VN - Ren'Py - Hard to Love [v0.21 Remake] [Qori Gaming]

Really goes off track after episode 2, renders are good and most of what happens in the present is decent, but as soons as the flashbacks post episode 2 happen it's a massive snooze fest with random women appearing out of nowhere.

This is a review for version 0.041
What great experience it was playing this game.
To start with the general storyline, I must say that this is not very interesting yet. This is most probably because this is yet to come. The father, for instance, is fairly mysterious and I have a feeling that some things are going to happen in the story that could also make the overall story very good in potential. However, at the moment, it is not there yet. The dialogue with the characters, on the other hand, is very good. Thoughts are used which gives the characters and the dialogue a bit more depth. So that's where this game scores very high in my opinion.

In addition, the graphics are of extremely good quality, there is really nothing to criticise about that. This applies to the general graphics, but also to the love interests. These look very good. I very much hope that this game will get animations but we shall see in the future.

In addition, the music and mechanics were fine, no problems encountered in this regard. The game therefore deserves five stars, I highly recommend playing this game.

A Pretty Storytelling Mess: Hard to Love is, appropriately, hard to love.

Let's make it clear, the game is beautifully rendered, not just in terms of the female models, but the scenes are composed well, with a good eye for framing and blocking. The renderer genuinely has artistic talent. The backgrounds are varied and chosen well, all the women are attractive and visually distinct, and the game is a joy to look at.

Once you get past that, though, the wheels really come off.

To get the most topical issue out of the way, why is this a game set in Japan but everyone's not Japanese? The MC is some dude whose parents are Dan and Elizabeth. His sisters are Amber and Madison. His daughter's Isabella. His love interest in Antonella. His partner is Paz. His sidepiece/girlfriend is Artelle. None of the architecture or background used is Japanese (presumably because the Daz3d assets aren't), so why is the game set there?

The story is told in a series of random flashbacks, but there's too many elements juggled at once and none of them are told to their natural conclusion. Even the flashback sequences involving Antonella repeatedly get interrupted. It's an awful trope even when it's done well, and it's done very mediocrely here. Just tell the damn story you're trying to tell, at least before you introduce another 4 simultaneous flashback scenes that are also left frustratingly unfinished.

The kind of multithreaded breadcrumbing needs to be handled by a literary genius. Unfortunately, the developer is not. Which is no insult. It would take a truly extraordinary storyteller to pull off what they're going for here. Naturally, they fall short of an impossible bar they set for themselves, and the story suffers for it.

None of the characters are even likable. The MC is an indecisive welp of a man who lets everyone walk over him, and then is a total dick who lashes out at everyone on top of it. He's still obsessed with a disappearance of a woman from many years ago, which of course gives him the liberty to abuse drugs and alcohol and take out his obsession by being a general asshole to everyone around him, including people like Paz who clearly do not deserve it. Somehow, instead of people being annoyed with having to put up with this pile of human baggage and garbage like they should, all of them are inappropriately in love with him instead. Makes sense... Thank goodness for toxic masculinity, because this limp-dicked asshat has few other character traits outside of that.

And let's not even get into the issue of telling about his raunchy sexcapades to some school-girl friend of his little sister minutes after they just met. Apparently, the game would have you believe sexual harassment's supposed to be a deep and meaningful relationship.

The members of the family, who ostensibly should be the primary love interests thanks to the incest kink of this game, all generally range from annoying to outright insufferable. The Mom figure randomly oscillates from doormat spouse and mother to dictatorial matriarch exclusively at plot convenience. The two sisters range from mildly annoying aggressive sexpot (Amber) and intensely infuriating shit-stirrer (Madison) who gives you whiplash in the very same scene. The daughter is overprotective and easily jealous, though arguably warranted considering how stupid the MC is. Finally, the father is blatantly an irredeemable bastard whose entire purpose is to act as an antagonist—though again, you understand it because the MC is such a raging blowhard.

Nanami is a mousy uwu big-tittied anime girl caricature who exists as a character without a backbone so she can be manipulated and contorted into whatever awkward position the story needs.

It's not even presumed that there's any build-up in actual feelings, because for whatever bizarre Stockholm Syndrome situation, all of the women in this game are very obviously head over heels for this intensely unlikable MC character, so all of the will-they-or-won't-they is from bullshit carrot dangling on account of the developer.

