SJ Longthorne

Also not a fan of having romantic options signposted. You stop thinking for yourself and just mindlessly click hearts until you bang, which feels transactional and not like the right message to send about forming a connection with someone, earning their trust.

I’d also say that the connections to TW3 were quite superficial. A few quests nailed it, but on the whole when it came down to it they were still just fetch quests, the usual grind, whereas TW3 made sure every single tiny quest had something interesting and subversive about it.

I’d have rather the game doubled down on what it had time/knew how to be good at.

(But all that said, I still massively enjoyed it, and I’d even disagree with you and say that, aside from setting, the highlight for me was the combat and stealth)

The choices are basic, but I do flick between modest and vocky regularly depending on who I'm talking to. The heart signposting also works in that it stops me accidentally banging someone is rather not.

I mean, the solution to your second point is having an explicit ‘do you wanna bang’ choice

Sure. I do think romance options in games need to have more depth than this, but I also don't think this particular game requires that depth. It's quick and shallow with purpose because it says something about that world: if two folks want to bang each other, they do that.

It's rarely used as a means of connection, but is occasionally used well as a punchline to a quest. Good example of this is the old lady wanting an elixir for her husband quest, if you saw that.