Special Harem Class feels like someone mashed a horny dating sim with a lazy summer in a city you only visit in dreams, then sprinkled in a bunch of “yeah this is totally an educational program” lies on top. You’re the guy who didn’t get into any normal college and somehow lands in this weird pre-college thing where every girl looks like she escaped from an anime convention and a porn studio at the same time. The teacher, Claire, is supposed to help you “prepare for higher education”, but she’s way more invested in helping you get inside every girl in the class. And herself. A lot. She’s kind of your pervert handler and it’s hilarious. One moment she’s telling you to study, next moment she’s jerking you off in the office while explaining how to “evaluate interpersonal relationships”. It’s stupid and hot and you just roll with it.

The city map is where the roguelike part of my brain woke up a little. You just wander. Click around. Go to the café at the wrong time of day and suddenly you walk in on one of the girls doing lewd cosplay in the backroom for some extra cash. Go to the park “just to farm affection” and you end up getting a blowjob behind a tree after picking the dialogue option that sounded like a joke. The game loves those small chains. Like you talk to a side girl once at the bus stop, forget about her, then twenty in-game days later she shows up at the mall with a completely different outfit and drags you to the bathroom for a quick, sloppy fuck because “you looked lonely”. The scenes are not just copy-paste either. There are these moments where the camera stays way too long on a girl’s face while she’s moaning and drooling on your cock, and it feels uncomfortably intimate, in the good porn way. Animation loops are everywhere, so every thrust is shown, every little twitch, tits bouncing in this hypnotic, slightly janky rhythm.

What I really liked is how the affection grind tricks you. At first you’re just chasing numbers like a min-max goblin, then suddenly you hit a sex scene that feels way more personal than expected. One of the main girls starts as the “tsundere” cliché, you know, all attitude, but her later scenes are basically her losing control on top of you, begging for your cum and admitting she checks her phone every night waiting for your messages. And you’re sitting there pants around your ankles going “wow ok feelings now, cool”. Then five minutes later you’re raw-dogging a random side chick in a stairwell, zero romance, just sweat and spit and hurried thrusts because someone might come in. It swings between sweet and filthy without warning. There’s a ton of content already, and the dev clearly has a fetish for variety in positions. Titjobs with cum dripping down, anal scenes where the girl’s expression goes from “no way” to “harder” in one loop, public stuff in the city where she’s trying to keep quiet and absolutely failing. Also there’s that one Claire scene in the classroom with the desk, you’ll know when you get it, where she’s riding you slowly while still acting like a serious teacher, glasses and all, and then breaks character mid-sentence when you grab her ass and pull her down harder. I replayed that like, too many times. Only thing that annoyed me is sometimes I’d click through a day trying to trigger a new event and end up with nothing, just empty routine, but then the next week the game drops two new sex scenes on me back to back and I forget I was annoyed at all.

So there's this game called Cartoon Hearts and honestly? It's kinda weird but in that good way where you can't look away from a car crash, except the car crash is horny teenagers and cartoon characters going to high school together.

You play some random dude - because it's always some random dude, isn't it - walking around what looks like a normal city but surprise! Raven's doing her goth thing in art class, Violet Parr's trying not to phase through her desk during math, and Starfire's probably setting something on fire in chemistry because that's just Tuesday for her. The whole setup is unhinged in the best possible way. Like someone took Saturday morning cartoons and said "what if they all went to the same school and had raging hormones?" which is either brilliant or deeply concerning depending on your perspective. The writing bounces between actually clever character interactions and moments where you're like wait did Raven just say that? Because she did and it's weird but also... kinda works?

Each girl's got her whole personality thing going on - shy artist with mysterious vibes, popular athlete who's secretly insecure, alien princess who doesn't understand human customs but definitely understands human anatomy. Standard visual novel fare but with characters you actually recognize instead of Generic Anime Girl #47. The dialogue gets pretty explicit when things heat up, which they do because that's literally the point. Some scenes hit different when it's characters you've known since you were like twelve, creates this whole cognitive dissonance that's either your thing or absolutely not your thing. No middle ground here. The art style does this thing where it tries to stay true to the original designs while making them more... adult-oriented, if you catch my drift. Sometimes it works great, other times Starfire looks like she walked out of a completely different universe than Teen Titans but whatever, you're not here for art consistency anyway.

