Others - Haremon [v0.40.1.2] [TsunAmie]

Story is just not that interresting but i could deal with that if the rest was good.

It started out pretty good where even the fighting and QTE was ok and even a little fun, but once game really starts and you get the witch and head to the second area things just goes to shit, atleast it did for me.
I could barely win any fights since the two girls just gets killed to fast, using rush to skip QTE changed nothing they still just get killed, SOS fights just forget them since they are even more idiotic, long and impossible.

So i thought fair enough you might need to lvl up a bit in the first area, but fuck no that area got changed to be just as hard as the second area, even though it was very easy at the start of the game, so i just said fuck this shit and quit, no point in playing something that just arent playable, theres not even a setting to make fights easy or hard....

As for the rewards they arent that great, theres very few scenes with each girl like one or two and thats about it.

The only good part about the game is the art and the voices arent bad either but not fully voiced in any way.

Then theres the RNG that dosent seem to work on the wheel spins, i hit around 5-6 of the bad spot in a row and considering its 1 out of what 6 or 8 spots on the wheel it felt a bit stupid, the A/F clicking to nudge the wheel never did a thing for me either, it did nothing clicking it close to the end or the start or anywhere so no clue what thats all about.

Haremon is a work of love. The artwork, writing, and voice acting are on point.

What it is not is a quick fap. This is a game with a capital G - the gameplay takes the majority of the time.

However once you get the ball rolling and have unlocked the girls/properly dated them between the world changing chapter events their is an amazing selection of smut for you to beat off to. (but the diversity is mostly irrelevant because we all are going for that succubus pussy if we're being honest.)

this is a fucking gem. 10/10

I genuinely can't bother myseslf to play this game anymore
It's so mind numbinlgy tedious to get through that it just a giant time sink with little to no actual reward

From the shitty mechanic of 'temparments' which affects the moves you can use to the STUPID. FUCKING. QTE.
HOLY fuck why would anyone think adding that to a TB game would be a good idea? Especially when you're trying to grind in this mess
The reward you're given for each exploration is so minimal that you'll have to do it a fucking lot
Also, why does a game called haremon not allow actual harems? And requires a premium version of the game and a fucking cheat code to be an actual harem, like personally i can complan about harems for days, but the fact that it's not what it says on the tin is weird


And dont get me started on the story, it's basically a jumbled up mess of cliches that run head first into a wall and splatter their brains against it, it's not pretty, it's ugly and you might laugh at it, but you never want to see it again
Every character somehoe manages to be unlikeable due to how "anime" they are, like actual japanese people don't even make their characters this annoying
The date mechanics.... Ughh....


In conclusion, big boring waste of time not worth the effort

Haremon is a fantastic game, and while I will freely admit it’s problems, I feel as though many of the lower rated reviewers are missing the point on a lot of aspects. I could discuss missing elements described in the tutorial (like cmon, rush mode can be toggled with CTRL and skips all combat QTEs, though admittedly a lot of these reviews were written before that was implemented) but I think there’s a more fundamental problem.

Haremon is NOT AN H-GAME. It is a JRPG with H elements. Do not go into this game thinking that you can go in and just whack one off. I personally actually agree with this philosophy, an H-game needs to be a game first, and H second; otherwise just watch porn. I would recommend viewing this game as an actual game first, as I will try to do in this review.

Mind you, it’s also not really a VN, or at least, it’s as much a VN as Evenicle is, where there’s still an overarching story that the player can’t really railroad off of.

And I think a lot of the confusion regarding haremon stems from this. It’s not like Evenicle where you can basic attack through enemies with mild grinding, nor a VN that shoves an H-scenes every 10 minutes to disguise their reused assets. It is a JRPG first, and an H-game second.

Regarding combat, which seems to be the biggest complaint, Haremon is kind of strange in that you don’t technically get stronger; sure you can increase damage or effect chance, but even ‘upgrading’ moves usually comes with some downsides like requiring more focus or rage. Instead, haremon focuses on giving you more tools to combat different situations rather than strictly bigger numbers. Take, for example the SOS frog battle, a gimmick fight where if you don’t defeat the three frogs in quick succession they will call for reinforcements. Sure, there’s timing to get right when you get them out that may be a bit difficult to manage, but there’s plenty of workarounds too. Freezing enemies, stunning enemies, hell even seduction keeps frogs unable to call for reinforcements. It’s not so much combat as it is combat puzzles. Honestly, if it takes you 40 minutes without thinking that maybe, just maybe, you should try something else, then it is genuinely a skill issue.

