Runey did an awesome job. The story is really good. I love all the characters, all of them have their own personality and that's what make it a good game.
I'll be honest, in the beginning I tried the game for the sex, but end up falling in love with the story. Of course, the bonus sex game is totally great.
I just wish I could cook something nice to Lin for a change
Very good for version 0.15... A lot of content. A LOT!
Nice girls with background story, harem - what else you need.
Models quite a bit old in technical view but still good enough.
And the best measurement of game - is a time spent on it.
I really want to give a money for it ))
Edit: I was just trying to write a funny review. But the dev wants me to be serious. Some paragraphs have been edited, but the gist doesn't change that much.
Edit2: When I played, it was v0.15.1. I noticed that there's an explore feature now. Feel free to ignore the sandbox part if you want, the rest of my review remains. I also noticed that my Funny Edit has been removed by mod, probably because it contains personal things about the dev. I removed that part.
Spoilers in this review.
I was looking forward to a good story. It doesn't have to be outstanding. Just good. and I got disappointed. Long story short, it's not as impressive as those 5-star reviews described.
I respect everything, including those things about religion or slavery, as long as the dev can control the pace. But sadly, it failed. I have to keep myself focused by watching the lewd scene once in a while. Otherwise, I might just go to bed and sleep. The story is like when you're 16 and trying to write something epic after watching some profound anime series. I feel tricked because the review said the story is awesome. If you ask me now, I'll say this game is like the 5-star restaurant on Google Maps.
The Story:
I'm not asking the dev to be in control of every detail or something, it's nearly impossible to do that. I just wish the story could be more engaging.
The MC in the beginning is like he's in a coma for hundred of years and not knowing what happened in the opposite side of world. It's really a bad way to let your viewers understand the situation. You can say the game was too early or something. But Autumn? I didn't know Autumn was in a coma with MC.
Later on, there are more girls. More girls equal to more stories. It's fine, for real. I really don't hate it.
After Lin's level is around 30, you'll realize that the dev probably became enlightened by some profound AVN and is trying to do the same by himself. Once again, it failed.
The dev is trying to portray something, but it only makes me feel stupid. I can see the dev is trying, but it's just not enough. I knew the update would be slow as fuck when the story goes dark because the inconsistencies are gonna fuck the dev up. You can also say the thing the dev is trying to write is too big to control, or whatever you like. But it only gets worse since it's not well-considered in the beginning. The only solution to make it "seem" back on track again is by making some weird plot twists. And guess what? It did happen, and it's so convenient to do that. I knew Maria would be a half-elf when she said she was an orphan. It literally became a game for me. by seeing how out of control it can be.
Making things darker isn't the problem. The problem is that it genuinely sucks. Ashley suddenly has an elf maid when she is a child, yet she still decided to be a dick to Lin and show unfamiliarity to elves at the beginning of the game. Another thing is Lin forget her parents' name but later there is another elf said something like this to Jin: "But you're an elf, you should be good in memory!!" I know she said it was because of the drug. But what about Lin? The dev told me that elves don't remember everything when they're nearly toddlers. Really? So why Lin has such strong emotions to her sister? She's slightly older? In the early game, she said, "I was so young back then, I barely remember." (By the way, after this, she perfectly described details about herself and her sister.) She also has the ability to remember activities while their parents were still living, including picking flowers, climbing trees, eating, and dancing, but the names are forgotten?
It's a miracle that she can find her sister after 300 years, even though she was young and barely remembers anything. And Jin can perfectly describe things after she was captured, even though she's still under the drug's effects. Are you seriously going to tell me that she has memory loss but is able to say things like "industrial revolution" including details that she was sent to Syl'anar's capital? I don't even have to be too serious to spot this kind of mistake. I wonder what would happen if I were serious?
I really can go on and on if you want me to.
I won't talk about the details of the slavery story line here. If you're curious, go play the game. But I have to tell you, to be honest, I treat it like a sitcom. Just because the topic is dark doesn't mean the story got any better. I couldn't see anything impressive. This is a big part of the game, and the dev is clearly having fun with it. Have fun, dev.
By the way, some of the conversation goes like this:
MC: Do you like being a slave?
Lin: No.
Lin: My sister and I separated 300 years ago.
MC's thoughts: She hasn't learned how to cook in 300 years?
Autumn: WHAT!? The MC OWNS you?
Lin: Yeah. That's how it works.
This kind of cringe conversation turns me off. I find it difficult for me to immerse myself in it every time it happens. When I saw that, I was like, "Common sense doesn't exist in this world?" Alright, maybe I'm too picky here.
