Others - Haremon [v0.40.1.2] [TsunAmie]

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?

It to long and hard to play
The enemy is always stronger than player . No level system in turn based game? so create but it suck . only good garphic but gameplay is suck .
this game is a Dark Soul or turn based game . no way to stronger than enemy .

game needs to just fix its combat and it’ll be pretty golden. Personally I’d like the mc to be more dominate and not take so much shit from everyone but that’s jus a personal preference that I can’t fault the game for not going with, the way mc is now, he isn’t a bitch or anything so his personality is probably best to appeal to more people. I enjoy the date mechanic a lot and the h scenes, while taking a bit too long to get, are pretty damn good. I don’t like seeing this game sit at 2 stars so im gibbing it a 5, but honestly it’s a 4 with the way it is rn. Played version 32.0.6. im pretty sure about 4 months ago. Gonna give it another go when it gets some more meaningful updates

The art is really great and the few characters I've interacted with are well-drawn and unique. The story is interesting enough and got me engaged. However, this combat system is for the birds. Can't keep up with the quick-reflex responses.

The first main quest was not a problem and picked up Circe with no issues. However, doing the second (THE SECOND) quest, is impossible. The enemies take forever to die and I can't stay ahead of the poisons and the damage. We got to the last tile, but a monster was on it. They ripped us apart.

The running away mechanic works fine in the combat, but you can't go back home to rest unless you utilize the exit. What's the point of getting away if you can't get away???

As much as I'd like to advance the story, I'm not going to grind the first level just so I can survive the second one. A serious look at combat balancing needs to be taken so players don't feel like they're bashing their head against the wall.

I may come back to this at some point, but I doubt it.

2 stars for appearance/story. I can't give it any more than that.

I want to love this game, the art looks amazing and it has a good soundtracks BUT:
combat is fucking disgusting, there's lots of qtes that require lightning fast reflexes and at the same time drag battles forever
It takes forever to grind abilites and most items dont even have descriptions about them
The H scenes are few and take forever to unlock, they also contain a ton of text and NO animation at all
The game is build on a roulette system where you have to be lucky in almost every activity in game, this leads to having to scumsave all the time
You cant save and load from the esc screen, you can only do it on your phone, so if you get into a battle or some event that drags forever the best way to load the game is to alt f4 then open it again

I really want to like the game, but it has zero respect for players and their time. They are trying to make something ultra complex instead of making a full game that I have to wonder if this game's final version will ever be released at all

+ beautiful looking game
+ cute girls
- combat is too slow and complicated. we are talking old school here.
- every attack and defense in combat is a QTE. i hate those.
- very grindy
- lose save between upgrades
- whenever you are given a choice you get a 5 second timer before it just automatically chooses a random answer.
This is extremely annoying. As it does not give you enough time to read.
This is especially an issue in dungeons where instead of showing you, they tell you. You need to read through an old school text description of what you can see in each direction. But there is no time to read because you only have 5 seconds to choose.

I will just say that I love this game. The artwork is amazing, the characters are enjoyable with believable dialogue, and the combat system is really fun. Each character feels like a real person and has great artwork to go along with them. The dating system could be a bit better, but the enjoyability is still very high.

Possibly the worst game i know, when it comes to fighting mechanics and gameplay.

Its interesting game, but seriously? WHICH IDIOT had the idea to make the opponents, attacks and defense like an game itself? How can it be that there are people out there liking this shit?

Unstable with terrible combat in a terrible engine.
The worst of both worlds baybeh.
Expects people might want to use controller on launch cause that's a thing for a vn.... not, and a restricted to sometimes save system is an odd choice...

Like for real this is an example as to why most people stick to known engines like renpy since even the most unstable of their games is generally able to be patchworked back together with 0 skill.

Great game, really well put together, appreciate the voice acting and the art in this, really cool concept and transpires a lot of personality. I'm looking foward to seeing more, also great UI <3. Even the grind is tolerable because everything seems to be made with care, good luck to y'all

I quite like the game. The dungeon combat is hard but I play DD so its cool by me. The reason behind why I give 4 stars and not 5 is because there are still some major issues with QoL such as mission system or some bugs. Can be a 5 star in the future updates though

For what the game is only being 30% done its honestly a great game. Most of the negative reviews are people having pc problems or dont like the combat. for a game thats only 30% done the story and characters are great.

