Good, it's the worst trend that completely breaks any immersion. Imagine roleplaying all this cringy shit with your bearded dungeon master across the table. That's not how RPGs are meant to work. The perfect balance of romance in CRPGs had already been established by the likes of KOTOR, BG2 and P:T. It's classy, not overbearing and completely optional.
Say what you want, but not having your entire party and every NPC you meet thirsting to gobble your dick the moment you meet feels like a positive to me.
Absolutely. I think perhaps my all-time favourite romance of any RPG is Parvati's from The Outer Worlds, where you play wingman and confidant to Parvati. It feels so much more fleshed out and intimate than any player romance has ever felt to me, despite the player only being an onlooker.
Branching dialogue and decision trees are great for letting players decide what actions to take, but I feel that giving players that level of freedom with their romantic relationships feels very limiting and shallow - especially when the player is given multiple romanceable NPCs to choose from. The fact that the player character is often a blank slate means it's impossible for there to be any real chemistry built up, too.
Give me railroaded romances between clearly defined characters where I can actually believe the characters are into each other, or give me no romances at all.