If I could draw parallel, Half Life 1’s tagline is Run, Think, Shoot, Live. Unlike, say, Doom, that Think part is a bit important. In Haremon it’s oftentimes not so much combat as much as it is combat puzzles. Even if you want to just beatstick your way through the game (quite possible with powerhouses like Vex) you still can, you just need to freely use buffs, debuffs, and technicals. For early game, Circe+Vex wrecks house. Daisy with baton pass basically wins every non-boss fight later on.

Regarding QTEs, there’s not much I can personally add that isn’t covered by Abe’s review,though I generally think their complaints are a bit out of proportion, if correct. As I said before, combat can be rush moded through (and unlike Abe’s opinion I don’t feel I lose too much out by not getting all perfects) and the resource gathering is basically just a minigame.

Regarding the “harem” stuff, yeah it’s not technically a harem but if harem animes can end with the MC marrying only one of the girls then I think it gets a pass. “Lover” status doesn’t actually do too much practically aside from a single extra powerup on the sentiment board and some extra text. If you are completionist there are special items, which you can get by lovering one girl and then dumping her afterwards. Sucks, but I mean the “harem” command is available here on this pirated version if you are adverse to reading how women react to you breaking up with them, which is fair I suppose.

I’m not actually sure what Abe’s talking about with missing stuff. Most tile events are replayable and the only time you are actually locked out of something is at the end of chapter 2 where you can make a (quite obvious) scummy decision. Savescumming isn’t too necessary unless you really want to make sure you open that chest, but the worst that can happen is a small combat debuff or a few lost relationship percentages. I’m actually curious to see what they’re referencing; I’ve played through the game 3-ish times and I cannot remember. I’m also actually curious – there’s “various missables” but “the outcome would still be the same” aren’t exactly congruent. Also, apologies to Abe in advance for referencing his review too much – it’s a very good review imo and worth a read, even if I somewhat disagree because of the “game with h- elements” problem.

Ranting in response to ranting aside, here’s an actual review.

Pros:

• Characters are fantastic. Even if I don’t “waifu status” all of them, I genuinely can’t think of any character who isn’t excellently written. Some of the character arcs are both awesome and heartbreaking. Even parts I don’t like about characters personally I really like about the characters narratively since it fits them so well.
• CGs are pretty good and well written as well. They’re sparse (and occasionally disruptive) but their artwork and text is great.
• The voice acting is On Point and honestly rivals some professional stuff. Legitimately top tier, and I can't wait for the rest of the cast to get voiced.
• The story is probably the strongest aspect aside from characters. Lore is surprisingly deep, and genuinely enjoyable. Legit this is one of those “play it for the plot” type things. At the end of chapter 3 and 4 each I had to legitimately take a breather just to recenter my emotions.
• Adding on to that, even parts that I would think are plot holes (“hey, it’s kind of strange that Circe’s a haremon when she’s basically a human”, or “hey why is everyone sexually attracted to Fuckboy”, or “hey Longwood has ranches but there’s also skyscrapers in the background”) do get explained. Replaying this game has legitimately been a really cool moment of “oh my gosh I can’t believe this was foreshadowed”.

Cons:

• Combat is a bit weird, and does take getting used to. Once you do, though, it’s actually a lot of fun. My advice is to be creative, and also don’t shy away from unconventional strategies. Or using items – you can buy while in a dungeon for a reason.
• The game does get grindy if you’re a completionist. It’s a lot of work getting every kink, every move, every relationship between haremon, every collectable. If you’re planning on 100%ing this game without console commands, good luck. That said, grinding isn’t strictly necessary since the casino is easy enough to rig and then you can just buy star shards and passion petals.
• The first few hours is … weird. Pacing’s an issue, like Abe mentioned, but I’m not sure I agree with the nitty gritty. This very much is one of those “characters and plot get better as the game gets better”. IMO it might be worth revisiting the prologue and chapter 1, since the story incentives really arent’ there yet.

I will say, this is very much a game you will either enjoy immensely, or not, my advice is to try the game out regardless of these reviews and think for yourself. The introduction is weirdly paced, the combat is somewhat unituitive and there’s not a lot of H-scenes that keep most people on this site interested. And I wouldn’t be surprised if 90% of people dropped this game after the prologue or midway through chapter 1, and that’s totally understandable. But I can guarantee you that if you stay the length you will find one of the best story driven games on this site.

