VN - Ren'Py - Hard to Love [v0.25] [Qori Gaming]

Update Review (Finished 0.24 of Remake):

There is a lot more that makes sense in the Remake, but you still have some stuff that skews as irrational. There is a much more obvious delineation between the "Trust/Love" and "Corruption" choices in the Remake. Most decisions seemed to just be corruption in the originals, which could explain the dramatic mood swings.

But you still have them, to a degree, in the Remake. Madison is a manipulative, spoiled brat in the Remake, still, but at least she looks healthier and better. Amber is easier to handle as well, without the on-rails decision to make her spiral into madness. Isabella is jealous, but sane. They haven't done anything (so far) like the "I resent everyone and everything about my life, and you and mom - can you still love me?" storyline they did in the originals. And it is interesting what they are doing with the MC's mother and father.

Like I said, the Remake makes far more sense to me, but I think I will try a corruption playthrough to see if sanity just goes out the window for all of them.

So, a few people state that this entire game is AI. These are DAZ 3D renders that, in my opinion, are put through an AI Photo enhancer like Topaz Photo AI. You can tell flipping through that periodically, one of the images doesn't have the AI Sharpening on the hair and the colors or lighting in the skin tones are noticeably different. The results, for me, look fantastic. The scenes look great. Even the sets that you've seen used in other games, because whoever is doing the art seems to understand lighting and composition - everything just looks better.

I'll bump this up one star and reserve doing more till I see what introducing corruption does (more than what the minor point here and there with Amber does). If it flies off the rail into crazyland, then I'll bump up the stars to 4. There's nothing wrong with providing distinct storylines to cater to the kinks. In the Remake, it's just a HELL of a lot more clear when your choices are Trust/Love and when they are Corruption. So you don't inadvertently turn all your family members into psychopaths just because you wanted to see them naked and have fun with them.

Original Review (finished Volume 1 and 2 of the original and Ch. 1 of Remake):
Pros:

• Graphics. They are well done. Lighting, renders, and effects are better than most games. Most obviously, the key light isn't just flash bang bright and randomly placed in the scene
• Music. I usually just turn this stuff down, but this has some nice tunes. I still don't think the music adds anything to the game like they do in other creative media (Movies, TV, Games), but this sounds better and more thematic to where they're being used in the game.

Cons:

• Everything else.

I wanted to like this, but the entire time, it feels like I started watching the TV shows "Lost" or "Twin Peaks" part of the way through the series. If the characters don't start off when you meet them completely and utterly mental, they will... just give it a little time. It's all so confusing, random, and nonsensical.

Given the amount of iterations that have occurred with this game in a short amount of time (Volume 1, Volume 2, Remake), I'm guessing this is a freshman start in game making and development. So, I hope they find their "zone" and things just click for them and things start to make sense more. Everyone being bipolar just isn't fun. And everyone being irrational chaos with an MC that is just a spineless ignoramus isn't fun either. He was shot in the stomach, not the head. So, somehow, he was this kind of person all through the Cadet Academy and Officer all the way to earning a Detective's promotion?? Maybe research the character and personality types attracted to being Police Officers and how they evolve and change in their years of service. I'm not saying it's impossible that a "Beta Bob" doesn't go into the Force, but it is a rarity.

Nice renders. I hope for the best in the future.

An absolute breakthrough in the world of visual novels: meet AIAVN - a story with dialogues written by artificial intelligence with renders generated by artificial intelligence about women sexaully harassing one of the most pathetic protagonists in the universe.

REVIEW OF [v0.24]

The MOST DISAPPOINTING GAME, if not the MOST DISAPPOINTING GAME I HAVE EVER PLAYED...

as is, and if you don't like my opinion, it is what it is, it is what I think.
At the beginning of playing it I thought, wow, what a great game! It has a cool menu, it's polished, and the atmosphere is good with good lighting and the AI. Well, yes, there are some girls and such, but it's still good, I don't care.

Then the MC wakes up on a train with his daughter in Japan, very interesting, he's a detective and such...

He begins to remember his past that he fell in love at school then under a tree with the girl with the cherry tree, everything was very nice.
But suddenly he is involved in a shootout with the YAKUZA!
Then a little girl comes to your house in the pool and shows you her pussy and ass!
(She's Retarded , she should be checked by a doctor, she will surely have a degenerative neurological problem)
He falls every now and then and falls on top of you as he teleports!!!

PATHETIC!

Give the public what they want?

The story seems to have been written by some kind of AI MIND
It does have nice renders, good sound, the girls are attractive and blah blah blah, but what's the point?
The DEV wants to focus on 5 stories and does not focus on any of them.
I can't understand the game, the time jumps drive you crazy.

