Now if your hypothetical was true and the game was the same but had an older protagonist and even a shallow romance mechanic was added, either the game would have taken longer to come out to accommodate this feature or there would be less content, quality of life or more oversights in the core mechanics. That being said, all throughout the game I've noticed many flaws and oversights that range from innocuous to unfortunate to outright bizarre that could have been addressed with a longer or more thorough development cycle. Using Stories 2 as an example, I have about 100 hours in the game so far and obviously am largely enjoying my time. First and foremost, no matter how bare bones the dating mechanics may be, they still take development time that could and in some cases should, objectively, be spent elsewhere. Saying that romance as a side option should be an industry standard is really ignorant of game development. Such examples include Dishonored and Devil May Cry, or games like Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin where the protagonist is just a kid. The only RPG's that shouldn't have a romance system are the ones where it wouldn't make sense to have one, like the ones with busy protagonists where love is not a viable interest. I really think that opt-in romance systems should be an industry standard in RPG's. There's nothing wrong with being a visionary. That doesn't mean that it can't be better. I don't feel like this game is missing.well, anything. However, the lack of these features doesn't take away from this game at all. I wholeheartedly believe the answer to that question is yes as long as the romance system is optional. Now the question is, would this game have been improved if the main character was older, Avinia/Kayna/Alwin/Reverto/Ena were romanceable, and the main character was Voiced and Navirou was deleted? With such a massive lack of romantic mechanics in games (outside of the trashy bottom-feeding visual novels that are designed centrally around that mechanic) it's easy to see the lack of such a system in a cute game like this. Look at how charming each and every single one of these characters are. Now let's talk about Monster Hunter Stories 2. This is why I prefer games with romance as a "cherry-on-top" rather than games designed purely around romance, like visual novel dating sims. The romance in Bioware games just make them more optionally versatile and provide more pathways for you to indulge with the characters. You can choose not to indulge in that aspect of the game at all and still be able to experience 99% of what makes it great: The gunplay, the powers, and the squad tactics.īioware has done well in regards to implementing romance systems in games that don't necessitate such systems. I feel like a lot of aspects of the "dating sim" can be implemented to actual games, like Mass Effect for example.