I can't find a better way to describe this game than "all over the place". It's... really all over the place. In terms of production, pacing, narrative\presentation, gameplay... Which is why I'm afraid it can not ever deserve more than 4 stars. In fact, I give this rating as a generous "advance", hoping that when the game comes out - it comes out "ready'. Because at this stage it could as well deserve 1-2 from people who actually have things to do in their lives.
But let's go into detail.
First of all - the production. Apparently going on for almost 6 years, with a rather solid patreon basis and even standalone sales - this developer is really... ahem... milking it. And I do mean offense. He cuts off content from standalone sales, he even has p2w(console) builds for top backers - you really need to have 0 standards to back such an unscrupulous developer.
I hope that eventually it finds its way to Steam, fully unlocked, and for a reasonable price. Because, honestly, this isn't AAA and the guy didn't make it out of his pocket. And because modern Steam has worse stuff, and this game is VERY tame. But if it doesn't... well, I appreciate this website and any people who circumvent such unbridled greed. People do much more with less, and almost six years with backers worth an average of 2k$ per month - that's over 100k$ budget. You can make headline grabbers or historical games with that money.

Moving on to Pacing. In the early game - it's atrocious. You get shoved a TON of mechanics in your face, and you feel like you are on a timer before you actually get a timer. And only later, once you finish Prologue or Act 1 - can you think that "Okay, I gotta slow down, there's more to this game". Four periods of the day that randomly get cut off by events, a lot of things that push the periods without any big reason, your first dozen or so hours is just annoying time management. And, before I move on to the next point - I think this is better mentioned in Pacing. The amount of Erotic content in this game is trivial. Sure, you get thrown a tidbit early on, and you occasionally are treated to an H-scene. But it's all scripted, has a lot of hooks and largely... you can't just open this game, get what "you want", and be done with it. I mean, sure, there is a Gallery and all, but... other games are less disjointed.

That's where it goes into narrative\presentation. Technically it's a VN. And I have to at least give it credit for not being one of the bajillion faceless, similar, horrendous RPGmaker copy-paste jap games. But it's not a good VN. The UI is locked, and you can't load the game without AltF4 during a cutscene, the amount of choices is minimal, has virtually no impact, other than reading something for fun(choosing the wrong response would only get you penalized for laughs, the outcome would still be the same). The one exception is the literal first minute of the game, where you CAN make the wrong choice. And, so far, that's the only time I can recall that something mattered.
Other than that - there are just various missables. Yeah, literally missable events that you can, foolishly or by preplanning - miss and lose forever. And, given how clunky the UI is, how limited, but mandatory the savescumming is - it doesn't make a good experience.
As for presentation - this game hints at its hentai roots, but, frankly, I would hardly even call it an Ero game. It's a VERY tame VN. Look at any podunk jap stuff and you'll get combat encounters that either have H-scenes during, or after failing combat. Most of the time, of course, 95%+ are terrible. Because japs have no taste. But a handful of games, particularly non-jap - can actually both give a tittilizing combat and a game that isn't about losing to every enemy on purpose.
This game isn't like that. Losing isn't an option here. Winning is pointless, it's purely JRPG profit. Mid-combat clothing conditions and lewdness plays only an inconvenience role, without actually "jeopardizing" your "girls".
Furthermore - it's quite ironic that in a game called HAREMON... there is no "harem" route. As in - there's actually a "Lover" state, that you can have one at a time only. And, if I understand correctly, you can still change and regain lovers like gloves. So why even bother? Why try to be realistic, if it's not going to be realistic? Well, beause that's the prerequisite for H-scenes. And H-scenes is how you'll normally get "content" in this game.
And this is important - once an H-scene has played out... well, that's it. It's unique. It won't repeat. There is a gallery for raw wanking, there's an option to use lotion(ingame, lol) and jerk off at night remembering in detail a particular H-scene. But there is little "replayability". I think, I'm not sure, haven't had an option yet, but there could be some girls you can just ask to sleep with, but that(and many scripted H-scenes) have nothing to do with a Lover status.
Read: even if you get the girl to Lover, you invite her to your bedroom, you undress her and lotion her up... You can't just "do" her. Because that's not how the game works.
In a HAREMON game, in a game where you can undress almost a stranger, in a game where you have a HAREM... you HAVE AN OPTION TO JERK OFF AT NIGHT. Why? Of all the games - I wouldn't imagine that to even be an option! It's like being a millionaire and going to parties and having a chance to sleep with celebrities, while normally at night you just contend yourself with a lotion. As opposed to a roster of perfectly willing prostitutes.

