There is nothing optional about it. Hans is now gay. It doesn't matter whether you decide to fuck him ingame or not. Also Henry was not a player insert in the first game. And thus both characters were retconned to be gay/bi-sexual.
This was the Leftist tactic for a long time to let them get a foot in the door before they made it mandatory. No one forces you to be gay in Mass Effect, it's just impossible to avoid if you raise your relationship level with the other male characters enough :) No one forces you to look at the Gay Diversity awkwardly inserted into the game, it's just utilized as ammunition by all the most disgusting and narcissistic kinds of people as evidence that they always owned those IPs, and you can't do anything to stop them now :)
No one forces you to be gay in Mass Effect, it's just impossible to avoid if you raise your relationship level with the other male characters enough :)
I remember being accidentally gay in Mass Effect 3 because I was vaguely nice to Kaidan in one conversation and all the sudden we're butt buddies. I guess the lesson here is kill him off in the first game and you won't have to worry about it.
Also, I don't think I have ever played an RPG where the romance leads to anything remotely related to the main story or adds anything to the gameplay.
Most people recognised that in games like Cyberpunk 2077, after you bang the romance option there is literally nothing else left to do and they just stop communicating with you because that's the end of the quest line. I think in later updates they tried adding more options so you could go "hang out", but it really highlighted the fact that it had no reason to be there in the first place, added nothing to the game, and served no purpose other than to push the faggotry agenda and normalising it, so people like SidAlpha could use it as a "gotcha" to say, "Look, all these games had it, it's totally fine guys!"
The Fire Emblem games, before they went super mainstream, had probably the best integration of a romance system you could hope for in an RPG.
If characters spent X amount of turns side by side, their support level grew (with better compatible characters growing faster, like a difference of +25 to +1 when you need 100 points per level). Every character had either 5 total supports per game, with each one getting progressively deeper from introductions in C rank, friends in B, to best friends or romantic in A rank. And with only having 5, you could only romance one per game and get one close friend. Or something less developed like 5 acquaintances. Other games gave you unlimited supports but you had to commit to like a final S rank for romance and could only do one.
Where it integrated, is that if you had support levels with someone, then you would gain stats if they were within X squares of you. Meaning your choices in developing these bonds also had huge ramifications on your character ability and capability, sometimes being the defining element to make a bad character good (like giving plus Hit to someone who wouldn't gain much naturally). And a lot of the times it was between classes who naturally wanted to be near each other, like an archer and an armor knight or two cavaliers who'd always be further ahead than the group, so you could just gain these advantages by playing the game smartly if you didn't want to min/max it.
It would also determine each characters ending, with a large swath of unique endings for basically any characters who could support. In a few cases, with midgame timeskips it would have huge effects on the next generation characters and their stats/capabilities as well.
I think that's the problem with most other RPGs. They want romance to be this big defined thing with epic moments like the inevitable sex scene or whatever. But that just highlights that they had to spend limited time making a limited number of events. Instead of building a small foundation and letting it speak for itself off that.
Now that is interesting, and that is EXACTLY how the romance/relationship building should be done, impacting actual gameplay and improving character stats/bonuses/etc.
I never really gave the Fire Emblem games much attention -- I can't remember, but didn't they start on the Gameboy Advance or DS?
They started on the SNES originally, though the first one to make it out of Japan was the second GBA title. The first two games were remade on the DS and 3DS respectively, though they were and still are super barebones.
The support system I described is the one used in the GBA games (6-8), which is also the first games to not be Japan only (7 was the first international game, 1/2 were remade on the DS/3DS later while 3-6 are still fan translation only).
What's amusing is that the relationship system was first setup back in the 4th game all the way back in 1996. With literally every piece of it being hugely impactful on your characters and the story, as you spend most of the time post-timeskip using the children of your original generation's pairings. And it goes in depth with it.
So there isn't an excuse for any RPG game to be lazy about it as it was already figured out by a fucking niche (at the time) SNES series.
Thanks. That really puts into perspective just how horrible and lazy a lot of today's RPGs are, and how agenda-driven they are when it comes to the romance systems, since I cannot think of any recent RPGs that use a similar system as the one you described from the older Fire Emblem games.