PROS

• Good atmosphere and sound
• Good renders
• attractive girls

CONS

• Terrible Writing
• Horrible MC
• Terrible Story
• Animations... what animations???

RATING :

Content: ⭐⭐
Sound: ⭐⭐
Renders: ⭐⭐⭐
Characters: ⭐
Animations:

Final conclusion: ⭐ DISAPPOINTING GAME NOT RECOMMENDED

unless you want to see AI girls showing you their asses and tits, but for that I recommend you Candy.AI

This game is one of my favorite romance games that I'm following. I like the characters, I think they're beautiful, each with their own personality. I also like the mysteries that the game has, such as why the protagonist's daughter's girlfriend and mother abandoned him, in addition to others that are in the game. In addition, the game has art in artificial intelligence, but everything is very well done. Well, I only have praise for the game. I didn't find anything that I disliked about it.

The renders are crazy, and the UI/UX is one in a million—you rarely find an interface like this in this field. But the story is kinda mid. I hope they find an assistant to help develop it. That said, I don’t really care this time—these insane renders make up for it.

This is one of my favorite games on this site. The renders are top notch, the characters (though batshit crazy) are all unique - with personality quirks and different ways to tempt the MC, and even though the story may start off a bit cliched, it soon becomes very original due to the Japanese setting and the criminal underground angle.
The overall presentation/level of polish is quite advanced, with intricate character expressions and dialogue options, and the way the story branches off is also quite ambitious. Even though the game hasn't progressed much in terms of story from its original version, it's still packed with lots of content and sexually-charged scenes.
I loved this game before it was remade with AI, and even now that the developer has decided to go back to "pure" Daz3d renders, I don't mind the changes - because it made everything more photorealistic. If you haven't played it, do yourself a favor and give it a chance. I assure you that you won't find anything like it on this site.

The renders are actually pretty good, so it's pretty annoying to have the rest kind of ruin it. This feels like a story written by a weeb that wants to be a cop in Japan. The story feels disjointed since it keeps going back to the past with the relationship with your mother's daughter (I'm sure we won't have to wait until the end to figure out what happened to her). I just ended up skipping to eventually find that there was an apparent lack of sex, and now I'm here. SMH

Good harem game with great potential. Despite some initial problem dev seem had in begining, game seem start look prety decent.
I think most problem in early build of game was mostly because it first game of dev, so seem all development was new to dev. But as time go she learned stuff and now it finaly materialize in some coherent harem game with proper dating mechanics.
So far it seem since dev properly figured out how make this game, game development will go faster.

As for story and game , seting is basicaly Japane version of Noir seting: MC fight Yakuza, trieng find his lost wife who seem also part of Yakuza, meanwhile in process find new girls in his life. Which seem from dev words could be added in MC harem in future in whatever combination he want.

Despite some people complain about plot, I would say: as if plot in any of erotic games very sophisticated. This one atleast try be original abit.
Girls all behave as bipolar and emotionaly unstable, but I think it not bug it feature. The whole name "Hard to Love" basicaly imply what kind of girls MC would have to deal with, emotionaly unstable or sometime depressed, or sometime crasy, it literaly "hard to love them". But I think it charm of this game, because in most other games girls mostly same they always jump on MC because he have big dick or crap like that, which repeat itself so much time, that girls who dont follow such patern feel like breath of fresh air.
Them be not like regular LI from other games is what make this game unique.

Anyway, like I said game have potential dev just need finish it and polish. And for that potential I give 4 points.

the game feels incoherent. Jumping all over the place, weird characters suddenly appearing with weird agendas and sex scenes cut short, the renders look good and it has a clever use of AI but that's it

I can't lie, amazing game. Yes I love it for simple reasons but i can't deny it. A game where you are a grown man who ends up back with his family is just a perfect set up. A Mc that is trying to fight off his family teasing him throughout the day just hits all the right notes.

This game has some beatiful renders for all of the girls in the game to the point that girls i honestly don't care about kinda worm their way into my heart. The dialogue is decent overall besides the mc actively talking about corrupting ppl. Usually i hate dad on daughter stuff but her deviousness kinda makes it acceptable. Love the mom actively trying to get some too. Honestly waiting for updates is painful because i'm beyond invested and can't wait to continue. Besides that, I can't wait for this to be complete.

It's a beautiful graphic. The girls are special. Very nice place for the game. As for the history, it is not my climates, but the interaction with all the characters is very nice. I hope so on. I'm adding to my favorites.

