VN - Ren'Py - Hard to Love [v0.23] [Qori Gaming]

This game was great, before the latest remake. When the dev decided to rely on AI for everything, even the coding, it really fell through the cracks. The animation WAS good, and now. I had high hopes for this back when it came out. Maybe they will fix it.

I really really loved this game before the Dev tore it down and started the remake. I guess he got tired of posing each character for each shot.

Before: The story was a little spacey but the renders and girls were breathtaking.

After: The renders are still decent. However, the story seems like it came from an old shotgun. You have no idea where it's going. The dev is just spraying and praying.

It's like a Japanese ADHD child wrote a story in a therapist's office after watching John Wick and CyberPunk 2077.

The renders have potential and the Dev deservers praise for those. Yet, the plot will leave you confused and disoriented. Like jerking off to a fashion show featuring fat homeless chicks. It might get you across the line, but it'll leaving you wondering what the hell just happened.

When I saw the new art style I hated it, but after playing the game, It doesn't really bother me. The story in the remake is actually a lot easier to follow. The only reason I am not giving it 5 starts is because the original had animations and this one doesn't and during the sex scenes there is a shacking screen effect that you can't turn off and I just don't like it. Other than that, I think it is actually an improvement from the original. You just need to get used to the new art.

Edit: I actually decided to update this to 5 stars as of 0.22. The story and the characters are so much more enjoyable now. There is minor stuff with the art because of the A.I but 95% of the art in the game looks really good in my opinion. I can say now that I am very excited for future updates.

What Makes It Shine:

1. Engaging Dialogue: The writing in “Hard to Love” is a standout feature. The dialogue feels authentic, and the characters’ interactions are both heartfelt and relatable. You’ll find yourself invested in their lives and rooting for their happiness.
2. Stunning Character Models: The visual aspect of the game is top-notch. The character models are beautifully rendered, making them some of the best-looking I’ve seen in a visual novel. Each character feels distinct and memorable
3. Immersive Music: The background music enhances the atmosphere, pulling you deeper into the story. It’s subtle yet effective.

I'd say im being too generous giving this a 4 star rating, simply because I don't wanna see this game go down the dumpster, despite it's flaws. The game still being in it's earlier stages, there's enough time to do the corrections wherever needed.

To start of the game is all over the place. It's like playing " guitar hero" version of a porn game.. like there are multiple timelines of the MC's life and you have to constantly jump from one timeline to another, causing mass confusion. the game started perfectly with the present and a past flashback, and it was good, but then there was another flashback and another... The story doesn't let you be one with the characters doe to it's constant jumping here and there.

The renders itself are good and the characters are very likeable. i may not know how to write a story, but i do know there are better ways of telling a story that whatever the mess this one is.

Story is.. mellowdramatic, and rather way too all over the place. Base concept is the rather usual you're a dad reconnecting with your long-since-seen daughter, with flashbacks to your first meeting her mother who's your first awkward love. I was vibing with that and fully on board, but then it just sorta keeps jumping into more flashbacks.. now I'm in the dad's memories of being a depressed corrupt cop who's addicted to hookers, now I'm madly in love with a French model, now I'm in a 90's yakuza revenge movie.. I get the narrative of it, but it feels like it's trying to be FAR larger in scope than it needs to be. It never really lets you get comforatable with a situation before whisking you off into another timeline.

Author seems to sorta recognize this and forces ADD sex breaks in an attempt to keep your attention, but it's more often than not some very awkward things like your French model GF suddenly demanding anal sex out of nowhere during a dramatic relationship dialogue. These are usually far too short and without enough build-up to be arousing. It makes the game feel torn between wanting to be a complicated yakuza revenge story and a sex game, and ends up doing both worse because of it.

That aside though, the models and renders are nice, and the UI and everything has a lot of polish on top of it. It feels like a high-effort project. The people freaking out over the AI are just those dogmatic types who hate anything remotely AI, the author is just running a very light img2img pass over his renders to make them look a bit less cheap 3D, like a filter, the render is still doing 95% of the work and it's not AI slop at all.