Although, I do seem to recall a similar system being in Bahamut Lagoon as you developed the relationships/partnerships between the characters and the dragons, or maybe I'm remembering it wrong. Either way, meaningful relationships in games seems to be a thing of a bygone era.
The romance in KCD1 with Theresa was half way decent but it even there it didn't affect the gameplay or story much. But at the same time KCD1 baited you into sex scenes without warning. You try on a shirt with the woman of your benefactor in the same room? You end up cucking your benefactor. Or you get shitfaced with that one priest? You fuck some other woman.
And now if you choose to remain loyal in KCD2 to Theresa you get a letter in which she tells you that she cucked you with one of your friends. And you only get that letter if you choose to remain loyal. If you whore around you don't get it.
Morrigan's romance in DA:O might as well be canonical. The other endings are nowhere near as interesting, and her ending is a bit of a non sequitur if you aren't romancing her.
Also, I don't think I have ever played an RPG where the romance leads to anything remotely related to the main story or adds anything to the gameplay.
Yeah, unless they're done really well or really poorly, they're generally forgettable.
The only good one that comes to mind (and I could be wrong, this was decades ago), was actually early BioWare, interestingly enough. SW:KotOR four or five years before the first Mass Effect, and only a couple years after BG2. Bastila was an interesting character, and her paths can differ greatly depending on player role and choice, and does affect the story line. She was also straight; this is back in the day when such things were allowed.
Most of the other memorable romances were the bad ones. David Cage games spring to mind. *cough cough* Fahrenheit. That level of retardation will haunt you.
Oh yeah, I forgot about Bastilla; that's a good call-out -- if you romanced her and then did the evil ending, she would actually join you, which was kind of cool. Back when choices actually meant something.
...it's sad that romance in GTA of all things is more important than in most RPGs...at least they give you a reason to continue the relationship...
that being said, FFIV had a pretty cute romance between Cecil and Rose that was woven into the story pretty well. it was pretty generic (and with the 16-bit graphics, the kissing scene was more hilarious than heartwarming), but it was handled well...
GTA San Andreas was actually quite noteworthy for that, heck even the sex scenes that were cut at least had mini-games where you actually had to play. But beyond that, you're right, just getting up the max romance with each character unlocked bonuses and buffs in each section of the map. Rockstar actually made it mean something, which is funny because in RPGs they don't make it mean anything.
like i said, final fantasy 4 (sacrelige, i know, using arabic numerals with a final fantasy game, lol) had a pretty cute romance. it didn't really do anything for the gameplay, but it was Rose's reason joining Cecil's party. and Edward had a bit of a tragic romance backstory as well, one that tied into why Tellah's story as well. don't get me started on the comical relationship Yang had with his wife, lol.
I will admit, though, it does seem a lot of modern RPGs only include romance in a superfluous way, though. especially with the ones that are less RPG and more visual novel with a few action scenes tacked on...
Hans is an NPC so he's gay. Or bi-sexual considering he was a hardcore womanizer in the first game. So considering the option to engage in romance with him will come up no matter what you choose in the end, yes, he's confirmed gay. Which makes the entire bromance between Hans and Henry very weird.
Quick refresher for the KCD2 drama: Warhorse was caught retconning henry to be gay after previously saying in YouTube comments that he is straight, and there is also the issue of the historically inaccurate forced dieversity black Muslim character who is also a false & inaccurate depiction of Islam that is offensive to it's victims as Islam is a racist, sexist, homophobic, genocidal, pro pedo cult that wants to destroy all other religions and cultures. Oh and speaking of racism it should be noted Islam is racist towards blacks and supports ENSLAVING THEM!
Edit: There are now reports they made the female characters ugly for extremist reasons.
You missed the part where the Slavs were genocidal to the existence of any Muslim because of constant war and slave raids. The dudes head would have been on a spike
black Muslim character who is also a false & inaccurate depiction of Islam that is offensive to it's victims as Islam is a racist, sexist, homophobic, genocidal, pro pedo cult that wants to destroy all other religions and cultures
The character is offensive because he's an awfully written character. He's an insult to the intelligence of any person with half a braincell.
