I guess I'm in the minority here, but I've liked the romances I've played (Solas, Sera...) and the ones I've seen on YT (pretty much all the rest).
I think if you can't find someone you like out of eight (or nine, if you wanna count Harding, who was basically the Sebastian romance of DAI) possible love interests then.. ?? Uh, not sure what to tell you.
Harding, that blue balling hussy!
Well,
Spoiler
I like Steve as a character, but his romance arc is probably the worst Bioware has ever done. Jacob is close, though. But you can slap him in Citadel. That's fun.
SpoilerI
EDIT: That being said, I must reiterate that Cassandra *recites her entire surname* rocks.
I felt bad for female Wardens dating Alistair. He had to have sex with someone else to continue your relationship so he wouldn't die. On top of that, if you weren't a human noble, you were his mistress under circumstances or straight up dumped after he is King. I give major props to anyone who endured that.*Looks at Female Elf warden romantic life with Tamlen and Alistair and choosing not to do the ritual.
I felt bad for female Wardens dating Alistair. He had to have sex with someone else to continue your relationship so he wouldn't die. On top of that, if you weren't a human noble, you were his mistress under circumstances or straight up dumped after he is King. I give major props to anyone who endured that.
To a lesser extent, those who romanced anyone besides Morrigan as a male had to cheat on them to live. I guess the drama from that wasn't in depth because it was not the one way to do it. Without hindsight of DAI, you could always let the other Warden have the old god baby but what's the fun in that.
Gives a femwarden a flower...Calls them them most beautiful woman he's ever met...Then dump them once he's turn king because he can't have a side chick.... And people complain about Solas?
Gives a femwarden a flower...Calls them them most beautiful woman he's ever met...Then dump them once he's turn king because he can't have a side chick.... And people complain about Solas?
alistair spent the entire game trying to convince my former carta thug brosca to be a better person. then when she tried to spare someone's life so they could be a better person he dumped her and ran off to drink himself to death uwu
(still prefer it to solas lmao, but solas dumping you and running off is not why i dislike his romance)
alistair spent the entire game trying to convince my former carta thug brosca to be a better person. then when she tried to spare someone's life so they could be a better person he dumped her and ran off to drink himself to death uwu
(still prefer it to solas lmao, but solas dumping you and running off is not why i dislike his romance)
Well, the guy did kill his mentor, so...
I like Steve as a character, but his romance arc is probably the worst Bioware has ever done. Jacob is close, though. But you can slap him in Citadel. That's fun.
Eh. I'd hardly say Steve was worse than Jacob. Steve just has dead husband syndrome. It's not even full carth syndrome. That's bad yes but not Jacob worthy.
You just had to mention Carth, didn't you Ryz?
I couldn't help it. I mean really he has to be one of the worst LIs. Not as bad as Jacob. But not being as bad as Jacob really isn't a feat.
What about Anomen?
What about Anomen?
We do not speak his name.
*hisses*
Got nothing to really say on topic here sorry just wanted to say I feel a lot better now actually seeing there are other people that didn't care for Alistair's romance I was starting to think I was a bad person for not liking his romance arc
I'll make an actual on topic post whenever I get around to Cassandra's romance so far I've only done a good chunk of Josephine's and adored it but I enjoyed the heavy amounts of cheese it had.
I'm watching some of the female romance play-throughs and I am just blown away. Both at the quality itself and the amount of difference in quality when compared to the straight male romances. Now, I can already sense some of you breaking out the shot glasses and I KNOW most of you have begun rolling your eyes right about....now. But hear me out on this one.
Why does it feel like Bioware put in 1000x more effort into the Solas/Blackwall/Cullen romances than any other? I'm not insinuating anything and I'm not here to RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE but there comes a point where sometimes you just got to point something out. The Solas romance for instance is so wonderfully intertwined with the story and is just filled to the brim with lore and has layers upon layers of content. Blackwall's romance is just a choice lover's dream come true. And I've already made a thread some weeks ago about well done his romance was. Now, as for Cass and Josie....
Comparing Solas' and Blackwall's romances to Josephine's and Cass's is like comparing an F-15 to a crop duster. Sure, they'll both take you to where you want to go, but the fighter jet is just....SO MUCH MORE FUN. And you can shoot missiles flying that sucker! Cass's romance has no choices. None whatsoever. You either choose to romance her or choose not to. And once you do, it pretty much fizzles out for the rest of the game. I love ya Cassandra but your romance has no meat to it. No SUBSTANCE.
