Best Friend Forever

Even though I’m a cat person, spending a couple of hours with your dog in Rainbow Bay is enough to get you invested in its success — and by extension, in the game. The other people were tolerable (okay, a couple tolerable, most were still pretty annoying by the end), but I was really rooting to see my rescue pup become more comfortable around people. That may not mean that Best Friend Forever is a success as a dating game, but if you’re after a pet-raising sim, it’s a nice way to pass a few hours.

I went into Best Friend Forever expecting to pet a bunch of dogs and date some cool humans, and in that respect, I was not disappointed. The dogs are good boys and girls who deserve all the love in the world, even when they poop. The humans are a fun and varied bunch whose stories may be on the short side but still have a lot of heart. Sadly, the gameplay did not live up to my expectations, but I would love to see what improvements could be made if Starcolt one day decides to create a sequel. If your love of dogs is stronger than the issues I’ve laid out in this review, then you might want to check out Best Friend Forever. Just do yourself a favor, though, and play it on PC.

If you're looking for a title that is written for the modern romance game fan and/or dog lover in mind, this one is worth fetching. [Issue #49 – November/December 2020, p. 22]

Despite various glitches that are being fixed in updates, overall Best Friend Forever is an accurate take on what life can be like both in the dating scene, and when bringing up a dog. For players who are not dog owners it is an eye-opener to how intense and hands-on having a dog is, with a lot to think about and juggle what aspects of training get priority. All the characters seem available to date, none are cookie-cutter ones as each has complex aspects to their lives which are realistic. Replayability is high with so many romance options available, and learning how to improve stats better to achieve better grades from the adoption centre provides hours of gameplay to be had.

Best Friend Forever is a short and simple visual novel/simulation game, but that doesn’t make it any less fun. The interactions with your furry friend don’t get boring fast, and the interactions you have with the characters are just as engaging.

Everything considered, Best Friend Forever is a joyous treat for dog-lovers and dating-sim enthusiasts alike. Currently, the Nintendo Switch version is a bit unruly, but nothing a trip to the vet and some patches won’t fix.

It hit me how superficial a lot of the mechanics in Best Friend Forever are. I had thought that, similar to a typical dating sim, you’d have to train specific stats to score points with your lover, but it’s more segregated and mechanical than that. The dog lends a layer of brightness to the game, so it’s not entirely wasted, but from a gameplay standpoint, it’s pointless. From a purely visual novel standpoint, the game is entertaining and well-written, but it fails to make use of the one thing that makes it unique. It has the love it needs, but it will need more training before it can truly be called a "good boy."

I think the problem is that Best Friend Forever is trying to do several things at once and isn’t really doing any of them well. It wants to be a pet simulation with a narrative element and dating, but the story of your adjusting to life in Rainbow Bay feels like an afterthought and the love interests could have used a little more, well, love. The simulation elements are interesting, and I liked that you had these dog events while going through the story, but you better be playing in Handheld mode on the Switch because it can be really awkward otherwise. Also, it frankly needs at least one patch to be ready for prime time. I loved the concept, but it’s rough around the edges.

Part dating sim, part pet sim, its dimensions end up standing on each other's way and never quite fulfilling the best that those two genres can achieve. The game's world is quite a gem to discover, with its multicoloured design and profusion of characters, but the game's inconvenient controls when it comes to look after the character's puppy and a certain lack of clarity when it comes to the game's purpose make this experience somewhat of a half-success.

Best Friend Forever offers a fairly generic visual novel, with the only hook being one that fails to do anything truly interesting. The management mechanics are the lightest, most fleeting portions of the game, where you’re bogged down with a rough control scheme that is quite frustrating. Even with the positives in inclusivity, too many shortcomings make this feel like it was built to be vanilla and given the toppings way later on.

It’s quite telling that caring for your pooch is generally more fun than the visual novel side of the game, but even this can get repetitive and monotonous after a while. Best Friend Forever is an admirable hybrid of two seemingly disparate genres, but both sides of the game suffer from a lack of variety as a result.