"Other games did it, so this one doing it too is no big deal"
Hello, I am big brain man here to tell you my big brain thoughts.
Just ignore everything the lead of the studio said about the first game contracting the things that are now in the second. Optional or otherwise.
I mean, it's just a 2021 BMW 5 Series 530i with optional heated seating in a fantasy game. It could be possible.
EDIT: The first game was crowd funded, it met (I believe) all the stretch goals, nowhere was there a "just fuck Henry up" stretch goal.
There was also DLC for the game, and it still did not have black people or gay romance in it. One of them was called The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon.
For which has now been completely retconned. In this DLC, we see the adventures of Hans chasing after women left and right and at the end of the dlc you have to help him win over the Butcher's daughter without her father's knowledge. Well in KCD2 Hans is gay now, so chasing after too many women and getting too many poonani will turn you gay, got it.
EDIT 2: "I'm tired of being dragged through another country's culture war. We don't care" -- Daniel Vavra
It was a big deal when you wore a gamergate shirt and were hashtag based. But now that your word means shit, you turn out to be the person you always were. We just didn't notice at the time because it was nice to have an ally in the industry who felt like unjustified bullshit being shoved into a game was y'know, unjustified bullshit... at least until it happens to you right Vavra? Now it's perfectly normal and would have been in the first game were it not for a lack of time and money. Except you got way more for the kickstarter than you ever hoped.
You can't even stick to a fucking lie. Just shut up already.
The first game was crowd funded, it met (I believe) all the stretch goals, nowhere was there a "just fuck Henry up" stretch goal.
Honestly, this bullshit is one of the great VG development turns/betrayals. Still the number one ranking for me is Phoenix Point, but Vavra doing a complete 180 on a bunch of stuff he'd said about the first game is way up there.
A bunch of the other Epic exclusives also rank high; especially the indies, who were riding a wave of goodwill. Supergiant Games riding high after Bastion, and Red Hook with Darkest Dungeon spring to mind. A lot of people eventually forgave the former (for whatever reason) after Hades, but a lot of people were still left with a bad taste in their mouth.
In my opinion, Jon Del Arroz, AKA JDA, is a huge faggot. He's a trust fund kid who loves to throw around law suits. He uses every victim tactic he can to farm engagement. His books are terrible. He hires gutter artists, and writes like a toddler. He's a fucking snake.
We ALL know why the option for Henry to be gay is in the sequel. Woke pressure and activism. To try and say that it's ok because it's optional is a fucking lie. It wasn't in the first game, now it's in the sequel. That's woke. The OPTION is woke.
It's not forced on you, but if you dare try to release a mod that disables it or "fixes it" (eg letting you bang Judy as a male in Cyberpunk) it gets removed off mod sites since it's hateful. The same site that happily hosts mods that makes everyone gay or takes everyone's clothes off draws the line here.
Summary of the satanic panic: In response to allegations of attacks by satanic cultists stereotypically involving children and corrupt daycare center staff, there was a massive moral panic where people went berserk over anything they considered blasphemous or depicted cults and demons, and it allegedly resulted in vandalism of stores selling targeted materials, extremist protests, vandalism of personal property such as the targeted materials, brawling, domestic violence, child abuse, fighting between school staff and parents who do not believe in the moral panic, and even false police reports and attacks by crooked cops.
Known victims of this bullshit include D&D which became infamous for getting hit the worse out of everything thanks to Patrica Pauling, as well as bands such as KISS.
As for the aftermath, it caused christophobia to spike within the tabletop community as puritan conservatives were leading the charge, and it also was considered one of the many puricon scandals that caused far left extremism to grow just like the near century long violent media moral panic, and it never went down until the regressive left got exposed via gamergate.
"It's optional"
There is nothing optional about it. Hans is now gay. It doesn't matter whether you decide to fuck him ingame or not. Also Henry was not a player insert in the first game. And thus both characters were retconned to be gay/bi-sexual.
