Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Decline Romances in Video Games

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
Dafuq? Baldur's Gate 2 had romances? I'll assume you mean the dating sim kind, like Ass Effect and Dragon Age and KOTOR?

Or is this some other nex-gen use of the abbreviation BG2?

So does it have to be optional or are you talking about romantic involvements that just happen in the story anyway, over which the player has no control?
You are so edgy it's bleeding, Zarni. IT is the dating sim kind, albeit primitive. The ways those fanbois of BG2 romance goes full retard, it left a huge impression on Bioware. The rest, as we say, is history.

Seriously, the marketing ploy to create hype for Mass Effect and Dragon Age is the romance hook, to lure in those retards.
 

JasonNH

Augur
Joined
Jun 10, 2009
Messages
277
Karateka_Startsequenz.png


Karateka_kampf1.png


karateka_princess-768754.png


I think the romance worked for me because she never talked.
 

Baron Dupek

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2013
Messages
1,870,765
IIRC one of the codexer, (propably DDZ) have avatar from the game that introduced this thing. Or it introduced other option that heterosexual variant...
16094.jpg
 
Joined
Jun 20, 2014
Messages
906
Location
Malaysia
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
This might be heresy at Codex, but I find romance to be a good and cheap way to pull and immerse the players into the story, if done right.
It gives players a sense of weight and form attachment to the characters in the game which is always a good thing.
After all, it is no secret that most young people who play RPG usually self project themselves into their game avatar, intentionally or not.
And it's definitely no secret that young people are horny bastards, evident by the top most popular mods for Skyrim.

Of course, you can simply duplicate that element with less cringing involved by writing good interpersonal dialogues and story-lines among the characters, but that takes quite a lot more effort.
 

DramaticPopcorn

Guest


You don't want this. It doesn't have to end like this. This isn't the future we chose, it is the future we got.

GOOD.
FUCKING.
GOD.

I'm a sucker for a shitty hollywood romantic comedy from time to time but this was the most obnoxious and downright insulting shit I've seen in years.
Holy shit.
 

Fowyr

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Mar 29, 2009
Messages
7,671
I seriously never encountered it. But then I only played through once.
You can just say "fuck off" to all romance shit and never see it again. Second, "romance" banter was controlled by timer that was freezed most part of the game (right after leaving the city and through all Underdark).
Probably most popular mod for BG2 was mod that opened and quickened all romances.
Also NPCs mods. These NPCs mods... Half of them had "has romance!!!" in description. Also Imoen's romance mod. :lol: Why I'm having word "romance" in all my sentences? Fuck romances.
 
Joined
Aug 5, 2009
Messages
3,749
Location
Moo?
For the first half of the game Neeshka practically radiates desperate crush vibes if you've shown her the least bit of kindness. Elanee, Shandra, Qara any new female party member gets the catty treatment if she so much as sneezes in your direction.
 

Gentle Player

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2011
Messages
2,334
Location
Britain
Have to second Torment as one of the very few games to have done romance right. Rather than throwing it in just for the sake of having a love story, it was something woven perfectly into the game's main theme.

Also no tacky sexual scenes or even fade-to-black.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,805
Well ladies would need to find his dong first to have anything more than fade-to-black scene.

On thread subject.
I always find them unsalvageable. For few reasons.

First they introduce mr. nice guy dialogues where if you want to progress you need to always play mr nice guy. They should probably give fedora achievement after each romance...
Secondly they introduce concept of wooden doll. Partners don't have anything to say, partners exist only to be banged, partners are wooden doll created for player to fuck/love.
Third. They always introduce it as some metaphysical excrement of some virgin writer fap theory. Reality doesn't work like that. People like each other, people fuck each other and that is usually it. There is no infinite wall they need first brake through. There is no riddle to solve. There is no quest to solve.
Fourth. There is no continuity because it is treated as sort of prize. For whole game you played as mr. nice guy for your interest object and thanks to it you achieved parter love which will be consumed just before grand so you can put your fedora on blat and start fapping.
Like i said romance in games is product of developers fapping to anime where in reality it is continuous thing that should go along journey and hell sometimes even end along journey.
Fifth. Lack of impact on actual story/game. Like in above statement continuity doesn't exist so reaction to cause also doesn't exist. Player which started to romance queen of nords doesn't get "buff" from having as lover most powerful woman in that area. Love interests in fact don't have anything to say, they don't have their own mind and will.


This is why mostly games suck at it and only few games like The Witcher managed to do it well. Bioware though have one good romance in their games. IT was PC and Samara romance. Though it wasn't amazing but they did it well because it didn't brake Samara as character. It didn't make her blow up doll without her own will and it ended like it should considering who she was and what she did for most of her life.
 
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
4,189
RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In

But in anime romance goeas along the jounrey. There is a reason while in visual novels you have "routes" with totally different elements depending on your chosen girl instead of just a bunch of extra dialogue.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,805
Are you joking ? You are confusing journey to plough someone with life after ploughing.
 
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
4,189
RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
Are you joking ? You are confusing journey to plough someone with life after ploughing.

I thought that by journey you've meant the story. As in romance changing in relation to the story progressing instead of being completely independtent of it.
Ignoring that. There are many VN's where boning someone is not the final point of the romance and comes way before that. In Grisaia no Kajitsu the climax point of the romance in one route comes after the hero had been living for monts as a couple with a chosen heroine. Boning someone also has no impact on romance with any of the heroines, and in one instance comes in the middle of the route and is hardly a significant event (well it turns out to be pretty significant in the final route but has little relationship with the romance plot).
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,805
What is VN ?

edit: nvm i am idiot. Though i wouldn't call VN, "game" in first place.
 
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
4,189
RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
What is VN ?

edit: nvm i am idiot. Though i wouldn't call VN, "game" in first place.

That's why I used them as examples when talking about anime romances, because they are more like interactive anime, than real games.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom