Hello fellow F95Zone visitor!
Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? Insanity is doing the exact... same fucking thing... over and over again expecting... shit to change...
And yes, Heart Problems is the first VN ever that makes me quote Vaas from Far Cry 3.
For the longest of longest times this game feels like the very definition of insanity. You do the same things over and over and over and OVER again, expecting for things to change. Only they don't! Until they do... but let's not skip ahead...
The basics: Heart Problems is more or less your standard family game. MC lives with his aunt, uncle, older and younger female cousin. Parents are dead or absent (father is dead, mother left the family years ago), uncle and aunt took the MC in when he was 13 or so, he's now 21. He has no job and doesn't go to college, he has a lot of time therefore.
Cousin Kylee is about his age, the younger cousin Stephanie is a lot younger, at least she looks a lot younger, like 15 maybe. Amelie is your typical 25-year-old looking milf.
Character models are a mixed bag for me.
The older cousin Kylee is extremely attractive, chances are you will like her the most. She'a a goddess. Aunt Amelie is of the very curvy (very young looking) milf variety... I am not a fan of her balloon breasts, but many others like these big breasts, so it's down to taste, but apart from that Amelie is very attractive, her face is a work of art. She is very attractive overall.
Younger cousin Stephanie is not really my type, she looks REALLY young. No age is given for her, but she looks like 15 maybe. She's cute in her own way, but I feel many may develop a dislike for her because she's super annoying (especially in the first few chapters). She does improve somewhat though in later chapters if you put up with her. So maybe don't give up on her entirely, things will get better.
Then there are two side characters. Mia, who is ok, but cannot hold a candle to Kylee, and Mia's mom Lauren who is an overweight super curvy, super thirsty milf that doesn't even remotely compare to Amelie. They are the super easy poor man's variant of Kylee and Amelie. And they serve only one purpose in this game. No person in his right mind would ever choose them when there is Kylee and Amelie, but that is just my opinion.
The game favors a POV perspective, but every now and then you do get a third person view. Kissing scenes often, not always, alternate between POV and third person perspective. As expected the POV kisses look very silly.
At times the close-up is very extreme and all you really see is the nose of the partner. It looks silly and weird. The third person perspective however is pretty ok with tongue action etc. Some kissing scenes are also properly animated. Always a plus! Most of the other steamy scenes have a third person view, some oral sex has POV as well, but it's mostly ok.
So there are animations, in later chapters the animations are also really good. Not so much early on, but things improve considerably.
The renders are ok, not extraordinary, but competent. Here and there you may see some minor clipping, it's not terrible though. For several outdoor scenes the game uses photos, but the DAZ models are well integrated into these real world environments and it didn't bother me. The home and other interiors are DAZ assets of course.
Music is included, it's ok. Here and there you will get some sound effects.
But let's return to the insanity....
The thing is... Heart Problems is an ultra super deluxe slow burn game when it comes to the three main love interests Amelie, Kylee and Stephanie.
The MC can have (early) sex with thirsty milf Lauren and her daughter Mia, who has a boyfriend (!). I rejected both however. Lauren I just found not attractive at all and Mia is all kinds of crazy and she's also in a relationship. Both of them feel like discount versions of Kylee and Amelie who are the superior characters in every way.
And that leaves the actual family members. And here is where the game may or may not make you question your own sanity, depending on what you like or don't like.
You see, you do reach a certain point with Amelie, Kylee and Stephanie not too far into the game. And then things stall. And don't progress. Ever.
The teasing then does include the usual interruptions, almost penetrations only for a character to say that it's wrong, not here, not now, not ever etc...
So what you will get are groundhog day loops of grinding, rubbing and oral sex. And with Amelie not even that, mostly just kissing and fondling/groping/massages/yoga (yes, this game does have yoga scenes of course).
Slow burn and teasing are fine, and each scene here in Heart Problems does have very good erotic tension, the scenes - in isolation - are all fine actually, they all look great and are pretty steamy. The tension between Amelie and the MC is especially palpable, the heated passion between Kylee and the MC is also very well realized. And I appreciate that almost always kissing is involved, so things don't jump straight to the not quite sex. These scenes usually take their time. Stephanie... well, is just crazy and obsessed so things are a bit different with her. The MC mostly just indulges her, whereas he is head over heels in love with Kylee (and Amelie).
But the insanity is dialed up to 11 when the game leads you from one teasing scene straight to the next only to give you one more teasing scene after that because you still may not have had your fill of teasing for one day.
At certain points in the story the MC will make advances on Amelie, the usual kissing and groping etc ensues... until she gets cold feet as always... MC, seconds later, runs into Stephanie... who is super thirsty.... but all you get is some grinding and maybe oral sex... and then you meet Kylee and you get the same thing from her you got from Stephanie earlier. And by that point you have seen similar scenes quite a few times and nothing ever progresses. Which may make you question why you put up with this.