And this brings me to the final point... gameplay. I already mentioned that it's a VN that is a bad VN. And it's a bad Hentai game. It may have some combat mechanics, a relatively deep crafting system and such - but I don't think it's particularly superior to jRPGs, you won't see anything outstanding here. And, again, the combat isn't fun. It's just a grind of money, resources and shards. You don't get to see your girl being ravaged by a boss, like a normal hentai-game.
But the worst, the ABSOLUTE worst part of the game that I have kept to the bitter end - are the quick time events. They are... demented. Sadistic. Not just tasteless, but specifically designed to REVOLT you. And I don't understand why. Is that trolling, is that some kind of developer ego...
Few sensible people appreciate QTEs. It's a plague of game development from the bygone era of "can'tdobetter" consoles. But largely - QTEs can be implemented in a serviceable fashion. Sure, some games can pull a nut for people who are sick and need to 100%, but same games can usually say "you did a perfect job" with 80-90% accuracy and call it a day. And that is really ENOUGH. It's a high enough percentile to denote some skill, but not too high to denote mental issues. And that's with QTEs that are clearly indicated and\or have 0.5+ second of reaction time. And, frankly, a lot of console games would never sell or rate if they had less than 1 second timer, because, guess what, PEOPLE play these games. Not neets.

But rambling aside - none of that applies to this game. There are 2 types of QTEs - combat and gathering. In combat, most QTEs have an average of 1 second of reaction time. Few QTEs have 2 seconds, and it's mostly just a misleading preparation, because the "PERFECT" result is not clearly indicated, it's practically guessed or muscle-memoried regardless of the reaction timer. In other words, both a 2 second and 0.5 second ability would have the same "perfect" reaction window. And there are plenty of chain-hit abilities that require 4+ clicks within 2 seconds or less. It's not fun. It's not suitable for a onehanded game. There is no "gamepad" excuse. It's just some kind of selfish perversion of the developer. Because, frankly, games you get paid to play can often have less tight reaction timings.

But combat is largely bypassable. You can enable "rush" mode that automatically resolves QTEs with "OK" results(one point better than a failed\early one, and distinctively worse than "Great" or "Perfect"). And you can generally farm enough to have your gals be too strong to lose.
However, this leads to another design dissonance. Most games have rush\skip mechanics of mundane stuff. It's normal. In this game, however, you either have to hold a button(or use AHK) to rush the game while retaining control... or you have to discard combat control just to not waste time on mundane stuff. I am not a game developer, but I don't see why aren't there some goals like 50 perfect attacks, blocks etc that you can clear and then it automates perfect results in a RUSH mode. It's both reassurance for people who CAN actually do perfect results, but who want to go faster, and it's an incentive for people who struggle with QTEs, because at least at some point they can safely dump them. But that's too generous of a mechanic for this Tsundere dev.

But, again, combat QTEs are generally tolerable. What's less tolerable are harvesting QTEs. And that applies to mining, bug catching, fishing, digging and whatnot. Basically you have an expanding circle and you have to hit the button the moment that circle reaches the outer ring. You don't see it. There is no clear visual prompt. God help you if you have poor eyesight or reaction. There is no way to skip it or bypass it or automate it.
And, naturally, you either "fail", do "good" or do "perfect", with 0-1-2 points per such QTE. Problem is... they are automated. You can't brace yourself, clear it, and prepare for another They begin with 0.5-1sec prepartion time. And they go to as quickly as 0.25sec. QUARTER OF A SECOND, JESUS.
Is the developer insane? This isn't a matter of reaction, it's pure luck and muscle memory. And, again, it all flies in your face automatically.
The results can either be a full ring of "bronze" stars, silver, gold or platinum. I am not a good player, and occasionally I could pull off a full gold score, but that's anything but fun. And I can't imagine doing platinum without some manner of cheat. Kind of like per-frame mod of Celeste. Maybe Cheat Engine's speedhack can somehow help here, because, hint - Performance Monitor's freeze process helps you to pause the game in certain limited-time responses that you HAVE TO GOOGLE. Yeah, I won't get into that.

