And Steel for me 
4 Likes
Ahh Herald, naive idiot <3 I remember in the first book, he was just punching bag and I didn’t think about him at all, but after reading Retribution demo, I found out he’s perfect RO for my MC - big red flag.
8 Likes
Every RO in that game is amazing but Lady Argent became my favorite CoG/HG RO ever with Retribution.
11 Likes
God Leon and like…AMR book 1’s ENTIRE predicament is so complicated but understandable…but if anything, the majority of my blame goes to the church. I feel like things could’ve gone WAY differently if the church was separated from the state and didn’t have as much political power as it did in the kingdom, but alas then we wouldn’t have AMR’s story xD!
TLDR: Fuck the church, it’s the worst RO of all of them/j
9 Likes
Yeah, it was so toxic that I even nailed a letter to their door to get out of the relationship 
15 Likes
That would be such a power move, to pull a Martin Luther and nail a list of 95 reasons why they suck to an abusive partner’s door
16 Likes
Not sure if it count as RO hate but I hate this trend of having every poly RO options force you to be bisexual, that’s mostly in IF games instead of specifically COG games but I think it still count.
12 Likes
You forget to add the most of the times, said poly is basically an unsolved love triangle involving the two major RO.
8 Likes
Or worse yet, the poly route is literally that two characters are into you at the same time, and literally nothing else is built on it - no rivalry, no jealousy, no tension between partners, not even any hashing out of differences and coming to terms with each other. They’re just, “hi, I’m your girlfriend” “hi, I’m your other girlfriend” and that’s it.
Blessedly, I have not seen any trace of that here, but oh boy, load up any number of cash-grab mobile games where your objective is to collect sexy ladies (of which there are distressingly many, for how cookie-cutter they all are), and whether you care to or not, you’ll find yourself swimming in waifus with absolutely zero consequences.
9 Likes
I have seen that a few time but I didn’t know they were the majority, probably cause I quickly drop those kind of poly routes so I don’t play them long enough to see that nothing got resolved.
Those routes are as ‘poly’ as most ‘harem’ anime are actual harems, AKA not at all.
I’m actually fine with that in so much as it’s used as a way to let me do multiple RO’s routes at once, saves me some time. If the poly sell itself as its own seperate route, it’s another story.
I wouldn’t call those cases ROs or ‘Poly relationship’ personally, it’s more waifu collecting / a lazy harem.
The 100 girlfriends manga does the harem / waifu collecting really well while still having the girls acknowledge each others tho so I guess those games don’t really have an excuse.
5 Likes
how is that a bad thing? I for one don’t like that kind of drama.
12 Likes
Everybody has different tastes. Some folks are fine with easy, drama free poly romances, some people would prefer them to be more realistic. I, personally, don’t care either way, but I figure it’s worth pointing out that the ease of said romance might be a turn-off for some.
5 Likes
Let’s be honest for a second here, but most Poly aren’t real poly. Periods. They are Love triangle for peoples who wanna romance 2 peoples at the same time.
Real Poly is different.
15 Likes
I mean, if you REALLY wanna be honest, there’s no actual codified structure for something to qualify as ‘poly’ within the context of those games. It’s just kinda the term that was vaguely adopted by a sizable part of the community / authors for when you romance more than 1 RO. It’s not it’s an actual COG category or something.
Though people do seem to have internalized some weird tropes and limitations on said ‘polys’, like 99% of them won’t ever have a poly with more than 3 people, MC include.
So it’s hard to call something ‘real poly’ or ‘fake poly’ (though the unresolved love triangle does come pretty close to outright fake).
11 Likes
I thought Midnight Saga did a poly really well but its not a type of relationship I will ever be in irl so feel free to correct me.
I REALLY need to finish that game at some point, was pretty fun when I started it but I got distracted.
My main ‘grip’ with the polys in that one is that you really could have just fused them together. Like K + Lan and K + Ash really would have been better off as a foursome with all three at once and it would take less place in the relationship list.
2 Likes
I see that, especially as Ash feels like she would be down for literally anything. L less so, so maybe that is why.
2 Likes
L seemed to me like they’d welcome the extra bonds given the situation honestly.
A game where I can play a MC who’s main priority in such a situation is trying to get in a relationship with the whole survivor group would be pretty funny honestly. Skewed priorities in general aren’t used enough in COGs IMO.
3 Likes
Well since we’re on the topic of poly romances and what doesn’t work for us as readers, I always feel awkward when there’s an obvious connection between two other characters of which is blossoming, and I refuse to disrupt it because they work well without my character. The One Chosen has all LI’s as potential poly romances and I can’t bring myself to connect with any of them.
Though, I’d be very interested to read a story where a solid couple both want to bring you into the fold.
24 Likes
I have to admit, you kind of feel like a third wheel in that game with some of the poly pairings, not all of them but still.
21 Likes