Yes. You got my point right in this humble sentence. To me, this is just overrated/overhyped. But I respect any work or other people’s opinions. For me, the only worse ones are those who give ratings based on value judgments of personal preferences. Therefore, I’ll add that the game is good, not the super best triple AAA great story and yummy scenes like most of writing here, but good, but for me it’s boring.
Question: Did you play the whole game or only a small part?
Yes, there are plenty games with way better graphics, HS can't compete with DAZ (Blender/3DSMAX/MAYA/...) and has this Japanese style (specially for the male characters). If you are looking for outstanding graphics, don't waste your time looking here. But for me, the graphics isn't everything, it's how the artist working with the rendering system he chose.
The story is always a very personell part, this game is (not fully but in a larger way) some kind of kinetic novel with the harem element as the leading part. Some like this approach, some don't. Like i said, it depends on personal preferences, you cannot reach everyone and mostly kill your game trying.
Some other thing is the writing, it's based on the things the author likes (and a good one also has his followers in mind to enchant and surprise them), he has his main story and creates the world around it. You may find this story and writing boring, cari does his best to create a world with many references (there are several posts about them) and a large number of player like this approach. Maybe the story and writing isn't the style you like but i think there are at least some parts that make you smile while playing. So at least a small part of the game did it's job for you.
Music/Sound, there are several players who play without and like it this way, at least you can chose cause there are music and effects in the game (and the fit the scenes), as before, it's about personal prefs.
This is an adult VN, so let's talk about the yummy scenes, as said before for graphics, there are other games having better visual style. But i have to say, ignoring the graphics engine, the sex scenes are some of the best ones of all the VNs i played (and i played a lot of them), they fit into the story and are that good that some may reverse the phrase "
came for the porn, stayed for the story"
.
So, what is it that makes a game a AAA one (in general and for you)? In general, it's the crowd that decides to play, follow and (in the case of an AVN) fund the game. A democratic decision by the people playing AVNs, not everyone has to follow but at least accept that a game has a larger fan base. For you, it's your personal decision (as for myself), the best thing here on F95 is that you can try and, when you like it, support the creator. No money lost when you don't approve, there are so many games here that you sure find something you fall for (and maybe create your own one).