But to summarize - plenty of design choices here are terrible. Despicable. Irredeemable. Unexplainable.
And these choices permeate the H-scenes, savescumming, pacing, combat, QTEs and almost everything. If this was 2018 - I could say "well, the dev can't get everything right, his mind may not be in the right place, but his heart is". But this is 2024, and the game should be done this year or next at the latest. People have paid hundreds of dollars over time to support this game.
This is basically LOCKED and FINAL. It's just a matter of finishing the story.
This is why I do not see how this game could ever have 5 stars. It just doesn't do enough. And it requires cheats.

The only reason I'm even giving it 4 stars - is because at the end of the day... the writing is decent. Fourth-wall breaking, jokes, easter eggs, characters... and voice actors. Yeah, the voice actors are stellar, they carry this game. And the visual aesthetic is good, characters are well-drawn(even though the H-scenes are made by different people with different art style). It's a decent game to sink dozens of hours into, to really dig deep if you are nothing better to do with your life.
But is that really a good thing? You'll ask yourself that once you start to try to pull off QTE accomplishments or farm QTE gathering...

can't believe it's only 2 stars rating...
Pretty fun game I would say, the battle is rather time consuming but overall this game is excellent.
The plot is quite attractive and it really helps you to dive into the character

The combat part of the game is absolutely terrible.
Extremely slow, stretched, the damage of all the characters is negligible, the animations are too long, I spent literally forty minutes on an "SOS battle" with three frogs. That's kinda insane, what am I wasting my time on?

literally perfect game, not sure why the rating here is so low, maybe it was worse before though. Updated frequently enough, gameplay is awesome, story is awesome, girls are incredible. Seriously recommend this to anyone.

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I've already spoke about the way I felt on the unfair reviews. This game isn't perfect by any means, it has some issues and problems. Some things that may be considered a gripe by many. There's a few bugs here and there and some moments in the story that may present some things that some people may have issues with. However I really feel like it's undeserving of the many 1 star reviews I see carelessly tossed at it. and it's certainly not a 2.5 star game.

Realistically. I'd personally place this game on a subjective level at a 5 star, it's great in my opinion, but objectively, it does have its fair share of problems and some people may just not be a fan of both the gameplay and content. So objectively, it's probably like a 4 star.

If you're looking for a game to grab and just immediately start indulging yourself in its hentai content. This probably isn't the game for you. This is actually developed first as a game, and an eroge second from what I can tell. But if you're looking for a game that successfully combines all of its elements and gives you a fun gameplay experience as you go along., then this is definitely a good game to try out.

Haremon features a lateral progression system as opposed to a standard rpg experience. It's not really like pokemon, so if you came for a pokemon clone, this isn't that type of ride. In this game you won't really level up the normal way. Instead you get moves given to your monster girls and are able to power them up and evolve the powers.

Some girls specializing in seduction, some in tanking, some supporting, and others still just attacking. All of the girls can do a little bit of everything to some degree though. As how lateral progressions tend to go though, your Haremon won't ever really easily outclass and overpower monsters in the traditional RPG sense. Due to it, you have to use strategy and think a bit about what you do and the moves you use. It's possible to refine strategies that make nearly everything a cakewalk, it's also possible that you don't grasp or learn these concepts and you end up just flailing about doing no damage to the most basic enemy.

The game also gives an attempt at combining sex into the combat of the game. Granted it's not actual sex.. It's just more a seduction thing. Using it enables you to control enemies, and even make them give you things or just leave the battle. The game really has multiple ways you can go about doing things just in the combat alone.. and I think that's really what draws me to the game as much as it has.

A point I will give against things. The game is called Haremon, about creating a harem... Most of the scenes currently in the game are 1 on 1 type sex situations. (There's a few with multiple girls) further the dream system feels a little bit like a cop out, but.. Maybe it's the only way they can think to give us repeatable sex scenes right now. But.. all in all I'd say to give this game a fair chance before you say it's garbage.