Ultimately, I do like it's foundation, but it just sorta feels like a series of overly long and disjointed flashback prologues on top of it. Maybe in a few updates when it does get through that storyline and finds the actual meat of it's story, I'll try it again and this may turn into a much more positive review. I suspect I'm just reviewing the game at a very bad time in it's story development right now.

ver 0.1 remake
so im not one of those who throw up in my mouth or get an instant hate boner anytime i hear the word AI and i dont see what all the fuss is about! i get the whole, "remaking the game is gonna make it take longer" or "the dev is just trying to drag out development to squeeze more money out of their subscribers" arguments. i do. those are both valid points for some developers who continuously do those kind of things and people have been burned by it! however i dont think thats the case here. i had to download and check this one out after the remake just so i had a foot to stand on and experienced the remake for myself so im not throwing in my two cents without even playing it. been following this one since its original release and i was a huge fan of the crisp renders and the body textures on the character models.

after playing the remade version, i have to say i was pleasantly surprised! the characters are just slightly altered from their originals (you almost cant even tell the difference in some scenes) and the backgrounds are vibrant and actually look really good! i believe its a step up from the dark and gritty tone the images and story had in the previous version. it seems some scenes have been shortened or the dialogue edited to not drone on as much as it did in the original version. this doent affect the story though which is still a gritty cop story with psychological drama and sex thrown in for good measure! it just seems like someone remembered there was a light on the camera so we can actually see whats going on in some of the renders that used to be so dark you could only see a characters silhouette

sure having to start over sucked but i did like the flashback section with Antonella and young Amber is super cute before she becomes a damaged slutty girl type. still i would have liked to see how the new renders looked for the MCs family home and the content that was in the updates prior to the revised edition update! i feel like a lot of the brooding existential crisis stuff the MC monologued about in the previous version of the game was also condensed to make it a bit easier to digest for players who get bogged down in text heavy games! this made it easier for me to follow honestly. i do miss the title screen with the 80's style bubblegum aesthetic!

my personal enjoyment of the new update aside, i saw nothing as i played through that would indicate any downgrade in quality of the renders but the game kept me engaged to a good enough degree that i wasnt going around searching for extra fingers or anyof the usual AI deformities that everyone is so quick to point out! the dev stated in their comment posted by another user a few posts back that they are only using the AI as an assistant to help with the menial tasks in rendering the images (im paraphrasing here) and im inclined to believe her as i see no issues with the rework that would make this game deserve all the hate everyone is throwin at it! think of it this way, if you dont like that the dev is using AI to help make the game then go out and make your own game without using AI and then come back (or dont, whatever)! if you dont like AI then cool, so be it, but its a useful tool when used properly! if just the mention of AI makes you sick, well there are other games out there, maybe give one of those a shot! i gave the remake a try and its not bad! i liked it in fact! if your just shitting on it because the dev may have used AI, thats not a fair assessment of this game! anyway, ive gone on a bit too long here but thats how i feel about the game and you can take it or leave it!

I played this since the first release, it has changed a fair bit from what I can recall and its maybe a bit better, so here is my breakdown

Pros:

1. Gorgeous models
2. Intriguing story, kind of...
3. MC is not a complete idiot so there is that...bit of a white knight complex going

Cons:

1. Animations are not really that great, it feels unnatural
2. Story is kind of all over the place, it doesnt flow, never did. I believe the writer is trying to create more intrigue through creating "disconnects" in the story, only give us part of it even if its not really a revelation.
3. Continue with story: The characters are unreal, particularly the primary love interest, the sister and even mother. These characters seem like that all have their own psychosis and brand of sanity. The MC included. It makes connecting with any of them difficult to put it mildly.
4. Not sure much changes with the choices provided, so far only thing I really noticed is that there is less content with some choices however the other content is still there, making me feel the choice was a waste, content is always better imo, especially when there doesn't seem to be much difference either or.

Other comments:
I do appreciate the new style of the game, but I am a bit wary of developers who change the game up when it was already going through developer hell, slow updates etc for some time now.

Hopefully with this new style the dev can get us back to where it was in terms of the last version of the game quickly and get on with the rest of it without dragging supporters along as before...