Kazuma finally gets to be the horny dirtbag the anime kept teasing, and honestly, it feels right. Adventurer Trainer throws you into Axel again, but instead of just watching Aqua be useless, you actually get to manage your days, grind a bit, talk shit to people, then end the day buried in some poor girl's pussy if you play your cards right. It runs in Ren’py, but it doesn’t feel like one of those lazy click-next-and-fap games, because half the time you’re juggling quests, gold, and figuring out how to not die to frogs while also trying to get Megumin to stop exploding everything and actually sit still long enough for you to undress her. The game is kind of ugly on purpose sometimes, like the UI just exists and doesn't care if you like it, and somehow that fits. It’s like those scuffed uploads you watch on Pornhub in incognito: rough around the edges, but you keep watching anyway because it pushes the right buttons. One moment you’re laughing at Aqua crying again, the next you’re balls deep in a fully animated scene with her squirming and whining and you’re thinking “yeah, this is exactly how this should go.”

What really hooked me was how often the game lets you be an asshole. You can play Kazuma as a semi-decent human, sure, but why would you, when the dialog clearly wants you to be a bit of a creep? There’s this event where you push Darkness into this heavy BDSM-flavored training and she pretends to be offended while literally shaking in place, begging for more abuse in that classic masochist paladin way. The writing feels like someone who actually watched Konosuba and then went “ok, but make it horny as fuck.” And then went too far. In a good way. I never thought I’d care about picking stats in a porn game, but here I am min-maxing luck so I can get better loot and also unlock just slightly more humiliating outcomes in some scenes. The romance part is funny because it's romantic only if your idea of romance is bullying girls you like until they moan your name; still, the banter is nice, sometimes even sweet when you’re alone with Rem and the tone suddenly softens and you’re like “wait, when did this stop being just porn.” It doesn’t, of course, because a few lines later you’re pounding her from behind and she’s whimpering into a pillow. The best part is how your daily choices end up stacking into little surprises. Like, I spent way too long working the guild counter, sending random adventurers to die, mostly for the money, then suddenly a chain unlocked and I’m getting thanked in a private room by a very grateful girl in a very unholy way. I could complain that the grind gets a bit annoying, or that the tavern background music loop made me mute the tab in Chrome out of spite and never turn it back on, but then I hit another animated H-scene where Megumin’s thighs are shaking and her voice is cracking and my brain kinda forgot I was annoyed at anything at all.

The earthquake drill thing is such a weird plot device, honestly. Like, who thought "natural disaster simulation" would be the perfect meet-cute scenario? But whatever, it gets you roommates with Riley and that's where things get interesting. This femboy graphic designer has serious emotional baggage - the kind that makes you want to both protect him and corrupt him at the same time. His whole deal about being harassed and discriminated against feels real enough, even if the setup is janky.

Riley's got this vulnerable thing going on that hits different. He's not just some stereotypical uwu softboy - there's actual depth here with his insecurity about his work, his sexuality, his place in the world. The visual novel mechanics are pretty standard fare, nothing groundbreaking, but the writing around his character development surprised me. When he opens up about his past relationships and the shit he's dealt with, it doesn't feel like cheap trauma porn. Though I gotta say, some of the dialogue choices are weirdly specific - like why can I ask him about his skincare routine but not his actual job stress?

The adult content builds naturally instead of just throwing sex scenes at you every five minutes. Riley's sexual awakening feels earned, especially when he starts getting more confident and assertive. The art style works well for what it's trying to do, though I wish there were more clothing options during the... interactive moments. Also, why does every yaoi game have to make such a big deal about who's topping? Like, switches exist, developers. The emotional payoff when Riley finally trusts you enough to be completely vulnerable is genuinely sweet, even if the path there involves some questionable dialogue trees. Could use more variety in the intimate scenes though - feels like they ran out of steam halfway through development.