Love interests in general - I would expect deep, engaging romance arcs that progress at a rate that is natural to the character in question:
Of course, certain wants require deep, engaging characters: It's to be expected that certain companions will receive less content than others - It occurred in the Mass Effect franchise and in Dragon Age - but it would be nice if all the characters had multiple dimensions to their personalities.
It's horrible entering into a romance, believing that you'll uncover the deepest emotions, beliefs and richest histories of the desired companion, only to discover that the character is exactly what it says on the tin..... It can be somewhat... Disappointing?
I certainly hope that characters on the whole receive the attention that they deserve (hopefully without the main plot suffering), because rich characters make for rich relationships, be their friendships or romances. Once deep, vibrant, multi-dimensional characters have been written, it's fairly simply for everything else to fall into place, no?
Something that doesn't fall into place, however, is the unique characteristics of each companion:
It was better in Dragon Age 2, the game recognised that Fenris and Isabela, as the characters they are, were not likely to sacrifice their independence to move in with Hawke, no matter how much they loved them. This is something that a lot of people complained about, but recognition of the differences between characters should be always play a factor in interactions and progression.
It would be nice to see that trend continue into this third installment of the franchise - Companions and characters with their own strongly defined, and completely unique, personalities would obviously approach relationships (of any kind) in different ways. It's to be expected, it's a necessity that I feel is often overlooked.
Progression through the relationships should be as different and unique to each character as the dialogue itself. These characters are different, they're all unique. They aren't one single entity and they should never be treated as such - Relationships should progress differently, and they should each reach their own individual climax (pardon the pun) that is unique to each character.
Speaking of progression - The progression of interaction and dialogue itself should be addressed as well
A note on the progression itself: It would be nice if it wasn't entirely scheduled, but a scheduled system of some kind is required to maintain a natural flow and prevent dialogue running thin at the mid-way point of the game.
It's extremely irritating to find that the only limitations on dialogue available are a poorly scripted "Affection" system, that is easily overridden with the power of a few gifts, making the content easily available and often entirely consumed in half an hour. It's equally irritating to find yourself interacting with your companions on a scheduled basis, making the progression feel clunky and unnatural.
There needs to be balance between Companion Initiated Dialogue, scheduled to ensure that the content is not entirely consumed in a ridiculously short time-span, completely ruining any sense of natural progression for relationships (friendly or otherwise). And Player Initiated Dialogue to allow for a natural flow of progression that Players themselves wish to experience.
In very specific terms of what I would like to see in a love interest? Race doesn't matter, neither does gender, I would like all of the above ranting, and a companion with a great deal of bluff and bluster, hiding a deep sense of loss and a soul shattering pain.
Someone bitter and angry, but shielded by humour, arrogance or wit. Someone who is openly fun amongst the inevitable crazies, yet also suffers from pains and torments themselves. Instead of being dominated by their tragedies, they hide it all behind fake smiles and charming misdirection.
Basically - Someone dashing, charming, a little bit arrogant(but not too much) and fun on the surface, yet deep, complex and astonishingly different the more you learn about them.
And now that I have ranted 'til the cows came home, about things that I consider romantic requirements and my own personal taste in love interest - I will go away, and never return. There is enough text in this post to last you many life-times, and as a result I am no longer needed. I apologise for the length of this post, and as always, I salute those of you that are capable of reading the entire thing.
*Bows*
I'd really love to know how I manage to write so much stuff about an aspect of the game that I rarely pursue, except for the sake of additional dialogue content. O.o
Modifié par Sylvanpyxie, 17 septembre 2012 - 11:56 .
Sure, Alistair was written too much as a bumbling teen, Zev was ruthless killer, Morrigan was a shrew, and Leliana needed to lay off the spiked cool-aid, but they were sane, and more importantly, sometimes funny. The LI's in DA2 were anything but.
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