I love when a piece of media can play with expectations or its concept and still manage to explore a lot of different ideas. One would look at Hatoful Boyfriend and go "oh, it's a funny bird dating sim. classic japan!!" and yeah that's what it is. The game explores that concept and how ridiculous it is with a ton of writing that solely exists to confuse you to the point of laughter. "Yeah, there's a bird watching club. What do they do? Idk!"
Yet despite that, the game doesn't use its goofy tone as an excuse to not explore the characters. While the actual plots to the routes are limited to only a couple scenes, they are effective and there's still many characterizing moments that really gets you to like them. Goofy stuff like Yuuya having a butler cafe to rival to Ryouta's maid cafe and talking about corny light novels to bookworm Nageki really do go a long way. It helps that the protagonist, Hiyoko, is so goofy and lovable with how much of dim-witted hyper girl she is. While routes like Nageki's sad and lowkey character journey, Yuuya's fascinating secret life, and Shuu's terrifying motivations are very memorable and solid, the rest I think vary from "pretty good" to "underwhelming." Anghel's is simply a goofy comedic story without too much else going on, and Okosan's is basically just that but less funny and with lay less depth, and while Nanaki's is alright the protagonist doesn't really have much impact on the story of it, though that may also have been intentional.
The thing is though that while all these routes are goofy fun, they're simply setup for the true story of Hatoful Boyfriend that you unlock after finishing all of them. From the characters I already loved like Nageki to characters I was just sorta okay on like Sakuya and Nanaki, this route does so much to bring together every character for such an excellent, powerful story about love, what we live for, and the differences between all of us. A story strong enough to make little 11 year-old me cry. My only real complaint is that the last twist maybe comes a bit too late? I don't know, I was thoroughly enjoying all the intrigue built up overtime and the amazing payoff the whole way through.
The incredible thing to me about that is that they made that story out of a meme game where you date pigeons. Most people who know about this game or even played a bit of it only know of it as a meme game, however, Hato Moa was able to make such a great storyline out of it because she was truly passionate about this project, even with it being made with the sticks and glue of stock music and bird photographs. The only other real complaints I can bring up is that the stat-building for certain endings is a little cryptic and sort of tedious if you wanna get all of them for characters with two endings, and some repeated scenes being kind of annoying to skip over (looking at you Azami). Also typos. Loys of 'em. All and all though, I'm not ashamed at all now that baby Rad cried at bird racism.
Yet despite that, the game doesn't use its goofy tone as an excuse to not explore the characters. While the actual plots to the routes are limited to only a couple scenes, they are effective and there's still many characterizing moments that really gets you to like them. Goofy stuff like Yuuya having a butler cafe to rival to Ryouta's maid cafe and talking about corny light novels to bookworm Nageki really do go a long way. It helps that the protagonist, Hiyoko, is so goofy and lovable with how much of dim-witted hyper girl she is. While routes like Nageki's sad and lowkey character journey, Yuuya's fascinating secret life, and Shuu's terrifying motivations are very memorable and solid, the rest I think vary from "pretty good" to "underwhelming." Anghel's is simply a goofy comedic story without too much else going on, and Okosan's is basically just that but less funny and with lay less depth, and while Nanaki's is alright the protagonist doesn't really have much impact on the story of it, though that may also have been intentional.
The thing is though that while all these routes are goofy fun, they're simply setup for the true story of Hatoful Boyfriend that you unlock after finishing all of them. From the characters I already loved like Nageki to characters I was just sorta okay on like Sakuya and Nanaki, this route does so much to bring together every character for such an excellent, powerful story about love, what we live for, and the differences between all of us. A story strong enough to make little 11 year-old me cry. My only real complaint is that the last twist maybe comes a bit too late? I don't know, I was thoroughly enjoying all the intrigue built up overtime and the amazing payoff the whole way through.
The incredible thing to me about that is that they made that story out of a meme game where you date pigeons. Most people who know about this game or even played a bit of it only know of it as a meme game, however, Hato Moa was able to make such a great storyline out of it because she was truly passionate about this project, even with it being made with the sticks and glue of stock music and bird photographs. The only other real complaints I can bring up is that the stat-building for certain endings is a little cryptic and sort of tedious if you wanna get all of them for characters with two endings, and some repeated scenes being kind of annoying to skip over (looking at you Azami). Also typos. Loys of 'em. All and all though, I'm not ashamed at all now that baby Rad cried at bird racism.