Josephine's is even worse, which is quite a feat. You either duel the guy and profess your love to her or you act like a fool and she rejects both you and that swag lord Otranto. The End. Once the duel is over, there are no further choices or really any scenes of any substance whatsoever. And yes, you may be saying "Chronoid, this is an RPG, not a dating sim!"
Yes. But all I'm doing is comparing these underwhelming romances to the ones which truly shine. So I know Bioware is capable of doing better. Much, MUCH better.
tl;dr version: Read or do not read. There is no try. (and no coming into my thread complaining about how long my post is either)
You're kidding right...Solas romance? Sure the concept of it was great, the little we had of it was great but that's just it, there was so little of it almost like they didn't have time to implement it fully. Just tacked it on top of what was already there of his story. Even the big emotional scene at the end was so out of flow with the rest of the romance it just didn't fit right. I could have forgotten I was in a romance with him at all until the end.
Agreed.
The quality of straight male romances is awful compared to the straight female romances.
One the one hand you have this very religious woman who can disagree with all your actions right from the beginning of the game starting with which path you take to the mountain but if you flirt with her, give her a smutty book and read some sappy poems, she sleeps with you, professes her love and then justifies her weird behavior with :- "It was all the Maker's plan." or "It is the Maker's will."
On the other hand you have this pacifistic bard turned diplomat who you can profess your love to, but then her parents say that she is engaged, and even though you are the goddamn Inquisitor, you cannot do something like talk to her parents (but you can decide if the empress of nation dies or not). Instead, you have to challenge her suitor to a duel and you cannot even play the duel (What ? I could duel Loghain or engage in Provings just fine in Origins) but must instead watch a cutscene until she bursts into the crowd and you either declare your love (even though you are supposed to actually be romancing her) or don't in which case she either dumps both you and her suitor (she could have dumped her suitor before but Lolnope.).
The worst part of these two romances is how cliched, how un-game-like they have become. Worst still, the player has very little agency in them.
Compare the two with
Morrigan, a free spirited witch who grew up with an abusive mother, who was taught to just see this world in black & white, whom you can just be f**k buddies with up to a point, until which she make you dump her or if you choose to romantically pursue her, she becomes really conflicted in a good way, who then reveals she wants your sperm for an ancient ritual and didn't plan on falling in love with you at all but it happened. Oh and on the way of doing that, you can help her find her mother's grimoire in which she finds out her mother possesses her daughters. She requests you to confront her mother and kill her and get her mother's actual grimoire. You can do that or diplomatically do it or not do it or not find her mother's grimoire in the first place. On the topic of that ritual, you can either participate in that ritual or not, in the latter she leaves early and in the former she leaves later after the Archdemon is killed. You can then choose to pursue her and either follow her or let her go on her own or stab her. She acts all tough and gives you a ring, you can give her many gifts. She can act all giddy and cute or all temptress like.
Leliana, a bard who became a born-again Andrastian after she was screwed by her lover and bardmaster. She joins you due to a dream, she has lots of interesting tales to tell you about all sorts of places and all sorts of people. When her past as a bard is revealed, she does not lie about it and says she will not use you since she values you as a friend. You can have some funny dialogue with her about that. Her former lover ambushes her and then you have the option of not confronting her former lover or having Leliana drive her former lover away or killing her. Then you have the option of helping her decide the course of her personality. Strangely for a bard who is familiar with manipulating people and seducing them, she stumbles and acts like a schoolgirl of sorts. She can either join you in specific sexual conquests in a brothel or be your mistress or just your lover. You can give her gifts, her favorites are specific type of flowers or religious symbols or shoes or a nug.
See the difference ? Morrigan and Leliana make Cassandra and Josephine, especially in terms of their romance arcs... 
They had more outcomes for their romances. Their romances had agency. Their quests involved doing something that had different outcomes. You can choose to not do their quests at all. It felt like an actual interaction was happening, not one character blindly pursuing the other.
In Inquisition, you just need a smutty book, a sappy love poem and to declare your love and that's it.
In terms of straight female love interest.
Solas had diverging outcomes for his quests. You can do shite like drinking from the Well of Sorrows or defend Dalish Culture or not want to have your Vallaslin removed. Heck, you get some Fade tongue time.
With Blackwall, once again, there was choices. You can free him or not. You can choose to continue doing it with him after that or not. You can even make him into a slave of sorts.