The game/story pace:
The game pace goes from "Go to their room to trigger new events." to "Go to every girl's room, get one of the girls' level up to 15, and buy something for them to trigger only one event." This kind of requirement happens more and more when you're in the late game. What if I don't like one of the girls? The events are forced and inevitable. My mind goes blank whenever I see "I should raise someone's friendship." Now that I think about it, maybe this is the real reason why I think it is really not a good game. There is still one room under development after 4 years. Why throw the early-game pace away?
If the dev keeps the lighthearted story pace, I probably won't rate it low. because I don't have to think. For example, I won't be too serious about Pokemon's story. I just want to see if Ash will win and how the Pokemon will fight. But this game turned from how to fuck'em all to how to fuck the player's brain. Note that if you want to progress the story line, you're forced to watch those poorly considered stories. Half of them are not even story-related. But yeah, you have to wait another 2 days to trigger the next event.
The game:
One person told me this is a sandbox game. A sandbox game gives the player freedom of movement and progression in the game's world. And what can you do in this game? You can do nothing other than fuck the girls. You can't even go out freely. When you click the door, it just says "Mail Box." And the hotel management stopped like 3 years ago. And please, if the only comeback is that this is a sandbox game, that shows how weak the story is.
Others:
The dialogue performance is weak for me. I'm not talking about the conversation I mentioned. The overall performance is just not good. The weak dialogue can be fixed by camera movement, but the dev only put a little effort into camera movement during dialogues. Sometimes you can see the same camera angle the whole time when the characters are having a long conversation, unless they make a move. That's another reason why I said the dialogue is not engaging. If you ever felt sleepy when playing this, I feel you.
Conclusion:
Almost all the 5-star reviews said the story is good, and it's not that good. You can say it's good if you want. Please don't say this is a masterpiece. It tricks people. There are loopholes everywhere. Most of the events are forced. You can't avoid the girl you don't like. You can't do anything other than deal with the girls. It's really not a good game.
If I really have to say something to the dev... please just don't do something that you can't do. Create another game. Lay the foundation for your world. But I guess there is no going back. The world settings are cool, but it performs miserably. The whole thing is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's beyond your ability. You can't just suddenly invent another setting to make things seem reasonable.
The dev is probably in a rabbit hole where he is constantly getting praise for the story. Wake up.
I don't like being a bad guy, and I barely criticize things. I don't even care if the worker starts working at 6 in the morning next to my house. And my standard is not high either. It's unreal to ask a free online AVN writer to make a flawless story. Not even J.K. Rowling can do that. Why should I? But the game and the fanboys who can't accept the facts still managed to make me write a review.
In the end, if you're looking for stories, go back to the Japanese AVN. Don't play this unless you're really into simulator games (it's not even good when we're talking about simulator games). Last but not least, this is not a hotel. It's literally an apartment.
I think out of all adult games I've played, this one's my favourite.
There's a lot of content, that includes visual-novel like stories, and replayable content.
The world the game is set in is interesting, that includes lots of interesting ideas. Not groundbreaking, but I wouldn't change it.
I love the girls, at the start I wasn't sure about some of them, but with time they all grew on me.
I find myself going back to the game and doing the replayable content over and over again.
Art style is very fitting to the game. It has a lot of soul to it.
Frankly, there's only two problems I have with it. One of them is that I love it so much, that I wish there was even more content. The other one, is that one day it might end.
First of all, I wrote some ratings for other games that I like and that in my opinion, have great potential. Some of them are better than others, but nothing comes close to Harem Hotel! This game is a masterpiece! I had never seen a game so detailed in its history, its characters and its universe. All the details are meticulously placed and written to give us a wonderful world to play in.
So, why do you need to play this game?
Harem Hotel is my favorite story and a life lesson. Of course, the game is full of sexual content, it's F95zone still. But for me, this game made me go through all emotions, sadness, anger, conciliation, compassion, well-being and acceptance. I have rarely seen such a complete and communicative game. Each character has a story, a past, a personality of their own. Their behaviors, their reactions and the characters in the hotel bring the game and the universe to life. We feel like living with them, every day is different and offers different and interesting scenarios.
It's rare that I'm blown away by a visual novel, but this game is something else. It's a real experience that I fully recommend! In my opinion, open-world games sometimes, can be complex or weird to go around, forget all that with this one. The game is simple and easy to follow and to continue the story.
-The positive points
Extremely loaded and interesting story, rich and creative
Diverse and endearing characters
Excellent graphics and animations
No visual or sound problems
Excellent writing
Instinctive and important choices
A lot of different fetishes
Realistic evolution
No crashes or fps issues
-The points that need more work
I like to give points to work on, so creators can see what to improve, but here, what to put?
Finally, I'd like to say that, it's a game I've seen grow and I just want to keep seeing new updates. I wish to still be blown away by this game in the future and to eventually see a good ending.
