Romance in games?

[DikaSmausha]

What is your favorite story? You have to admit though, at least in ME you had choices.

[ReeceH]

It's alright for me as long as it's optional or very integral to character development.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[philfredobob]

What is your favorite story? You have to admit though, at least in ME you had choices.

my favourite story is the story of Final Fantasy X (sorry to those who think i say this a lot )

i dunno, choices are overrated. im a sheep, not a shepard

[Avron the S'wit]

That's actually my biggest thing in Skyrim right now. I want to explore the possibility for marriage and a family, but when do I realistically have time for it? I'm out there saving the day, going around saying, "Stand back, Dragonborn coming through!" Seems a bit strange to ignore all of my responsibilities just to scope out who I'm going to play house with. And I'd be a horrible husband, anyway, with always being gone and saving the world and all.

This is why I chose Farkas. He's one of the people that my character "knew" best, because he's along for quite a bit of the Companions questline. They spent their honeymoon traveling around Skyrim for quite some time. Apart from a case like that, though, it's difficult to picture a relationship forming.

Overall, I basically feel the same way - I like having it as an option, but I don't know how I'd feel about it being a major part of the story.

Makes sense to me. The only person I can realistically see my character knowing well or having spent a significant amount of time with is Lydia, and after dealing with everyone else in Skyrim, I can happily put up with her.

Romance is easy because it sells. Everyone wants to be in love, love makes us think warm, happy thoughts, it's a beautiful thing, and it adds an extra humanistic element to stories. As long as it isn't forced on me, I'm okay!

[KryptonianBlood]

Dragon Age: Origins did romance GREAT!
Especially with Morigan, and it affected the plot at the end in a big way too.

In fact people loved it so much, they made a DLC just for people that wanted some closure on the relationship, you could play it without having a relationship with her beforehand, but there wouldn't be much point.

Knights of the Old Republic one did it fine for their time. Especially dark side. It couldn't be anything more in that game because you never actually have a relationship. You just get to the point of flirting if you play your cards right, but that was done very well in my opinion.

TES series should never have romance again. It's pathetic in skyrim, I think anyone would agree with that. No depth at all. Anyone will marry you if you wear an amulet and do a quest, and every wife is EXACTLY the same.


What they should have done, was took note from the original dragons age, and offer the same amount of dialogue the four love interests of that game offered. The edited sex scenes would be nice too, it really felt more emotional rather than sexual in my opinion.

To do this they would need to cut the number of romantic choices, meaning no we don't get a male and female from each race, but we could get a male and female from human and elven, and spreading the race choices there could give us four potential love interests, all done VERY well. Mods could alter the races and make the female elf, dunmer, altmer, breton and so on.

The beast races in an expansion, and two more human/elves in a later expansion for more variety.

And no simply marrying because of a quest, we should have unique dialogue, and depending on our choices you can come back one a week with more dialogue, and after a long time, eventually hit the marry point.

[Moeboid]

Ok, so who are my two friends who voted no? Come on, fess up!

I just wanted to add that obviously romance makes perfect sense in games like The Sims. Probably should've made that clear, but I didn't think of it at the time. Looks like that was clear enough to everyone that such games were exempt. I haven't seen anyone bring them up.

[skullclutter]

I thought it might be obvious, but I also voted no. Too often it just feels poorly done and only thrown in because the developers feel it HAS to be there. I wish more developers would leave it out unless they can spend the time to do it well.

[Ediramadi]

I don't mind romantic elements to my video games as long as I'm not having to play a guy chasing after Mary Sues. In fact often times I go out of my way to find such games, though if that were truly the case all the time I wouldn't have traded in my collection of Harvest Moon games over the years.

[Mr.Argonian]

Romance, when done right, adds a great amount of the game, making me feel more like I have a place in that world. Bioware romances are probably my favourite, Mass Effect and Dragon Age have great romances. I think it works best when we have a choice to enter one or not. Having it shoehorned on us can make it feel forced and unrealistic.

[Veck]

They're good as long as they follow the general rules:
-Characterise goddammit. There's nothing I hate to see more in any form of media than a romance subplot where you're expected to care for the love interest purely because she's (and let's face it, it's always a she) the main character's love interest rather than her having any kind of personality for you to grow attached to.

