Ren'Py - Hazelnut Latte [v0.14.2 Patreon] [Rad Lord]

Review of version 0.14

I have two thoughts about what feels off with this game:

1) It’s essentially two different games in one.
The first game lasts from Episode 1 to Episode 4. It’s a visual novel with no plot-affecting choices. The story is: the MC falls in love with the femboy Hazel. By Episode 5 we learn that Hazel isn’t ready for anything serious in terms of a relationship, and that’s basically where the story ends.

The second game begins in Episode 5. It’s also a visual novel where there’s no central love interest; instead we potentially get a whole harem of femboys and trans characters. We can choose the order in which we talk to characters, but again this doesn’t affect the plot. And there’s one minigame that, at this point, serves no real purpose in the game.

The problem is that the transition from one story to the other doesn’t feel smooth. As a result, I feel slightly disappointed that there’s no further development with Hazel, but instead there are lots of new one-off characters with one-off sex scenes.

2) Originality and overall quality.
Story: a standard romance/harem vn plot(everybody wants to fuck MC asap), the only difference is that instead of girls we have femboys and trans characters.
Gameplay: sometimes you get choices, but none of them affect the story.
Visuals: the sprites look good, though there’s nothing particularly memorable about them. But the animations are quite rough: in at least half of the animations I’ve seen, the characters don’t look like themselves, or their proportions are off.

Overall, taking into account that the game is still in early development, it turned out to be something fairly average.

A little too much lecturing about gender stuff, the dev needs to get on twitter and get it out of his system there I think, otherwise pretty good game. The open-world part is pretty straightforward so I actually like it. Animations could get a lot better. Overall tho it really hooks you in, can't wait for more updates.

TL;DR A solid enough game that needs to re-evaluate what kind of game it wants to be, in terms of expression (degenerate porn or stand on gender identity). This game could be a 3.5/4 star game, especially if the focus shifts to gender exploration via relationship building or fetish fuckfest.

I normally don't rate this kind of game but felt compelled too as I thought "OK, this is going to be an interesting game with girls/boys and everything in between so it could be a real cool concept."

This ain't it chief.

The BIGGEST issue isn't the gender politicking or the sluttiness of the characters being insanely easy (you literally meet n fuck Kingdom [Steve] everyone in the first interaction), The biggest issue is that BOTH are happening at the same time.

PICK. A. LANE. Either make this a rom-com/slice of life game that focuses on the importance of gender identity and relationships to the characters OR make it a trans/trap fuckfest.

As it stands now, you have people who feel like their identity and their politics are simply being used as a fetish, and you have people who feel like their porn is way too political.

The art and the scenes are good if a bit mundane (delivery dude/chick getting a "tip" or the ol "cream" in the coffee trick) but the art is decent enough to work and there is enough of it to get someone going.

I would suggest double checking why you are making this game, and lean towards that. If its to express gender identity as a critical feature in a lewd game lean more to it and focus on relationship building. If it is purely to create a trans/trap porn game lean away from it as to not distract from the porn.

On a personal note, while I disagree with this level of rhetoric in a porn game, I understand that it isn't aimed at people like me and can, if done properly, help people feel normal seeing their beliefs repersented. That being said, I would rather see this turn into an interesting look at the fludity/variety of genders through the eyes of a confused newcomer (a stand in for us) as he stumbles his way through a relationship or two than a fuckfest, but it will likely not be as profitable.

A hand-drawn game is almost always five stars for me, but this one is so biased that it's annoying. The dialogues are so shitty, like "It's so hard being a femboy because capitalism sucks." It happens a lot. Just make the f*cking game without the boring politics, lol. I just wanna play.

The motivation I have behind playing these games is the furthest possible any motivation could ever be from wanting to deal with modern day politics. I think that's a general enough characteristic of most of us that it works as an objective assessment of a game.

Now, alright, art deals with modern themes about society, right? Not to mention the game isn't shy about itself. Yes, but it's not well done in my opinion - there's a lot of "in your face" about the political undertones. The art is fresh but I've learned that the only reason I rate art like this is because of the mountain of generic models and graphics used in other games. Apart from that, it's not that great. The animations are meh.

There's story there, sure, there's effort the dev put in, but there's a high chance it will bum you out or drag you into bothersome, cumbersome subjects.

Easily 5/5 Stars.