This was the Leftist tactic for a long time to let them get a foot in the door before they made it mandatory. No one forces you to be gay in Mass Effect, it's just impossible to avoid if you raise your relationship level with the other male characters enough :) No one forces you to look at the Gay Diversity awkwardly inserted into the game, it's just utilized as ammunition by all the most disgusting and narcissistic kinds of people as evidence that they always owned those IPs, and you can't do anything to stop them now :)
I remember being accidentally gay in Mass Effect 3 because I was vaguely nice to Kaidan in one conversation and all the sudden we're butt buddies. I guess the lesson here is kill him off in the first game and you won't have to worry about it.
Just more proof that Ashley was always the GOAT. I killed Kaiden without hesitation.
One of the reasons why I generally dislike romance options in RPGs. Often if not most of the time they're terribly written.
Also, I don't think I have ever played an RPG where the romance leads to anything remotely related to the main story or adds anything to the gameplay.
Most people recognised that in games like Cyberpunk 2077, after you bang the romance option there is literally nothing else left to do and they just stop communicating with you because that's the end of the quest line. I think in later updates they tried adding more options so you could go "hang out", but it really highlighted the fact that it had no reason to be there in the first place, added nothing to the game, and served no purpose other than to push the faggotry agenda and normalising it, so people like SidAlpha could use it as a "gotcha" to say, "Look, all these games had it, it's totally fine guys!"
The Fire Emblem games, before they went super mainstream, had probably the best integration of a romance system you could hope for in an RPG.
If characters spent X amount of turns side by side, their support level grew (with better compatible characters growing faster, like a difference of +25 to +1 when you need 100 points per level). Every character had either 5 total supports per game, with each one getting progressively deeper from introductions in C rank, friends in B, to best friends or romantic in A rank. And with only having 5, you could only romance one per game and get one close friend. Or something less developed like 5 acquaintances. Other games gave you unlimited supports but you had to commit to like a final S rank for romance and could only do one.
Where it integrated, is that if you had support levels with someone, then you would gain stats if they were within X squares of you. Meaning your choices in developing these bonds also had huge ramifications on your character ability and capability, sometimes being the defining element to make a bad character good (like giving plus Hit to someone who wouldn't gain much naturally). And a lot of the times it was between classes who naturally wanted to be near each other, like an archer and an armor knight or two cavaliers who'd always be further ahead than the group, so you could just gain these advantages by playing the game smartly if you didn't want to min/max it.
It would also determine each characters ending, with a large swath of unique endings for basically any characters who could support. In a few cases, with midgame timeskips it would have huge effects on the next generation characters and their stats/capabilities as well.
I think that's the problem with most other RPGs. They want romance to be this big defined thing with epic moments like the inevitable sex scene or whatever. But that just highlights that they had to spend limited time making a limited number of events. Instead of building a small foundation and letting it speak for itself off that.
Now that is interesting, and that is EXACTLY how the romance/relationship building should be done, impacting actual gameplay and improving character stats/bonuses/etc.
I never really gave the Fire Emblem games much attention -- I can't remember, but didn't they start on the Gameboy Advance or DS?
They started on the SNES originally, though the first one to make it out of Japan was the second GBA title. The first two games were remade on the DS and 3DS respectively, though they were and still are super barebones.
The support system I described is the one used in the GBA games (6-8), which is also the first games to not be Japan only (7 was the first international game, 1/2 were remade on the DS/3DS later while 3-6 are still fan translation only).
What's amusing is that the relationship system was first setup back in the 4th game all the way back in 1996. With literally every piece of it being hugely impactful on your characters and the story, as you spend most of the time post-timeskip using the children of your original generation's pairings. And it goes in depth with it.
So there isn't an excuse for any RPG game to be lazy about it as it was already figured out by a fucking niche (at the time) SNES series.
Thanks. That really puts into perspective just how horrible and lazy a lot of today's RPGs are, and how agenda-driven they are when it comes to the romance systems, since I cannot think of any recent RPGs that use a similar system as the one you described from the older Fire Emblem games.
Although, I do seem to recall a similar system being in Bahamut Lagoon as you developed the relationships/partnerships between the characters and the dragons, or maybe I'm remembering it wrong. Either way, meaningful relationships in games seems to be a thing of a bygone era.