Keep up the good work!
<3
Please remember that this is my opinion and I fully respect the opinions of others. I'm not disparaging anyone, besides, I'm just giving my opinion on the work that certain people do, because I think it need to be put forward.
characters are well designed and different. most renpy games nearly using same characters but not this one. story is ok and fun to play. I play with "Lain's mod" and dont know the game without it, so with mode it's very clear what you should do and I don't lost in game. So both thanks to dev and mod dev. really like this game and gonna wait for the updates.
thanks again dev, you did a pretty good job in here.
I absolutely love this game.
I travel most of the time and I finally got the chance to take a few weeks vacation and wanted to take the opportunity to dive into the hentai genre. That was one of my first games and I'm totally excited and flashed!
The women are very different, so sweet and innocent as perverted elsewhere and I love that. The stories are really awesome and I absolutely love the work that went into the animations. I can't wait to read, play and experience more! Great work!
Love the game. Story is fun. There's political, racial and religious elements which might not be for everyone. The MC isn't a simp or a thug. Seems to have a set a values and sticks to them.
I enjoy the look of the characters. They all seem unique to this story. I've seen other games where all of the characters are more or less the same but slightly different hair or a different outfit. Effort has been made to make them distinct.
I just wish new content was released more often. I find I have to go back and replay when there is a new release because I can't remember what was going on.
Great gameplay and girls to choose from. The story and the sex scenes are enjoyable, and there's someone for everybody. It's not necessary to do everyone's route and they are mainly independent from one another
Great game, It keeps me interested the entire time. Characters are great and all different which is nice. All the girls have their own uniqueness which is great and all the stories are a nice thing to go through. I dont find myself hitting "skip" all the time in this one.
I'd like to put an excellent rating, but since I have a few negative points to add, I can't put a prefect mark.
-Story: 97/100, the story is amazing, the lore is very detailed, there is a very good characters development, and the way the differents characters interwined is very well done. I just have an issue with the pacing some times.
-Visuals: 65/100, maybe I'm too used to these 3D games with ray tracing, detailed environment etc... HH is very barebone visually speaking, at times I feel like I'm looking at sims, sometimes a very old version of source engine. But there are a LOT of CG and animated scenes.
-Audio: 0/100 would be harsh but... there is no audio, and definitely not enough tracks for the length of the game. I finished the game in 70hours, I think there is only 3 tracks per music family. I played the game by listening to Lo-Fi girl, and strangely enough, it goes very well with the game, sometimes I thought I had forgotten to quit the game when the playlist was still running.
-Gameplay: 70/100, it's mostly an issue with pacing. Some events will unlock only if you made some progress in upgrading the hotel or buying some slaves. And some of those are really expensive, I finished the game around day 270. I'm pretty sure half of it was grinding money by selling pinups or skipping time to wait for my bar reports.
Overall, the game is definitely worth a try, the story is the strongest point, but be aware, that you'll be in that game for a very long time (it took me 70 hours to finish the 0.15.1 version)
The lore is one of the deepest I've seen in such a game, you feel attached and involved in it. Even the 'bad guys aren't just black or white, they have their reasons and motivations you can't just brush under the carpet in the name of superior virtue.
Most tenants have their issues, and once again, they are detailed, and we can feel the author either know people with such issues or has done some research on them. You don't just have stereotypical characters.
My biggest issue is with the story/gameplay pacing. Most of the time, the progression is fluid, but at some point, you can be overwhelmed by the number of characters you have to interact with, while some other times, you'll have to grind for money without the possibility to interact with anyone outside of basic interactions.
Progressing in some character's stories can be confusing too, you'll have an indicator you can continue the story but won't find how to trigger it. It can create a bottleneck that once passed will trigger all the other stories and you won't have time to breathe, it will be even after the event, and then... nothing, time to grind again to find the new triggers.
Some blocks are missing too, which can lead in some information we have gained not being used in the story because we got them too soon.
Love the game. It has several different stories and ladies with interesting personalilties. While the world story can pull you out of the moment, it actually improves the girls stories. I wish there was some more impactful choices but overall it is a very large and great game.
This game is ultimately excellent and definitely deserve 5/5. Giving it any lower would make my doubt most of the 5/5 I ever gave on this site.
Still, this game has one thing I'm disappointed with....the storyline.
Basically, dev went from writing small, casual story to pretty dark one. Elf slavery went from being a subplot to justify a few character's existence to being pretty much the main plot of the game.
And you know what? This isn't necessarily that bad a thing. My issues lie elsewhere, mostly in two points.
The feeling of helplessness and uselessness. We do a lot of things. But never did I feel that what we did was useful. Worse: I have no agency in the story. I might as well not be there. Dark stuff happens for the sake of dark stuff, not for the sake of making a compelling story.