-If you're going to drop it in as a subplot then make it relevant to the actual course of the narrative. Have your protagonist and love interest actually spend time together and develop in their relationship etc. Big emphasis on the word "develop". As I've already stated you're only going to care about the romance if you care about the love interest as a character so you need to have exposure to them rather than having them dropped into your lap carrying a bouqet and chocolates. Bioware does this pretty well, although their romances still suck because...

-Don't make it shallow or token. Bioware partly do actual romances (their tactic of getting you to build a rapport with your spuad is for the most part excellent) so badly because of this. Hey, anyone want a guide on how to get some blue tentacle action in Mass Effect? Just hit the paragon option in every conversation you ever have with Liara and... What's that, Ash is accusing you of playing her as well? Well, your bad for talking to her politely as well. There's no sense of flow, surprise or challenge to it at all, just heading to their ship location after every mission, talking to them if they aren't in the middle of some calibrations and holding your left stick/mouse in the top right position. And yes Mars I know Dragon Age does it differently before you get mad at me.

[Frost Mage]

Bioshock Infinite did it right, so there's that.

[cybrxkhan]

I don't mind as long as they either...

1) Make it so vague and general, like marriage in Skyrim, that it doesn't really matter that much and I can roleplay it as much as I want to (or not).

2) Make a decent story out of it. This one's much harder for me, since I have strict standards for storytelling in general, and probably romance due to all the potential cliches is even stricter.

[Br3admax]

Bioshock Infinite did it right, so there's that.

wut?

[Kerr]

Did we play the same Bioshock Infite? What romance?

[Veck]

Stop frigging talking about Infinite in the open like this you spoiler-throwing [&@%!].

[MARS]

KEEP IT IN THE BEDROOM

Like romances. I'm funny.

[Mehra Milo]

i hav downloade Catherine on PSN, since it is free as a PSN+ customer, and played around half an hour. It seems to have relationship/marriage/affaire going wrong as a main theme..
It was actually quit interesting, so i might play some more..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_(video_game)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsdKPNpNsIM[/youtube]

[Generalno1]

Bioshock Infinite did it right, so there's that.

Don't think you were paying attention.

Spoiler:

or if you were, you're creepy.

[DikaSmausha]

Bioshock Infinite did it right, so there's that.

No they didn't. You have no choice about the relationship.

[Frost Mage]

OH GOD I'M SO SORRY ABOUT THAT I WASN'T THINKING. 0_0

[DorostheConqueror]

I didn't like the romance aspect in Mass Effect at all. Dragon Age was awesome, because they had a really interesting character worthy of romancing, Leliana (she's MAI WAIFU so getcherhandsorf!!!). In Mass Effect? Well, in the first one my girlfriend died, so boo hoo, and then in the second one they wouldn't let me romance Kelly Chambers! Not properly, at any rate. ME3, well, I never even bothered playing that game, on account of there STILL not being any official romance with Yeoman Kels. BUMP DAT, YO. The only thing worse than a game without romances, is a game with all the wrong romances. Totally kills the mood, and then proceeds to rub my face in it with all it's "but wouldn't you like to get an Achievement for banging Alien Respirator Chick?" nonsense. NO I WOULD NOT. GIVE ME KELLY OR GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK.

Skyrim was also pretty awful in this respect (seriously, Dovahkiin, Y U NO MARRY BABETTE?), but fortunately I console coded in the right wives for my character. So unless:

. you luck out, and your game has a damsel faire worthy of my pretend-affections, or
. you leave your game open ended enough that I can hack the romances to my liking

...then you might as well just leave 'em out.

[Veck]

I'm pretty sure there is a romance with Kelly in ME3... That lasts about ten seconds with you getting blue-balled the entire time culminating in her disappearing forever.

[DorostheConqueror]

Yeah, I read about it :

Spoiler:

There's an optional encounter, where you meet her briefly, on a planet she's hiding out on. If you've got no ongoing romance, you can profess your undying love for her and have one last hurrah in some shipping crates. That's pretty much it. She doesn't join you, doesn't have any more dialogue, and half the time she gets shot to death off-camera later on. In some ways it's better that way - the Kelly "romance" is a blank slate, so it let's you fill in whatever details you like (my favorite fanon is that Le Shipping Crate Tryst results in Shepard Jr). But it's not enough.

I would have also liked to have seen a Joker romance, but no luck there, either.

[Veck]

Well there is a Joker romance, but it sure as hell isn't with FemShep.

[DorostheConqueror]

Is it with EDI? Seth Green mentioned that he wanted Joker to have an EDI romance, way back in the ME2 days.