Who is the best Love Interest?

Fantasy RPG game with all romance combos https://www.winterwolves.com/lorenamazonprincess.htm
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Which character of the game you liked mostly?

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Jaeger
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Re: Who is the best Love Interest?

Post by Jaeger »

It took the creator of Cave Story 5 years to make his game. It's not a game with "high production values" but it was a solo project for every aspect of development from programming to art, something that not many people can do.
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Miakoda
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Re: Who is the best Love Interest?

Post by Miakoda »

Something else I think should be appreciated is Winter Wolves (much like Hanako for that matter) managed to make games without resorting to a Kickstarter.
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jack1974
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Re: Who is the best Love Interest?

Post by jack1974 »

I don't like Kickstarter model at all (I think I've said it thousands times). Also a recent article on how only 1 game out of 3 is released from those funded by KS says a lot. I don't feel right to take people's money with just "an idea". Ideas are cheap, making a finished product is the real challenge!
Aennor
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Re: Who is the best Love Interest?

Post by Aennor »

Still playing around, but my vote is for Loren :roll:
candesco
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Re: Who is the best Love Interest?

Post by candesco »

Still playing with the first created character and so far only have seen a few romantic scenes. Have now all the hearts with loren. Not sure if i like loren, with her cold attitude. Karen seems to be a more warm person. And chambara, oh, that's an interesting one. Never thought one that practices the black arts could be such a naughty person. One of the lines chambara use did rise my eyebrow, like something as "eh, what did she say there?". It was just as surprising as that line the dremora in morrowind dropped after taunting him (temple quest in maar gan). Also liked that little "show" she came suddently with. For now on i will pursue the ending with loren, but from what i've seen so far i say chambara.
Aennor
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Re: Who is the best Love Interest?

Post by Aennor »

candesco wrote:Still playing with the first created character and so far only have seen a few romantic scenes. Have now all the hearts with loren. Not sure if i like loren, with her cold attitude. Karen seems to be a more warm person. And chambara, oh, that's an interesting one. Never thought one that practices the black arts could be such a naughty person. One of the lines chambara use did rise my eyebrow, like something as "eh, what did she say there?". It was just as surprising as that line the dremora in morrowind dropped after taunting him (temple quest in maar gan). Also liked that little "show" she came suddently with. For now on i will pursue the ending with loren, but from what i've seen so far i say chambara.
All romances are good, it's just a matter of taste anyway (and Chammy is really funny one :mrgreen: )
Melyana
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Re: Who is the best Love Interest?

Post by Melyana »

I sooooooooooo LOVE Draco! He is just so absolutely cute! :give_heart: even though I was absolutely not interested in him at first... but he's won me over :wink:

I romanced Loren first, then Rei, and then I re-played the game with Saren and chose Draco. Conclusion: I definitely enjoyed romancing Draco the most!! He is so sweet, and I want him to be happy most of all. He really deserves it. He has such a kind heart and such a funny personality and still he is shunned by so many. And still... he is such a cheerful person! So Draco is simply the best imo!
Little Birdie
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Re: Who is the best Love Interest?

Post by Little Birdie »

Bumping thread due to inability to keep my opinion to myself about the love interests. Hope nobody minds. Heh.

So far I like the Saren x Draco route the best, despite liking the personality types of Karen and Mesphit more. Enjoyed Loren very much as a character as well, but couldn't really bring myself to get very far in the romance.

I shall explain!
Spoiler:
When first playing this game I chose Saren and I was a bit taken aback by how he was labeled the most loyal slave with outwardly little sign of resentment of being such on his part. (Finding out later in various conversations it does get dragged out of him that he certainly wasn't having the greatest time of his life... yet somehow he still thinks very highly of Loren and Karen, the ones who have/had power to improve his and those like him situation but for whatever reason before the start of the game turned a blind eye to.) My interpretation was that the player character was likely suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

And thus began my roleplaying mission to make Saren/Elenor the mentally healthiest little game heroes you ever did see.

