Can’t relate, I’m aromantic poly.
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Honestly, Heart’s Choice romances tend to be a more aggressive take on way too many HG romances, I’ve noticed.
You know how in a lot of HGs, romance just kinda jumps out at you like a bandit in the road, barely any buildup or progression of character arcs before your MC just starts mentally slobbering all over them, and the game either guilt trips you or tries way too hard to seduce you if you don’t immediately bite the hook?
Now imagine that the entire game is just that, but it doesn’t stop, and in some cases, it will eventually pull a gun on you and force you to pick one of the ROs even if you’re trying not to romance anybody (which, I mean, fair, they are marketed as strictly romance games).
But that’s a discussion best continued in a different thread, I think.
So! How 'bout that Black Magic, he asked in a totally not forced manner that definitely isn’t meant to change the subject? Do we still largely dislike them?
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Well… their name is pretty cool! I might steal it for a superhero of my own one day. starts humming in Arlen/Mercer
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Probably the only thing I like about black magic is their name because it’s admittedly kind of cool, the rest, just, no thanks, And I say this as someone who absolutely loves characters who are morally ambiguous, Self-serving, manipulative, or just plain old evil, as long as they’re written well
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I do also like that their powers are just legit magic, but that’s because I’m a sucker for urban fantasy tropes. If I can find the Dresden Files anytime in the near future, I’m probably gonna binge it, gotta be real.
Past that, Black Magic bad.
I suppose we can’t complain too much about Black Magic having apparently limitless power when there’s literally a plot McGuffin called “Infini powers” that more or less allows you to pull hardcore bullshit whenever you so choose, if you so choose.
I did not so choose, because my laser powers saw me through just fine, thank you very much.
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I’m actually not really a fan of black magic’s powersset simply because we don’t really understand the parameters of it. They just seem to be able to do whatever, whenever, however they want, and we don’t really learn exactly what their limits are. I could go on a rant about Brandon Sanderson’s laws of magic/Power systems here but I don’t think anybody really wants to hear that so I won’t, but black magic powerset really doesn’t fit any of those which is why I don’t like it. And yes, read Dresden files, it’s unhealthy not to read at least the first three books
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Yessir 
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I really dislike it when the RO does something that one should always have a conversation about IRL in a healthy relationship before doing.
Such as Lopez inviting your friend over for a surprise threesome. Or inviting himself into an intimate moment when you’re romancing somebody else.
I just found him intensely creepy lol.
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If we wanna talk about forgettable ROs, I think the 3 agency girls from It’s Killing Time takes the spot for me. You got introduced to them, can talk to them optionally in such a stilted manner for 1 scene, and then you have the option to save one of them while the other 2 dies, or just let them all die. It’s just so jarring.
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While I enjoyed It’s Killing Time, I do agree that the all the ROs (including Phoenix) felt a bit forced in for the sake of having romance (there is a thread about that phenomenon where I made my views on including romance to check a box clear).
If the game was longer, they might have been enjoyable romances. Or they could have potentially pulled a Perkins (from John Wick), and that would have been really interesting. The existing story of Killing Time in particular felt like it didn’t really need romance at all.
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Didn’t the Heart’s choice line of games specifically say there would never be any straight stuff which ultimately led a lot of them to be tropy and stereotypical as hell to avoid being read as ‘straight’? Cause that’s what I heard from mutuals who tried them out and I can totally see how it would lead to a lot of annoying routes.
Was it? Didn’t it turn out to be life force powered reality warping?
I mean, that’s kinda the problem here, there is very much mechanisms at play here and it’s the same as any other superpowers in the setting, mumbo jumbo about evolution because of weird internal Iphone (which is weird because you see people with powers who never had said internal iphone, like the MC’s grandma)
So her power is basically explained as a genetic mutation that allow her to use life force (hers or other people’s) to warp reality.
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I’m pretty sure Heart’s Choice didn’t forbid straight romances—it’s just that they didn’t get any pitches, at least initially, from authors who wanted to write straight romance. In the future there may be straight romance in Heart’s Choice, or maybe there already is. I haven’t kept up with what they’re putting out. That’s all wrong, serves me right for not checking the facts before typing. Bottom line is that there is straight romance in Heart’s Choice.
Well, reality warping is really the purest form of magic. Literally ‘a wizard did it’, no other explanation or mechanism needed.
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I would like to know, where this idea comes from, at the moment there are a lot of straight romances in the games, there are a lot of genderlocked games but the majority allows straight romances. The only combination that does not exist is genderlocked male with female romances.
Not meant to critizise, just curious how it gets Seen that way
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While this isn’t exactly hate, but I don’t like RO who the author, intentionally or not, trying to guilt trip players into their romance. Like you know, typical very sad back story that is like “Their parents were absent when they were borned, the orphanage only feed them staled breads, they were forced to be garden gnome, their parents died in a car accident, their whole bloodline hate them,…”. I feel like the game trying to say:“See? They are a sad little cinnamon roll 
Love them (If you dont you’re a heartless jerk) and just let all the bullsh*t they did behind because hey, sad back story = everything is not they fault right ;)” Uhm no thanks, irl toxic relationship and gaslighting are enough for me lol, wayyy too enough.
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Oh, wait, was it gender-choice that they didn’t have any of at first, not straight romances? That sounds right, actually. I haven’t really looked at Heart’s Choice since it started.
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I believe they’re sorted by date, which would make the very first HC game both gender-variable and having m/f romance possible.
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The first Heart’s Choice releases were Dawnfall (choosable gender, love interests with different genders), Jazz Age (edit: choosable gender, male or female love interests), and All World Pro Wrestling (male protagonist, male love interests). There are 6 locked to female protagonists and some are F/F only with some including male love interests or varied. AWPW is the only male-locked one currently but it looks like there’s going to be another sometime in the future.
I don’t tend to hate IF romance options or characters that much but I enjoy when a game makes me feel strongly enough about a character to nope out of a romance. The one I think of straightaway is Oriana from Heart of the House because of how she treated Loren and Reaves, and she seemed like a dodgy piece of work. And I was right! But I enjoyed her as a character.
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Oh, I guess they’re not sorted by date then.
But, Jazz Age is gender variable MC.
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Oops, apologies! I’ve edited to correct. I think I was confusing it with A Pirate’s Pleasure in my head.
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Sounds an awful lot like Safe Haven part 3. In my case it was Gina not Lopez
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