It depends. Truthfully I have always found it hard to believe that characters can 'totally fall in love' after what amounts to eight minutes of dialogue (seriously, look up the full dialogues for all the Mass Effect romances, counting all three dialogue sections and final scene, the average length is about eight minutes. That's about how long an average SINGLE conversation in Mass Effect 1 was) and in some cases it's spurred on so fast and is handled so shoddily that I feel like I'm watching an ammature porno rather then an actual romantic scene.
That said, if there was ever ONE romance in Mass Effect 2 that I think had to be love, it was Jack's. The proper sexless romance scene where they just cuddle, I mean. That one was always quite touching to me.
The others though? Not so much, Miranda's always felt like a poorly directed porno, Garrus's was kind of charming in an awkward way but pushed too fast, Thane's was a little melodramatic, Tali's did nothing to warm the lump of coal that is my heart and Jacob's was.... Jacob's.
Of course this is all my subjective view of the situation, and people have clearly developed some kind of strong attachment to these characters on a personal level as can be evidenced by their popularity on support threads.
But still I honestly think that had there NOT been an element of player interaction to make the player feel like they were involved in it, people might look at these romances the same way they look at crappy, unneccessary love interest subplots in movies.
This may even apply to characters I like, Ashley and Jack for instance. Yes I like them, I find them attractive and I grew to like them on a personal level and in the case of Ashley she felt like a real person in the way she was written and how she behaved in game. But the fact remains without that element of 'getting to know them yourself' I doubt I'd have been as invested as I ended up being. That element worked quite well.
Enough that I was able to actually
want to 'stay faithful' to a fictitious character.
I guess what I'm saying is, Bioware might not exceed at making great 'romantic dialogue' but they do succeed in making dynamic and interesting and well written characters that hold our attention enough that we remain invested in what happens to them. So, when a personal connection is made between them and our player character, we develop affection towards them.
Which is still something.
As it stands, I do think it is 'love' in the context of the story. It's not always clear or well done the way it's written but if Kaidan is prepared to ask FemShep about her feelings, Ashley is prepared to confess quirks about herself to ManShep, Miranda is ready to give up the role of 'ice queen' to try being nice, Jacob is ready to pull out the one liners, Garrus is ready to try out with a human, Tali is ready to endanger her health, Jack is ready to trust someone for the first time, Thane is ready to get over the death of his wife and Liara is ready to fight the Shadow broker... I'd say there is a clear intent if nothing else to be equivical to love.
When Ashley started to get upset on Horizon, one of the first things she did was say 'I loved you'. While everything else in that scene was an embarrassing trainwreck in terms of writing, the way that one bit was written and the way her voice actress performed it, made it feel legitimate.
The fact that James Shepard was subsequently able to resist sleeping with anyone else adds on to that.
Modifié par V-rex, 18 juin 2011 - 03:09 .
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