Someone else may have already mentioned it, but The Soul Stone War has awesome romances, and even the slow burn ones show progress and aren’t dragged out:
Also, The Shadow Society has good romances:
A work in progress that has excellent romances is Supernatural in New York (this shapes up to be one of the best!):
And, as others said, Guinevere and Fallen Hero.
If you want some suggestions for non-CoG games (both Visual Novels and html based games through Twine) with awesome romance, I can send you a PM if you’re interested.
I do feel like we need more great romance games that aren’t supernatural, though Fallen Hero is definitely awesome. Hearts Choice is off to a good start with romance content - Never Date Werewolves and Pirates Pleasure are not just great F/M romance experiences but well designed and fun games regardless of gender. The dream of a solid M/F game remains of course but there is plenty of well designed female characters for romance in other games too.
All characters of The Wayhaven Chronicles (though M is my personal fav) and all characters of the Fallen Hero series are amazing romance options! There’s put so much heart into all of them. Guenevere’s romances are another obvious recommendation, you can’t go wrong with any of them.
Study in Steampunk’s Finch is the most heartbreaking romance that had a huge and lasting emotional impact on me. All of Heart of the House (though they’re not as elaborate as in the other games mentioned) and Soul Stone War romances were great, too.
Daisy/Dandy from Evertree Inn / Sordwin is my #1 romance of them all. The character arc, the relationship development, how it challenges your expectations of COG romances. It’s so, so well done. D feels like more than a puppet for you to romance.
Edit: Fitzie from Jolly Good! Oh my god. One of my new all-time favorites.
Hey guys, I’ve ventured out to make a rare post on here because I’m curious to what some of your favorite romance games are. Under the Choice of Games umbrella of course, but feel free to branch out as well. I feel like the text based format does romance really well and some of my all-time favorites, like Guinevere by @jeantown, really shine in that aspect. After recently catching up to the manga “A Bride’s Story” by Kaoru Mori I’m really hankering for a good game to sink my teeth into. Any suggestions?
I found the Soul Stone romancable characters great but the actual romance not that much. It instantly went from attraction/flirting to “love of my life”
Zombie Exodus and Slammed had some great romances and great writing to boot. I really enjoyed them both despite the fact that I don’t like either zombies or pro wrestling.
Werewolves: Haven Rising, and Werewolves: Pack Mentality.
I found that Werewolves: Pack Mentality probably has the best romance scenes, even warning you that you can skip them if you feel that it might be too much for you. Pack mentality also lets you carry over your romance from Haven Rising.
SoH has very little liberty for me, I felt I barely had real choices.
Like literally you can’t choose not to kill the fish at the beggining of the book and it hits yoy with “this includes violence blablabla if you’re not confortable blablabla”
And I’m like “I am, but this is just a very stupid decision, you don’t go around stabbing fish in aquariums to eat dammit”
Yeah I agree too. But I still like the game because the plot and atmosphere and the twist near ending for me are similar to anime. I even took screenshots in every chapters in book four especially after meeting Jun (Back again I’m interested in book 4 only) for redrawing . Every scene I always imagine many scenarios that’ll happen if the book is turned into an anime hehe
More relevantly to this thread, I don’t think the romances are all that good. You’ve got Momoko, who disappears after book one. You’ve got Toshio/Toshie, who, while they have some decent moments, only appears for a brief instant in book four so the ronin can pull a “it’s not what it looks like”, and then you’ve got super-toxic Jun/Junko who you get stuck with no matter what for the entire book four.
Of course, YMMV, but I don’t think this all that uncommon an opinion when it comes to the romance in Samurai of Hyuga, even if said opinion holder likes the series in general.
Big agree. Jun/ko can be read as especially unhealthy relationship/“romance” of you don’t consent to all the degradation - forced upon you no matter what.
For interest, the SoH author recognized late that he kinda had at least two massive stories he was trying to put into one, but they got cut for book 4. Tosh had a much bigger piece on the island where it was a big “groundhog day” romance, others had a bit more time, etc. but you only get those romance insights on the author’s Patreon - not in game.
Then that is simply bad design, imho. But then I am done with that series with the atrocity that book 4 was for me, imho of course, anyway.
But in keeping with the thread let me recommend Evertree inn and its sequel, Sordwin. plus @ThomB is working on the third installment. Loved the male romances in that series thus far, particularly the Dandy one.
I echo the same for Evertree saga! I’ve played every possible romance route and response for Evertree Inn, Sordwin, & the Lux demo. Daisy/Dandy reveals the most in game, especially Sordwin (book 2), so they’ve become my most loved.
The only downside I see to introducing new love interests in Book 2 (and soon Book 3) is that you get to know so little of them in comparison to Book 1 ROs
Edit: That is, presuming you’ve started with Evertree Inn and take your RO with you to Sordwin (book 2). In Sordwin, you might get to know Oriana/Orion, Capt Ruby, or Capt Winter in book 3 just as much as you would get to know Daisy/Dandy in book 2. Still unknown.
I would say the latest CoG Jolly Good by @Gower has present a very indepth and philosophical Good romance in term of cosy relationahip and spiritual bonding with the love interest i encountered …
Well, in such case the " Romance" i am referring to is the old fashion " love " by the heart and deeds , instead of " physical romance" or " teen fiction type of romance " .
I can sense that , Jolly Good is just slowly building up the back story and mutual attraction with our romance option , without pushing it into a " one and done" type of love… there were reason for the romance partner to be interested in MC , and we will only get to know their feeling further if we manage to gain their favour… different potential RO will have a different interaction for us to get involved and each cosy moment with them will only let us to love them more
. Every scene I always imagine many scenarios that’ll happen if the book is turned into an anime hehe