Most well-written game romance?

[Blunderboy]

Probably any of the romances from either Baldur's Gate game.

 

[A Weakgeek]

i did enjoy tidus and yuna's thing they had goin on, first time i actively paid attention to a romance in the slightest in a game.

Not to be rude by any means, but allow me to...
Game romances suck 99% of the time, they just don't work unless the characters are already established. ( Usually when the game is based on a book or a movie) The ones where you get to choose who you romance are so unbelievable that they make me cringe.

 

[Royta]

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.

Simple but well told and with sympathetic characters. It's not great, but I'd say that's the best in the gaming industry as far as romance goes. Frankly everything else I tend to think is rubbish!

This man speaks the truth. These characters actually fall in love slowly and steadily. To hear how the Prince things about her, hear his thoughts, really shows a human part of him and his slowly growing affection. What makes it better is that it all goes slowly, they start out disliking eachother. But slowly, grow to love eachother.

A nice tibit is that you can look at her in FirstPersonMode. At first she'll respond to this with a harsh comment like "what are you looking at?" but near the endgame will call out how beautfull your eyes are or something like that. Nice detail.

 

[Baron_Rouge]

However, my vote has to go with Vincent and Katherine from Catherine...really, really believable characters. Amazing game.

I like the girl with the C she hot )

Indeed...but she was also far too insane for me. Also, I'm not big on cheating, so I went with Katherine

 

[Mudkipith]

Me and Solaire in Dark Souls.

Never had I felt such companionship.

Praise the sun.

 

[90sgamer]

It's a toss up between Squall and Rinoa (Final Fantasy 8) and Alicia and Welkin (Valkyria Chronicals). Both relationships seemed more or less organic compared to the forced relationships in most other games (love me just because!).

In FF8, Rinoa is a girl with a princess complex. Her henchmen even call her "Princess." Then squall comes along, indifferent to her charms, and she can only see him as her knight in shining armor. It would make sense that she would be instantly infatuated despite the fact squall has (at that time) the personality of a cardboard box. On squall's part, he is reluctant to grow an emotional attachment to people, having been hurt deeply in the past when separated from his best friend "sis." He doesn't realize that his chosen path of avoidance is the same as cowardice until Rinoa is floating through space to her certain death. He then decides to not only face his fear of emotional pain but also the fear of certain death by flinging himself into space after her; however this serious of events did not signify a complete reversal for Squall. After landing Ragnarok he literally gives Rinoa up to be imprisoned then shortly after changes his mind once again before executing yet another heroic campaign.

I'd nominate Katawa Shoujo and any of the relationships within it (Elle especially), but that's not really a game.

 

[Girl With One Eye]

I'm expect to be stoned by a few people for this but Squall and Rinoa!

I competely agree. The part where Squall cuts Rinoa out of the seal in the sorceress memorial is one of my favourite scenes ever.

 

[Rastien]

Going to go with an older JRPG here Grandia the romance between Justin and Feena is just fiendishly cute they are both coming of age and really grow to love eachother x)

Possibly one of my favourite images of the 2, it's even in my wallpaper folder lol

Spoiler

 

[Slycne]

Sounds pretty awesome, though it definitely sounds pretty complex.

This is actually how it mostly used to be done for Bioware games. The Baldur's Gate games did not have obvious paths to their romances, and it would often get affected in different conversations.

 

[Twyce]

Is it horrible to list Junior and MOMO from Xenosaga?

Yes, I realize one is a child robot and the other is an adult in a child's body, but I think their relationship (along with Sakura and Albedo) is beautifully written. The romance is only VERY subtly hinted at, but you can tell they both hold a deep fondness for each other.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.

Simple but well told and with sympathetic characters. It's not great, but I'd say that's the best in the gaming industry as far as romance goes. Frankly everything else I tend to think is rubbish!

It also has the best love scene gameplay, that thing in the bath house. I'll take that over stilted sex scenes any day.

Bioware romances while entertaining are pretty shallow and pandering.

You know, there is something about baths that make for good romance. When the Prince and Farah do it, it is touching. When Geralt and Triss do it, it is hilarious, watching Geralt fight to get his boots off before tripping into the pool.

 

[kyogen]

There are a fair number of good partnerships, but if we're talking classic romance, then I'd say:

Geralt and Triss (TW1-2)
the Prince and Farah (PoP: SoT)
Ico and Yorda (ICO)

Honorable mention to any Dragon's Dogma romance because they're all difficult to predict and control. An interesting take on the topic, to be sure.

 

[XMark]

Me and the anonymous random stranger in Journey.

 

[Fappy]

Nobody has mention Mario and Peach?! Come on guys! She bakes him a cake!

 

[WaysideMaze]

Red Dead Redemption
- I don't know if it is technically "romance" since John's been married for a while. But in terms of a relationship it's one of the best I've seen. A committed married man? In a video Game? WOW!

RDR was awesome in a lot of ways, but yes their relationship was particularly well written I thought.

Sticking with the Rockstar theme, GTA4 had the potential for some good ones, but didn't do much with them. Kate would have been a far more interesting character for Niko to fall for, if it weren't for the fact you could be sleeping around with 3 or 4 other women whilst dating her.
Also, Johnny and Ash in The Lost and Damned. I really felt sorry for Johnny in those scenes with Ash. He knows she's dragging him down and bad for him, but he just can't bring himself to leave her.

 

[Nannernade]

Honestly I'd have to go with Fenris and Female Hawke, starts out awkward and he pushes away but then it turns around at the end, if it's cliche idc I liked it.

 

[Slycne]

Sounds pretty awesome, though it definitely sounds pretty complex.

This is actually how it mostly used to be done for Bioware games. The Baldur's Gate games did not have obvious paths to their romances, and it would often get affected in different conversations.

Well if that's the case, what's changed? This doesn't seem like something they'd cut out if it was so great, even for the sake of "Appealing to a broader audience".

Dialogue, it's much easier to write long subtle branching dialogue trees in text. It's much less feasible to record all of that in voiveover.