VN - Ren'Py - Hard to Love [v0.24] [Qori Gaming]

"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.

Edit: Lowered my rating from five stars to three, the remake is worse than the original. The renders are still good, but they now have AI filters applied to them so they can look a bit weird at times. My favourite LI, Amber has had her personality toned down significantly. No more extreme jealously, possessiveness or mood swings. She's far less interesting now. You're also forced into a romantic relationship with a girl that almost prostitutes herself to the Yazuka and only pulls out at the last minute. Hated that. There's some light lesbianism between two of the LIs which is another thing I didn't like. It's just some groping and suggestive dialogue for now but I'm sure there will be more than that in the future.

The only thing I liked about the reworked version compared to the original is that there's some progress with Isabella (the daughter). Everything else is worse.

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.

For me, so far the story is interesting.
But for some reason, sometimes I feel that the face of the main character's mother and Madison looks like that of a woman who uses drugs, or like someone who has a serious illness, or like someone who hasn't eaten in months (sorry). Or maybe there really is a dark story behind the two of them when the main character left for years.
In my opinion, maybe in the future the facial models of the main character's mother and Madison can be made even prettier.

And I think so far Isabella and Nanami are the best girls.

Sorry for my bad English.

Really good renders, great lighting work. Love the main girl- stunning foxy looking and awesome personality, daughter not so much. Grown up sister is something else too. Keep up the good work. Best of luck!

As of v0.042 (didn't bother trying the second part)

PROS

• Models look ok

CONS

• Forced sex scenes
• False choices
• Story is a poor jumbled mess.
• MC is pathetic
• Only one likable side character

CONCLUSION

For those who just want to look at the pretty pictures.

I honestly feel like rating this a 5/5 is too high for the game but it's closer to a 5/5 than a 4/5.

The story has bad pacing, a bit incoherent and not serious at all. As the goals of the MC are a bit thrown to the side so that every character gets their 5 minutes of fame which just ends up being this drama filled ride. I would even say it feels at times like a trainwreck you just can't look away from. So, all in all love the game for what it is.

Game is really weird one here with really good graphics plus characters but Mc and Story makes no sense really thats big turn off for me like Mc acts like idiot and story is all about flashbacks that makes me feels really bored about this and family members is just DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA nothing more like thats biggest con for me about this game other than MC being moron.

Other than that game is okay even with weird story with lot of flashbacks worths 5 star for potential for now.

Visuals

• Top notch. Every girl, every woman (important distinction) is beautifully rendered. Among the best I've seen.
• We are spoiled with MANY lewd angles, suggestive clothing, revealing clothing, exposure, all of which are thoughtful and satisfying.
• I'm not into petite women, nor lollis (per se), but even they are well rendered. You will not be disappointed in this arena.

Characters

• Antonella (beautiful name) - Reasonably cute, spunky personality, a bit of firecracker. Endearing from start to finish.
• Isabella - Another name I've always loved (looking at you: BADIK), and she's exceptionally pretty. Love that the dev made her look interesting in that she's got some thicc thighs. Typical doting daughter, absolutely nothing wrong with that, and she plays the part well. I hope we begin to see more content centered around she and the MC in future updates.
• Madison - I'm a bit neutral on her. She's not too cute, and I don't like small breasts, but she's got a round ass that helps. She's devious, and that makes her interesting, but we'll see to what end (and of course, depending on the path chosen).
• Mom - Obviously a knockout in her youth, I love that the dev just facedove into the taboo and doesn't make you wait endlessly. She maintains a believable distance from you, despite the tension, but she wants you to know she knows you want her.
• Amber - 10/10 would bang. She's got a weird larger-than-it-should-be head size as a teenager when MC has flashbacks about their childhood, and yet still a great body. When we see her again as an adult...holy shitballs. She's fantastic. Wouldn't change a thing.
• Nanami is phenomenally hot. Adorable face, exceptionally generous breasts for how young she is, and a cute little ass. The schoolgirl outfit is all of the cherries on all of the tops. She's got an adorable, endearing personality too. She sees the best in everyone, I love that. Even if it is delusional at times.

Story

• Semi-typical inter-familial relationships, tension, etc. Well-written, though, and that is KEY. It's never dull, it seldom drones on, and achieves a satisfying cadence. I really don't want to give away specifics or spoilers, but suffice it to say that if the above is your jam, you'll really enjoy this one.
• There are some confusing elements, I am guessing they may stem from cultural differences between Asia and the US. For example:
  Spoiler: Spoiler - Story

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Dialog

• This is probably the only real area I have minor critiques on; MC has a good amount of inner monologue, even in between actual ongoing dialogue. Not that it isn't believable, but rather sometimes it feels repetitive. It suffers from an endlessly surprised MC who - realistically - would not retain the height of feeling caught off guard for such sustained periods. Almost comes across clueless, though he isn't.
• The actual text - the words you read on the screen, are almost flawless. This is huge for me. I am incapable of enjoying a VN to its fullest when my mind is making regular corrections to the text before me. It's nice to be free of that burden, and just enjoy the story.
• There are no overtly corny, cliché, or otherwise annoying qualities to the dialog. The closest thing to this would be how it seems nearly every girl MC comes in contact with speaks in riddles/broken or disjointed concepts/contradicts themselves within seconds. Nobody's perfect.