The developers push out updates fairly regularly, when I first saw this game I was afraid it was dead, but it came out with an update very shortly after finding it. While there's a number of problems with it. It's a very charming game and definitely worth more than a 2.5

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TLDR:
Pros:
- Features a lateral leveling system that lets you learn new moves off of other monsters and evolve your old moves.
- The sex scenes in it, may not be animated, and they may not have sound (I don't recall if this is true or not) but they are excellently written and very spicy, the images given are still very nice.
- Combat is kind of a mixed grab bag of fighting, seducing and all of that.
- There's actually a story.. and it's not exactly that shitty for what has been given.. Has some lore too.. funny enough
- All of the characters feel fairly special and unique, and more are being added
- The game is getting consistent updates unlike other games with a similar setup.
- The game seems to try and take some effort to guide people away from scenes that some may not like, but is a very pro choice game

Cons:
- There's inconsistencies in the plot and story in places. Either these are inside jokes or mistakes. Inside jokes suck when you're not let in on them.
- Combat can eventually become kind of dull when you farm things (self inflicted injury on my part being real)
- Some of your allies are actually extremely limited in what they can do (Might be getting worked on)
- There's not very many scenes which lets you interact romantically or erotically with multiple of your girls at a time
- The game tries to mix some things up here and there to keep things interesting, I wish it would do this more often.

Neutral:
- There's some features to the game that it doesn't readily make very easy to know.. Like there's a fast forward feature. Granted it does have it listed in the game somewhere. You have to search for it. This strikes me as a basic feature it should have taught in tutorial.
- There's some things that I feel the game punishes you for trying to skip over content you may not like.. Pee fetish for instance. Skipping over a certain few scenes involving it will leave you without the rewards for it.
- If the devs of this project actually got proper backing. I think it'd be pretty scary to see what all they could come up with

Overall. I like the game. I more decided to place a review cause I felt like the 2.5 rating was undeserved. The developers have been working on this game a lot and it's come a long way. I look forward to seeing how this game develops moving forward.

amazing, everything about the game makes it worth your time.

-regular updates.
-fully voiced.
-this game feels more like an actual game with porn in it more than a porn game.
-the characters are well written and likeable, with a good story onto top it all of.

I consider all the analyzes below mine too, so not needing to repeat everything that many have already said, I will add that two things have been bothering me about this game, since I've been following it for a long time, first, I find this fear of the guy freaking out afraid of pregnancy, ridiculous, I've never seen someone so terrified of pregnancy when he already has his dick inside the woman, another problem and much more serious are the updates, first it takes a fair amount of time to update the game and then when it updates, the dev "suggests" that it would be better to reset all your progress in the game since it changed the beginning and added new things and mechanics to the game, and the game minimizes every time showing this warning advising to reset the game, I would consider it a "suggestion" if it weren't so invasive and if it weren't for almost every update, and here I am replaying everything again rewatching the guy terrified of pregnancy while going through lengthy combats, in a game dependent on cheat codes to simply fulfill what the title promises, without even noticing such a difference to the point of needing to reset my save.. too bad.. I like monster girls too much, at the moment I feel too lazy to have to go through all that again.

ps: why should i take a quiz about how many people die a year from asphyxiating on sex while i'm having a beach date with my neko? sad..

The QTEs in combat just kind of ruin the relaxing feel of the game. I wish there was a way to just remove them like in yakuza like a dragon. It also forces in pointless QTEs, but you can just straight up disable them and it makes the game more enjoyable.

I see a lot people complaining about combat. You guys know you can remove the QTE and make the animations faster by just pressing CTRL in the battle?

Anyways, it's a pretty damn good game, full of personality, it's not perfect by any means but it's one of my favorites. Hopefully it'll improve a lot on the "full release".

I consider myself a patient person when it comes to games in development, but this one actively got under my skin. (SPOILERS)

Imagine a harem game, with harem in the name, but you can't actually get a harem unless you pay the highest tier in patreon and use a cheat-code.

Utterly, utterly moronic. Also 95 percent of the game is a terrible RPG with way too long animations, with a lot of filler and padded out content to hide the fact that the "porn" is like...30 still images in total.

I am being dead serious. This game has the shittiest, the slowest, the longest combat of any porn game I have ever played. You will rewatch those incredibly long animations time and time again. The game is so utterly padded out to strecth its few dozen still images of porn that you have gigantic dungeons and quests and whatnot that take hours upon h o u r s to complete without cheats. Even WITH cheats, literally teleporting anywhere, you still have to solve retarded puzzles. Like listening to a ghost and figuring out what they sang. Why the fuck would anyone bother with that with one hand on their dick.