That's how you get not-even-entertaining moments like Madison showing her boobs, begging MC to touch them, before jumping away acting like he just molested her. Or the Mom character getting on her knees in front of half-naked MC and openly groping at him before suddenly running off in embarrassment. All while the MC uselessly stammers "I-I-I..." thirty-seven times in the span of 4 chapters (how else would you show an MC is internally conflicted, after all?). At some point it stops even being erotic, or carrying any amount of tension, because these scenes shift tones so violently for completely unbelievable reasons, even in the context of unbelievable incest fantasy.

Because the developer doesn't know how to write relationship development, instead of sticking to some inappropriate attraction that blooms over time, they just start all the women out as obsessed and willing. But then they remember they need to milk those Patreon dollars, so they refuse to let these scenes play out to their natural conclusion, instead breadcrumbing and trickling in progressively more risque scenes to keep the reader on the line.

Sadly the breadcrumbing extends all over the storytelling too. Not only are the flashbacks unfinished, people talk like they are all living examples of the worst kind of B movie tropes. Characters will allude to big events, or bring up important information, and then just trail off instead of finishing their thought. The narration does its best to draw out even the most basic of plot hooks, teasing cliffhanging images or alluding to one bigger mystery after another. It's so blatant that it's not suspenseful anymore, just shameless.

And that doesn't even touch on the ridiculousness of "Antonella" as a "quirky" anime Wednesday Addams first love figure the MC is weirdly hung up on for two decades after she disappeared from his life. Like, you'd think that an MC whose mere existence makes all the women in his life, family included, throw themselves at him regardless of consequences would not be the kind of person to develop one-itis so easily. But everything in this game is treated as a vehicle to show off MC's brooding manpain, so that's sadly not a surprise.

Of course the MC can't pursue any women in the game, that would be a betrayal to his one true love! But it doesn't stop a bunch of women from throwing themselves on the MC's dick, or all the times he hires and has his way with whores (because whores aren't people, clearly). Besides, how else can a writer depict their character going through it™ if they can't show him out drinking, doing drugs, and whoring? You can't expect people to write emotions in a visual novel, don't be ridiculous.

There also isn't any real choice in this game. It's either your character is a giant asshole to these women, earning you negative points and shutting down scenes (ostensibly defeating the purpose of even playing the damn game), or you continue to let them have their way with the MC over his token protestations.

Between the intensely unlikable MC and love interests, the all-over-the-shop storytelling, the paint-by-numbers way of depicting human emotions, and the way the game blueballs you on every front (including the flimsy mysteries of the missing girl and corrupt cop storylines unfolding in the background), it's just hard to recommend this game. Which is a real shame, because the effort put into the renders and atmosphere is top notch. I could see the developer being half of a very good developer team, but they really need someone else to handle the storyboarding and writing.

First let me say that this game has incredible potential.

The writing is good*
The models are some of the most beautiful i've ever seen. Paz is amazing, btw, i could stare at her all day.
The story seems like it could be intriguing, if rather standard to the genre
It doesn't seem like the choices have any effect, so I think its more of a kinetic novel than anything. That last comment is not positive or negative, just a thought.

Here's my issue, and its going to come down to two factors.

1 Getting into the story. Good stories are ones where you know the main concept very clearly and obviously within the first 10 minutes. You have some idea who the main characters are and perhaps a hint of the central conflict. A lot of modern stories also use a hook to simultaneously make sure you don't get bored. In this genre, usually a sex scene.

There's no sex hook here, and that's honestly fine. I was intrigued enough by the plot. But tthat is the issue. The plot is firing on two or even three or four different angles for quite awhile. Now this isn't to say a good story can't have subplots, especially if they tie into the main plot, but as it stands, is the story about MC reconnecting with his daughter, his relationship with his family, or getting shot on the job? HtL juggles all three and it doesn't really work. Instead we get information dumped on us, plots rushed through and characters not given enough time to shine (sans Antonella). This and the flashbacks create a jarring narrative, instead of a smooth and gentle flow.

Then you have scenes like the one with the little sister (I forgot her name). We whip from her being crazy to manipulative to nice(?) to manipulative again, I guess? It's messy and unearned, and fails to have the emotional punch I believe the writers were going for.

I think the scene could have worked, (though it still would have been better if it wasn't her first scene and had a chance to be built up towards) if they had just cut it about halfway through. Scenes need time to breath, when you put so much into one, it clogs up the whole thing and makes it impossible for it to have any impact.

Anyway, it's just my thoughts. I think the Dev is talented and I wish them much success.

