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

I f*ing love this game!
Only 4 stars becausee of one thing: Why tf is the american way the f*ing measurement to all things happening between people?
Puritanism, hypocricy, denial and consolidated social norms by solely (extremist) christian beliefs.
As I got it, the dev is a japanese female (am I wrong?), a type of person who should be appaled by that lifestyle.
It would´ve been very refreshing to experience a different view on all the things but the US way to see reality (denying it) and just go with the flow, accepting it.
The US way of denying everything gets boring by excessively useing it in games like this.
Maybee try a different approach next time. Some non US (christian fundamentalist) restrictions. This would be awesome to read and watch.
Lovely characters in image and apearance and them pushing forward (except but despite that puritism of the mc) .
Jealousy fits in this story, but should be able to be dealt with even now, given the "harem" tag is projected for future updates.
I´m looking forward to future updates and the development of that very interesting story.
There´s one thing, I have to mention to conclude my review. An event, that occured at the beginning of S2: MC is a cop. Father is (oviously) a yakuza affiliate (we know).
Dad is (suddenly) rich, abuses his family as trophys, hates his son more, since he is a cop, wants him out, considers his work/wealth a secret and treats everyone beides himself as a minion.
But the coppers nose smells just something slightly suspicious.
I can see a plotdevice whe I see it. This should be more prominent in the storyline than the mc´s puritanism.
Still love that game and can´t wait for further updates.

Weird, very weird one to rate.

playing SS1 is very pleasant so far, besides some minor things. But after finishing ss1, then came ss2, things become very inconsistent. Which is the major complaint everyone has with this game so that's undeniable.

The renders and the models are good.

Though the same can't be said for the story, it is too early to judge cause there is barely anything to judge at in v0.061. Something here and there but mainly just about the MC's memory of his wife. Not bad but too short to be good. Generally too early to have a final verdict about the story but if this inconsistency continues to be present then it would be a disaster.

Characters are, well most seem to hate the sisters for their unstable behavior, but I don't have a problem with it as much as other aspects that I don't dig, but it is just my personal preference.

Cute daughter. She's very sweet, but that's pretty much it to her. The mom is quite wack, she seems to be a normal enough mom besides the obvious in SS1, but in SS2 all suddenly the interaction became very sexual between her and the MC no matter the choice in the previous season, so again, inconsistent.

Nanami, well, she's your average sweet innocent Asian girl troupe in every game but with a little twist of never wearing anything under and that's about it.

The rest of the girls are like the story. Too early to judge and honestly, I don't care enough for them to do so.

I say give this game another year or two from now before checking it out. Things may change in due time. Who knows lol

I give this between 3 or 4 stars as of ep5 [v0.061]

The renders are nice and feel like they're not generic DAZ models, but some of the sex scenes could use some work. For example, in the scene (second version) where the MC and Older sis fuck cowgirl style after the pool, there's a side angle shot but there's not really anything to see. There's also a closer side shot showing her butt as she rides him but also not as great. Basically, the angles could have been chosen better so that the sex scenes show more penis and vagina.

The grammar didn't seem bad and the story/plot was ok I guess, but some of these characters have some extreme schizophrenia because they act one way and then completely change on the next choice, which is fine if they are supposed to acually be crazy but most of these characters aren't. Which, by the way, brings me to my next point being that a lot of choices don't feel like they make senses or even matter. There's a scene, again after the pool, where you choose to side with Older sis or Mom and if you pick sis then they both just fuck off and seem to get angry at you, but if you do nothing they seem fine by it. Most of the choices lead to the same path regardless of what you pick, which begs the question if the choices are even relevant. At the end of the update, the MC's daughter will act the same way regardless of what you say to her (Yes, I did see a notification that tells you which choice seems worse). There's also a scene where you inspect a dead body or the walls and there's litterally no difference, in fact the MC doesn't even inspect the body. I think choices are fine when it's clear you want to avoid content like scat or feet. But as an example, having something like kiss girl or don't and she will always end up mad at you, is a bad design and a waste of clicks.

I feel like some characters are completely irrelevant and should be cut. For example, you can litterally skip Pez's content and not notice any change.

