Wait what? It wasn’t about romance?
That is confusing, I haven’t really played CoR.
Edit:
@Mirabella @WinterHawk I see… Thanks for explaining it.
@Winterhawk’s right, it wasn’t actually about romance, despite the title. It was really about court politics. And it was a very good game, but the love interests didn’t make my list of favorites.
8 Likes
Ya the game is more about court politics from the perspective of a young attractive marriage option. You get pursued by people wanting your hand in marriage/romance and try to rebuild your family’s influence. The first game should be up for free.
4 Likes
I’ve found that in most cases, I don’t like gender-switching love interests as much as gender-locked ones. There are some exceptions. I think it relates to what I said earlier about romances feeling tacked-on. The author decides to add a romance because a lot of people like them, but they don’t want to make a whole bunch of new characters. The obvious solution is to just create one or two gender-swappable romance options. Gender-set love interests, however, are usually involved in the central plot and are more thoroughly developed, like Semryu. But like I said, there are exceptions.
Any thoughts?
8 Likes
I don’t like gender-switching love interests because that makes it feel like the whole in-game universe depends on the PC. That is one of the bad tropes (When poorly executed ) in my opinion 
When they are gender-locked, it is telling the player that there is a world with things happening away from the MC, and I don’t know, that is just magical for me.
11 Likes
@Ballmot I enjoyed Choice of Romance. It did some things I’ve never seen in a game before. But I feel like the groundwork it created has been built upon, and improved by the games that have come since. Which isn’t to say it’s not still an enjoyable game.
I think there’s two different stories. You can judge everything on just the first section of the first game, or you can judge it on the trilogy as a whole, and which you choose gives a different perspective.
If you choose the trilogy, there’s also not that much choice in regards to the love interest, since only by choosing the Monarch can you continue on to the next two games. You definitely couldn’t say the relationship with the Monarch’s tacked on because it’s the backbone to the entire trilogy, but there’s no choice about being in it or not. And it’s not a romance game really, Choice of Intrigues is a better title for it because it is mostly scheming and politicking. The third game flattens out the personalities of both Vega and Mendosa and relies a little too heavily on "[LOVER] says “stuff!” which meant it was hard to differentiate them. Also, the trilogy ends with two of the lovers introduced in the first game dead, and it’s very difficult to have had a relationship that’s anything more positive than bittersweet with either of them.
Now, if you judge it based just on the first part, of the first game, I think it’s a great game. It’s fun. I liked the characters. But they’ve been superceded in my affections by those in later games. Poor Mendosa, Torres, Monarch, and Vega. Alas!
It is a good game.
9 Likes
I don’t think the gender-swapping itself is bad; like I said, some swappable love interests are very well-done (Wakefield, Breden, Black Magic, and Kasador come to mind). My problem is that the author is putting so little effort into the romance that they might as well not bother. Some authors are more focused on the main plot than the romantic subplot, so they come up with two shallow love interests of different genders. When an author only creates one shallow love interest that switches genders, however, it comes across as just plain lazy. It’s like, “Oh look, another gratuitous, poorly-developed love interest that switches genders! I’m not even going to bother.”
14 Likes
Watanabe from Mecha Ace
2 Likes
Ah Tali I loved how her romance played out. I’m hoping one day to add a RO that inspires the same feelings Tali did in me.
5 Likes
I actually really enjoy Morgana in Guenevere. I played it with Arthur/Lancelot oriented Guens first, but when I did my grumpy dark magic Guen who fell for Morgana, it felt very sweetly tragic.
(Also seconding Waywalker’s Semryu fangirls.)
13 Likes
I am very bad at picking one thing, like ever. Neutrality for life over here, ahahah…
But for the games I do have, I do feels I have favorites:
- Black Magic from Heroes Rise. I am a weakling to seduction, I shall
admit. - Silas from Vampire (it still hurts me to think about the way
that went in the end. He was a cinnamon bun too sweet, too pure) - Silvanus from Fatehaven. I loved Patch and Bregan too, but I seemed
to click with the whole “champion” thing a bit more. - Casually jumps on board with the Semryu fan-train
- Asadi from Mecha Ace
- I was fond of Craig too in Unnatural too.
As for WiPs…
Castor and Void both from Girl of Time. (Castor gets a cinnamon bun status too)
Tress from Community College Hero
Wendy from Monster High
13 Likes
I can not believe I forgot to mention these two cuties! Don’t mind me while I casually edit my list of top LIs.
1 Like
Let’s see… I’ve played The Lost Heir: The Fall of Daria, Fatehaven, Tin Star, Life of a Wizard, Zombie Exodus, Hollywood Visionary, The Hero of Kendrickstone, The Last Monster Master, Choice of Robots, Psy High, all three Heroes Rise games, Mecha Ace, Choice of the Deathless, Choice of Romance, Choice of the Vampire, and Slammed! all the way through…
From those games; I think my favorite RO is Maria from Tin Star, but I also really like the romance in Psy High, The Lost Heir, Fatehaven, and Zombie Exodus. Slammed!, Mecha Ace, Life of a Wizard, and Heroes Rise weren’t bad but… there wasn’t much focus there, or maybe I just didn’t experience the full potential of romance in those games. Black Magic was okay… but kindof unlikeable. Apparently hots beat personality. XD Slammed! was pretty good but just didn’t focus on the romance much. The other games felt kinda meh romantically. Imo.
3 Likes
What interesting favourites! It does almost seem like the less a game emphasizes romance (as opposed to emphasizing Ye Olde Wild West or Sci-Fi in the Stars, for instance), the more likely a game’s romance-interest characters are to be a hit.
I’ve read nearly every CoG and HG, and (unless I missed it) my two favourites haven’t been mentioned yet:
Vega from Choice of the Deathless - I think honestly this was because I enjoyed his personality and watching the way he interacted with people, and with his cases, more than because the romance itself was spectacular.
Yiska from Tin Star - Same here, although I did find his reactions to my MC’s romantic attentions pretty amusing.
5 Likes
I romanced not Yiska and Maria just so I could see them together.
Madison from Slammed!. Odd that no one’s mentioned her.
Shelly from Way Walkers. Yay glasses.
Wakefield from Deathless. Yay again for delightfully caustic ladies.
3 Likes
Semryu from Way Walkers
Lakota from Unnatural
Yiska from Tin Star
Luis de Vega from Choice of Romance
Clotho from Choice of the Vampire
They are my top five but I could name a few others. 
3 Likes
Pah. Well, the compliment stands!
Though that reminds me, I enjoyed Elly in Choice of Robots too. She had a strong idea of who she was and if you didn’t support that, the romance suffered. Which was neat, I thought.
1 Like
From COG
-Ashleigh Wakefield from Deathless
-Watanabe from Mecha Ace
-Black Magic from Heroes Rise
HG
-Semryu from Way Walkers
-Yiska and Preston from Tin Star
-Victor and Lakota from Unnatural
-Patch from Fatehaven
-Devlin from ZE
2 Likes
I agree, I totally forgot about Elly, although I was mad when she didn’t support my decision to upload my brain into a robot body.