As a note, I've not yet completed Act I. I hit Level 4 and restart for the most part. I've probably done bits and pieces of it all over, but anyway. I have to comment I really love the party-night you get with Shadowheart where it's implied that mostly the two of you just sit around, drink wine and enjoy each other's company with the only sort of sexual interplay being towards the end with a bit of a kiss.
I'm guessing it's going to be the closest I get to an Ace or Demi style romance option. Given the way the current dialogue lines go, it feels like there's going to be either "accept on their terms" or "reject them completely". There's just a tremendous lack of personal intimacy explored in romance options in a lot of games. It usually seems to boil down to "do you successfully have sex with them or not?"
Then again, it's not as bad as poly gets. The rare times you get a Poly relationship in games, it tends to be of necessity revolving around a central character and again, revolve around whether or not sex happens. Feels like in a game where you can switch between characters in a conversation, that you could run conversations between your companions to build up romances between them too and possible work toward a bit of quality poly representation.
As a note, I'm not down on the wildly sexual character either, or the mainstream monogamous relationship. Love is love, it's all beautiful. I tend to be Ace/Aro, but like seeing people happy with each other, so my reaction to fiction can be described as "shipping goblin" but it's all beautiful. I just tend to feel that having expanded representation and options would make your decision one way or another would come to mean more as a result.
Plus there's not a lot of good representation for Ace, Demi, or Poly... or the sexual Aro (casual sexual relationships) since that last is usually labeled in negative terms and as negative character types (womanizers, sluts, players, people that have no respect for their partners or else no respect for themselves). So seeing a bit of a spread would be nice.
Though, I'm fairly certain we're not going to see that this game. Which is a bit expected, to be honest, but can dream sometime I suppose. Maybe eventually, before I die, I'll see an ending cutscene of a polycule holding together before facing the possible end of the world at the climax of the game.
Last edited by Thrythlind; 27/07/21 05:08 AM.
