I care more about the story but romance is always a a good addition to the story and makes it better (unless the romance is badly written but even then you could just ignore it and not romance anybody)
The only time when romance makes a game worse is if the romance is forced on you and you always have a crush on somebody even if you don’t want to (I’ve seen that in a few games before)
I always like romance in the CoG I read and some games… But romance as a core of the story depends solely on what media platform it is. I don’t mind it with some games, VNs and CoG as long as I have control to whom my MC will pursue.
For me, the biggest thing about romantic subplots is that they give me more opportunity to play out the character I’ve made, or explore the character of the various ROs. One of the biggest part of anyone’s personality is how they act towards others, and in COG games, the most ready way to flesh that out is often through romantic subplots.
That said, when the attraction to a character is established before I even interact with them, this causes more than a little friction between how I see my character and how the game has decided who my character is. Romance should take you into your character’s head, not pull you out of it.
For me personally i don’t care for romance in interactive fiction games if it’s in a game and the choice game in question is good then i’ll probably play the game alongside the romance(double win for me) and if there’s good game with good writing and no romance then i’ll still play it .
then again there are games that i’ve played were ive ignored the plot to it and just played it for the ros (for example: the plot of stardew valley is pretty cliche but i loved the love interests and farming aspect so much to the point i gave it a 9/10 rating. despite hating the fact that your mother forces you to be babysit by strangers without your knowledge or questions in the wayhaven chronicles i still love the ros(more specifically N,A and F) to the point i still created ocs for the game and would definitely buy the next book over.)
And there has been games that have a good plot but the ros in question…were not my favorite(i love the plot of Samurai of Hyuga(not including the stat check.) but the ros were…not that interesting(if only Masashi/Masami were older…)
and the keeper of the sun and moon has a great premise but the ros weren’t that interesting and most were hard to keep or romance. (Sera was a little too rough on the edges for me.)
But at the end of the day i don’t really care for romance,if a game doesn’t have any ros then i would still play it (hell pokemon and digimon and some of their copycats are great even though there isn’t any romance in those games.)
A large bit of how I choose my games is, do they have a romance option? One of the main reasons I’m gonna be buying the new Assassins Creed is because they put in that option. But yea. If the story is solid then I really don’t mind it not having one but I 10000% would jump on that if it did.
I, to be honest, find romance rather generic.
I should note that I have no problem with games without romance, especially if it’s a game with preset characters, but if it does include romance (and I get to choose my own character), I’d have to be able to choose who the romance, and it would have to be a gay pairing. This is one of the reasons I’ve never played Mass Effect: my Shepherd would be gay, but 2/3rds of the story won’t let me be (and the third has a notoriously bad ending), so unless they remake the series, I’m not spending money for it.
Certainly agreed about the pre-set SO character: I want to choose who I like, I don’t want the game to tell me who to like. I guess this would also apply to games where there’s one RO who’s basically made into the “only true option”: one of my worst games in this respect is Champion of the Gods, where the prince is pretty much the only viable RO. You can choose his personality (unlike the other two “ROs”), for starters, just so he’ll fit with what you want… except I didn’t really feel much at all for his character.
My favourite character was the shepherd, who was introduced saving my MC’s brother (I think). He was obviously scared, but still willing to fight, and that stuck with me far more than anything about the prince. Of course, then he turned out to be a fake RO, with no chance of actually being romanced through the story. 
And it didn’t help that the god of love himself was telling me to dump him… Meanwhile, the third RO (the general) can only be romanced either by betraying the prince, or by stealing him from the prince…
So, yeah, don’t do any of that.
Maybe I’m wrong but can’t you be gay in mass effect? I’m pretty sure in the newest game you could romance the alien guy (who was bi) and in one of the older games couldn’t you romance the guy who lost his wife or girlfriend? (i just noticed i’m sorry if this came off as rude.)
Not in the first two games. I understand that there was actually some gay content in the first game, but this was cut out (there is a lesbian pairing still in it, though). In the third game, they did add in a couple of gay romances, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s too little, too late. (The first three games are a single story, so I don’t really want to just play part 3 alone.)
The most recent game almost felt like a step back, as there was only one real gay romance, plus a single fling with a more minor character. This led to a pretty big backlash against the game (while, of course, certain other people were backlashing against it, claiming that it was too LGBTQ-friendly 
), and the devs did pretty much the least they could do by turning one of the formerly-straight characters bisexual.
Some time ago, I would have been in the “don’t care if there are no romance in the game”. But now, just like I can’t like animore a CoG or any kind of game with lots of choices with a male protagonist, I feel I’m not much interested in CoG or RPGs without guys to romance.
Its just…I get too much satisfation in playng this woman, who save the day and get the guy. It is something that I still have to find in an AAA game out there (usually the sexuality of female protagonist is ignored, only came out if she is lesbian, or the guy is dead) outside RPGs.
In other media, like anime, movies, tv show, or videogames with no player choices, I have no problem either way. Sometime I like some romance, and I’m really happy about it, sometime I find it unnecessary, sometimes I hate how its handled. All depend on how is written.
I’m not a fan of choosing the gender of the ROs, but at the same time I know not having it would limit quite a bit my preference, since a lot of the time authors give more attention to the female ROs, both in quality and quantity writing.