This game has no clue, no clue at all what it wants to be. Does it want to be taken seriously as an rpg? does it want to do porn? Does it even want to be a harem, considering it has harem literally in the name but will not allow you to have a harem?

Even the fucking romance is tedious. You have to take them out on dates which are mini dungeons that take like half an hour to complete.

I don't think the core concept is wrong, nor the execution. But in practical terms, this game just takes way to long for too little payoff. It could easily have double the content in terms of h-scenes and it would still be on the more bare side of things for the length of the game.
I don't mind the fights too much, especially with the option to skip waiting periods and QTEs, but all the rest is pretty cumbersome.

v0.36.0 Debug

It has cute, voiced, monstergirl waifus. Play this.

The gameplay overpromises and could be better, but you should play this at least a bit.

Is it my favourite game on this site? Not even close. Buuuut the characters are giga cute and the story is fun and lighthearted. There are better games, but overall it's a very fun (even if a bit short) experience.

Gameplay really is important in porn games sometimes.
I love the art. The porn is phenomenal. The girls are also pretty good. (Could be better, but easily better than 80% of games on this site.) Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, and this is a big but, and not in the thicc way, the gameplay is a chore. First off, the QTE obsession has to go. There's a reason "real" video games got rid of them, and that simple reason is that QTEs are not fun. Seriously, who thought that was a good idea? (Maybe it's just a relic from coming out in 2018? I think that was already a dead trend even then, but I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.) I've lurked in the discussions here and elsewhere when people have discussed the combat, and even the people who didn't think it was hard found the QTEs quite tedious. The rest of combat feels like pretty bog-standard JRPG combat. It's not new or interesting, nor is it particularly egregious, just time-consuming. Some people think combat is imbalanced or too hard, but I mostly just felt like enemies were too much of damage sponges. For how much of it you're doing, combat should be shorter.

There's plenty of good here, too! Don't get lost in me repeating everyone's gripes. I really only did that to try to give more feedback to the devs, particularly with what I find wrong about the dungeons. I actually like the girls' personalities, and I find the dating parts of the game kind of cute. There's some heart behind at least the first few girls (I didn't feel like grinding past the fifth girl or so), so even though I'm not the type to have pretend girlfriends, it's nice to spend some time with these characters beyond just bending them over for the fiftieth time. Actually, I'm probably a dunce, because I never figured out how to have sex with them when you text them to come over. Scripted sex? Sure, got some of that. Booty calls? I got them naked and then couldn't figure out what to do from there. It's like high school all over again.

Dev, I beg you, please just overhaul the dungeons so they're not an endless slog.

I come here to give a slightly different review: the improvement over time.

I been following this game since the 0.02 (that was way back)
i've seen several complains on the battle system, and it's completely fair criticism, it is probably the game's biggest flaw by a lot... but let me tell you, all the complains people have about the combat today are nothing compared to what is used to be.
I shit you not, it used to have unskipable attack animations that were over 12 seconds, and pray to god it did not crash before autosaving because every battle, no matter how minor, would be over 5 minutes.
Over time i've seen the developer take notes from criticism and keep fixing and fixing everything around the game, the combat is at best tolerable and at worst a travesty, but it's better than what it was before (that would be from nightmarish to unplayable).

Overall i am fairly content to how the game is progressing and i can't help but wait for the next updates: the dialogue, art, characters and everything else around the game is a delight to play (tho the protagonist is too much of a pervy loser sometimes).

All the complains i have revolve around the combat, not only for it's artificial length but also for the system of combat: some characters, like the Seraphim, are incapable of attacking at all if they don't get angry first, leaving the player with 1/3 of the team useless unless they get their face pummeled or waste extra money on items that will piss the girls off.
I'm not saying all attacks should be available from the get go, but every haremon should have, between her selection, to have at least one attack upgraded to the max available from the default setting from the beginning of the fight.

Usually a three-star 'average' rating would mean 'unremarkable' in my book.

Not this time.

This game has some really good qualities. The art is just amazing, the characters are well-designed and varied, and the sexscenes are great too - so why just a three star rating?

One thing in particular, really: combat.

Haremon is a visual novel/turn-based RPG hybrid game, so combat is a pretty important element. And as of this version (v0.33.3.5) it still really needs some fine-tuning.