Story starts pretty good and leads you to belive its choice driven but dont belive that, story also fucks up by alot, mostly by hugh time jumps and forced sex and girls and prostitutes, which ill explain below.

MC keeps sleeping and dreaming about the past where you apprently met a girl that you have a daughter with, so not really sure what the point is with having choices doing the past if its already set that you will have a kid with this girl.

Where story fail is when MCs sister blows a fuse when she sees MC with Antonella, MC acts like hes in a relationship with her both in thoughts and talks which feels very very weird since Antonella has only just seconds ealiere told MC she has feelings for him and shes in-love with him, MC has not even said a thing to her after that and he hasent even kissed her once, so why the fuck does he think and act like hes already in a relationship with her? and the two choices with sister is tell her the truth or lie and when you lie he says they are only friends which more correct then the truth option so just dont get that part since MC has never agreed to being in a relationship wth Antonella up to that point so they are still just friends.....
I know it only matters if you care for story but i do so it was weird.

In any case it also fails as an adult game, when you finaly get to sex part like with the sister it just cuts it off and MC wakes up and next time he thinks back it jumps forward in time to when he has a kid? huh? with who? i know its with Antonella or i think it is anyway and apprently the mother is pregnant? i mean its a huge timeskip past every fun part, skipping MC and how get got together with Antonella and had sex with her? he never even kissed her in my playthrough so what the fuck is the point of a flash back when it skips all the fun and importen parts? or maybe it was the sister he got a kid with? since the only one i saw MC fuck was the sister....its a huge mess.....

And it gets even worse, after time skip you dont just have a kid, your also with some Aoi girl? apprently in a relationship living wth her? lol wtf so i guess this isent a choice driven game after all.....and it ofc forces a sex scene with this girl you know nothing about....great right? lol...and to make it 100% idiotic Aoi is a prostitute....so now your fucking whores as well...great game right...fuck me....

MC also turns into the standard perverted 12 year old with a mindset thinking about wanting to fuck whoever....guess im not supprised when hes with prostitutes and nothing is in your controle as the player.

Then you get the option to fuck the prostitute again, the only option is to fuck Aoi again or Aoi and her mother whos also a prostitute.....theres no option yet again to say no fuck off.....even though i did pick fuck off ealiere when MC talked to the whore mother.....

Next we jump a bit ahead once again and now your fucking some other bimbo named Arlette? i mean no just no....

Funny part game has a relationship system where you can see love interrests and you can gain or lose love with LIs, but why its there i have no clue since its already forcing you to fuck people you dont even want to touch.....
So yeah game became a mindless fuckfest after trying to show you its choice driven....guess dev gave up on that idea i dunno but yeah its not for me, might as well watch porn on a pornsite then atleast i deside what to watch....

As for the girls they are pretty all bimbos with little to no diversity in builds, even MCs sister gets extremly huge saggy tits after time jump....clearly shows this is devs fetish since theres nothing for those into normal or small tits, i guess you can say there might be one girl with smallish tits and thats the daughter but wouldent supprise me if she grows up and get tits down to her knees before MC ever does anything with her, just like everyone else.... like Nanami whos a kid with double Ds or more....its absoutly idiotic and looks weird and ugly almost like a freak, sure as hell dosent suit the rest of the body.

So its yet another game for only those with big tit fetish and for those who dosent care about story and just want some animations to fap to.
Personaly i need more from an adult novel, i need a decent story and build-up so you have more emotions involved before fucking someone, thats the hole point of it being an adult novel and not just plain porn like this is.

Animations? theres barely any and also game has gone AI so it goes without saying animations wont be a thing this game will have, atleast not anything remotely good, so dont expect much in that area either and no shaking the screen does fuck all for a sex scene sorry dev.....

Choices are idiotic to say the least, it will force girls/prostitutes, sex scenes, bimbos, which makes any relationship system pointless and you cant be faithfull to anyone or create your own harem of your own selection.

Music is ok.

Apparently the developer left everything in the hands of the AI, for God's sake, what a grotesque thing this game has become.
Unrealistic skin texture and color (typical of AI)
Totally unrealistic and artificial genitals (most of the time) (typical of AI)
Depending on the position of the characters, some body parts become deformed (typical of AI).
Man, everything became as unrealistic and generic as most things made by AI.
If you had any hope that things would improve, you'd better give up. Unless you like seeing unrealistic and grotesque things.

Once, on another resource, i came across a very apt phrase about the developer "Ocean": "When a cat has nothing to do, he licks balls. When "Ocean" has nothing to do, he remakes the previous parts."

