Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star -- No Spoiler Review

 Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star

System: PC 

Price: $9.99 

Voice Acting: No 

ESRB Rating: E (10+) 

Overall Rating: Stole 6/10 ♥s

Pre-Game Perception: More laughs from the Hatoful Boyfriend crew, obviously surrounding the holiday season.

Morning-After Reflection: Many short episodes and filler for fans of the game, with only a tiny story and much less humor than the first.

Story: “The loveable birds of Hatoful Boyfriend are back in the remastered holiday-themed sequel Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star! Travel to fantastically styled worlds, meet interesting new chickadees, and find romance in the elegantly designed winter wonderlands. Dust the snow off your wings and take flight with familiar faces and new friends alike in extraordinary adventures hatched from the whimsical mind of the series creator Hato Moa and developer Mediatonic!”

Interest Rating: 7/10. I bought this shortly after playing the first Hatoful Boyfriend game, and was looking forward to another touching story full of laughter and tears.

MC: Hiyoko Tosaka returns as our heroine for this game. She is a bit more than the average 16-year old, since it seems she has some pretty amazing abilities that were revealed during the first game, and of course they continue over into this one. Both names can be changed, and there is no downside to changing them. The game is not voiced, so you’re not missing out on hearing the boys birdies call Hiyoko’s name. The CGs are still… a little different, so there are no references for Hiyoko when it comes to anything physical. She could be 4’2” or 8’6” for all we know. But we do know that the game is in Japan, so it is likely that she is Japanese. For a game that makes as little sense as Hatoful Boyfriend does, I’m fine without the details. I just imagine a normal girl filling Hiyoko’s role, and just roll with it.

Hiyoko’s ambitions and goals are not even noted in this game. Her family is not mentioned, and besides the people pigeons she interacts with, she seems to have no attachments to anyone. From her dialogue, I assume she knows something about RPGs and has her own ideas about what it means to be a hunter-predator, but that’s about it. Surprisingly, being as paper-thin as she is, Hiyoko has a great personality that I felt really came through in all her interactions. She’s funny, witty, confused, reasonable, normal in this den of oddities that is Hatoful Boyfriend, and the writing makes her so incredibly likeable to me. I do feel that they may have been a little overzealous with her humor in this second installment of Hatoful Boyfriend, but I don’t believe her to be written childishly, nor do I think she’s too mature for her 16-years of age. She’s ultimately ideal for the scenario she was designed for.

Likability Rating: Yu. Hiyoko is exactly what the game needs, and it is easy for me to enjoy her filling the role she was designed for. Despite being perfect for the game, she doesn’t do well standing on her own, and falls flat compared to other MCs.

Plot: This is the second game in the Hatoful Boyfriend series, so if you’re looking at buying this it would do you well to purchase and play the first Hatoful Boyfriend before Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star. Some plot points are revealed in Holiday Star that come out in the stories from the first games, and there isn’t a lot of character background or growth from most of the cast, so knowing who everyone is is the ideal situation. Holiday Star takes place during the Christmas season in a world where the BBL ending didn’t happen. Ultimately, Holiday Star is the equivalent of a fandisk or DLC for the original game. It is very short - a handful of hours at most - contains one main (very short) story and several smaller stories including a Temple Date feature. There is also a radio section where the cast answers fan letters that came in about the game and their lives as if they were real boys birds.

Replayability Rating: ★★☆☆☆ There is no reason to play through any story more than once, but doing all the material does grant you an achievement, so why not?

Love Interests: The original cast returns for this game, but you’re not really going to get the option to romance anyone. There are no routes besides the Temple Date feature, which is a single short scene about meeting your chosen feathery fellow for some New Year’s temple fun. Enjoy the boys birds while it lasts, but there’s no reason for me to reintroduce you to these boys birds again.

Boy Crazy Rating: 88%. If you don’t know who you’ll get the chance to cozy up to, check out my previous review about Hatoful Boyfriend, the original game. I’m still keeping a few of these as husbandos, and I still hold true that I would fight for these birbs.

Romance: Hatoful Boyfriend is a parody of otoge. Because of this the game turns out more slice-of-life, comedy, and drama rather than romance. Unlike the original game, there is not even the sliver of romance in Holiday Star. I wouldn’t have considered the previous game a romance game, and this one even less so. I think it is listed as an otome because it is 1) designed for women; 2) a parody of the genre of otome; and 3) the extra stories and content from a game that was already listed as otome. There are some heartwarming, and heart-wrenching moments, but there isn’t much love to be had in this game.

