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.
I think a lot of PS1 era JRPGs had some amount of it, it was just often buried and not explained. Even FF7 had an entire complex system for a throwaway romance sidequest that spanned the entire game up until that point.
Heck the Star Ocean 2 romance value system spans the entire game and is incredibly complex with its interactions, though it doesn't do a whole lot as a gameplay integration.
Unfortunately it seems the PS1 era is when that kind of thing ended because my knowledge of anything like it ends there.
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.
I think a lot of PS1 era JRPGs had some amount of it, it was just often buried and not explained. Even FF7 had an entire complex system for a throwaway romance sidequest that spanned the entire game up until that point.
Heck the Star Ocean 2 romance value system spans the entire game and is incredibly complex with its interactions, though it doesn't do a whole lot as a gameplay integration.
Unfortunately it seems the PS1 era is when that kind of thing ended because my knowledge of anything like it ends there.