izigame.me

tldr; isn't not worth the price. This game just doesn't have the amount of content is should for the price. It is rare that a dating-sim by an indie team even skirts the $20 mark and it's worth it, and this is not an exception. If you still want it, buy it on sale.
There was controversy around this game that can't be missed, if you look up anything about it, the reviews will often focus more on its stalker antagonist and the demand for the developer to remove him and really say nothing about the game itself. Defenders compare this game with Persona 5 and the lack of backlash when it had sexual assault and suicide pretty early in the game. "Why this game and not that one? People are just being too sensitive, if you don't want to heed the content warnings, you cant be surprised if you're triggered. We are holding indie developers to a different standard than AAA games."
But that's not the reason I gave it a 'no' recommendation. The plot barely exists after the first hour, other than text messages he sends that you can just ignore and the very end, you move on to date the other people in the game. I wouldn't buy it because it is boring, the relationships shallow, the combat is bleh, and... well, I finished a game with 6 romantic routes in 11 hours that cost $20 and that in itself is a good indication of a lack of content for the cost.
The "story" of the game is the relationships. Getting through their relationships is how you advance the plot. I tried to keep everyone at the same level so that I could have the plot line up correctly but, that doesn't exactly work well. At the end of the day, the pacing is weird because of this mechanic, and needing to go into the dunj to advance the relationships was a cute idea but ultimately ended up being tedious since... well, play hades. Play children of morta. Just, try another rougelite and it'll make sense. The battle mechanics are just not there, not nuanced, not reactive enough for a satisfying rougelite, especially if you are actually into rouge games. This version is a baby version. It seems to be designed for people who don't play games like this.
The love interests... Everyone has their flaws and in general... well, all of them are pretty one note characters that end up being boring and reductive of the "representation" they are supposed to highlight. Sawyer being the worst, you play babysitter to an adult with the mental capacity of a child, and oh yeah, dont you want to bang them? Rowan is best bae hands down, with the story that has the best handling even while taking on heavy subjects (grief) and a satisfying conclusion. Seven is a fanfiction version of SUGA from BTS whose entire personality is "depressed". Sunder doesn't have an actual platonic route when despite telling him you're just friends he breaks up with you and your character gets messed up about it? Valeria invites, and then justifies her weirdo ex intimidating you and you're supposed to be friends in the end with no real reason to even try. Issac is a wealthy religious black man and wants to give money to charity and invest in starts up, but his father won't hear it - even tho wealthy people use charities as tax write offs irl. The ends of each relationship escalate into ridiculous hi-jinx that are more frustrating than funny, and sometimes disrespectful of the relationship you've built or to the character & the community they "represent".
And then the game ends with confronting your stalker, because of course you have to. So, this is where the controversy thing crops back up and...I didn't have any issues with it until it got to this point, I think the REAL problem is the execution of the ending. The writers were more concerned about pushing a "feel good be a goody goody person" agenda than they were writing a meaningful story, so you get this ending:
Dude made a chimera from your weapon-friends (by assaulting and abducting them then mutilating their bodies), and now that chimera is trying to kill you. Dude's "self-loathing makes it stronger" so you have to comfort your abuser to beat the chimera and at the end it's like, "poor guy, you should seek a therapist." Like, this dude should be in prison. Sure, he should see a therapist, in the context of a prison cell. And THIS is why P5 is not comparable to this game, why it got a "pass" and BD doesn't. The antagonists in P5 are vilified, humiliated, arrested for their crimes. Boyfriend dungeon does that whole meta narrative thing of "this is how you actually be a good person" bs and... basically it comes down to the victim to absolve the abuser and the abuser sees no consequences for their actions. The crime and the punishment do not match. I'm sure if the villain got what he deserved in the end, it wouldn't have been such a big deal. I'm sure people are even more pissed about it because it was funded by a kickstarter campaign.
But ultimately, the ending of the game, the stalker dude and his behavior was only the tip of the iceburg, and they would have been aspects that were tangential to the experience if the romances were more fleshed out and better written. it needed more content overall, and considering the outcome in hindsight this game should have been either or. the plot should be longer, there should be at least another dunj. Or they could just lower the price of the game and my expectations would go down.