Lastly, flashbacks shouldn't have choices if the outcome is already defined. There is no reason to need to have to flirt with the wife in the past as a choice if you already have a daughter because we know the MC was successful. But it's fine to have choices in flashbacks that are not clearly defined. For example, maybe you were having a rough day at work and now you have the choice to drink at home, so you decide to drink and then the scene plays out where you got angry and beat your wife. Let's say in the present, we already know the wife is gone, but then later in the game maybe she comes back and explains it was because of that choice you made in the past. In this scenario it's fine to have a choice in the flashback because we didn't know the outcome of the choice. Or if the choice wasn't the reason why the wife left, then maybe the MC is depressed and that choice is the reason why. Here, having a choice is still ok because the choice adds explanation.

Also, having the option for still images on the main menu instead of animations would be nice because it gets so laggy opening the game and only opening the game.

Unlike others I find the characters very attractive and well made. The scenes look pretty, even though perspective of MC is noticably not taken into consideration (seeing things he can't possibly see from his position).

But this game has some of the most nonsensical writing I've ever seen on this page. All characters go from one opinion to the complete opposite literally two sentences apart and then jump back and forth. It's frustrating as hell that nobody can stick to their personallity, not even MC goes in line with the choices you take.

Great story, art is fantastic and the girls are all pretty unique, wish MC wasnt so wishy washy, but that is kinda the point here Im guessing. Keep up the excellent work dev! Where are my Amber squad homies?

-I went through most emotions while playing this be it funny, weird, angry, rage, confusing, lovey, dumbfound. One thing for sure is started out quite serious and believable to now getting some red flags of amateur writing.
-Characters including mc are designed and rolled in such a way that you'd be surely getting an expression of "damn bro" at least once either in a disappointment or absurdity or surprise.
-Don't mind father character and his beta rage tbh, and the story is yet to unfold so can't judge the main character but I'd say gets uneasy when he cribs. No idea why mc's daughter was left in such circumstances knowing well his fathers emotional tantrum, and the sisters of his aren't any better role models to grow up with... Always horny for mc... Man such a dream to be with them unless you gotta daughter to take care of.
-If you choose to be nice with your sister you may miss the content with your bipolar girlfriend, i don't know if that's any better mechanics.
-Animations are fukin superb so are the renders.
-Hard to love but I'm gonna keep this checking.

My rating for Hard to Love

For me Hard to Love belongs to one of my favorite visual novel here on F95. Why that is very simple i like the art and the style of the game. Also i find the rendering very good and i like it. The graphics of the game is just very unique i know that not everyone will like it is just a matter of taste some like it and others rather not. What i find a bit unfortunate is the story sometimes it acts as a gap filler between the individual scenes and on the other hand it is again too short as with Antonella at the beginning of season one. There is also maybe one or the other character that you may like or not. Here are my 4 favorite characters the others i find very good but these 4 are my choice. I can say for myself that i like Antonella the first love of the MC, Nanami the girlfriend of Madison and Isabella, she is really cute and super sexy. Isabella the MC's daughter is very jealous and I love her. Mom i also find very attractive. With Amber i thought at the beginning of the game this hysterical bitch i can not like, but now I love her. She is looking hot and has beautiful interesting tattoos.

I recommend it in any case.

I wish the developer continued success and all the best.

Really pointless to have choices during flashbacks when you already know the MC ends up with the girl, the rest of the choices don't seem to have any impact other than see boobs or not.

MC seems to be quite the loser for being a cop, doesn't raise his own daughter, all bark and no bite when talking to his father, always the loser in every conversation and to top it off his dick looks like something you would find on an orc(not about the size).

Its hard to find most of the women attractive, mom is aged and lifeless, older sis has a large spider and other tattoos that are very distracting, two others are pretty plain in looks and as for there personalities they are all suffering with split personality syndrome or are all just very inconsistently written.

Main story beyond the whole MC moving back in with family who are all crazy is a jumbled mess of random events which switches between the present/past, MC/other characters without any explanation of who, where or when they are, all of this told from the point of view of the MC who seems to have forgotten his whole life and needs to remember it one scene at a time.

Tiny little things like two people talking get blown way out of proportion but big things like almost drowning doesn't get a mention.

Art is good but it feels like you are looking through a filter the whole time giving everything a creepy vibe(like a predator is going to pounce any second).

Trying to figure out who is talking is also a pain as the text almost never matches who's on screen.

Story 1/5 (obvious)
Art 2/5 (creepy)
Sex 1/5 (nothing i would call good)
Fetishes 1/5 (one but not used well)
Choices 1/5 (see scene or not)
Characters 1/5 (very poor)

Two-stars only because of the incredible renders, but other than that this game has nothing. Unlikeable characters with the oh so typical spineless MC who can't complete a single sentence without stuttering and shitting himself like some virgin middle schooler at a whore house.