The game drops you straight into the story in which within your first minute but without the annoyance that is all too common in nsfw visual novels that:

• A bunch of **** gets thrown straight at you leaving you thinking...
• --Wtf?
• --What'd I miss?
• --Is there a prequel to this game that I missed?
• Is the writing going to really be this bad the entire game?

While a large majority of nsfw VN's drop you straight into the story without 30 minutes of backstory, the experience you'll go through intellectually and emotionally within two minutes of starting Hazelnut Cafe, is that the story, accompanied by the level of skill that Radlord (the developer) is going to show you will, in no way whatsoever leave you

--sitting there complaining to yourself about
(what will immediately become expressed to you... and in a manner that;

• is done eerily well and
• in such a high caliber manner that your subconcious will
• deceptively poke and prod the deep parts of your subconscious

and if you truely came here for the Trap/Femboy tags, even after you find out;

• (in no unmistakable manner), what you'll continue to find yourself repeatedly questioning ***, multiple times throughout your playthrough--"I know what I read just minutes ago really means "****", but... was that true...?--Prepare for the ride of having your brain register something that you'll visually experience , yet remember that thing I mentioned just a few lines ago? That thing that you'll experience multiple times throughout your play though?
  
  
  It was true. But even with everything you've learned to be true, you'll find yourself being confident that it's true, and once again back deep in the sneaky part of your psyche, what you'll experience with Hazelnut Cafe

Will leave you somehow being content to believe that (somehow) both statements;


Somehow both are true because the raw emotions you're experiencing will overpower all logical thinking.

This game is (generously) 2.5 stars. The art is mid at best. It's 2d, and the animations are basic and cheesy. All this would be OK if it weren't for the insufferable identity politics that seem to permeate every thread in the story. I mean, they hit every color in the rainbow with their preaching and faux moral outrage. Hard pass.

amazing game, perfect femboy-themed game, make me craving more and I haven't found anything like it, solid art and animation, soild story, maybe some people find it too "kinky" for their taste, but I think it is the charm of the story... its still on progress and maybe not yet completed but it has potential to be one of the best, and the title... damn, now I can't see the name hazel the same anymore...

I got baited at first and kept on following the game but it is time to put an end to it: This isn't a trap game, this is a woke game.

The characters in this game are either boys or trans with only one girl in the bag, which have almost no exposition.
The point here is that there is maybe one boy that can pass as a trap, others are completely boys.
The whole reason behind this is that the drawing lacks more and more of details the more the game have content. If you do know a bit about drawing or have just a keen eye, you do know that the difference between a girl and a guy in those are the body shape and the face. The body being curvier and the face having bigger eyes or/and eyelashes for the women.
In Hazelnut Latte, the guy have guy's bodies and their eyes are small without eyelashes. Those are guys.

Originally, trap were supposed to be cuter than women. There was the saying "a girl can't be this cute". Because those were traps, as such, there were supposed to trap you (well in Japanese it's not the term trap but whatever) in making you believe that you were chasing the cutest girl and not a guy.
This aspect is completely ruined with nowadays traps that don't understand a thing about what they are supposed to be picturing.

Back onto Hazelnut, at first the main Li was actually cute. Not as much as it should be, but as much as trap are nowadays. But with the let-down of the drawing level, it took a blow and the only thing I see is a guy with middle hair.
The others guys aren't better, making it actually a gay game. And trap isn't supposed to be gay.

The woke part appeared later in game, the more characters were presented. People being trans without any reason, calling guys "they" at first contact. There was a really mundane dialogue with an apparent woman, saying that she is trans and would rather be referred she/her in the most subtle way existing. All the men asked the Mc if he is okay with their sex too, which felt normal at first but since the Mc is just going after men all the time, it finished by feeling wrong.
At this point, the dev should have done the world of Hazelnut of such as these practices usual rather than making the Mc a degenerate only going on guys and trans people while pretending to be straight.
I should add that the game gives you a choice asking if trans bother you and just kick you out if you say that it does indeed. You do feel that your opinion really matter at such instance.
What about the acceptance speech?

Honestly, I do not think that the game was supposed to be this big originally. The others characters, the empty sandbox, the debt system, all being added way too late into the game. If it was supposed to be that open, then the first whole episode wouldn't be a one on one with the guy that have almost no exposure in the latest update.
The following 2 episodes widen the world through the first character but halfway, he stopped being important, unveiling the change of direction. That is the moment the trans rush began but having a straight guy being interested in two cute boys and having a straight guy going suddenly after boys and trans only, are two completely different set of mind. It shows a lack of care in the world building.
Again.