Heart Palpitation Rating: C-. I did feel some of my heartstrings being pulled, but there is no romance to speak of. Some feels, but barely enough to gain this C rating.

Spice: They’re still just birds. No. Still no. There is no spice to be found here.

Cold Shower Rating: Fail. No need for a cold shower, cloth, or even a birdbath, this game is already as chilly as the holiday season it takes place in.

Angst: We once again get a moderate amount of angst and plenty of draaaaamaaaaas. It doesn’t get as deep as the previous story, but it does delve into some darkness. However, the brief dip we have into those murky waters is easily forgotten with all the hijinks that take place around it. There are some scenes with blood, and descriptions of implied violence.

Drama Llama Rating: 4/10. The drama llama is calm today. We know what he is capable of, but today there is no threat.

Voice Acting: None. This is an unvoiced game like the first.

Expression Rating: N/A Nothing to rate here.

Art: Hatoful Boyfriend is an interesting combination of extremely cartoony backgrounds with real photos of birds overlaid as the sprites for the game. Some characters and stories have hand drawn, cartoon-like birds in the story instead of pictures cut out for their sprites. There’s nothing wrong with the backgrounds, or real birds for sprites, but it’s not something I’ve seen in a world full of different art-styles besides in the first Hatoful game. We also get a few new styles with some watercolor-type pictures and some animated sprites/scenes. I’d say it is better than the first because of these additional styles.

Still Picture Rating: ★★★☆☆ Many birb. Such mixed. Very birb.

CGs: We actually have some CGs with this game! With the last there were only some drawn achievement placards, but this one gives us more than a few actual story pieces. Most are just backgrounds. We do get some art and sketches representing portions of the story, but not the same type of CGs you’re used to.

Look at this Photograph Rating: 68%. Gallery has some interesting CGs, and I believe more than the original game, but it’s still low compared to other games.

UI/Mechanics: The most basic of basic UIs. The main menu doesn’t have a way to set preferences, but at least we get the ability to adjust sound effects and music this time around. There is no button map, but the commonly used Enter works as expected with Enter advancing the story. Escape opens a menu where you can save/load, return to title screen, and set your sound preferences. I didn’t find a way to hide the textbox this time around. And to be honest, I didn’t play with it much.

As for mechanics, it’s a standard VN for the most part. There are very few options in this portion of the game, so don’t expect many choices to come up. As a note, the fast-forward button doesn’t stop at unread text, so pay attention to when you’re using it. Also, I couldn’t find a backlog of any sort, so if you happened to speed by text, you’re just screwed, and not in the fun way.

What’s this button do? Rating: C. With no button map, no clear way to hide the textbox, and a fast-forward that isn’t intuitive to stop at new text, the game is acceptable with UI/Mechanics, but not much more. It gives the basics, so it gets a basic grade.

Errors: Practically flawless. I think I found two misplaced punctuation marks, and no spelling or grammatical errors. It was wonderfully translated and I had no problems with the game mechanics itself. It’s also a fairly short game, so perhaps there would have been more issues if the bulk of the game was bigger.

Here there be Bugs Rating: Pass. Wonderful translation to the point that most wouldn’t notice any errors at all. Somehow you’re living without a single mosquito or even a fly hanging around your house.

Background Music: The BGM is, once again, surprisingly good. When I purchased my copy of the game off Steam, I must have gotten the deluxe edition (which I believe is called the Dove, Actually Edition) because I got the OST and some artbook with it. I enjoyed the music they added to the game, and I enjoy some scores from the OST as well.

BY OUR RATINGS COMBINED!: Oh ho! You thought you were done, didn’t you? Don’t worry, this will be short. Sometimes my individual ratings do not always add up to my overall rating; this is because I find a reason to rate the game based on things that are not listed in my (very) long review. I couldn’t section everything. Sometimes price factors in. Sometimes personal tastes. Basically, what it comes down to is would I buy this game knowing everything I know? Would I recommend it to a friend? Ehhnnnn, I’m not sure. If I could get it on sale, I would. The game is so short that it’s ridiculous, but it’s only riding that line of too expensive for my taste. I don’t think I’d recommend it to a friend, because I don’t feel I really got much from Holiday Star. If they’re a huge fan of Hatoful Boyfriend, then perhaps, but if not then it’s easy to pass on this.