However, it’s important not to try and be an all-rounder, lest you impress no one and fall victim to a dreadful fate. A good portion of the birds don’t require stat maintenance to woo, choosing to spend time with them is enough. A higher stat will score you points with its associated bird elevated wisdom will make you hot for teacher Nanaki, whereas magnetic charisma will warm the cockles of the haughty Sakuya. Hiyoko has three stats - wisdom, stamina and charisma - which can be improved every few school-days when you’re offered the choice to attend math, gym or music class respectively. Hiyoko’s got some of the best lines in the game, and you’re sure to find at least one that will bring a smile to your face.Ĭourting your bird of choice is as simple as choosing to spend time with him (or her) when given the chance, though winning the love of certain beaus will require some low-impact character management on your part. She also manages to be tough, confident and able, making her an excellent foil to her largely-incompetent love interests. Much more than a player cipher, Hiyoko’s inner monologue functions as the story’s narrator, and it’s easy to see she’s got a few screws loose herself. The cast of love interests isn’t the exclusive source of the game’s off-beat comedy, as Hiyoko happens to be a very amusing protagonist to ride along with. All in all, Hiyoko’s got her pick to pursue any of ten birds, one of whom happens to be a lady biker. The characters just get weirder with the addition of Anghel, a delusional otaku who imagines his daily life as an esoteric JRPG. There’s narcoleptic teacher Nanaki school doctor/homicidal mad scientist Shuu or the endlessly-hooting Okosan, the star of the track team with a one-track mind for pudding. But whereas a straightlaced dating sim would be content with its characters settling into the familiar territories of the shy one, the nerd or the feisty tsundere, Hatoful Boyfriend‘s bachelors are each completely bizarre in their own unique ways. It’s cute, it’s charming and it’s hilarious to recontextualize an anatomically-correct avian as your schoolboy crush.Īnd what a gang of crushes they are! Hatoful Boyfriend follows in the footsteps of the dating sims it riffs on by making each datable member of its cast an exaggerated archetype. The basis of the story isn’t dissimilar from any number of contemporary dating sims, but the game makes its pointed satire apparent when we meet its eligible bachelors: There are no studly anthropomorphised bird men to be found in Hatoful Boyfriend its characters are represented by high definition photographs of various birds. Hiyoko’s got her work cut out for her, because this school is home to some of the hottest doves, quails and partridges to ever grace the screen. Pigeonation, perhaps finding some time for romance in between classes. Set across the better part of a year, Hatoful Boyfriend situates players in the role of Hiyoko Tosaka, a not-so-everyday girl as she embarks on her first semester as the sole human pupil of the all-bird high school St.

But what if we subverted this database and took this anthropomorphism fetish to a satiric conclusion? Well, we’d most certainly end up with something akin to Hatoful Boyfriend, the infamous “weird pigeon dating game” that’s just crazy enough to work. Many of these works (and Japanese games, in general) are no stranger to attractive anthropomorphised beings NekoPara has its cat girls, Neptunia has its console goddesses, even non-game entities like Wikipedia and Linux have found themselves signified by cute anime girls. These tropes can be abstract themes, such as tragedy or loneliness, or they can be tangible attributes and costumes, like glasses or maid outfits. Pop culture critic Hiroki Azuma once wrote that the archetypical visual novel is less concerned with telling a meaningful story than it is in favor of presenting a database of moe characteristics for audiences to choose their favorites from.

Hatoful boyfriend human mode