viciouskillersquirrel
Member
This is a thread where we describe the in-game romances (or bromances) that entertained us the most, be they for their believability or their ridiculousness. For the most part, game romances are on about a par with Twilight.
I'll start.
Terranigma - Ark and Elle (with Meilin) This was a simple story, beautifully told. Ark and Elle are childhood friends who have an unspoken attraction to and understanding with one another. He's a bit of a troublemaker while she's the diligent one and the start of the adventure has him having to step up and save her and everyone else they know from doom.
Along the way, Ark meets Meilin, a teenage girl with magical powers who gets a huge crush on our hero and follows him everywhere, ruining his plans because of her immature and petty jealousy. She matures eventually and learns to accept that Ark's heart lies elsewhere, following an arc that may hit close to home for many of us.
Even though Ark's adventure lasts for what appear to be centuries, he never forgets Elle and when he meets a girl from Scandia who looks identical to the one he left behind, frozen in stone, he still finds himself affected and his decisions from that point forward are affected by what could have been and what could still be.
The game's ending had Ark reunited with the Elle he grew up with, but ends on a down note due to the knowledge that it is only fleeting and that they cannot stay together.
The epilogue to this game is amazing and, without dialogue, implies a reunion of sorts between the two lovers. Fantastic.
Final Fantasy XIII - Fang and Vanille
I'll preface this by saying that I really enjoyed FFXIII in spite of every effort on the part of Square Enix to make me do otherwise. The story made no sense as its own entity without reference to the encyclopedia (and even then), the economy was broken, the Crystarium was pointlessly restrictive, Snow was broiest dude to ever walk the face of any world, Hope started off as a whiny emo kid and Vanille's antics were often cringeworthy. That said, the battle system is excellent, it had some great music and it really was dazzlingly pretty.
Just recently, I read through a large part of the old Final Fantasy XIII import thread from back in the day and while it was amusing to watch just about everybody sour on the game as time went on from the soaring highs of prerelease hype, one thing that struck out at me was a series of comments about how close Fang and Vanille appeared to be and it reminded me of my own experience playing the game.
Those two, in my opinion, had a whole Thelma and Louise thing going on. They may or may not actually be an item (I lean more on the side of romance than bromance for those two) but they're both in deep trouble, both kinda hot and both on the run from the authorities. They're in it together to the bitter end.
Heck, even their double suicide at the end of the game had them holding hands as the proverbial car went over the cliff.
What made it all the more endearing for me was that it was basically a relationship between a tough-as-nails, hard drinking country Sheila and a prissy, delicate, bubbly Sydney private schoolgirl. Were it not for the fact that you actually visit the ruins of the hippy commune they both grew up in, I'd have spent my life believing that theirs was a forbidden love, born of two very different women from opposite sides of the tracks.
Yes, their accents have so much of an American twang to them that it's distracting, yes, everything Vanille does is utterly preposterous and yes, Square Enix will never reveal the true nature of their relationship, but theirs drew way more emotional reaction out of me than that of Dudebro Snow and his 14 year old pink haired loli waifu's melodramatic farce.
I'll start.
Terranigma - Ark and Elle (with Meilin) This was a simple story, beautifully told. Ark and Elle are childhood friends who have an unspoken attraction to and understanding with one another. He's a bit of a troublemaker while she's the diligent one and the start of the adventure has him having to step up and save her and everyone else they know from doom.
Along the way, Ark meets Meilin, a teenage girl with magical powers who gets a huge crush on our hero and follows him everywhere, ruining his plans because of her immature and petty jealousy. She matures eventually and learns to accept that Ark's heart lies elsewhere, following an arc that may hit close to home for many of us.
Even though Ark's adventure lasts for what appear to be centuries, he never forgets Elle and when he meets a girl from Scandia who looks identical to the one he left behind, frozen in stone, he still finds himself affected and his decisions from that point forward are affected by what could have been and what could still be.
The game's ending had Ark reunited with the Elle he grew up with, but ends on a down note due to the knowledge that it is only fleeting and that they cannot stay together.
The epilogue to this game is amazing and, without dialogue, implies a reunion of sorts between the two lovers. Fantastic.
Final Fantasy XIII - Fang and Vanille
I'll preface this by saying that I really enjoyed FFXIII in spite of every effort on the part of Square Enix to make me do otherwise. The story made no sense as its own entity without reference to the encyclopedia (and even then), the economy was broken, the Crystarium was pointlessly restrictive, Snow was broiest dude to ever walk the face of any world, Hope started off as a whiny emo kid and Vanille's antics were often cringeworthy. That said, the battle system is excellent, it had some great music and it really was dazzlingly pretty.
Just recently, I read through a large part of the old Final Fantasy XIII import thread from back in the day and while it was amusing to watch just about everybody sour on the game as time went on from the soaring highs of prerelease hype, one thing that struck out at me was a series of comments about how close Fang and Vanille appeared to be and it reminded me of my own experience playing the game.
Those two, in my opinion, had a whole Thelma and Louise thing going on. They may or may not actually be an item (I lean more on the side of romance than bromance for those two) but they're both in deep trouble, both kinda hot and both on the run from the authorities. They're in it together to the bitter end.
Heck, even their double suicide at the end of the game had them holding hands as the proverbial car went over the cliff.
What made it all the more endearing for me was that it was basically a relationship between a tough-as-nails, hard drinking country Sheila and a prissy, delicate, bubbly Sydney private schoolgirl. Were it not for the fact that you actually visit the ruins of the hippy commune they both grew up in, I'd have spent my life believing that theirs was a forbidden love, born of two very different women from opposite sides of the tracks.
Yes, their accents have so much of an American twang to them that it's distracting, yes, everything Vanille does is utterly preposterous and yes, Square Enix will never reveal the true nature of their relationship, but theirs drew way more emotional reaction out of me than that of Dudebro Snow and his 14 year old pink haired loli waifu's melodramatic farce.