The romance in KCD1 with Theresa was half way decent but it even there it didn't affect the gameplay or story much. But at the same time KCD1 baited you into sex scenes without warning. You try on a shirt with the woman of your benefactor in the same room? You end up cucking your benefactor. Or you get shitfaced with that one priest? You fuck some other woman.
And now if you choose to remain loyal in KCD2 to Theresa you get a letter in which she tells you that she cucked you with one of your friends. And you only get that letter if you choose to remain loyal. If you whore around you don't get it.
Morrigan's romance in DA:O might as well be canonical. The other endings are nowhere near as interesting, and her ending is a bit of a non sequitur if you aren't romancing her.
Yeah, unless they're done really well or really poorly, they're generally forgettable.
The only good one that comes to mind (and I could be wrong, this was decades ago), was actually early BioWare, interestingly enough. SW:KotOR four or five years before the first Mass Effect, and only a couple years after BG2. Bastila was an interesting character, and her paths can differ greatly depending on player role and choice, and does affect the story line. She was also straight; this is back in the day when such things were allowed.
Most of the other memorable romances were the bad ones. David Cage games spring to mind. *cough cough* Fahrenheit. That level of retardation will haunt you.
Oh yeah, I forgot about Bastilla; that's a good call-out -- if you romanced her and then did the evil ending, she would actually join you, which was kind of cool. Back when choices actually meant something.
...it's sad that romance in GTA of all things is more important than in most RPGs...at least they give you a reason to continue the relationship...
that being said, FFIV had a pretty cute romance between Cecil and Rose that was woven into the story pretty well. it was pretty generic (and with the 16-bit graphics, the kissing scene was more hilarious than heartwarming), but it was handled well...
GTA San Andreas was actually quite noteworthy for that, heck even the sex scenes that were cut at least had mini-games where you actually had to play. But beyond that, you're right, just getting up the max romance with each character unlocked bonuses and buffs in each section of the map. Rockstar actually made it mean something, which is funny because in RPGs they don't make it mean anything.
like i said, final fantasy 4 (sacrelige, i know, using arabic numerals with a final fantasy game, lol) had a pretty cute romance. it didn't really do anything for the gameplay, but it was Rose's reason joining Cecil's party. and Edward had a bit of a tragic romance backstory as well, one that tied into why Tellah's story as well. don't get me started on the comical relationship Yang had with his wife, lol.
I will admit, though, it does seem a lot of modern RPGs only include romance in a superfluous way, though. especially with the ones that are less RPG and more visual novel with a few action scenes tacked on...
Mate that's really going deep into the well of history, but I'm slowly starting to remember those now...
Cecil was the one who went from evil to good right? I remember Kain was my favourite in that game, the badass Dragoon, yeah?
Wasn't Yang the monk or was that Edge?
The more you have described it the more it's starting to come back to me, though.
So it’s confirmed that your best bro is gay regardless of whether or not you pursue him? Because that doesn’t sound very optional to me.
Hans is an NPC so he's gay. Or bi-sexual considering he was a hardcore womanizer in the first game. So considering the option to engage in romance with him will come up no matter what you choose in the end, yes, he's confirmed gay. Which makes the entire bromance between Hans and Henry very weird.
I love the long and thorough talk on stuff being optional by 21 kiloton. I don't care if it's optional, it's still faggotry in a game that did not have a bi main character in the first game.
Quick refresher for the KCD2 drama: Warhorse was caught retconning henry to be gay after previously saying in YouTube comments that he is straight, and there is also the issue of the historically inaccurate forced dieversity black Muslim character who is also a false & inaccurate depiction of Islam that is offensive to it's victims as Islam is a racist, sexist, homophobic, genocidal, pro pedo cult that wants to destroy all other religions and cultures. Oh and speaking of racism it should be noted Islam is racist towards blacks and supports ENSLAVING THEM!
Edit: There are now reports they made the female characters ugly for extremist reasons.
You missed the part where the Slavs were genocidal to the existence of any Muslim because of constant war and slave raids. The dudes head would have been on a spike
I did say "historically inaccurate" after all.