Amazing game,amazing story and graphics. Animations are wonderfull.
I like when game is teasing and spicy,not giving all at once. Plot is very uniq and well written. Cant wait for another update,very good and interesting game. Characters are so different and triggering of the game is great. I have read all conversations between characters, in my top 5 games definitly. Well done.

The graphic and the chars looking really good and the fact the game jumps like the bad movie "Cloud Atlas" between the time is weird and a bit confusing.
Too much insults all the time!

Emotional whiplash! These two words describe this game in my opinion.

Render are good, but models look strange to say the least.
Intro is hard to follow jumping from past to present and back, while it feels like the MC is actively dying.
In the past the LI is written to be quirky? I don't know MC says something neutral/nice and she takes it as an insult and attacks him verbally multiple times.

But what really got me was Madison...
Wanne see my boobs or even touch them?
What are you doing trying to touch my boobs?
Oh now you feel sad? Come touch my boobs, rub them, be gentle with them.
OMG you took advantage of me and abused me!

The above happens in ONE scene not multiple.
WTF?

That was the point I started skipping and was not impressed by the rest.

Hard to Love suffers from a rather sub-par translation, poor dialogue or both. The narration is erratic and explanations are broken off in mid-sentence, feelings are expressed only fragmentarily.

Because of these narrative problems, I have no great interest in slogging through the plot. I think the introduction in particular urgently needs to be revised so that newcomers are not left out in the cold.

It's exceptional, but it's not perfect, and what's worse.... it seems to go a bit... peculiar.

When playing you can taste the effort put in. The renders are spectacular. Reminds me a bit of another game I won't mention here but they're better than that because at least these characters look less perfect, if that makes sense. It's not characters who look like they've been cloned from all the best bits of DNA from the cast of Beverley Hills 90210. It looks like the Dev's taken the time to make them appealing but not to the point they look unbelievable.

The issues I have, if they can really be called that are to do with other areas. The MC.. seems like a dick. It's hard to say for sure but I definitely get that feeling about him. This could simply be due to the other issue however and that's the lack of real explanation around why everyone is the way they are. There's also little in the way of an explanation as to who the people are. Could come later but if so then it's being fleshed out very slowly. It feels almost like the Dev trusts in their ability to draw the player in so much they don't feel they need to dump exposition on them so soon into the game and it's entirely plausible, but personally I'd like a bit more.

"Hard to Love" seems almost like a joke in itself because it could be talking about the MC (who has a ton of issues and comes off as a dick) or the women he interacts with (who universally also all have issues). The Overview in the original post establishes more than the game does as to what's going on, which in storytelling is a cardinal sin. Show don't tell.

What happened to the MC? Seems he got done in but never explained why. He has flashbacks to a girl, but never really explained who. He's got a daughter, who we know nothing about. A sister who has stuff going on, but not sure what. A mom who's been relegated to a trophy wife who has no issues flaunting herself in front of her family, but it's never explained why. Funnily enough the person who makes the most sense is the dad who seems to hate the MC but from what little I know of the story I can at least get why. There's very little there needing to be explained but all the other characters are a mystery. It also suffers from that frustrating trope of having all the characters KNOW there's something there but refusing to explain it. So you get a lot of dialogue like

Character: blah blah blah. You'd think she'd be better at hiding it
MC: wut?
Character: you know how she....... you know what, never mind... it doesn't matter

No, not never mind, explain the damn story please.

It kind of gets worse as it goes on. There's a whole flashback scene that.... I don't care about with characters I care less about. It's told in a way to suggest it's trying to explain why the MC is a dick but really it just reinforces the fact that he's a dick. And not like a normal dick, I'm talking the level where the story doesn't make sense cause there's no way he'd be allowed by his work to continue being that way. There's also head scratching moments with where the game's set, it seems to be in Japan for some reason despite the cast being white and really the flashback took so long I started to just skip the dialogue. The whole thing didn't interest me and I'm sure it's well written but at it's foundation it's such an abrupt turn from the story that was shown previously it almost feels like a different game.

Renders are fantastic the MC is just unlikable the more I get into his story the less I like him. Story is all over the place and makes me not really want to get invested into it. Game could use a better translator because some parts are just a mishmash and hard to follow. But despite all this I really do like the game so far just hope these things I listed can be corrected by the creator.

I made it through I'm guessing v0.1 of v0.3. The story seems be ok but it bounces all over the place and the way it is presented is difficult to follow, which is the reason for the low rating. Pics are really good. MC is a pussy. I hope the rest of the game works out ok, but it is not for me. Hard to love is Hard to love. Good luck with the game.

I think this is a decent start to what could be a good game.

