House of Hearts, where to begin...
Harem Game, First and Foremost
House of Hearts is, at it's core, a harem game where you as the player are not given the choice on who is added (at least for certain characters). I'm getting this point out of the way first primarily because not all players will realize that certain LIs are forced, especially since some projects are more lenient in giving players the choice on who is added. However, it doesn't detract from the overall quality of the forced LIs as the premise as to why certain characters are forced is explained in Game of Hearts, except now we're dealing with more girls rather than just one at a time.
Unique Characters, Rich Story
HoH builds upon the plot points introduced in the first chapter in that the character we play - Nero - is a demon who lost his memories and power, and all demons need worshipers to increase their power. GoH starts off with Maxime being Nero's first true servant as exposition to the idea, and later the player spends time covnerting Meredith into one as well. This idea of gaining worshipers is expanded in HoH in that we're now persuing two candidates, but each one requires a different approach from both each other and Meredith in terms of converting them.
GoH also establishes a second type of LI in the form of Julia, who follows a more traditional sense of winning her affection. Julia's established history with Nero meant that her story focused more on helping her fall in love with who Nero is now (player controlled) rather than being hung up on her love who he was. HoH switches that idea up a bit by introducing Brie, who like Julia does have a history with Nero, but it's through his mom rather than a direct relationship. Brie's story is the closest the player can get to your tradition persuit of a relationship; no powers, no mind tricks, just you and her romancing each other in a rather sweet way.
In terms of the story, HoH continues the main plot point of the player building a Harem to prepare for some kind of war that's coming. What remains unclear though is whether our degree of success in converting Olivia and Helena will have any significant impact on the story since GoH never really punished the player for poor performance. Additionally, the power system that existed in GoH (and subsequently forgotten) doesn't make an immediate return in HoH, instead you now earn "tokens" which can be used to develop traits or pursue romances with characters like Brie.
Another point to keep in mind is that the only choice the player has with respect to Olivia and Helena is the type of relationship you form with them: love, or corruption. The love route seems to focus on building a true bond between Nero and the respective LI wherein they genuine care about him. The corruption route seems to follow the opposite principal wherein Nero treats the LI as a resource and focusing primarily on increasing their lust towards the player (i.e. not "true love"). The disappointing aspect of this love/corruption system is that it's a binary choice that depends primarily on whether you choose to cum inside the girl or not rather than the already implented "love"/"lust" points.
Stunning Visuals, Terrible Post Processing
Now onto my biggest gripe with the game: the visuals...
All of the character models are attractive in their own way, especially during the orientation scenes with Helena and Olivia. However, there seems to be a common design centering on the shape of the eyes that feels like an overt attempt at conveying the bleakness of the story. Seriously, Asmodeus, Brie, and Karly have near identical core designs of their eyes (downturn slanted, aka "puppy eyes"?...), which is honestly more of a nitpick from me than a common criticism.
And speaking of criticism, the dev makes two aesthetic choices that are the primary reason for the 4-star rate. The first stems from the entire prologue to HoH being in a fixed cinematic 2.39:1 ratio. I honestly cannot fathom why this choice was made considering the rest of the game is in standard aspect ratios, but regardless of the reason it nearly caused me to abandon this project entirely.
The second main issue stems from the "creative" decision to max out the saturation levels on EVERY SINGLE RENDER. I get that it's an aesthetic choice, but that doesn't mean it's not a terrible aesthetic choice. Anyways, the abuse of the saturation levels results in scenes having a blurriness that resembles the end product of AI "enchanced" images. The effect is especially notable in low contrast scenes where colors and textures start blending together creating a rather unpleasant experience overall.
If there's one thing I genuinely want the dev to address then it would be the reliance on saturating renders as if it were a post by an Instagram model.