The character is offensive because he's an awfully written character. He's an insult to the intelligence of any person with half a braincell.
"Other games did it, so this one doing it too is no big deal"
Hello, I am big brain man here to tell you my big brain thoughts.
Just ignore everything the lead of the studio said about the first game contracting the things that are now in the second. Optional or otherwise.
I mean, it's just a 2021 BMW 5 Series 530i with optional heated seating in a fantasy game. It could be possible.
EDIT: The first game was crowd funded, it met (I believe) all the stretch goals, nowhere was there a "just fuck Henry up" stretch goal.
There was also DLC for the game, and it still did not have black people or gay romance in it. One of them was called The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon.
For which has now been completely retconned. In this DLC, we see the adventures of Hans chasing after women left and right and at the end of the dlc you have to help him win over the Butcher's daughter without her father's knowledge. Well in KCD2 Hans is gay now, so chasing after too many women and getting too many poonani will turn you gay, got it.
EDIT 2: "I'm tired of being dragged through another country's culture war. We don't care" -- Daniel Vavra
It was a big deal when you wore a gamergate shirt and were hashtag based. But now that your word means shit, you turn out to be the person you always were. We just didn't notice at the time because it was nice to have an ally in the industry who felt like unjustified bullshit being shoved into a game was y'know, unjustified bullshit... at least until it happens to you right Vavra? Now it's perfectly normal and would have been in the first game were it not for a lack of time and money. Except you got way more for the kickstarter than you ever hoped.
You can't even stick to a fucking lie. Just shut up already.
Honestly, this bullshit is one of the great VG development turns/betrayals. Still the number one ranking for me is Phoenix Point, but Vavra doing a complete 180 on a bunch of stuff he'd said about the first game is way up there.
A bunch of the other Epic exclusives also rank high; especially the indies, who were riding a wave of goodwill. Supergiant Games riding high after Bastion, and Red Hook with Darkest Dungeon spring to mind. A lot of people eventually forgave the former (for whatever reason) after Hades, but a lot of people were still left with a bad taste in their mouth.
Gigachad: Yes
But not for the reason they think. Just like BG3, making every character a raging bi is unrealistic and ruins the immersion
Yes, I do hate Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Cyberpunk 2077, Woke Warhammer, and everything else those faggots ruined.
In my opinion, Jon Del Arroz, AKA JDA, is a huge faggot. He's a trust fund kid who loves to throw around law suits. He uses every victim tactic he can to farm engagement. His books are terrible. He hires gutter artists, and writes like a toddler. He's a fucking snake.
We ALL know why the option for Henry to be gay is in the sequel. Woke pressure and activism. To try and say that it's ok because it's optional is a fucking lie. It wasn't in the first game, now it's in the sequel. That's woke. The OPTION is woke.
Actually Sid, yes, I do have an issue with all those games you just named with faggotry in them. And no, I do not like that faggotry is in them.
It's not forced on you, but if you dare try to release a mod that disables it or "fixes it" (eg letting you bang Judy as a male in Cyberpunk) it gets removed off mod sites since it's hateful. The same site that happily hosts mods that makes everyone gay or takes everyone's clothes off draws the line here.
"Denied satanic panic"
That's me, I deny it, it didn't happen, it is entirely a lib vibe fabrication
Summary of the satanic panic: In response to allegations of attacks by satanic cultists stereotypically involving children and corrupt daycare center staff, there was a massive moral panic where people went berserk over anything they considered blasphemous or depicted cults and demons, and it allegedly resulted in vandalism of stores selling targeted materials, extremist protests, vandalism of personal property such as the targeted materials, brawling, domestic violence, child abuse, fighting between school staff and parents who do not believe in the moral panic, and even false police reports and attacks by crooked cops.
Known victims of this bullshit include D&D which became infamous for getting hit the worse out of everything thanks to Patrica Pauling, as well as bands such as KISS.
As for the aftermath, it caused christophobia to spike within the tabletop community as puritan conservatives were leading the charge, and it also was considered one of the many puricon scandals that caused far left extremism to grow just like the near century long violent media moral panic, and it never went down until the regressive left got exposed via gamergate.
Cool. Didn't happen.