Game Mechanics/Other Notes

• This is another area where this VN really shines. It has among the top 5 most unique AND well-implemented UIs I've ever seen. Everything from the launcher, to the menu, the dialog box, and the scene transitions are extremely creative. Super awesome and fun.
• Contains sound/music, always worth calling out and always in the plus column
• Contains some animations, though none are particularly great. This doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the experience for me, though.

Eagerly awaiting future updates, and am highly impressed by this one.

This game is very well crafted and has some of the best character writing of any of new AVNs I've played. The storytelling is exceptional. Events unfold in a mesmerizingly cinematic way. The easy-going music greatly contributes to this quality as well.

Moreover, it has some of the best image and scene transitions I've encounters. As far as the models, they are all knockouts and fit well with the characters. The outfits are dank. Overall, great attention to detail.

My only complaint is that it was too cpu/gpu intensive to run on faptop. Had to risk playing it on main.

Loving the game overall. Really hoping I get to see it finished one day.

Hard To Love is.... hard to rate

There is so much in this game to love and so much to dislike

Likes: Great models for the most part and great renders (see dislikes)
A story that is at least different from the typical ones found on this site

Dislikes: The dev trying way too hard to be "artistic"..., it's frustrating and annoying.
e.g. The constant jarring flashbacks are way too overdone and so erratic you tend to quickly lose focus on just what the hell is going on.

A lot of the renders both current and in flashback are beautifully done then washed out by a blurry mist overlay or background light flare. If I wanted hazy images I'll not clean my glasses. It is just dumb...it's not artistic!

Final rating is a tough one as at times I want to bin this game and give it one star while at other times it comes close to a five star.
Unfortunately at the moment there are more one star moments than five star......I really hope for more five star ones in the future.

Edit: Going to try this again because my last review was just all over the place.

I was going to give this 3 stars because of all the "WTFs" and poor grammar as well as the "weeby" vibe I got from it but it's overall a good game and still deserves 4 stars.

However:
- No regular person is going to say things like "BTW", "OMG", and "WTF" outside of texting or online chats. Don't really know why that's a thing among devs but it's become a huge pet peeve.
- The setting being Japan is kind of weird. Since most of the characters don't look asian or have Japanese names. Still, I got past that by choosing to suspend disbelief and imagining the dev just wrote it to be some weird alternate world where Russians(?) and the Japanese intermingled at some point and Osaka is the remnants of before that point in time.
- The main cast of characters' appearances are sometimes inconsistent. Like the dev is trying to make them seem more "Asian" at times then completely abandoning that and switching back. Especially the MC.
- Not a fan of the MC by the way. Kind of a spineless loser. Even just leaves his kid to "pursue his dreams" then ends up drowning in alcohol and prostitutes for a period of time. Seems to take a backseat to almost every other character and I can imagine once or if Antonella (can't remember how to spell the name) comes he'll probably be outshined even more.
- Speaking of taking a backseat, the more attractive character models seem to be taking a backseat so far in terms of the story. I get it. You need to explain what the MC was doing and lay the groundwork for how all these different characters and storylines will eventually coincide with each other. HOWEVER, 6 or 7 of the characters on the banner don't get that much screentime and any content with them is just a bunch of teasing even though they seem like they're highly advertised based off the screenshot previews.
- Seems almost too convoluted of a plot for it to ever be finished. Too many characters and too many plot lines that would make pretty good games by themselves but it's just too slow to grab anyone's attention for a long period of time. It goes from high school sweethearts with one of the greatest looking character models to possible incest with less attractive characters to some crime/bad cop/possibly secret agent/evil mastermind with even less attractive characters. I more or less see how the story might come together later on but how many years will take, is the dev even going to finish such a herculean task, and will it even be worth the wait (both in terms of the MC not being a little bitch outshined by his baby mama and doing the character models justice)?

That's just my best guess on how the plot is going to unfold based off of obvious foreshadowing. That's just the Point A to Point B. It's up to the writer to create an actual journey/story that captivates the audience. It's an adult VN, most won't care about twists and turns. Just a good story and satisfying experience that justifies waiting years for it to finish.

This is an overall good game. The Japanese setting/vibe isn't all that unique but the style, graphics, and sounds give it that unique touch and it's still the best executed of all the games I've seen so far with similar settings.

However, I've seen devs try to take on such a big storytelling task before and the game usually ends up abandoned or stuck in development limbo where we might get trickles of updates every 6 months or longer, if at all.

Still, I wish the devs all the best and hope that they can get enough supporters to see this through so they can be satisfied with their work in the end. Looking forward to future updates.