Hatoful Boyfriend: Is pigeon dating simulator the weirdest game ever? Japanese dating simulator parody Hatoful Boyfriend has you attract potential avian suitors. This is a brand-new, me-riffic matching game featuring the pigeon, his pals and buses. Packaged inside the pigeon are 54 tiles for hours of matching fun.
3rd December, 2020Rhiannon Saegert / News Editor Hatoful Boyfriend is the perfect game for anyone looking to spend their weekend crying bitter tears over stock photos of pigeons.
Created by Hato Moa, Hatoful is a visual-novel style dating simulator, a choose-your-own-adventure type game where the player makes decisions at key points to try and make other characters fall in love with them. There are all kinds of different dating sims out there that let players woo all kinds of romantic prospects, but Hatoful Boyfriend is the first to allow players to romance human-sized, highly-intelligent birds. Finally.
Yuuya Sakazaki in his storyline. Screenshot courtesy of game creator Hato MoaFor the uninitiated, dating sims are a Japanese creation and most tend to contain the same anime-esque character types. The stock characters are all more or less present here: Childhood friend, shy bookish one, carefree playboy (playbird?) with hidden depths, stuck-up aristocrat who clashes with our heroine at first, and some joke characters that simply defy categorization. In that way, the game is fairly typical. Well, barring the obvious.
Nageki Fujishiro in the school library. Screenshot courtesy of game creator Hato MoaGameplay is straightforward: The heroine is a human girl attending St. Pigeonation’s Academy, a prestigious school for intelligent birds. Start the school year, meet all the different characters, decide who the heroine should fall in love with and then navigate dialogue options and key choices to make it happen. Some more infamous dating sims familiar to western audiences contain explicit content, but have no fear, there isn’t so much as a kiss in this game (probably because even the creator doesn’t know how that would work). Some birds are kind, some are jerks, some are just insane, and half the fun is picking a favorite. There’s somebirdie for everybirdie. Almost every character is entertaining, but the award for Least Enjoyable Route goes to Dr. Shuu. He has his fans but he’s really nobirdie to lose your head over.
St. Pigeonation’s, the world’s greatest pigeon high school. Screenshot courtesy of game creator Hato MoaThe game is tongue-in-cheek to the point of parody, self-aware, silly and cute in a way that’s reminiscent of the anime Ouran High School Host Club. It delights in poking fun at slice-of-life anime and dating sim clichés while embracing them and taking them even further. Rest assured, plenty of jokes work beyond the “… except with pigeons!” gag. Considering this game was created by one person at home in her spare time, it’s more engaging and better-written than one might expect and that must be acknowledged.
One of the possible 16 endings. Screenshot courtesy of game creator Hato MoaPlayers might be too busy laughing at the sheer absurdity of the premise to catch the tiny breadcrumbs of a larger story each route drops. At one point, the heroine goes for a jog, passes abandoned, crumbling skyscrapers, and fails to find this surprising or noteworthy at all. Nearly everybirdie points out she is the only human attending the school, but as the game goes on it becomes clear she’s the only human character we’ll see. Two routes mention students missing from the school, and the heroine can be killed while investigating the disappearances. The biggest red flag comes if a player does not successfully complete a romantic route by the end of the game, earning an abrupt “bad” ending that throws everything about the other storylines into question.
Pigeon Dating Game
These hints culminate when, after earning the right endings, players are given the option to either continue the game as normal or “Fulfill the promise.” Choosing the second option unlocks the hidden BBL or Hurtful Boyfriend route, revealing the school’s bloody history, character backstories that are either tragic, horrifying, or both, and finally an answer to the question you’ve probably been asking yourself since the title screen: Why am I dating pigeons instead of people?
The “story that starts cute and innocent but then takes a horrifyingly dark and gritty turn” formula is a tried and true way to gain short-lived Internet infamy, but when Hatoful Boyfriend’s candy-coated exterior melts away and everything goes egg-shaped, the two stories dovetail surprisingly well.
Having to successfully woo most of the main cast to unlock the “real” story works brilliantly. This creates a connection to these characters, or at the very least some investment in the story. In either case, by the time the true story is available, players have willingly drunk enough of the coo-laid to ensure this hidden route holds weight for them. The result, against all odds, is genuine emotional investment in picking the right dialogue option to advance the story and, as previously stated, bitter tears over stock photos of pigeons.
Obviously, this game is not for everyone. For fans of anime and manga, romcoms, visual novels or really bizarre things discovered late at night on the weird side of Youtube, Hatoful Boyfriend is worth checking out. The original game is available for free at http://clione.halfmoon.jp/hatoful-boyfriend/english.html. An updated version of the game with spiffier backgrounds and a brand new romantic route is available for $9.99 on Steam.