This author clearly suffers from the same. Even in a more advanced stage.
Why fix what is not broken? Instead of calmly continuing to move the story forward, the creator senselessly and mercilessly remakes what was already great before.

If you want to try something, change the style - well, do it in the next project. Or make a special episode timed to something (New Year, Halloween, etc.).
Or, if you have firmly decided that from now on you will do it in a different style - well, continue releasing it like this. (In the game, let the main character get hit on the head so that his vision blurs, his perception of the world changes. Now, look, he lives like this.) The main thing is to continue making NEW content - why the fuck cut and change the old one. Why ruin something that was great. I will never understand this.

While the art is nice as of v0.23 Remake, the use of AI on top of what is presumably Daz renders is super uncanny valley territory with the typical AI shifting-details issue. The renders also evoke a great sense of claustrophobia , with too few wide shots, and an over abundant amount of close ups which is leads to a confusing sense of location and scene. For a beautiful game with beautiful ladies, it is very difficult to be able to take the whole character in when shots routinely are navel to neck only, or extreme close ups of mens eyes.
The character visual designs themselves are pleasant on the eye and thoroughly thought out when they're able to be seen. The personalities and dialog are annoying and scatter brained, and whether intentional or not, does feel genuine for young women. Whether that is actually good or bad is up in the air.
Finally, the dev makes one of the biggest mistakes for adult VN, and that is there is no sex in the first episode, or, made it possible to be missed, with a single dick render and vag shot seen. Episode 2 then begins with extremely close shots of coitus, and you kind of have no idea of who is fucking who without the dialog.
I wish the dev the best in continue to refining their skills, and having not played the original, may the remake accomplish what they set out to do.

I am so sorry having to rate this so low. I love the Dev and I want to support her, but there's some things in this remake that I just can't look past.

- The story is still all over the place.
- Choices are arbitrary without enough of information to have any agency as a player. It's not a choice if I have no idea what the outcome will be.
- The AI models are just awful. They regularly take me out of every scene they are used because they are so apparently AI.

I really wish Yukana all the best. I'll always support other women in this field. It is hard enough for them to succeed. But this game really is hard to love for me.

Hard to Love Remake 0.22 - Rating: 2.5/5

I had a lot of the same thoughts as @hampsure below me. I hadn't played the first iteration of the game and was excited to try this one due to the apparent beauty of the renders and models. Similarly, I also found the story to be all over the place. I don't know why so many of these developers feel the need to make stories get crazier, involve guns, mobs, violence, time travel, or other crazy elements... especially in a VN and not a game. Sometimes simple and relatable is best. I think I would've enjoyed trying to sleep around with the family members and other girls in just a normal household or neighborhood setting. The animations are also slightly lacking.

Hard to Love Remake 0.22 (note that I never played the original, just looked at the images from it)

This game has gorgeous renders/models but has some awful writing and a convoluted story that just isn't enjoyable. The visual storytelling is quite good and usually pretty sexy with the renders keeping things feeling alive. The girls are almost all hot and have somewhat distinct if otherwise shallow personalities. However, both the characters and the events are rarely presented in remotely believable manner. The telling and pacing of the story is as rushed and schizo as the the characters are. No payoffs/moments feel earned (they just happen) and the lewd content is extremely unsatisfying (see section below). The entire story so far feels like an attempt to speedrun what could have been an interesting narrative that the author doesn't know how to handle in order to make progress on the remake. It's hard to get truly invested in LIs (outside of their looks and sexy behaviors) when there are such foundational issues.

The first two episodes felt like a the fever dream of a teenager with ADHD that watches far too many bad young adult romances, soap operas, and procedural crime dramas. The writing was incredibly bad, the characters are all insane, and everything was so rushed and lacking in believablility that it made it hard to get invested in the backstory that's supposed to underpin everything that follows. It's a gigantic problem when the backstory fails to connect to such a large degree and would have been better left even more ambiguous to make the relationships and love seem more believable. Nothing that happens feels earned by the writing and that's something that continues to remain true for most of what follows as well. I nearly quit at this point.

Starting in the third episode the writing style starts to improve and there's some sexy dialogue but the overall story itself remains pretty garbage. Any characters I feel invested in I know I'm only interested in seeing more sexy renders of them in hot situations and not really anything that the story actually made me feel for them. There's an overarching story and theme where the MC seems to be at the center of something larger but the gameplay makes it feel like it's mostly just stuff happening and then makes attempts to make it feel as if there's a larger level of manipulation going. Either way it isn't a great experience to play as the MC.