He's also a total dick who lashes out like a kid throwing a tantrum and yet, everyone is inexplicably madly in love with this poor excuse of a human being. Normally, I would not rate this low even if the MC is garbage because it seems to be a norm to make your MC as unlikable as possible in AVNs, but literally every other character is a mess. The mom goes from generic housewife to a dictator in the blink of an eye. The sisters are insanely aggressive and always looking to stir shit up and that's only the tip of the iceberg. Some of them have, understandably annoying sides because of how useless the MC is, but it's still insufferably annoying to watch.

"Hard to Love" is 'easy to love' but 'hard to rate'.

Starting off with characters. Most of them are fabricated well. There's a milf, couple of lolis and some side chicks. Most of the characters are related to MC by relations. All of them are unique to each other.

Storywise, the game is unique. It truly depicts a story of cop in the crime-ridden fictional Japan although some things are quite relatable with the 1980-1990's. The pacing of the story is a little debatable. It jumps from past to present at random sometimes, which is not a bad thing. Some of the choices are confusing at times.

Graphically appealing. There's some heavy render work done in the game. The UI is quite and the staff is friendly. This one has a good set of music. Some those kawaii songs to some random metal songs.

It's a bit sad I'm giving this one only 3/5

On surface it looks like a good VN. Characters look good, there are fair few girls, decent amount of H scenes and overall things look promising.

But constant flashbacks paired with completely clueless, spineless MC just annoyed me. Paired with girls who do one thing one day, only to be completely different another, it was too much for me.

There is no consistency to characters and that hurts. MC is mr blandy bland, and every time I was reading his inner dialogue made me want to drop the game straight away.

There's potential in this one, so maybe I'll revisit it in a year or two, but currently it just makes me frustrated instead of entertained.

Version: [Ep.5 - v0.005]

in 'Hard to Love' you get to play as a cop that falls asleep on a train back to his parents house, in which he plans to stay with his parents, 2 sisters and young daughter, as he recovers from a gunshot wound.
While sleeping the MC dreams about the mother of his child, a cute young woman that he fell for, she's pretty weird, constantly switching between 'uwu can't you see that I like you' to 'fuck off I don't care', I suspected some mental illness was involved until the rest of the characters showed up.

Well, MC kept dreaming about his past and eventually arrived at his parents house.
This is a good point to talk about how the game looks - which is pretty damn good, the girls are lovely and the renders are nice looking.
Unfortunately this is where the cracks start to show.
The writing is not great, the characters are pretty shallow and seems to only exist to play their part in MC's life, LI's keeps going from 'please let me suck your cock uwu' to 'fuck off perv' and back, the plot is pretty strange and, honestly, there's a lot of bloat when it comes to dialogues, could use some trimming down.

I gotta say, despite some issues I found 'Hard to Love' pretty charming up until this point, the LI's are hot, the setting is fun and the pacing is quite alright.
MC and his sister grow closer (and hornier), his mother is starting to give in to her desires, we are starting to get some more clues about the general plot and I was having a blast.
Then chapter 2 happened.
I assumed it was a rebuild of the code and some upgrades, but found out the mother and the sister are now hideous, a large part of the progress the MC made with them is simply gone (sister is very bitchy again, mother went back to 'eww incest is disgusting', it feels like their personality changed in general, the text bloat became more apparent and I was left frustrated which significantly less interest after the visual changes the LI's have gotten.

I'll say it plain and simple - chapter one was flawed in ways, but had plenty of charm to make up for it. I simply dislike everything about chapter two so far.
I'll probably check it out again in a year or so.
For the score - I'd rate it a 3.5 for the first part, unfortunately maybe a 2 for the second part, rounding up for the very apparent effort from the dev and the potential for a decent VN.

I was stuck for some time, not able to find a nice game to play while i was waiting for mt favourite ones to drop with new updates. And then, i found this gem. Amazing game, renders and charachters are top quality. Even the story, is really intriguing and with a nice plot. Maybe, the incest relationship is a bit cheesy, but for me it's not bad.
Great game, worth playing.

The incest path carries this game pretty hard, I enjoyed it kinda like red fall but not as good or long. Wish there was 4k renders and more sex scenes could be interesting how the family dynamic talks to each other. Write is pretty good just goes too indepth on boring irelivant parts. Will come back after a few chapters.

I don't normally write reviews, but considering the amount of negative feedback this game is getting, i felt the need to.

