I'm that kind of guy that enjoy some grinding in the h-games. I usually get kinda bored if the game is just about clicking a few times and get a sex scene. If the game gives you "free sex" by doing nothing, i'd rather watch some porn videos instead.
So when the dev introduced this ""Hard mode", and tried to sell it as "for people who likes to grind", i was kinda hyped but damn...
Seriously, this have to be one of the worst mechanic design i've ever seen in a game. The idea is good, but the execution is horrible. "If you ignore a girl, she will get mad". Dude, this is a game with more than 1 character, obviously you will ignore the girls at some time. Once you are focused on unlocking main story content or side character content or any kind of content, EVERY GIRL will get mad.
My game experience on this version was:
-"Cool, hard mode seems interesting".
-"Oh, this girl is mad, i'll give her a gift, now she is fine".
-"The other one is mad too, i will give her a dildo".
-"Surprise, that one is mad too, let's give her something".
-"The first one is mad again, and i don't have items left, let's farm a bit".
-"F**k, the one who craft the gifts is mad too..."
I don't care if i need to farm materials to unlock content, sometimes i like it because it's my thing. But you can't make me farm to unlock content, then lock it again and force me to grind again, just to lock it again and make me farm endlessly every time i want to talk to a character.
i understand the dev wants to create a mechanic that encourage people to stay playing for more time and reward with extra content and i totally approve it, i'm into that, but this is not the way to do this.