What I am saying here is that after a while the teasing loop with ever repeating scenes outstays its welcome. The scenes are not the same, but they all have the same content. Kylee has some completely BS reasons for not wanting actual sex, she even pretends the MC is not her boyfriend (he is, they are in love, not even a shadow of a doubt about that ever) and that whole spiel goes on for much too long.
Stephanie on the other hand is just plain crazy and can come across as super annoying. And what the MC eventually does to her is basically the same he does with Kylee. No variation really.
Amelie is super sweet, super nice, super pretty, but SO SO SOOOOO insecure and she keeps pointing out how much she loves her husband who keeps neglecting her (he's almost never home). Her path has glacial progression, it even regresses after the first two chapters and Amelie then is fixated on going on a date with her husband to make things right again... and will reject all advances. But we all know these games, we have played plenty of them and it will not spoil anything when I say this date never materializes... because the husband has no time after all and doesn't even return home, he ditches her on the day of their anniversary of all things.
And only after that the Amelie loop continues... with the same kissing and groping/massages/yoga. Only that you feel and see that Amelie becomes more and more ok with it. That's some progress at least.
So depending on your tolerance levels for intense teasing this game may give you high blood pressure. And things can get old after a while. How many more times do you want to see Kylee grinding herself on the MC while telling him that actual sex cannot ever happen because... "reasons"? Or Stephanie doing the same things as Kylee? Or Amelie exchanging kisses? Sometimes all of that strung together in one endless sequence of teasing with three characters in a row on one evening/night? Even the MC complains about this in his inner monologue. So at least the dev knows very well what he is doing here...
All that being said the dev either felt guilty for the insane teasing or has an actual plan... because in the latest update this loop of utter insanity is finally broken. But at that point you probably wait for the uncle to storm in or for an earthquake to hit or for the partner to get cold feet once more...
However, none of that happens and the scene you get is very, very long (the longest yet), the MC and the LI do all kinds of wholesome vanilla stuff in various positions, and they do it with abandon. As if to make up for all the repetitive teasing scenes from before. Animations are also pretty great at this point in the game. So the floodgates have at least opened for one main character now and the relationship has reached the next level. And the payoff is actually very good and satisfying!
The thing is, as you can also see by the many positive reviews, the game is not bad, not even remotely so. The teasing is very effective, there's a lot erotic tension, the characters, while not super original, are at least compelling, especially Amelie and Kylee. Stephanie may be an acquired taste and again, she looks a bit young... but she gets better in later chapters. Mia and Lauren, for me, are completely forgettable inessential side characters. Their only purpose is to distract from the constant teasing you otherwise get. But their scenes in return feel hollow and meaningless. Thus I eventually reloaded a save and rejected both of them.
And yes, you can reject characters in this game. With Lauren it may not be super obvious how to do that. I had to consult a walkthrough to see which options I need to choose to set a certain variable to "false". Because orginally Lauren gave the MC a blowjob even with her lust attribute at a whopping 0. But that scene is avoidable if the MC insults Lauren a bit earlier, but to get the insult option you first have to pick a positive reply... which was not very intuitive without a walkthrough.
So... should you play this game if you like the genre? As things are now, with release 0.6test.... Absolutely. You will be rewarded towards the very end and the otherwise endless teasing at least finds an end with one of the love interests. That will make the ultra slow burn with other characters much more bearable. Despite all that the teasing may give YOU heart problems while playing the game since several overused tropes are used here and things are in a groundhog day loop for quite a long time.
And if you happen to love slow burn... you can't go wrong here. Maybe Stephanie may annoy you but both Kaylee and Amelie will keep you playing, they are both great. You can also reject Mia and Lauren and you will still get more than enough content, both are really just stress relief characters and otherwise not important really.
Heart Problems does not bring anything new to the table really, you know the archetypes, you know the tropes, you know the patented sexual progression route used in countless VNs... but what Heart Problems does pretty well is creating erotic tension between characters and they are at least not as 2-dimensional as in many other games, at least Amelie and Kylee. Who are the two most important characters in this game, in my opinion.
The entire game is also very wholesome, everything here is based on mutual love and romance (even with Stephanie to a somewhat lesser degree, the MC is not as much into her at first). There are (so far) no forced kinks, everything is vanilla, which I appreciate a lot.
You do get plenty of scenes with all the main love interests, it's never boring, but after getting the same kind of interaction for the fourth of fith time and at one point even getting those scenes three times in a row with all three main characters one after another in one long sequence... you may dread the next scene... because you may have lost all hope at that point that things will ever progress... or maybe you just start quoting Vaas from Far Cry.
Thus the spoiler... you will be rewarded! Maybe this will keep you from having actual heart problems. The payoff at the very end of the current build is absolutely worth your time. And that one scene alone will make every other encounter before that worth playing.
I would generally advise that you wait with slow burn games until there is sufficient content and progress at least on one route, as there is now. I do not want to know how people felt after release 0.5.