Tagsanimebird school for birdsdating simgame reviewhatoful boyfriendpigeonreviewthe dosevisual novel: Laverne Cox lecture rescheduled for April 7: Pets of the week – March 27Share
Japan – home of the RPG and land of the pigeon dating simulator set in a post-apocalyptic future.
Yes, that’s right; a pigeon dating simulator set in a post-apocalyptic future. If such a combination of words is strange to you, then you’ve probably not heard of Hatoful Boyfriend. Brace yourself then, because we’re going to attempt to explain it, and it’s going to get weird. Very weird.
First, a history lesson. The genre of dating simulators (or visual novels, as many sims like Hatoful branch out into) in gaming has been around for many years. They can be traced back to early text adventures, games where you explored in-game worlds mostly by typing in instructions such as: go north, look at sky, wipe bird poop from your eye.
These games were basically interactive novels and their popularity extended into Japan, where they became more visual in their evolution. Static images, often invoking a Manga style, would accompany the story. Here’s one of the earliest visual novel games, The Portopia Serial Murder Case, from back in 1983:
There’s often some dispute about what is a dating sim and what is a visual novel. Suffice to say, Hatoful Boyfriend falls into both camps. The core structure of it is a dating sim, as you attempt to gain experience points in certain areas that appeal to particular suitors.
Over the course of time in the game, your choices will then help lead you towards one of multiple endings depending on which boyfriend you find. Unlike most dating sims though, Hatoful has a many-layered, insane story underneath its wings. And your task is to peel each layer of this demented onion.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
The basic premise of Hatoful is fairly standard: You play as a teenage human girl in a school full of talking birds and you must date one of them. Which is all normal, ordinary gaming stuff so far.
You might even say it’s too clichéd, bur never-mind. There are eight different birds to pursue in the game, but that’s just the start of the madness. As you progress down these different paths, a whole plethora of weirdness is revealed. Let’s examine some of the bonkers characters involved:
Yuuya
Yuuya is a fantail pigeon who works for a political bird party called the Doves. The Doves are opposed to the Hawk party who want all humans dead. Down one path in the game, you end up accidentally eating Yuuya at Christmas dinner without realizing it. Yuuya was killed by…
Shuu
A chukar partridge who is also the school’s doctor and member of the Hawk party. Shuu is a crazed, murderous bird who takes perverse pleasure in mutilating other birds in the name of “science”.
Take a path with Shuu and you end up being compliant in his evil actions until, eventually, Shuu murders you and then falls in love with your disembodied brain. Prior to that, Shuu also kills…
Pigeon Dating Sim
![Dating Pigeon Game Dating Pigeon Game](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VV9eOpxtEi4/maxresdefault.jpg)
Anghel
A luzon bleeding-heart dove, Anghel is also the reincarnation of the Crimson Fallen Angel of Judecca. If you follow Anghel’s path (and he doesn’t die) you end up helping him to fight a demonic tree-bird called Himnesia and Shuu himself.
Except Shuu is now possessed by an evil sorcerer called Wallenstein. By using a Holy Spear called Saekro’m, you can defeat Wallenstein and remember your past life as an angel.
Okosan
And then there’s Okosan. A pigeon who likes pudding. His quest is to find the Ultimate Pudding. He is later revealed to be Lord Pudi, God of Pudding whose destiny is to cover the entire planet in pudding.
Yikes.
Hatoful Boyfriend Steam
And the above is only a brief glimpse into the un-hinged birdy world of Hatoful Boyfriend. If, for example, you unlock every possible ending in the game, you get a whole new story: Hurtful Boyfriend.
Here, you play as the main character until you end up murdered. You then play as one of the male pigeons, Ryouta, who investigates the crime and uncovers a sinister conspiracy at the heart of the school. One which involves scarecrows and planet-killing viruses. Obviously.
The oddest thing about Hatoful Boyfriend though, is that it’s not all that odd. Yes, it’s an utterly bizarre game, but it actually plays out in a fairly well-written, calm manner. It eases you along the madness with every line of dialogue.
Most importantly, Hatoful plays it strictly for laughs. It knows how ridiculous it is, and that level of self-knowing works in its favour; you’re laughing with the game, instead of at it. Well, sometimes at it too.
Hatoful Boyfriend developed an inevitable cult following since its release in 2011, and the Hatoful universe has grown with spin-off novels and sequels. Of course it’s not a game for everybirdie, but those that do coo-se it will for-feather remember it.
Pigeon Dating Game Trailer
OK, that’s enough bird puns now, Pliny.