The one and only attempt to romance Loren with Saren ended pretty quickly, before I even reached the end of Chapter 1. I had a hard time getting past how Saren did a lot of praising despite Loren having not done much at that point to have actually earned such. It came across as a captee trying his best to keep his captor from doing bad things to him; something that would just exacerbate the Stockholm Syndrome even if it did lead to genuine love between the two. MUCH prefer the friendship path with these two characters.

Next up was Myrth with Saren. Got as far as the scene where Saren tries to give her a flower only for Myrth to freak out and declare he would certainly make some woman happy someday, with it getting interpreted that the woman was not going to be her. I can't really fully explain why I suddenly lost interest in Myrth as a romance option for Saren. Only thing I can think up is that by that point it came across as Saren having gotten led on by her only to very gently dump him. I did really like Myrth's general cuteness though. I do at some point want to go back and check out what the rest of this romance is like, but at the time my rping mission was for healthy!Saren/Elenor.

I ended up deciding Karen wasn't a very good romance for some of the same reasons as for Loren, combined with the possible interpretation of Elenor as the rebound relationship. Karen in my opinion seemed to have gotten over the death of her last love a little too quickly along with declaring Elenor another great love of her life a little too soon. Personality wise I did find Karen to be one of the more compelling characters. Would have liked to have learned more about why she decided to simply run off with her male lover instead of trying to change the rules to accept males more in her kingdom.

Had very high hopes for Chambara--I really like that character archetype, but the pursuit for a healthy!Saren meant that as soon as it became clear that Chambara wanted to just be Saren's new owner I had to go back to a previous save. Haven't tried this route yet with Elenor to see if the whole "I want to own you instead" is different.

Not into He-Man types. Especially ones that spend time trying to seemingly undermine what bit of self-importance and pride that the poor sufferer of Stockholm Syndrome managed to cling to, so no Amukiki for Saren/Elenor. Is it bad that I took a certain amount of joy in being able to convince Amukiki to either kill himself or single-handedly beat him up near the end of the game...?

I ended up liking Rei the most for Elenor. She gets to learn more about her race, he gets to learn how to develop a non-superficial relationship with a woman. Unfortunately, I happen to like Mesphit a great deal and can't really bring myself to fully like Rei due to his obsession in wanting to kill him. Especially not after seeing the love triangle 'conversation' between the three characters. I just could not bring myself to side with Rei after his "people like you" comment. :(

Mesphit was in desperate need for a hug (that I wanted to give to him, don't judge me! >.> ), but it seemed like only Elenor was the one who got to actually do so and live happily with a half-demon who learned how to control himself. According to the epilogues I've come across Saren never really gets that happiness with Mesphit due to all the continued chasing he has to do. Apparently Saren has to sacrifice himself at the end of the game for Mesphit to learn how to fully control the demon side of him. So, yay healthy!Elenor, but still no healthy!Saren. Why couldn't Saren and Mesphit be happy together too? T_T Not only does Saren get to suffer from lack of self worth due to being forced to live as a slave, but going this route means the object of his affection can't seem to stop running away from him.

Which leaves Draco, who somehow manages to have less sense of self worth than Saren. The first part of this relationship came across as Therapy 101, with both praising each other and getting shocked that somebody seems to genuinely like them. I also thought this relationship seemed to grow the most organically and seemed to 'heal' both Draco and Saren the most. I really can't think of a downside when it comes to this route, which makes it an automatic #1 when it comes to best healthy romance.

Now to see what the most traumatic pairing would be....
Choklad
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Re: Who is the best Love Interest?

Post by Choklad »

Wow, that's a really interesting take on the game's romances. I totally agree with you on Draco and Saren. That's a healing, healthy, mutually supportive relationship. It lacks the high amount of tension and conflict that's present in some of the other relationships. Nothing wrong with some conflict, of course, but it's nice that there are romances available that don't follow that pattern. If I had to think of a downside it'd be that Saren does more healing than he recieves, but that wouldn't really be fair - I think Saren finds it very rewarding to be the protective and supportive one. Plus, Draco's very supportive himself and always listens to Saren or tries to cheer him up.

