In honor of Valentine’s Day and because love is fun, we’re talking romance in video games in the newest episode of The Punished Podcast. I’m talking kissing, conversation options with hearts, longing looks, fades to black, all that good stuff.
We discuss how and why romance works in games, what the classic mechanics to relationship building are, and our favorite romance arcs. Toward the end of the episode, I even tried a little dating game among our guests—listen to find out who our most desirable bachelor is!
– Amanda Tien, Editor
The Punished Podcast Episode 15
MP3 Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts
Timestamps
- 0:00 – Introductions
- 5:45 – Why is Romance in Video Games?
- 11:30 – The Mechanics of Video Game Romances
- 21:27 – Our Favorite Romances in Games
- 44:12 – Games We Wish Had Romance
- 55:42 – Dating Sim Visual Novels
- 1:04:23 – Romance Shout-Outs
- 1:09:54 – The Dating Game: Punished Backlog Edition
Content warning: This episode is not particularly NSFW, but it does occasionally get M-rated and has some swearing.
Song Credits
- “Sayonara Wild Hearts” from Sayonara Wild Hearts (lyrics by Daniel Olsén and composed by Jonathan Eng)
- “Kairi I” from Kingdom Hearts (composed by Yoko Shimomura)
- “Dream Daddy Theme” from Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator (composed by Baths)
- “Sweet” from Persona 5 (composed by Shoji Meguro)
Want more romance content? Check out Gary’s list of the best romance songs in video games!
The Best Video Game Romances
We talked about many great titles in this podcast episode, but here were some of our favorites that we discussed passionately:
- Afterlove EP
- Coffee Talk
- Doki Doki Literature Club
- Dungeon Boyfriend
- Dream Daddy
- Life is Strange
- Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
- Final Fantasy X and X-2
- Florence
- Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3
- Persona 5
- Regency Love
- Stardew Valley (check out Allison’s ranking of the Stardew Valley romance options!)
- The Witcher 3
- To The Moon
- Unpacking
Have other favorites? Let us know in the comments!
