Well. How the heck did I end up here?!
So I watched a full playthrough of Hatoful Boyfriend, complete with the BBL extra ending.
Despite being a gam about dating f**king birds, I never thought I would've found such a deep game that's genuinely emotional and intense. And not for the romance side of things.
So when I first began watching a playthrough of the game, I thought it was a little bit of fun - I mean, a bird dating simulator? And for parts like Okosan's ending I can see where the maker of the game chose to just have a bit of fun. But then reach Nageki's ending and Hyouta's ending and things get deeper and more existential and give you genuine emotions. Yuuya's and Sakuya's endings give more depth to otherwise rather hilarious characters. Nanami's ending gives you warm fuzzies, and then Shuu's ending becomes extremely, extremely creepy. Anghel's ending is a weird but fun trip that is intense but enjoyable. Then you can get a break with the biker sparrow's endings (forgot her name), but then everything goes downhill when the BBL route starts up.
BBL abandoned the whole otome concept, going straight into horror/murder-mystery novel mode, and there is so much horror and tragedy that all of the characters have to suffer through, with some expected plot twists and others out of the blue entirely. I won't spoil anything, but it got me extremely close to crying.
But what was it that made me become so invested in this game, and care for the characters as humans despite all mains except Hiyoko (MC) being birds?
I think it was a clever trick they did with the way they introduced the seven main "love interests" (in quotation because of Shuu mostly). Hyouta, Sakuya, Yuuya, Nanami, Nageki, Shuu and Anghel all have their introductions marked with a picture of them. But it's not just any. It's a picture of what they would look like if they were human (and damn are all seven of them hot!). Whenever an intense or emotional scene occurred, I saw the human characters instead of the bird images, and that made it feel more immersive to me.
Overall this is probably going into my personal hall of favourite games. I love it to pieces.