Best Friend Forever Reviews
The ease of the interactions made me miss the real-world dog park even more, where there’s always someone new to meet or a cute pup to pet. It’s definitely not a replacement for it, but in a pinch, it’ll do.
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.
Ultimately, what I’m getting at is that Best Friend Forever plays like it’s two games inhabiting the same space that only briefly come into contact with one another.
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."
Best Friend Forever has an enjoyable, light-hearted storyline, for an easy relaxed gaming session. Dating Sims can be very hit or miss, and despite being short and having some unfortunate dialogue, I would very much consider this one a hit. The "adopt, don't shop" message, as well as the inclusion of dog breeds that are considered unpopular only added my enjoyment of the game. Oh, and yes, you can pet the dog.
Honestly, Best Friend Forever feels like it's having a constant identity crisis. Mechanically and story-wise, everything feels incredibly disjointed.
For any queer person who loves dogs, millennial who loves dogs, or actual dog masquerading as a human, Best Friend Forever is a wholesome, cathartic experience.
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 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.
Since both dating sims and pet sims can be a little light in overall gameplay the concept of combining them makes quite a bit of sense...
Best Friend Forever remains a relaxing, entertaining dating/dog raising sim despite its shortcomings in regards to the story.
I want to love Best Friend Forever more. I want to recommend it to my equally doggo obsessed friends with excitement and not warning. And I will do this when the game is fixed with a simple patch. I also hope the devs will listen to their fans and add more customization options. But for now, 20 bucks is far too great of an asking price. Dear doggo loving reader, wait for a discount and give a good woofer pats while you do.
If you’re looking for a short distraction from life, you could do worse than this bright and colourful dating sim that, while it falls short of its potential, delivers a pleasingly diverse cast of characters and cute dogs.
Best Friend Forever is a visual novel covering the first fifteen weeks living in your new apartment. You have just moved to a new city and you are constantly meeting new friends and their dogs. Establishing relationships with these people is the main premise of the game, but you will also groom, feed, and nurture your dog daily. As it is a visual novel, the game focuses on the story, and reading dialogue is the majority of gameplay.
Best Friend Forever has fantastic humour and charm in its writing and presentation without a doubt. Honestly, my main bulk of fun came from the dog-training simulator because I needed Titan the Maltese to be the best of the best. I found the dating sim elements lacking, and while I do think that they belong in the game, fleshing them out more would have created a home-run.
This must be one of the cutest dating sims ever created. Please, tell me that dating mixed with taking care of a freshly adopted pup does not sound lovely? It does, right? Well, the problem here is that none of these two parts of the gameplay are done particularly well. Dating is dumbed down to the point of being completely mindless and when it comes to our good boi, it is far too easy to keep all his stats maxed out. Best Friend Forever is a perfect case of wasted potential.
Review in Polish | Read full review
As a visual novel, it lacks the replayability, choice and different paths that fans of the genre seek to truly standout.
The game is quite short, you could easily get through several runs in a day, but that shouldn’t be an issue for too long as (again, discovered via their Discord) they have already announced plans to add additional content. There is even a handy little form you can fill out on their Discord channel where you can suggest things and give your input on what you’d like to see eventually added into the game. I really like how interactive the developers are with their audience, and I really liked their game. After some quality of life and bug improvements for the Switch version, this will definitely be a game you don’t wanna miss out on.
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.
More than feeling like a dog-lovers game, this feels like the ultimate hipster fantasy and the amount of enjoyment you get out of this title pretty much depends on how much you like these cliché ideas of how millennials feel superior by doing nothing of importance. There is a funny dog caring game in there but it feels mostly like an afterthought.
Review in Persian | Read full review