At the moment it's mostly setup and little payoff but as content updates come that will hopefully change.

The story so far is not super complex and as of yet most of the choices you can make don't really appear to change the story too much; something that I expect will also change with more content releases. The writing itself was good enough that I never felt like trying to just skip through it like I have with some games.

I agree with some of the other reviews that say the MC is unlikable, if he's one that's "Hard To Love" it would make sense, but then again most the women in his life seem to find him the opposite of that.

All things considered, easily one of the best games that I've ever played.

Story 6/5
Models 6/5
Renders 10/5

There aren't many scenes in the game yet, but the story goes very deep. The interactions between the characters may not seem natural for game, but it makes the story much more realistic. Lastly, I would just like to compliment on the quality of renders, so much better than BaD and the other games that I've played.

Hard to Love [v0.03]
Pros:

• Models (Models are mostly attractive. But NGL, Madison creeps me out. But that's my personal opinion.)
• The Renders
• The writing is good enough

The Okayish:

• The Personalities of the girls (They are somewhat likable, but their reasoning for falling for the MC is pretty meh.)

Cons:

• The story (It’s all over the place. It’s hardly understandable. I don’t even understand what this is all about.)
• The MC (He is very unlikeable. He hardly has any redeemable qualities.)

Massive Cons:

• The game is supposed to take place in japan? Neither the people nor the environment represents them at all. Honestly, this makes it very difficult to process the story of the game.
• The animations are horrible as F.

I was very interested in the development of the game because of the renders. But the VN overall is very poorly executed.

Graphics 5/10 The renders are ok characters are done well.
Problem with the whole thing is it's just like reading a comic book. The style is not interesting.

Story 4/10 A little hard to keep up with goes in different directions.

Animations 1/10 Story and Animations are the most important in all of these adult story/games. This pretty much has none. which really cuts interest in the whole project. Dirty comic book is one thing, this is supposed to be an animated novel. Where the hell is the animation, oh yeah there was one or two.

Overall uninteresting and a waste of time downloading, if i wanted to read a comic i would go to the comic section.

TLDR: An amazingly strong start with real feels that somehow turns into a dumpster fire in the latest update (0.03). I really loved this game and was excited for it until I got to this part of the story so we'll see what the next update brings us..

The Good:

The first two updates are really well written and well paced. The build up of the love between MC and Antonella is really well done and just long enough to feel real without dragging on.

There is a decent variety in the various LI models in terms of ages/body & breast types and for the most part the models look realy nice (sadly your sister goes from beautiful to nasty in between the two timelines)

The Meh:

The phone messaging interface has some weird timing issues where it just takes wayyyyy too long before you get to respond to messages.

The Ugly:

Oh where to even begin.. Update 3 is just an insane dumpster fire of an update. The pacing goes out the window completely as the dev goes way overboard in trying to show how badly the MC falls between the two timelines. And we suddenly find out that the story line is supposed to be based in Japan even though most of the characters are not Asian which makes no sense when you consider how anti immigrant Japan is well known for being. Also we find out that the MC & his father have a horrible relationship which makes no sense as the MC doesn't mention anything in the early timeline but this would have been a huge plot point considering the family problems that Antonella has. This shared suffering would have been part of the glue that bound them together. It really feels like this was just something the dev decided to throw in without having decided it would be part of the story from the beginning.

Honestly in a perfect world the dev would just retcon parts of update 3 for now and then rewrite it completely in the future. We get it.. things got rough for the MC but we could learn that in a much more succinct way.

Very interesting story so far and well written. It has good character development, and good story progression. It is neither a grind nor is it a sexathon. The story had me reading every word, something that I definitely don't do in slow-grinds or even in sexathons. I cannot wait to see what happens next (and actually what happened in the past) and really hope that the author does not abandon this.

So cudos to the author. Please keep up the good work.

the game is unplayable when the phone rings the message don;t advance neither rhe buttons get rid this s***t and be done with it...

one star and it is way too much
the story is crap even the writer does not know what is writing
the girls at first was good but after the transition are hideous
mc is contravencional and the players choices are not playing any part at the game

This is a really entertaining game. The adult scenes are on the lighter side(from what I saw) but the tease and storyline is consistent. Will be interesting to see this one play out. Also would like to see more from this developer.

Absolutely amazing plot coupled with impressive visuals and the AVN equivalent of "cinematography". I have just started out and already the game managed to get me moving into tears. Even BaD could not do that this fast. This one has a lot of potential to be ranked near BaD imo. Definitely will recommend.