I live this! Addictive, good gameplay and graphics! Maybe you can add more interraction with girls but i can wait for more content ! i recommand this ! If you have some times to spend on it you can go !

This would be a great game if only everything wasn't designed to waste your time. the great artwork, cute girls, voicework, nice music cant pull this one out of the dumpster.
ive never seen a game where the gameplay and combat ruin it to such a extent.
ive spent 5 hours on it and the only thing i got was a headache and i used cheats.

STAY AWAY from this game

The art is top tier, and the vast majority of the mechanics are interesting. I like the random events, and I like the wheels to spin. Coupled with a gift system and date system the game seems like a shoe in for 5 stars right?

Unfortunately the battle system, which a lot of people echo here, is very hit or miss. Not just in whether you like or love the quick time for EVERY attack and defense, but that attacks may fail even if you hit the quick time event. Cool, I guess.

The huge sprites on the side also leave a lot to be desired on the battle system. I think if they just shrank the sprites, and made it Darkest Dungeon-esque in terms of size and speed it'd be amazing. That said, a lot of people seem to really like the game as is so perhaps I'm the odd man out here.

But, even with how much I strongly dislike the battle system, I still pledged and played it. The game could honestly give me math problems as a battle system and I'd still give it 3 stars since the rest of the game is just that damn good. And I think that's why a lot of the ratings are so divisive, since everyone (Me included) wonders how amazing this game could be with a revamped battle system.

Could be such a great game: the story and concept are interesting, the art is good...
But, is SO INCREDIBLY ANNOYING, that's just unplayable...
Everything is sooo slooow, lots of useless and time consuming animations, random boring events, titles, fadings and cut scenes...
Also: timed choices, UGH!!!
The engine is not the best either...
And then, to make it absolutely unbearable, there's the HORRENDOUS minigames and battle system.... Timed keys combos, REALLY...?
And yet more time wasting, action waiting times, useless slow animations, each action is explained and subtitled...
A shame, really ... Complete waste of potential...

The game potential is just amazing. Art, idea, voiced... however there is also the combat system.

As much as i respect its originality it's insanely hard. I did multiple tries, however starting with the second area the odds are heavily stacked against the player and i was unable to even progress any further. Also, despite the fact this is a porn game, losing battle as two cute girls to a tentacle monster means game over... and without any animation!

In the same fashion, as i don't request Dark Souls to have erotic neko girls, i dont expect game from F95 to force me to tryhard.

If you ever release any other game, with the same quality of graphic i am your man. But i will hard pass on this, sorry.

Btw character missing every second spell and still calling ME an idiot is really doesn't help to the overall experience.

This is a high quality game, high quality UI, high quality art... Then why a 1 star rating?

Because the more I play this game, the more it feels that the developer actively hates the player. From constant subtle insults to the player in the dialog to some of the worst RNG and Grind based combat.

I've played some really bad, low quality game, but I'd recommend most of them before this game.

first off, the story, the CG's and the level the game is made at is at a 5 star level.

the reason i am only giving it 3 stars is some of the game mechanics that are horribel.

combat: (quicktime events)
a lot of the combat moves are quicktime events,where you have to hit the right keys "z,x,c,v" at the right time for a bonus, or if you are getting attacked, you take less damages. The Quick events when i play are too fast.

loot and random events: (quicktime events)
once more this is quitime events where you can improve your changes of getting good stuff and avoid bad stuff. the events are too fast.

Harem: (not so much)
for some bloody reason you have to pick a lover that you then get exclusive scenes with. and if you want to see the "exclusive" scenes with the other Haremons you have to break up with your "former lover" and then "declare your love" for the next one.

What is the point of playing pokemon/haremon where i can't catch them all !
and live out my little boy fantasy, and if you cant tell, i still cant fantom the fact that there is a monogamy system in a harem game !