Power Hour Review: Hatoful Boyfriend

Last week, the world went to the birds. Or, at least, the world of dating simulators.

Hatoful Boyfriend is a visual novel developed by Moa Hato and PigeoNation. The protagonist is a female barbarian/cave dweller who is the only human student attending St. PigeoNation’s Institute—an elite, all-bird school. Your goal is to guide your human protagonist through the trials and challenges of high school while building connections with your avian buddies.

Technically, Hatoful came out in 2011 (with good reviews), but the game was only available in Japanese and enjoyed limited distribution. It was liked enough, however, that fans created English translations for wider audiences and, last week, Steam picked it up and gave it a reboot in high definition.

The game is a delightful, short escape. In the hour I reviewed it, I was able to play it through to completion twice and, just as you might expect of a boundary-pushing avian dating simulator, the experience was a mess of contradictions.

As a dating sim, Hatoful’s mechanics are clumsy and too simplistic to be fun. As with many dating sims, you can improve your character’s stats by choosing to go to certain classes or join certain clubs. However, Hatoful really wasn’t made to put stat-building as its focus. Most sims are day-by-day experiences. The repetition can be a bit tedious (much like real life), but daily choices about your activities, relations, and skillsets allows for a bit of wiggle-room (in case you make early mistakes) and a chance for real strategizing. Hatoful, on the other hand, employs time skips. There is no rhyme or reason to how many days go unmentioned between your choices, and the stat-building you do doesn’t seem to have any real impact on the game. During my first run-through, I went to math class every day in order to build my logic skill. I got the ultimate high score out of the class on my math test (yay education!). Except, during round two, I only went twice–I choose to spend the rest of my time building my charisma in music class—and, somehow, I still got the highest score. Perhaps more run-throughs would show more variety in the results, but I didn’t really get the sense that your stats did anything.

Who you choose to spend time with also doesn’t seem to impact your future choices. Of course, choosing to hang out with your best (birdie) friend for the day means you can’t hang out with anyone else, but it doesn’t change the kind of interaction you’ll have if you choose someone else next time. Unlike, say, Persona 3 or 4 where relationships build in stages, Hatoful is more like a choose-your-own-adventure novel where your main choice is what page you turn to. The text is already set.

And that’s the real charm of Hatoful Boyfriend. The game mechanics were frustrating, and the protagonist’s cutesy language bordered on irritating (I wanted to pull my hair out every time she said “everybirdie”)…but Hatoful Boyfriend isn’t actually a dating sim. It’s a visual novel, and it’s got a good deal more to offer than it seems on the surface.

Thirty minutes in, my attention was spacing. I’d spent time with my best friend, flirted with the popular bird in school, worked with the arrogant French aristocrat birdie, and spent time with my homeroom teacher. The interactions were interesting and all, but there was no real conflict or challenge. I gave my best friend beans as a gift for Legumentine’s day (the game’s equivalent to Valentine’s) and clicked next

…and was promptly murdered by a pigeon cabal.

Of course, there are signs that things are weird in this game (just in case the talking pigeons weren’t enough to tip you off). You are a cave-girl with no parents or human neighbors who still speaks fluently, knows how to interview for jobs, and owns a cellphone. Birds ride motorcycles once meant for humans and live in “cages” that are obviously houses. It’s silly and light…until you go for a run and an image of a dark, desolate city ruin flashes on the screen for a split second. Or until the pudgy, threatening school doctor (…really, I never expected to say that about a bird) locks you in a closet, possibly with the intention of murdering you. Or you fail to make a solid connection with any one bird and a shadowy cabal does murder you because their “experiment” failed.

I haven’t played through all of the endings yet. A second run-through was enough to show me that there’s a lot more hidden than those brief flashes, but the story remains appealingly cryptic. There are clues about a bigger picture, but it’s still an avian dating sim. There are still birds who dress up in maid costumes, take classes, and run for student council. The game isn’t much if you’re looking for strategy and a long-time experience, but it’s great for a laugh with a hint of something much creepier beneath the surface.

Some things of note:

• Female protagonist (yay!)
• Short play time (25-35 min)
• Narrative-heavy
• No sexual content (unlike many dating sims, this one draws the line at best buds or fond friends)
• Cute and silly with a dystopian edge.