And my favourite ROs are Ortega and Adam from Fallen Hero and Wayhaven chronicles, both with changeable genders, so even with my reservations, I know they can be well done too.
I couldn’t find a choice that fit my opinion, since I literally haven’t done a romantic path in a CoG since the first game I played that gave an “asexual/aromantic” option (so about 2+ years or so). I’m perfectly fine with CoGs having romance paths, especially since it’s an important thing for people with limited rep. I just wish the bulk of RO backstory content weren’t stuck behind a dating wall for ROs. Cause what’s hidden back there is usually well written/important, but I can’t be bothered to sit through scenes that make me uncomfortable/badly break my immersion with my character just to learn a bit more about the character. I’ve come to call it expendable code in my head, cause if it’s restricted to the romantic paths it’s likely not (or shouldn’t be) critical info needed for my overall enjoyment of the game, unless the CoG is, like, specifically a ROMANCE game. Then I probably just won’t play it. Tbh all my issues would be solved if more CoGs just offered for non-romantic access to that restricted content, cause then I could get the info too and everybody’d be happy. 
I always aim for friendship paths, but friendship paths are really difficult to write. Or maybe writing is just really difficult.
I think writing’s just hard in general for a lot of people (myself included~) There’s certainly a level of platonic intimacy and a need for some different relationship building techniques needed for friendly backstory-giving that can’t be assumed as it is with many romances (though ‘they’re just ride-or-die best friends now, deal with it’ and ‘they’re just share-all lovers now, deal with it’ can both be equally lazy writing styles). But writing believable scenes and stories is just something people learn to do as they go, and deep friendships are something people tend to overlook in CoGs.
I honestly love romance and the stat tracking type stuff in CoG is really good to keep you immersed unlike something like in a bioware game it is usually not toooo hard. I am always a sucker for romance in games and as some people have said sometimes I skip a game if it doesn’t have romance unless the plot reeeeeeeaaaaalllllyyyy intrigues me.
I don’t think romance is a core part of my experience at all, in fact, my very short-lived Choicescript WIP didn’t have any romance in it. However, I also do love romance in games. One of my favorite games is Heartache 101, for example. And an RPG-Maker game I’m currently working on is a dating sim. So basiccly my thoughts are I don’t really care either way, and not having or having romance isn’t a game-breaker for me.
Hmm if I had to choose romance or no romance. I would honestly choose romance because I feel like romance has a good chance to really engage myself with another character. But if I had to choose between a badly written romance and a well written character/friendship route (I don’t know a better name or term for this) I would honestly choose the non-romance one. I see a lot of shallowly written romance routes without a lot of character development or interactions. (Cough cough dream daddy VN) But I have also seen very good routes or experiences with characters (cough cough dream daddy VN again for the daughter). I’m talking about romance routes overall in media. And even though I would pine endless for my favorite character to be romanceable, I just think it would be a better use of resources to develop the character itself than give a shoddy romance route that is barely mentioned or affects the game.
This is just something I wondered about.
I noticed that basically in almost every Game that exists, is a part where you romance one of the side charakters.
My Question is why that is the Case?
I mean I am not against it. If it’s there I take it nonetheless. And most of the time there is the option to scip it completly, but why is it there in the first place? Most of the time it is not even relevant für the plot and I imagine it’s a lot of work to write a good Romance.
Maybe someone can explain this to me.
Thank you.
I like romance and do not play or buy games without the option to romance someone. And there are several people like me, so having a romance widens the audience.
Honestly it depends on the characters if they’re compelling or not. As well as the storyline. Example:
Heroes Rise Original Trilogy: Black Magic practically tries to rape the protagonist. The game tells you to make black magic look like someone you had the hots for. It’s trying to forcibly ship you with Bowel Movement. As such I rebelled against that hard. Jenny Yu is your social worker and thst just triggered memories of the girl with the dragon tattoo so i said nope. Lucky showed up and lucky is your camp crush and the game tries to push you to Lucky. Nope. Then there’s Prodigal. The Game basically says dont do it this is a bad idea she’s a yandere. Don’t!.. So i did.
In the second series i dont know who any of the love interests were because all the characters were boring and forgettable except Jelly Kelly. And being our younger sister that’s not an option. ~rains of castamere starts playing~ so i went asexual focusing only on my mission to save my sister’s life.
In games like Choices with stories like Open Heart which is the most blatant Grey’s Anatomy ripoff ever the game wants you screwing in broom closets like on the show. But I’m a doctor Gorrammit I’m here to save lives. So i ignored the romance. And the game admits it’s a perfectly valid life at the end. The Doctor who had dedicated his life to his work didnt need a spouse and kids. The hospital staff was his family.
Long story short: If you try to push me into a romance I will fight you like a cat in a bath. The only way I’ll take a romance is if the character is interesting(Tarzan Girl in flying game, Nonbinary amnesiac maid, etc) /bad for me (Lady Argent, Prodigal, The Steel Aeronaut, Merula Snyde, Ennis, etc)
No for me it’s not. Romance is nice and all but a good group of interesting friends can be just as good for me. So it not a make ir break deal.