Absolutely bizarre choice to ditch the great-looking models in favour of AI. Having played the INITIAL initial release, and appreciating the models there, the AI in the NEW initial release just don't hold the same appeal

Honestly, the game's greatest asset was the models, because the story itself still wasn't very well fleshed-out...at least, not enough to make 99% of the characters even remotely likeable

The father was a gigantic douche, the mum didn't have much going for her (besides the model used for her), the sisters...well, one was just a cold fish and the other needs serious psychological help. As for the MC himself, he's just as bad, going from angry to indifferent on the emotional scale, and indecisive everywhere else. The only "decent" character was the daughter, and even she was lumbered with a friend who's bizarrely competitive for the MC's attention

We had absolutely ZERO character development in the span of two seasons, and barely got to know many of the characters billed as LIs. Why is that? I'm not sure, but it certainly didn't help in any way. The MC treating others poorly or allowing himself to be treated poorly were also major sticking points for me, because I genuinely can't fathom either why his dad and one sister hate his guts, or why he'd actually choose to move home and live with them. It doesn't help that the dad and sister hardly ever show themselves except to hurl insults at MC, either. It also makes zero sense why he'd send his own daughter to live with his family knowing how half of them feel about him

He's also supposed to be a hardened police officer but finds himself stuttering like an absolute moron the ONE TIME he was about to get laid. All in all, just poor writing

All of these aspects of the game could've worked better if they weren't so full-on, and, honestly, maybe that's the entire point? Make it "hard to love" or even like any of these characters?

And in fact, we didn't have a single sex scene in the game to begin with (well...one ALMOST sex scene where you end up either cockblocking yourself or getting cockblocked by another character depending on your choices). This adds to the utter frustration of it all, especially because the devs decided to remake the entire thing

But at least the models were incredibly well-designed, and maybe, in time, the supposed LIs would grow on...some people. Now, however, the best things the game had going for it were completely thrown to the wayside. Instead, people have to wait EVEN LONGER for character development and sex scenes, all the while lumbered with these sub-par AI images!

This was a tough play, I dropped it part way through the second season.

The writing is the most difficult aspect. The MC is a witless, spineless loser that you just cannot get behind. He is constantly struggling with himself, whining and rolling over for everyone. The father is an absolute asshole, thankfully his involvement is minimal. ALL of the women are some flavor of psychotic. The mother is all over the place, both sisters are aggressive jerks. There just isn't a likable character to be found, and its not even as though you could route for the MC in any of the scenarios.

The art is pretty decent most of the time, though there is a fair bit of wet hair and it looks terrible every time.

Short summary:


This is a good auto-skip game, it might be 5 stars for that approach. Go in, look at the fantastic renders, treat it like a beautiful slideshow, and go out.

Story, character development, believability, writing - are all trash.



Good Things

• Beautiful renders - light, expressions, environments, posing are all top-notch
• Almost all models are very hot
• Quite a bit of sexy scenes

Bad points

• Writing is bad
• Story doesn’t make sense
• Character actions are completely idiotic and unbelievable
• Choice system is bad and arbitrary

This game has some of the best renders of anything out there. The dev is exceptionally talented with the graphics.

Unfortunately the writing is not close to the level of the visuals. With the exception of pretty much every other character in the game is batshit insane. No, this is not the typical exaggeration of someone who doesn't like a character being assertive or having a particular personality. These characters are completely out of their mind awful human beings. I think takes the cake for the most appalling character ever written in any AVN I've ever played. This would be impressive writing if this was the dev's intent, but I think the dev expects people to find sympathetic.

That said, the completely insane and illogical behavior of characters does produce some hot scenes. Like when
On that note, I agree with a lot of the other reviewers that every character bar one or two having comically large boobs is off putting. Pick one or two and scale the others down at least a few cup sizes to produce some more realistic looking bodies.

I understand the dev is reworking the really weak character writing in the first part of the game. Hopefully it's a major rewrite that makes these characters behave as if they haven't all just escaped from a mental institute and been without sex for 10 years. Again, the renders are extremely good and there's a semblance of an interesting plot behind the chaos of the bad characters.

• Memories / flashbacks of Anna are just pure, and would love to play a full game to get the backstory on that.
• Decent renders to an extent.

