This is not a rougelike. While there are procedurally generated dungeons (2 in total) this lacks anything that remotely resembles run-based game design.
After the first combat encounter you will be quickly defeated in the dungeon that "represents your fears" to learn that there is a concrete leveling system separate from the relationship levels with each weapon. This player level represents both your offense and defense in every combat encounter, regardless of weapon. Meaning there is no skill involved in combat, it is simply a game of numbers.
Everything becomes trivial with time, strategy is the same regardless of weapon, and the only satisfying part of combat is to see the numbers go up.
Of course the trick is that you only level up when you leave the dungeon... and you can only level up your weapon relationships outside the dungeon...
The only way the developer feels like they can get the player to both engage with both the dungeon side as well as the dating side outside of the dungeon is to force them to leave the combat side regularly in order to go date.
This game is an Action RPG, and not a particularly good one at that. There is nothing that changes between trips to the dungeon except for a few floor shakeups, combat is busywork and only varies with enemy design, and every relationship skill is pretty much meaningless. Boyfriend Dungeon is simply a loose collection of ideas tied together by some lite game design knowledge as well as a high concept that's hardly explored.
There's a "Boyfriend" game here, as well as a "Dungeon" game, but the connecting systems feel loose at best. Sure, the only way you can move forward the "Boyfriend" sections is to level up your relationships in the "Dungeon" section, but if it weren't for the final boss requiring a maxed out "Boyfriend" you could just completely ignore half of the game and get by just fine. Boyfriend Dungeon wears many inspirations on its sleeve but fails to recognize how games like Persona use multiple systems to incentivize the player into Wanting to engage with the text in its entirety.
I could go through and analyze all the boringness that is the "Boyfriend" part of this game, but honestly there's not much to say. It's schlocky and, no cap, I skipped a lot of dialogue.
At the end of the day I still enjoyed the game. A couple of the romances were fun, and the game hit enough of my dopamine centers to help me ignore my anxiety and stress for a few hours.
Not much that you could write on though tbh, I will probably just forget about it in a few days.
Also the controversy here is silly. I get it's easy for some LGBT+ twitter communities to devour media people who are perceived of pandering/not doing enough, but come on the stalker warning was there from the beginning. I can see people being upset with the treatment of the theme of stalking in the narrative, but no need to censor bad media ya know.
After the first combat encounter you will be quickly defeated in the dungeon that "represents your fears" to learn that there is a concrete leveling system separate from the relationship levels with each weapon. This player level represents both your offense and defense in every combat encounter, regardless of weapon. Meaning there is no skill involved in combat, it is simply a game of numbers.
Everything becomes trivial with time, strategy is the same regardless of weapon, and the only satisfying part of combat is to see the numbers go up.
Of course the trick is that you only level up when you leave the dungeon... and you can only level up your weapon relationships outside the dungeon...
The only way the developer feels like they can get the player to both engage with both the dungeon side as well as the dating side outside of the dungeon is to force them to leave the combat side regularly in order to go date.
This game is an Action RPG, and not a particularly good one at that. There is nothing that changes between trips to the dungeon except for a few floor shakeups, combat is busywork and only varies with enemy design, and every relationship skill is pretty much meaningless. Boyfriend Dungeon is simply a loose collection of ideas tied together by some lite game design knowledge as well as a high concept that's hardly explored.
There's a "Boyfriend" game here, as well as a "Dungeon" game, but the connecting systems feel loose at best. Sure, the only way you can move forward the "Boyfriend" sections is to level up your relationships in the "Dungeon" section, but if it weren't for the final boss requiring a maxed out "Boyfriend" you could just completely ignore half of the game and get by just fine. Boyfriend Dungeon wears many inspirations on its sleeve but fails to recognize how games like Persona use multiple systems to incentivize the player into Wanting to engage with the text in its entirety.
I could go through and analyze all the boringness that is the "Boyfriend" part of this game, but honestly there's not much to say. It's schlocky and, no cap, I skipped a lot of dialogue.
At the end of the day I still enjoyed the game. A couple of the romances were fun, and the game hit enough of my dopamine centers to help me ignore my anxiety and stress for a few hours.
Not much that you could write on though tbh, I will probably just forget about it in a few days.
Also the controversy here is silly. I get it's easy for some LGBT+ twitter communities to devour media people who are perceived of pandering/not doing enough, but come on the stalker warning was there from the beginning. I can see people being upset with the treatment of the theme of stalking in the narrative, but no need to censor bad media ya know.