TL;DR :- Cassandra and Josephine romance arcs felt remarkably shallow and hollow. It felt cliched and less nuanced and inferior to the straight female romances or the straight male romances from previous games.
I believe Gaider wrote Cassandra' romance ? I can't believe that he could write something so hollow, especially when you see he is capable of writing Morrigan and Dorian so darn well. & Sylvia did an outstanding job with Liara T'Soni...only to give us something that is of lower quality...
*Disgusted noise*
I actually agree. The female romances for men did felt inferior when compared to others (for me anyway). Josephine and Cassandra lack that sparkle that other romances had in the series. Josephine is great, don't get me wrong, but she feels like that kind of person that I would invite over for the weekends for an friendly tea while we laugh at the companions shenanigans rather then a date. While with Cassandra, well, let's say that unless you are an strongly religious person like her, the relationship will likely feel pretty dinsfunctional. It did for me. Cullen and Solas romance to me felt greatly supperior when compared to these two.
I kind of agree too. As much as the male romance options are solid on their own in DAI (Josephine being the hand holder), both of them lack content. Small brief and not so demanding moments in the gigantic emptiness and silence of the game. I felt more closer to both Morrigan and Leliana in DAO. Heck I had to make decision between the two as I was having my cake and eating it too. Morrigan was cool and foxy with a soft core (as long as you didn´t bring that up), Leliana was cute and dreamy, and she even sang for me. Eventually I went after Morrigan in the Witch Hunt as she had become the love of my Wardens life. Merrill and Isabela had more depth too. After the game I felt lacking, as if something was missing (and I am not talking about the bambam with Josie, which was missing too).
Maybe those things could be seen as negative, but at least there is actual drama and the potential for growth in those romance plots... looking for a poetry book isn't all that interesting, especially when the Inquisitor is forced to then recite lines from that book in order to progress the plot with no other options. Ultimately, Cassandra's romance felt rather shallow... no chances were taken, and given how often she ignored the Inquisitor's flirting (pretty much every time before that poetry book nonsense), I never felt that there was any real connection between the characters.
Cassandra does respond to the Inquisitor's flirting, just not in any large way. She'll smile a little more or her crinkle her eyes a bit. Cassandra's not used to that kind of attention and she's not sure what to make of it. So, no, she's not going to acknowledge it right off that bat, but it's not that she doesn't notice.
Perhaps as player, you're looking for that kind of acknowledgement - but that doesn't mean the romance is bad. It just means you're not connecting with that particular romance or that particular character. Looking for a poetry book might be feel all that exciting, but it's important to Cassandra. That quest takes on more weight for a PC who understands her.
Honestly, I think how a romance comes across has a lot to do with player preference. If you weren't particularly attracted to the Cassandra or Josie romances, that just means they didn't appeal to you, not that they lacked substance. They just lacked whatever you specifically were looking for.
You mean not as much problems.
One a recovering junky, one is lying to you and is lying to you and leave you.
It's like the da2 romances all over agein.
You can not compare Fenris and Anders to Cullen, Cullen's romance can be somewhat heavy, but only if you make it so otherwise it's very tame in comparison, basically your boy-next-door by DA standards.
I felt bad for female Wardens dating Alistair. He had to have sex with someone else to continue your relationship so he wouldn't die. On top of that, if you weren't a human noble, you were his mistress under circumstances or straight up dumped after he is King. I give major props to anyone who endured that.
To a lesser extent, those who romanced anyone besides Morrigan as a male had to cheat on them to live. I guess the drama from that wasn't in depth because it was not the one way to do it. Without hindsight of DAI, you could always let the other Warden have the old god baby but what's the fun in that.
Urrgh, that's a load of BS, and a poor excuse most male players use to bed morrigan. I have heard the argument in real life, and it just makes me shudder. I mean poor leliana/zevran.. Ithinktheyshouldhavedumpedthewardeniftheybeddedmorrigan
You just had to mention Carth, didn't you Ryz?
Thanks a lot for this gif, I was going to have lunch!! Well, good day to start my diet, I suppose.
Urrgh, that's a load of BS, and a poor excuse most male players use to bed morrigan. I have heard the argument in real life, and it just makes me shudder. I mean poor leliana/zevran..
Ithinktheyshouldhavedumpedthewardeniftheybeddedmorrigan
Well, the alternative is letting a friend die in your place (If you always execute Loghain like I do), it's not like the game gives the Warden the option to have Alistair do the bedding if they're male. If Leliana/Zevran can't understand that its the only way without letting a friend die, maybe the Warden should dump them.
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