• Unnatural looking breast.
• Story is confusing as hell to follow (All over the place.)
• So much drama (I don't mind some drama, but this game goes way beyond what one wants to sit and read for x amount of time.)
• Part 1 and part 2 seem like very different games, and it doesn't even save / pickup from pt 1 to pt 2.
• Hardly any backstory on characters.

Part 1 I kind of enjoyed the flashbacks, made it very enjoyable.
In part 1 your daughter is a sweetheart, in part 2 it seems like she takes after Madison and you're stuck with a manipulated personality.

+ music
+ renders
+ harem?

- some girls are bitchy towards mc without reason and treat him like a total shit
- madison and her misandry
- MC is a father, mature man and behave like teenage horny idiot, no to mention he is a pathetic scared wimp, who absolutely don't have balls and never go with the flow. No idea how you can writing something like "this" but it's terrible
- too much drama, really just stop for a moment

if you can stand this mc you should give it a try. 1 star from me

Just such a good and drawing story. The flashbacks leave me with a lump in my throat.
The present times are a bit sex with any breathing object as you'd expect from a VN but the flashbacks just hit.
I feel like there's a massive disparity between the two timelines causing the story to suffer but I enjoy it so much it doesn't matter.

I had played season 1 before, I didn't know there was season 2, and I must say that I am loving it, the design of all the girls is very good, I am starting to like the detective story a lot, perhaps my only "downside" It's very short hahahaha but come on, that's because I'm really liking it
I think he needs more scenes with Isabella but I guess it's okay, let him simmer with her, my favorite girl I would say is Nanami

TL;DR: It's a game for those who like long texts and lengthy talks.

There are a few cute girls, like Nanami with her doll face, or young Amber from the reminiscence, but that's about the only positive thing I can say about this game.

Characters are mostly unpleasant, full of shit and stupid. For instance, when Isabella behaves like a bitch, and MC doesn't jump to fulfill her egotistic whims, she manipulates him with, "You hurt me", and all the choice we have is three kinds of how he should apologize. No option to tell her to cut the crap.

Almost all the game is just talking. I get that people should not jump into bed instantly after they meet, but in other games there are actions, not just talks. Here everything is talking and talking, boring and repetitive, almost zero actions.

And the background for those talks is usually some oversized boob (not even bare) for like 20 dialog lines, then we see the pelvis area (in shorts, nothing exciting either) for another 20 lines, and then the background switches to that boob again, for another 20 dialog lines. Maybe I'm exaggerating, as the developer throws in some face with a few meaningless choices, etc. But basically that's exactly how it feels.

I usually don't skip text, but here it's nothing really to read. Some pretentious crap that has no way to end until probably the game ends or something.

There is some story regarding the police work, but most of the time it's patronizing criticizing dramatic speeches rather than anything useful... So characters there are mostly unappealing, and in any case dialogs are too long-winded to captivate.

All the content of the game could be expressed in like 5 sentences, and you wouldn't lose anything if you skip all the details.

Speaking about visual contents: Renders are detailed. Composition is often bad. Most of time it's some oversized boob or ass in some weird clothing on the screen.

[Ep. 5 v0.062]

The best incest game i have ever played. The girls are amazing and this is not only about sex, but also relationships between the protagonist and his family members. I hope to see a good development of the characters, especially with Isabella and Elizabeth. The renders are nonsense and even the plot is really good. I can only give 5 stars deserved, but if it was possible i would give surely 1000000000 stars

The renders and animation are of incredible quality, which kept me checking back, but it's finally reached tipping point that they cant make up for the downsides

The MC/writing is absolutely pathetic, he's utterly scared of women and of flesh, especially freaking out over seeing boobs. The boobs themselves are all hideously oversized and the girls act completely unrealistically (well yeah, that's true of any game, but in a different way in this game - they are aggressive, entitled and bipolar)

It's also full of opinionated, biased choices like "minimize her feelings" which is a distraction

The art is amazing the story is so so season 1 was a good and consistent story for all the characters but after I played season 2 it felt like the main character got retconned and the story wasn't as consistent it felt more like a kinetic novel on season 2 then the gameplay from season 1 at my phone season 2 also felt like a rant Fest and it kind of took me out of the story a bit. overall the game is just ok