Now, if it does was fun, I wouldn't complain.
But the whole original idea being about meeting a trap, you can understand that the story isn't the strong point of the game, and having me complaining about woke, is a proof that the dialogue/lore/character building are lacking the subtlety to make such characters actual peoples and not representant of an idea that the dev wanted in his game.

Hazelnut Latte is a niche on this site in so many ways. Not only does it have some rare casting, being almost exclusively femboys and transgender women, but so much of it has this cutesy, feel-good tone to it that made me want to keep reading. It's a fun mix of sappy and sexy.

The art has a homegrown feeling to it, but it doesn't come across as amateurish. Scenes are animated and accompanied by sex sounds. The gameplay is initially kinetic, but then transitions into a sandbox once you meet most of the cast and reach the objective of the game.--Some people apparently disliked this, but I personally enjoyed when the game opened up to allow me more agency over the story.

One thing I'd almost ding this game on is that it feels incomplete in places. I'm not referring to how the game is in development still. Rather, some of the characters and plots in this game seem to come out of nowhere. It almost feels like the game was originally going to be much shorter, and then expanded suddenly with a bigger cast and a more complex story. But if that is what happened, that's cool with me, because I'm really enjoying the story.

This game really went downhill.

It feels like whenever a visual novel shifts to a sandbox format, actual development stalls, and creators start drip-feeding content to stretch Patreon support.

The visual novel part of this game is great but short. I think it's worth playing through once but isn't a game worth following at this point.

[v0.12.4 Patreon]
i think this is good game but im did not enjoyed the game at all

art 3/5
story 3/5
character design 3/5
characters 4/5
sex scenes 3/5
vibe 1/5

overall 2.8/5

i like the frist part or ep but it wasnt good it got better in other part but still did not liked

i think best part about this game is the art but some times it get bad

story is not bad but nothing special

im not about character design but i think is based on real ppl they look like i seen em before

personality of character are good not weird and random

sex scenes are okay but the animation is so lazy

i did not vibe with game i force myself to finish it only maybe get better and it not get better

Man, I loved this game, Dave, he was my favorite character and I was hoping he would come back in the future. I don't like NTR or sharing, I always look for lighter VN games. I found your game amazing, good story and character too, but after seeing that the game I love so much simply turns my favorite character into a fat old man's dick sucker, I cried and thought, why did he need this? Someone asked for this, people were interested in this character and could leave him out. There's no need for this scene to show how happy they are. What a disappointment.

This game was great prior to this last update, a game with some cool LI's and some other characters to fool around in a VN mode... Just to turn out in to a grind fest game. Really fucked up from following the story to click around just to unlock some dialogues at best.

An amazing entry. Story hits the right note with the awkwardness and nervousness you feel when you start dating someone and the plot is hits the right strings with you trying to help out a community of people .

Also the h scenes are made with love.

Whenever I can say I'm here for the story and the fapping, I leave a review! play the game if tis your flavor!

EDIT: 6/24/25 - Leaving the typos because I probably typed the review with one hand

For a RenPy game the content comes pretty quickly and is easy to access. Looking forward to more. I also like the portrayal of different kinds of femboys. It's pretty short, but the writing is decent, and the scenes themselves are pretty good if you like femboys.

Great game, lots of potential.

10/10 artstyle
Excellent dialogue
Great characters
Decisions matter, and combined with the dialogue it makes a very interesting combo
Needs time to cook more content but, right now its worth a couple of good faps

The art is incredible and the characters are absolutely charming and lovable!! And now that the story and cast are opening up more and more, this game has flown up to one of my top games! I can't wait to see what happens next!!!

Wow, I'm searching for a game like this for a long time.
I love that the MC is a guy unlike most games involving this theme were the MC is a crossdresser.
This game has a wholesome vibe to it and has the right amount of naughtiness and cuteness, the NSFW scenes are extremely hot and cute at the same time which is a very good departure from pure rough sex ones.
I'm waiting eagerly for more time servicing Vera in future updates ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

A charming VN with romance and erotica for every flavour of femboy! Most scenes are animated. The current content isn't that big nor small at the moment of this post, but really looking forward to its future development and continuation!