Secondly...well it makes my protagonist looks like a madman. Game doesn't seem to know whether the protagonist is for or against slavery. He is forced to be against slavery during story events, but you can also still buy slaves and go on slave routes. Generally speaking, game opens up "dark" path for me to take, then punish me for taking them and force me to do the opposite. And as said above, failing while doing said opposite and being overall useless.
Harem hotel is a game with a grindy, really grindy sandbox. But I liked the characters enough, their progressions etc. Characters like Ashley simply have amazing arcs. But I feel like for a 10 gb game, not a single personal arc is yet completed is just infuriating.
And the most infuriating part is how the story takes two of the worst cliches in fantasy genre and doubles down on it making the story nihistically dark
1. The concept of Elven slavery and use of religion to justify that. The very notion that sinces Elves are long living and reproduction is slow, they will always be defeated by humans and their intelligence is low and they can't make any progress whatsoever and thus bound to be sex slaves. And humans using the concept of religion to justify that what they did was their God's will. Just like the colonialists did in the occupied countries in colonial era.
2. Old rich powerful men always winning without reprecussions. We already have old rich powerful men winnining in real life, doing whatever they want and getting away with it. I don't have to watch them winning in a fucking porn game as well.
For a 10gb game, the story just gets progressively dark, cynical with the protagonist never having make any dent in the overall narrative. The world still doinghorendous thing and although 300 years have passed 99% of population still has archaic ideas of slavery. It is just ridiculous. SO once I ended the game. I forever deleted it. Perhaps I won't be playing it ever again.
Harem Hotel is good at what it does: sandbox harem with manga-y characters.
The models are decent but far from the best I've seen on this site.
The dialogues and relationships with the tenants aren't really engaging IMHO unless you're really into manga character stereotypes.
The sandbox mechanics does get grindy after a while.
I would have given it 2 stars but the sex scenes are varied and generally good and the amount of content make it a relatively long game if you can get past its' flaws.
I don't write much reviews but I think I need to write one for this.
This game isn't finished yet but from what I've played so far there's a fuckload of content (0.15.1). The characters are all likeable, fuckable and have depth to them. All of the main girls are very sympathetic, and even the side girls.
The creator clearly has a knack for worldbuilding, I appreciate making your own world than just relying on pop culture references, the story is great, it makes you want to root for the characters and hope they get better.
Like a lot of these harem free roam type games, this one has a bit of build up before you get to the meat of it, but the girls and story are more than enough to keep you in. While it is still in dev, im sure it will come out as one of the best in this genre.
This game was my favorite game on this site years ago. I would have given it 15 stars if possible. Which is why giving it 3 stars now is so disheartening.
I don't know precisely when it happened, but this game went from a plot that consisted of getting your girlfriend a job at a pizza joint and making ends meet on your new and rather unsuccessful business venture to *SPOILERS* watching one of your extremist abolitionist sex partners fail to kidnap a queen and watching her get electrocuted into near death before being carted off to be, presumably, raped by someone she doesn't want to marry.
What the fuck happened?
I get that even originally the game had slightly darker undertones with the elf slavery thing, and I was content to let it be a backdrop of the story, something that was there to lampshade being able to have elves in the story and have a slightly more male dom slant on the culture/gameplay. That's fine. Not great in my eyes, and not my favorite, but fine.
But just like with Dragon Age: Origins and the mage/templar conundrum, the elf slavery thing went from being one part of one story in a big tale, to the entire focus of the rest of the game/franchise.
It's so disheartening, because looking through all these reviews, I'm not the only one blindsided by a game that was lighthearted for years turning steadily more and more dark.
But even though I'm not going to be playing the rest of this game and its updates, I can't in good conscience give it less than a 3/5 star review. The characters are sexy (when they're not plot vomiting their all of the sudden horribly depressing backstories and/or asking me to sit through an actual sermon on two different pantheons and cultures), they're funny, they have unique personalities. I just don't think things needed to get so god damned depressing for them to be sexy and have unique personalities.
All in all, don't play this game if you like lighthearted fun, but do play if you like being depressed by horrible fascistic regimes, a loose and very not subtle parody of USA politics and policies, horrific backstories, and a whole boatload of slavery.
Harem Hotel was great when it first hit the scene, offering fairly quick progress to a few characters, looking decent enough at the time.
I remember looking forward to the next update.
As time went on I feel like it simply overstays it’s welcome, with much longer often not very rewarding story lines, lots and lots of characters it simply overstays it’s welcome.
In terms of scenes you get to the point you have seen everything there is to offer and the story I personally just don’t find that interesting.
I wish the dev would just try to round things off and move on to something new.
This will also be the last version I will play.