I think you're being a bit hard on Amukiki, though. He always struck me as a good person. He's not very nice sometimes, but Saren/Elenor isn't always nice either. In fact, Saren/Elenor is particularly competitive and petty towards him. You could argue that Amukiki's struggling with a lot of self-worth issues himself. I mean, he was exiled from his clan, which was basically his whole world and all he'd ever known, then he came to the Human Empire and was treated like dirt until he made a name for himself as a warrior. This may also be one of the reasons he's so competitive against Saren/Elenor - the only times he's been given respect in the Human Empire it's been because he was a better warrior than someone else. (Come to think of it, that may be how nomad culture works too.) He then fought so hard for so long with one single goal in mind - the blade - but it didn't find him worthy. Seeing how to Amukiki your accomplishments as a warrior determine your personal worth (which is a very unhealthy viewpoint) that must have been quite the blow. Amukiki is still reeling from it and all that's left for him is trying to find meaning in being Loren's companion. How? The only way he knows - by being the best.

Edit: I just remembered something about Amukiki's jealousy scene.
Spoiler:
My Saren was romancing Draco and him simultaneously, so Amukiki took Saren aside and told him that he deserved someone more worthy than Draco. You can choose to flirt with him or you can argue that Draco is worthy. If you do the latter, Amukiki asks you "What am I worthy of?" Then turns away and adds "Perhaps nothing." This is freaking heartbreaking. :cry: I've seriously considered writing a fanfic consisting of just 4 lines where Saren stops him and tells him "it's not you, it's me" (in other words, of course.)
Hmm, I came here to talk about Draco and then ended up holding a defence speech for Amukiki. How did that happen? :shock:
Last edited by Choklad on Tue Sep 30, 2014 12:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Asonder
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Re: Who is the best Love Interest?

Post by Asonder »

Big post incoming, put under the cut just in case.
Spoiler:
Have to agree with Choklad on Amukiki. He's actually my favorite romance for Saren, oddly enough, but I feel like his route is one that has to be played all the way through for it to be really appreciated (unless you've already done that and still don't like it, in which case you can disregard this entire paragraph :P ) . There's a lot he isn't willing to admit about his personal feelings and desires, both to himself and to Saren/Elenor. And it's because of that that for most of the romance he comes off as rude or uncaring.

I personally felt like the real breakthrough with him only happens during the big confrontation (/slash/ angry sex scene) toward the end, at which point the tone of the relationship completely changes, which becomes especially apparent in the epilogue. But if you didn't get to that point, I can absolutely see how you would think of him as trying to undermine Saren/Elenor, even if I don't feel that's the case ultimately. So yeah, I'd recommend giving him another go.

And I suspect we might just have different tastes in love interests (nothing wrong with that!), because despite him being one of the most interesting routes to play for me, Mesphit actually struck me as one of the least healthy relationships in the game, at least for Elenor. It's pretty much the only reason I can't in good faith call him my favorite, though he gets pretty darn close. My memory of Saren's interactions with him are a little fuzzy, but I do remember thinking something very similar for Elenor/Mesphit that you do with Saren/Loren, that Elenor has this overwhelming feeling that Mesphit is a good person deep down, despite him not having done much at that point to indicate it.

Even though she turned out to be right in the end, her constant insistence of it, even when he continuously pushed her away, and even got violent with her at one point, struck me as a bit...I dunno. Self-destructive, maybe? Not sure what the right word is for it. So while I can definitely see how Mesphit is able to heal and grow through his relationship with Elenor, I'm not entirely sure that it equally benefits her.

Don't get me wrong, I love the romance as a whole, but by the end of it I still had this lingering feeling of "eehhh wow, this really isn't a very healthy relationship, is it?" But again, I think I just read the situation in a different way. I have faith that Mesphit will only continue to conquer his demons, both literally and figuratively, in the second game.

As for Rei, I will say that it is possible to change his view of dark elves, and even get him to realize that Mesphit is not his enemy. I don't think you even need to be in a relationship with him to do it. His romance epilogue is super cute though :mrgreen:
All hail Rei's booty.
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