VN - Ren'Py - Hard to Love [v0.28 bugfix2] [Qori Gaming]

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!

I have not tried the remake yet, but the old version is very good so I have high hopes for this game!
Well, it's not all roses, the timeskip is a bit strange with characters feeling slightly out of character, maybe they can smooth that out in the remake..

I would give the remake between 3 and 4 stars if you could do that. Honestly the game feels split into two games. On the one hand are some pretty characters and their scenes that get more sensual over time. The sad part is there are not many animations but the dev shakes the picture instead. I think nothing would be better than that. It's really irritating to watch the picture just shake back and forth. The models deserve better than that.

The other part though is the drama with the previous love interests who both left the MC with little or no explanation. It is kind of depressing. The girl who almost signed up to be a lifetime hooker and then left with no explanation brings more negatives than positives. It feels like misery porn with the questions surrounding where she went. The same goes for his first GF. I almost wish there was an option to just move on and focus on the LIs around him. Constantly dragging up these women just keeps bringing up why they left and where they went. The MC has a bunch of interested women around but the story keeps bringing up these two depressing women.

I don't think there is a good excuse for either of those women so beating the player over the head with them seems pointless.

Anyway I think a 3.5 star rating is fair. The game could benefit from less heavy drama though. The remake is pretty good despite the dramatic story. I thought there was a lot more arguing in the original game so that is a plus.
Some of the model changes definitely improved the characters too. It's worth a play even with the sometimes depressing story.

I never played the original version, so this is a 'remake' review.

I hate this game...it made me cry, it tugged at the heartstrings and I was like a blubbering fool...emotion is such a weakness!!
However, the characters are unique, the dialogue is imaginative and thoughtful...the writing was actually quite philosophical in places...made me think about life and love, and losing everything...

I wasn't expecting much from this creation, however, it delivered a deep, meaningful experience, that I was absolutely invested in...certainly one of the better games I have played on this site.

It's worth mentioning that this is yet another "remake" situation. In the case of Hard to Love, this dev stopped progress entirely, went radio silent, then restarted the whole VN with little warning when people expected actual progress on the existing VN. So be warned. If they did it once, they will do it again.

Lets' talk about Hard To Love BEFORE the "remake" for a second. Before the remake, Hard To Love struggled narratively. The story was meandering and hard to follow as a telltale consequence of a lack of proper storyboarding and outlining. There was a jarring time skip between chapter 1 and chapter 2 where apparently MC had been fucking an LI in the interim the whole time which caused drama, but the drama didn't make a whole lot of sense because it wasn't fucking explained clearly... Let alone the shitty fact that eagerly anticipated sex scene took place offscreen in a porn game...

Secondly, the characters were notably unlikeable and unrelatable. Like every damn one of them. Characters with flaws are one one thing, but these characters were each shit human beings. Thirdly, the dev frequently made significant changes to the code mid-project resulting in saves breaking nearly every update.

All of those were fixable problems though. The saving grace for this VN - and the reason why so many people came back despite the problems - were the renders. The renders were fantastic and the girls were hot. And despite all the problems, the dev seemed to finally be stabilizing and making forward progress...

... Then they went quiet...

Suddenly when a new update was announced, it wasn't the next chapter like everyone was expecting but a starting-from-square-one reboot but with AI filters ruining the one good thing this VN had going for it...

Oh, but what about the other problems the VN had? Well...none of that actually got fixed. It's the same awkward storytelling and the characters are all still unlikeable cunts. But now in addition to all that the AI filters bring a whole slew of other problems such as:

• None of the characters look the same. Some faces change from one render to the next...
• Clothing with complex designs can't be redrawn consistantly by the AI so it looks like a living organism
• The usual AI uncanny valley shit like girls sometimes having 7 fingers on one hand, limbs fused to other limbs, pussies 2 inches up a thigh instead of.. you know.. where it's supposed to be...

Furthermore since the dev adopted this AI trash, they've completely abandoned animations altogether because AI can't be animated. So now instead of learning how to do proper sex animations, this dev has opted to just shake the entire screen to simulate movement during sex scenes. It looks embarassingly bad.

TLDR: The "AI remake" ruined the last good thing this VN had and none of the other problems were fixed. Gone are the gorgeous renders that set it apart from other VNs visually, and now it's an eyesore.

As such, I really can't recommend this dung heap to anyone that doesn't get a hardon from AI body horror and uncanny valley.

The games rework is an absolute masterpiece. This is the best example you can find of a well used AI in a VN. I really hope this becomes the norm because the renders are one of the best on the site. Can't recommend it enough!