Regarding the vid in the OP, I'd seen it before as it had been shared in one of our other threads, and I'll admit that I personally didn't feel that the analysis got to the crux of the matter. Sure, there are some easy hits (some of which, as has been noted, have already been addressed) but I don't think there's anything substantial said about the BG3 romances that personally I don't find equally applicable to romances in other cRPGs. And he does seem (in my view) to totally miss the point of the Lae'zel early romance: yes it's quick, but that's her character, and in my view it's a little bit terrifying, a little bit hot, and a lot funny. And I know sense of humour is subjective, but it doesn't seem as though the streamer even realises it was meant to be amusing, and I'm pretty sure it was.
That all said, from reading many posts here, it's pretty clear my expectations of romance in RPGs are a lot lower (of course, I'd argue more realistic
) than those of a lot of other players. For me they are an important but small part of the overall experience, and while I'm disappointed when I can't make sex or romance part of my character's story, I pretty much always find it kinda cringe to watch play out in practice. Even in the Dragon Age and Mass Effect games, which for me are the gold standard for both romantic and friendship relationships in games. And while I've only seen a little of the BG3 romance content, I haven't found it any worse than the average for those games. In fact, while I found Wyll's flowery declarations and Halsin's sleazy chat up lines ("gazing at nature's beauty", really?!) as embarrassing to watch as equivalent scenes in other games, others I think were much better. Including the first Lae'zel encounter, which the streamer didn't like but I thought was fun and funny, and the Astarion party encounter which I thought was well done, and quite powerful in the way that what happened can be thrown into a very different light talking to him later and realising how Astarion uses sex and seduction to manipulate.
In short, could elements of the romance be better, absolutely. But I don't feel that the streamer has got to the heart of what could be improved, and also think it oversimplifies to say the problem is that the characters are too "horny". Sure Lae'zel gets turned on by competence, Halsin has a high libido, Karlach is dying for a bit of connection and intimacy after her 10 year dry spell and Astarion as a matter of habit uses sex as a way of getting close to and influencing people. The other companions didn't strike me as horny at all (I'm excluding Minthara as I've not recruited her in the full release), and for me the ones who are have varied and valid enough reasons and don't feel unrealistic. At least any more than I'm happy to handwave away in a cRPG like this, which is trying to give players different options and has practical constraints on how much time and effort can be spent on development.
I also didn't feel, as many players clearly did, that friendships weren't done well. In fact, in my first run, it felt that my character had deeper and more meaningful relationships with Gale, Karlach, Astarion and to some extent Shadowheart than with Wyll whom she was romancing. Again, more would have been great (I lap this stuff up) but for me BG3 compares favourably to the vast majority of cRPGs and while for me they're not as good as the best Mass Effect friendships with Liara, Garrus, Wrex, Mordin and Grunt, those have two or three games to develop over, and for me the BG3 friendships are on a level with most of the ones in individual Bioware games (Varric excepted, perhaps).
What I do agree is missing is a party feeling. Larian clearly made some effort to give the sense that the companions were building relationships with each other as well as our PCs, with the commentary they give about the development of each others' quests and the banter. But I'd love way more interaction between them, and on the few occasions when it does happen (eg Shadowheart and Lae'zel's contretemps) it's really noticeable for me how this brings the game and the party to life. Similarly on the too few occasions when companions get involved in dialogues as we adventure. And I definitely felt that the banter wasn't working well enough, but then I was affected in my only full run so far by a bug which meant Shadowheart's wound interjection interrupted pretty much all Act 3 banter so I'm willing to keep an open mind there.
And I do agree with everyone who thinks there's not a decent pay-off in the late game and epilogue for the relationships we've built, and very much hope the clamour there has been about this means that it will be improved in future.
