shorter than the others). From the dating sim side, the options don't seem to really affect the story, and I do wish we got CGs with the weapons. The dates are cute, but I honestly wanted more from each love interest.
All this being said, I really enjoyed playing the game. I played on my Steam Deck which was a very pleasant experience. Only downside to Steam Deck was that the end scene video has a tendency to glitch. I had to go on Steam Discussions to figure out how to get the video to play.
I kinda struggle to actually play games until I finish them. It was pretty short so I was able to finish it quickly, but I couldn't put down for a week. I'd recommend grabbing it while on sale since it is usually on sale during Steam sales. I doubt we'll ever see a sequel at this point, but I would buy a sequel if it ever came out.