Game Review - Harem Games

In this post, we're going to review various "harem games" -- obviously NSFW for-adult game titles. Typically these are visual novels using Ren'Py.

In general, when you pick up a game advertised as "harem", you can expect:

• The main character / protagonist is male and has many love interests with fabulously attractive women.
• There is a route where the main character can maintain relationships with all the love interests without having to choose to drop some.
• There is a route where no one else has sex with the love interests.
• To allow for these outcomes, the character stories are generally independent, which also results in a lack of consequences to the game world. Trying to account for the sheer number of permutations of when things happen would be pretty crazy.

This is still a work in progress as we play more of these games and try to find meaningful information to present so that you the potential harem game consumer, can make informed choices and not waste as much time on lousy titles.

Generally the games will score quite low on animation, which may feel unusual or unfair, but there is a lot of competition from high-quality animations nowadays that are quite freely available, especially the longer clips by The Count and Nagoonimation.

It is not simply the quality of the graphics and animation: The better content creators are not just simple loops of something thrusting into something but come with evocative voiceovers and better scene composition / direction of action for more eroticism; whereas often that is lacking in many works, including those in harem games, and you get the sense of just "boring sex".

A character's story and "your" relationship (i.e., the main character's relationship) with the character deepens the connection to them and adds "meaning" to a sex scene in a way that an animation loop without story generally lacks. This is what makes animations of Tifa Lockhart or Chun Li so sought-after compared to some made-up animated character with no prior story that the viewer has experienced.

So right away harem games are at a disadvantage, and when the player has finally progressed to where the main character is having sex, the scene really has to be worth the journey, more than the shortcut of searching on Pornhub for an already recognized character and with a fantasy already in mind.

So far we review:

• A House in the Rift
• Come Home
• Milfy City
• Village Rhapsody
• V.I.R.T.U.E.S.

A House in the Rift 0.7

Unique Selling Proposition

• Non-sexual events involving different combinations of characters, and the game world changes.
• Unlike many harem games where there's a certain "open world" feel where the player can choose which character to pursue, A House in the Rift feels more like a single long narrative. With more control over when things happen, the author can put in more events and world changes involving several characters.

Main Character:

• The main character is "you" the player, and the first person POV in basically every scene reinforces that.

Character Design:

• A variety of fantasy-setting stereotypes including an elf and a dwarf, and various backgrounds such as pirate or student. However little of that matters once they are brought to the contemporary-Earth-setting house.
• If a green skinned orc that otherwise looks like a tall bodybuilder doesn't do anything special for you, then it could just be a drawback in the end.
• Even the human or mostly human characters are not particularly attractive. The incidental characters you encounter who are NOT part of the harem household are often much more attractive, and that's just disappointing.
• The personalities of the characters, especially the later ones, can be more irritating than interesting, although some of this is probably related to specific fetishes.
• Since you can't really skip any character in order to advance the broader narrative, the player has to deal with the full range of characters.
• And I feel this is overall a drawback. It is unlikely that every character will appeal to every player given the broad net they are casting.
• Other harem games that try to have a little something for various relationship stereotypes also have independent storylines so you don't have to engage with the ones you really, really don't like -- a good example being Come Closer.

Animation:

• Animations are rather good especially considering the limitations on showing the main character, who is almost always in first person. This means a lot of the heavy lifting is on the scene composition and the facial expressions of the love interests.

Story Quality:

• When considering the Story Quality we are completely overlooking the premise that gets the main character and various characters into their situation in the first place that allows characters from various unrelated settings to be pulled in. There are worse ways other harem games and novels start. At least there isn't a long preamble just to position the main character in the game world in order to get things started.
• There are some fun events involving different characters or going on dates with some characters. These are the best events, more fun and meaningful to the main character than the story arcs of the love interests.
• Each character has their own story arc, but the main character is basically not involved at all. They just need him to taxi them to the location of their story event. During events, things just happen around "you" the main character and rarely does anything significant happen to you.
• That weakens the investment and connection to that character, limiting it to just talking about their issues after each event.
• In most games, harem or otherwise, the main character has more involvement in what is going on in the main story. At some point their intervention is critical. They are actually important.
• There sometimes choices where you can choose to be indifferent or mean to certain characters. This feels pointless because they do not really lead to an alternative outcome with that character and often you will need to make up for it in order to proceed with the main story or their personal stories.

Come Home Update 16

Unique Selling Proposition

• Romance focus in the stories, events, and during sex.

Main Character:

• Looks like beefcake from a romance novel cover.
• Basically an upstanding person.

Character Design:

• The broadest range of character designs I've seen so far, and not just in the variety of body shapes.
• Love interests seem intentionally designed to be average or below average. Eden McGee even looks masculine, like how some men sex-changed into women retain masculine facial features.

Animation:

• Animations are OK but the dialog / text tends to undermine the eroticism. Sometimes it as simple as characters being a bit too chatty. The dialog during events and romantic dates are carrying this game.
• Many harem games have all the love interests eventually in a very submissive role during sex, but Come Closer seems to focus on the love interest being more active (and chatty) and happy during sex.
• Many after-date sex scenes feel very short and forgettable, almost like a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am situation, which is contrary to the romance theme every other time.
• Any type of kink, even mild ones like hair-pulling and rougher sex, is generally limited to specific characters.
• On the one hand this makes those characters more unique, but on the other it can be frustrating when a character you are not attracted to has the sex you are looking for.
• And since the characters are all very different in appearance, getting the right combo can be a long shot.
• Come Home is best experienced for the stories and romantic atmosphere, not so much the eye candy and sex.