Most of EP3 and EP4 focus almost solely on content for one LI each and if you're not at all into those girls you're kinda SOL for almost the entire episode. In EP3 you can at least tell her to get lost if you're persistent about it but there's no such option in EP4 (which sucked because I did enjoy EP3 content so choose to let her stay but most of EP4 I wanted nothing to do with and had to just fast forwarding through as much as I could once I found I couldn't get her to just leave). I thought there would be better options given how may LIs there are but how the game mechanics and harem building aspects are going to work in practice aren't yet clear for me.

I've already briefly mentioned it but since sexiness is the one thing the game sometimes has going for it besides the great renders, it's worth reiterating: lewd content is some of the worst I've seen in an avn in quite a while. Instead of animations (that may be added in the future) it currently just shows a small number of renders and awful screen shaking effect to represent movement. There are plenty of games that pull off really hot lewd scenes with zero animations. I'd be fine if animations weren't used - but that requires making better selections of renders and improving narration/dialogue of the scene to compensate. It seems like it's just laziness or rushing to continue remake progress that's getting in the way.

On the topic of the remake's renders vs original version renders: After doing image comparisons of both versions, the use of AI filters on the new renders make certain aspects look worse or too fake/generic while other times they look notably better than the pre-remake renders so I don't have a strong feeling either way about it here (though the filtering does need to be toned down on some of the images). I will say a lot of changes were clearly made besides the AI filtering thus far and I can understand how people would be pissed if they were enjoying the original.

I may revisit this game out of curiosity if it makes substantial progress but I currently can't recommend the remake in it's current state. It does seem to be improving a bit as it progresses (though I personally didn't care for the content of the 4th episode) so not all hope is completely lost... but there's a lot to be done to even make this remotely worth playing despite a number of hot girls and largely attractive renders (and this is already the second attempt).

I tried real hard to appreciate this project. The game clearly has passion behind it, which is evident, yet I cannot endorse its quality.

To clarify my point, let me recount my experience with the game. I noticed this game and decided to give it a go, particularly because it was labeled as a “remake.” Perhaps it was my own-preconceived notions that soured my impression, but I must admit - when I encounter a “remake,” I expect it to be based on an existing, complete product, but perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself.

Upon downloading and playing the remake, I was surprised that the content concluded in under two hours. “Okay, maybe I discovered the remake early in its development; surely, the original has more substance,” I thought. To my surprise, I found that the current remake essentially encompasses the entire first season of the original. Here I am, pondering - are my expectations too lofty, or is there genuinely so little to it? It pains me to feel this way. It's apparent a lot of love has been invested in this project, but it goes right by me because as soon as I begin to get immersed, it ends.

I must also highlight a significant aspect - the remake seems to be a soft rewrite of the narrative, rather than an enhancement of visuals or animations. Regarding animations, the original features basic ones, typical of many visual novel games. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, except that the remake has omitted them entirely, which seems like a strange decision. They may not have been amazing, but their replacement with static renders seems counterproductive.

In conclusion, while this game has clear passion and potential behind it, the overall experience feels incomplete and underwhelming. The brevity of the content, combined with the removal of key features like animations, makes it hard to fully enjoy or recommend. I genuinely wanted to appreciate the remake, but it ultimately falls short of providing the depth and polish one would expect. With further development and refinement, it might grow into something more, but for now, it leaves much to be desired.

I've played this game back when it first appeared on this site and I always enjoyed it. The story was intriguing to me and I instantly fall in love with the characters (Amber especially). So what I typically do if a game catches my attention I play a couple updates to see if it's something I would enjoy and wait for about 2-3 updates to fully dive into a game this was one of those instances.

I was kinda caught off guard by the Remake and slightly disappointed but, after waiting a couple updates for the remake I decide today to play the original work and the Remake. In my opinion the Remake is a 1000% better. I list a few reasons why I believe so.

The renders are so beautifully done the major thing for me was how sharp and perfect the backgrounds look a lot of people dislike Ai but i think it looks beautiful if it's done right, the Love Interests are all gorgeously rendered, the story has a better pace as well the added context with this remake really makes it stand out and, as someone who playing erotic games focusing on the story first I'm more emotionally involved with the characters in the Remake over the original.

The characters in my opinion are more lovable if that makes sense and with this Remake I feel more time was put into building more of a foundation with the love interests and not having it feel so rushed.

Now I'm in the minority when I say this not everyone was a fan of the Remake and it's understandable Remakes are hit n miss sometimes. All I ask through is give it a chance I was apprehensive at first and found myself comparing the original to the Remake. Once I stopped comparing and played the Remake at face value I found myself pleasantly surprised by how much I loved it.

Best of wishes to Yukana❤ on this project and all future endeavors can't wait to see what happens next!