That really is a shame too, because the way combat is set up in this game is actually pretty nifty. It's turn-based, but the characters' icons move along a sliding bar. When the icon reaches the end, the character gets a combat turn - and the speed stat determines how fast the icon moves. So speed matters a lot more here than in, say, the oldschool Pokémon games (in which speed only determines who goes first during a turn). There's also no TP, so any attack can be used indefinitely. But at the same time, your characters have three in-combat stats (focus, rage and pleasure) that constantly shift during combat, all depending on your character's stance (which can be changed by pressing A or F during a character's turn). Every attack etc. requires a minimum rage, focus, or pleasure. So character stance matters a lot, and not all of your attacks will be available at the same time.

So what's the bad thing about combat here?

Well, it's big a damn slog, and there's not really any ways to get around that. In a well-made RPG, your character(s) start out weak but OK-ish, and training and grinding can turn them into a powerhouse. But in this game? You start out weak. Not just weak, but weak weak. Mikuru, your first Haremon, starts out almost helpless. She will struggle against even the most basic enemies.

You can buy upgrades with XP, yes. But these upgrades... they just don't make a very big difference. Oh, you'll need them, don't get me wrong. But maxing out her attacks won't make her anything more than OK-ish. Max out the scratch attack? Congratulations - she'll now be able to take down the most basic enemy in two turns.

In other words? You actually need to grind just to make combat doable. There are games where you can just sit back and breeze through the storyline, but Haremon is very much not one of them. But at the same time, grinding doesn't even feel very rewarding.

Then there's the quicktime events (QTEs)...

Those mainly show up in combat. "Press X at the right time" for a damage/defense bonus, that sorta thing. I don't really mind this sort of thing. But it does make combat even more cumbersome and drawn-out - and considering that your characters already feel a bit underpowered, that's... not a good thing.

Another gripe that I have with the QTEs is that you can get a 'Perfect' hit and... still miss. Seriously, that actually happens. 'Perfect!' 'Missed' - yo, what the fuck. It's not a big problem, but it still happens often enough that it's highly annoying. (really, if they want these QTEs to matter, then a 'Perfect' should be an automatic hit no matter what)

Both the combat strength and QTE problems could be fixed with a little fine-tuning. That's the worst part. The game's design and setup are actually good, and it could be so much more fun to play with just a few tweaks here and there.

The map segments (i.e. when exploring a dungeon) are something that can be unnecessarily frustrating as well. You have to progress through dungeons by activating tiles, which then become traversible. But almost every kind of tile will trigger a random effect upon activation. That random effect will, in turn, usually trigger a spinning wheel or something else that's RNG-related. Those spinning wheels can be a pain in the ass, and some of the bad outcome scenarios make no damn sense (like chests stealing all your money, or losing food when you find an eggplant tree). At least it's possible to savescum.

...

As for the other aspects of the game: the writing, story and characters are pretty decent overall.

The story is fun. The characters are fun. Don't go expect anything deep - there are porngames with deep, compelling stories, but this isn't one of them. But the characters do have just enough substance to be entertaining. It's all nice, lighthearted fun.

The setting feels a bit incoherent, though. You start out with what looks like just a regular modern-day setting. Smartphones, mentions of college, videogames and the internet being a thing. And professor Laurel provides a little sci-fi touch. But at the same time, Annie's shop seems... weirdly rustic. And the guild and Scarlet are just basic pseudo-medieval fantasy stuff. It's really weird when you think about it.

Then there's Annie herself. And Kira, for that matter. They're both potential love interests. They were also both originally written to be the MC's mother and sister. You can tell, because the TsunAmie peeps were a bit sloppy with editing some of their lines; there's still a few times where Annie says the MC's name when she's talking about her son.

Obviously that change had a lot to do with Patreon banning incest and other 'extreme' content. But while I'm not a fan of censorship, I like incest even less - so for once, I'm not complaining about forced changes. That said: what matters most here is that Annie's lines were edited poorly, so the resulting dialog is confusing.

At least Kira was handled better, though. Yeah, her "Imma pretend to be your sister"-schtick is weird. But Kira is fucking weird. Her awkard weirdness is part of her character, and it's written pretty well.

...

All in all, this game has some great qualities. But it's still hamstrung by some flaws that can't be overlooked.

Gameplay should be a selling point, and with this one it definitely could be a selling point. But it isn't. Especially early on, the gameplay is an unpleasant slog. You're basically forced to grind just to make regular battles doable, and that's never a good thing.

This one is just a few tweaks away from being a five star game. So what are you waiting for, TsunAmie?