Story Quality:

• Character stories are okay, and stretched out with fun, romantic date events or repeatable dates.
• If you're looking for a sense of connection with the love interests, this game does it better than most, especially with the events and dates.
• There seems to be an effort to add new content to each character rather than a story that's "done" and all that's left is re-watching sex scenes from a gallery.

Cautions:

• Izzy, Jez, and Reba have intertwining stories. You have to advance all three to some degree and it's possible to lock yourself out of continuing Izzy's story. This is not the norm for a harem game.

Milfy City 1.0d

(walkthrough/guide, secret gallery clickable locations)

Unique Selling Proposition

• Dialog choices mostly have no effect on the outcome, but are presented at an emotional or crisis moment that can really make you stop to seriously think what might happen. For a first playthrough this has a powerful impact on the experience of the story. This is the best aspect of Milfy City.

Main Character:

• Average skinny barely-legal male.
• Characterization is typically slightly immature but sometimes clueless and stupid. Since the main character is supposed to be "you" the player, this is probably the second biggest hurdle to enjoying the game.

Character Design:

• Aside from two "barely legal" age love interest, the characters are mature women and with very similar bodies from the neck down.
• Characters are very pretty but in some static scenes their facial expressions may result in making the same character suddenly look quite different.
• Almost all the love interests end up with the same type of sexual preference, which unfortunately further makes them feel the same.

Animation:

• Mostly static scenes but the few simple animation loops are good. The scene composition and camera angles help with the eroticism.
• Text / dialog during the sex scenes can add a lot of the eroticism depending on how much you like "dirty talk".
• Tends toward longer sex encounters compared to other games, even when there's only one position involved in the event.

Story Quality:

• Rather good and varied stories.
• Except for the Neighbour/Sidra, whose story was apparently deleted and what remains is a waste of time click-through so you can access her home and look for secret clickable locations to unlock Secret Gallery images.

Caution:

• Involves grinding various types of minigames in order to get money to buy various quest items. This seems to be the number one barrier to enjoying the game and it's apparently enough to make people look for cheats. People play a harem game for the stories and sex, not to repeat a minigame that has neither of those characteristics and isn't fun.
• Many character stories are unlocked by progressing with other characters first.

Village Rhapsody

Unique Selling Proposition:

• Farming sim
• While there are an increasing number of cozy and more complex farming / life sims, almost no one is catering to a more mature audience despite relationships and quests with various characters in the game world.
• Village Rhapsody is unfortunately very underdeveloped as both a farming sim and a harem game but offers both together along with silly cartoony fun. Plus it's really cheap on Steam. Hopefully there will be more and better titles that blend harem games with farm sims or life sims.

Main Character:

• Average slim male "everyman" who is barely presented.
• The focus is basically always on the characters he interacts with. The main character basically has no personality at all.

Character Design:

• Pretty anime love interests, including some "monster girls" -- basically intelligent anthropomorphized animals.
• Given the art direction / concept, there's not much they can do here except go for higher resolution and better composition of the scenes.

Animation:

• Basic and mediocre, nothing really worth revisiting. Not really much more erotic than a sexy static picture of the same character.

Story Quality:

• Very short but generally good fun / comedy.
• Extended by having to do various farm sim / life sim tasks like farming crops, mining, and fishing. These are all done in a very basic way, and therefore ultimately unsatisfying. Especially as you don't need to even do so much and there is no point doing more after the stories are concluded, even though the option exists to decorate the game world with various craftable furnishings.

V.I.R.T.U.E.S.

Unique Selling Proposition:

• Very pretty characters with a good range of different faces. This is the main selling point of this game. A terrible story would probably ruin it, but fortunately the storylines are not bad.
• Events involving various combinations of love interests.
• To keep things uncomplicated, many harem games have completely independent story lines. In VIRTUES, the author eventually pulls them altogether to culminate in a best-case happy ending with everyone together.
• The same author has started P.H.O.E.N.I.X.E.S. which has more interesting stories and a superheroes setting, along with the same very pretty character designs.

Main Character:

• Average slim male.
• Characterization is initially an aloof playboy but after an early plot event changes to mature.

Character Design:

• Aside from one "barely legal" age love interest Irene, the love interests are mature women with large to exceptionally large breasts.
• Everyone eventually transitions into slut / slave behavior and this transition can feel quite fast and the resulting scenes sometimes outrageous, though this may be targeted at various fetishes.
• Some costumes are really awful, most are just okay.

Animation:

• Scenes and animation are passable / mediocre. Not really worth replaying and the text doesn't help much to enhance the eroticism.

Story Quality:

• Stories are nothing too special. Generally they revolve around each love interest falling more and more in love with the character now that he has become more mature.
• The story feels stretched out because you have to repeat some activities / revisit some locations (but no minigame involved) until you acquire enough relationship or money to advance a storyline..
• There is the option to be exclusive with various characters but this is invariably written as an inferior choice / bad ending, which feels rather pointless to offer.
• As the various love interests start to live in the same house, there are events involving various combinations of characters.
• Strange deviation in the main character's personality in the early parts of Uno's story.