Daz to me looks awful, can't play any games that use it because of that, the faces on some of the games that use it can be nightmare inducing lol. I usually prefer games that use either custom 2D art or Koikatsu for their art, since they're more visually appealing to me at least.
"Honey Select" I like it... on the other hand, "Koikatsu" I can't do it... I missed out on a game whose story I would have liked more because of this one.
I don't love them but they seem like a reasonable set of training wheels for people (like myself) who want to make games but don't have a lot of digital art/animation skills.
The first game I'm planning is deliberately scripted with HS models in mind for that reason. Might also look into Virtamate
I think that they can still be good games but it lowers my initial opinion when I see an Illusion game being used. Typically this means no custom animations and a very amateurish developer. As long as the writing is still good then I'll end up enjoying it since that's the biggest thing in a VN. Other than that, I just hope that it doesn't have lots of grinding in a sandbox or else I'm gonna have to break out the cheats.
The funniest thing is when HS or HS2 models are used in VN or games with European setting.
I don't like them, tried to play them - standardized faces with facial expression limitations. I prefer DAZ or European style cartoon graphics.
having played around in HS a lot, I really liked it. oddly though most games featuring HS are awful; I think I can name maybe 5 good ones. why most devs use few if any mods and stick to basic preprogrammed face and body types is beyond me..
Koikatsu I also really like except when it come to sex scenes. it lends itself better to fantasy/sci-fi/weird shit and humor. if the art showed a liiiittle more detail in the characters it'd be excellent.
I tend to prefer Daz, though I have played a couple fantastic Honey Select games (Ripples being a fantastic example). However, Koikatsu is just too simplistic looking for me to get into. Maybe if there is a particularly fantastic example that gets recommended to me, but the art style is just… bland. At least, in the examples I have seen screenshots from.
I don't mind them, they're not my go to picks, but the story and kinks have to carry the game, simply going by either of those renders is usually a pass.
i think as long the game is good i can overlook it, if i had to choose, i'd rather have Daz and HS2 would be second, HS2 also has tons of mods that can make it look even better and not too high demand for making a vn.
For me usually is like thies:
Daz model tend to be more beautiful, depend on the dev, but have ugly animation.
On opposite the model made by h2 have a realistic look only if made by good modelling, but have some really nice animation that look realistic.