This isn't a 1 or 2 star game by any fair rating. Even if everything else was total garbage (it isn't), the quality of the renders alone should bring it up to 3 stars. The girls are very beautiful, especially Amber, the older of the two sisters. I know some people aren't into tattooed girls, but i am and i think she looks absolutely stunning.

Now, if you don't like drama and the girls fighting with each other, then this probably isn't for you. The MC's family is extremely dysfunctional. The older sister doesn't get along with the mother, the MC doesn't get along with his father, the two sisters hate each other and the MC neglected his daughter who was raised mainly by her grandparents because he was obsessed with finding out why his girlfriend disappeared. There is also a lot of jealousy amongst the girls over the MC. If you're looking for a wholesome incest harem where everyone loves everyone, then you won't find it here (not yet at least). On the other hand, if you're like me and love seeing catfights and jealousy from the girls, then you should enjoy this.

What i want to talk about most is the MC's relationship with his sister, Amber because for me, she is the best part of the game. If you're tired of games, where the incest doesn't feel taboo or forbidden then i highly recommend you try this game, even if it's just for her. Warning: This part of the review will contain spoilers. From the very first time we see her (In a flashback) you can tell that she's already in love with the MC and she gets into an argument with his girlfriend due to her jealousy. Soon after that, she's trying to push boundaries with him but the MC pushes her away even though he is attracted to her because he views incest as immoral. The MC trying to resist his sister's advances without hurting her feelings is a common theme of their relationship and it's done very well in my opinion. It really comes to a head in season two, when, once again, she gets extremely jealous and has a bit of a breakdown after she sees their mother flirting with him. This leads to an excellent scene in the MC's bedroom where they have a heartfelt discussion about Amber's feelings for the MC and how she wishes she could be normal. The MC tries to explain that he doesn't want to hurt her but feels like he has to draw the line somewhere for the sake of their family (especially his daughter who he is now trying to be a better father to), as a relationship between them risks destroying everything. At this point you can decide whether you think she's worth the risk, and if you decide she is, she loses control and jumps the MC and you will get a very hot sex scene, with many different camera angles and writing that highlights the fact that they are doing something that they shouldn't be doing. My only complaint is that Amber came multiple times and then stopped the MC before he got to cum (his big dick was hurting her apparently). I still really enjoyed the scene, though.

About the flashbacks that many people are complaining about: yes, they are perhaps a bit overdone and too long but they aren't the entire game like people are suggesting. There's plenty of time spent in the "current" timeline. I didn't particularly care for the flashbacks with the prostitute (for those worried about this tag, she doesn't seem to be a LI) but aside from that, i didn't have a major problem with them.

About the girls being "bipolar": I can understand where people are coming from but i don't agree with that assessment. Amber has been in love with her brother (the MC) since they were young and she still doesn't know how to handle her feelings. The mother is suffering from depression and a bad marriage. If you encourage her to get back to her old (happy) self who was a model and comfortable being in lingerie or even naked around the MC then her new cougar persona (she only has the hots for the MC, to be clear) isn't that strange, really. Isabella (the daughter) is just acting like a normal teenager that gets angry at her dad because she thinks he's being overprotective. Her fight with her friend Nanami (who has a big crush on the MC) was also normal teenage behaviour, she feels like Nanami is trying to steal her dad away, and she doesn't want to lose him again. That's all. The youngest sister, Madison is a bit of an enigma as of now. We know she doesn't like Amber and she's a bit of a bitch towards the MC but we don't really know why.

In short: I highly recommend this game to people who like top tier visuals with good lighting and many different camera angles to show the girls off, incest that actually feels like incest, and jealousy/catfights amongst the LIs. If you prefer wholesome harems where everyone gets along, then you should look elsewhere.

They weren't kidding when they chose that name! It really is hard to love this game!
ooh, where to start?!

× The characters in this game can be in a dictionary next to the word bipolar! They just don't behave like human beings, every one of them is an example of extreme personality.
× The MC is a weird spinless jellyfish man! It's hard to explain him, but he's just so vanilla!
× The Dev had an idea of the MC being in love with a girl(with the weirdest name I've ever heard) and spends the first 1+ hour of the game making us fall in love with her too. yes, MAKING US. I don't know what he was thinking, just nonsense dialogues for hours and nothing else just trying to force a wholesome love connection between the MC and weird name girl. and forcing us to suffer through it and his terrible writing cuz he wants us to fall in love with this girl too! This is the biggest swing and a miss I've ever seen in one of these games! lol
× The story and characters suffer from one of the worst writings I've seen in these types of games. I mean if a dev is a bad writer and trying his best that is fine, but when the dev thinks he's a great writer and goes all out, it's just unbearable. wait until you reach the point you have to guess all the authors and the book names. talk about pompous writing!
× The story takes itself too seriously and loses all credibility.
× Oh, and have I mentioned the entire story(at least to the point I played) is a flashback?! yeah, the MC has taken painkillers on a train and is constantly going back and forth between now and his memories of high school, with his daughter taking care of him in the present and parading her around like the final prize you'll get in this game. I don't know how long is the flashback sequence and if it's just meant to be the intro, but I've played the game for hours and was still in the flashback intro!

