Boyfriend Dungeon Review (iceflare177)
I want to start out by saying that I mostly enjoyed this game. The fights were fun, the music was enjoyable, and the blades were hot (as promised). But, I ultimately have to give it a thumbs down because of the way it handles the intense subject matter that drives the plot: stalking, unhealthy obsession, and abuse.
At first glance, Boyfriend Dungeon seems like a light-hearted summertime adventure where you track down a bladenapper and bond with a diverse cast of cuties along the way. Sure, it gives a content warning at the beginning of the game, but I made the assumption that even if it were a crucial component of the plot, it wouldn't be 95% of what drives it forward. I was wrong. 5% of is driven by the MC gaining dating experience. The other 95% is the stalker you are forced to interact with.
You have no way of protecting yourself from this man by blocking him or otherwise removing him from your life. You do not contact the authorities or a help line. Your friends and potential partners do little to remove you from the situation. You cannot not talk to him.
I naturally stopped replying to his texts because I didn't want to subject myself to that treatment any longer (obviously abusive from the start). Unfortunately, you are forced to put up with it for the entire game if you are to get anywhere. Worse, the game doesn't tell you this. It just assumes that you would actually consider this poison a viable romance option and continue talking with him of your own free will. In terms of educating people about the subject and providing some insights on how to navigate it, this is a failure. Especially for a dating sim - a game genre defined by the player's choice to interact or not interact with whomever they want.
The game attempts to show this villain as a hurt boi who just needs therapy so he can love himself enough to stop hurting others. I understand and want to appreciate the rejection of cancel culture but the villain has gone too far down a dark rabbit hole to fall back on self love as the solution now. He tries to kill people and creates a version of Frankenstein's monster from stolen body parts which he then abuses.
To conclude, I believe the game bit off more than it could chew with this theme and should have at least allowed the player more ways to progress the main plot or just removed the attempted teachable moment entirely and focused on what it does rather well:
+ Dungeoning (I would have enjoyed more dungeons),
+ Positive representation of nonbinary characters in an industry where there are precious few who are written well,
+ The development of multiple types of relationships (friendship/romance, monogamy/polyamory, casual/serious) with multiple outcomes.