Edit - forgot to mention, there's no rollback option at the bottom of the screen or in the options to activate (left side click to roll back) in fact they made the options screen as minimalistic as possible, cuz apparently fewer options are better?!
The texting mini-game is so annoying and buggy.

The start was very interesting with great potential. Great artwork, models and an interesting story, but things went quickly downhill from there. The game is incoherent with TOO MUCH blah blah blah and nothing much happening. It also tries to hard for dramatic effect with all those flashbacks which makes the story even more confusing. I ended up just skipping the entire season 2 episode.

To be honest the rating of this game fooled me pretty good. I have a hard time understanding how it can average 4 stars.

PRO
Renders - It definitely has a pretty shell so I get why people would give it a look. (Except for character eyes)

Story Structure - The basic premise of a man looking for his lost love and his family having an unhealthy dynamic is a solid base.

CON
Inconsistency/ Lots of filler - Cannot say I have seen an instance where the MC's story tries to progress any time it has been referenced it is interrupted and/or diverted into some kind of obligatory lewd scene

Unlikable characters - I saw a review that referred to them as a bi polar mess and I find it hard to disagree. Hard to tell if it is bad writing or a language barrier where lots of things get lost in translation.

Update for rework 0.1 (rework of previous rework?)

So, this doesn’t get to the finish of season 1 I believe, so it’s hard to evaluate writing improvements since it didn’t really go off the rails until after the MC arrived at the family home and that’s where this ends. The sister is still a total brat/bitch from the beginning and the MC still seems like a pushover/idiot.

As far as the AI art/filtering, I didn’t find it bothersome, but didn’t really add anything for me either. The UI is about the only noticeable change to me and it’s an improvement I guess but this doesn’t seem worth the time. Much of the ui changes and walkthrough could have been left to Sancho's mod imo.

This stays a 2 for now as I couldn’t recommend this until more content so we find out if the writing and all the characters are still suffering from schizophrenia or the writing significantly improves. To me it was the writing which needed the biggest rework and so far it seems most the time was spent polishing a turd.

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The renders are excellent. Good lighting, great focus and cropping, with sexy and unique LIs as well.

Unfortunately that’s the only good I can say.

I thought season 1 had too much jumping around via flashback and too much inner monologue, this first chapter of season 2 turns all that up to 11. It feels like monologues about monologues, flashbacks having flashbacks. Plus now we’re getting inner monologues by almost everyone in addition to the mc.

The MC is crazy, which I can understand plot wise, but it’s just all over the place and doubting about his doubts on and on and on ….. He’s worse than some of the worst “just out of high school” mc’s who are virgins and have never seen a breast before. His whining….ugh, I had to skip over half the dialogue/monologues. In addition, it is now clear everyone around the MC is crazy/bipolar as well. It’s just so much that doesn’t seem possible to keep everything straight with all the flashbacks, doubts, reversals of behavior/thoughts, etc.

I get that the author is probably trying to give each LI more detailed personalities/differences but this wasn’t the way to do it. It feels like all story focus is lost. It’s nearly stream of conscious writing, but this is no Ulysses by James Joyce and besides, isn’t suited for a VN/Porn game.

To get back on track, this would need major paring down of monologues and most the doubting/whining. We should be able to tell the girls’ personalities apart by the way they act and talk towards the MC, not by having to hear their inner thoughts. Hopefully this can get turned around.

Looks great, animations are neat, but everyone is fucking bipolar.
Season 2 feels like a jarring retcon of season 1, the characters feel completely different, mainly the goth chick and the mom. Dialogue is whacked.
Everyone is so insane it's genuinely disturbing, and all the flashbacks are terrible and there's way too many - you REALLY didn't need to do 4 flashbacks in a row with very small breaks in-between. Just do one long one. The dialogue sounds like gibberish sometimes.