After Playing BG3, i have a new take on playersexual romance
I recently played BG3 right after playing Mass Effect Legendary edition.
My take now, based on both experiences, is that while player sexual romance options are exciting and give more freedom of expression to the player, it can also very limiting from a character writing perspective.
When you make every companion interested in the MC sexually, it makes it impossible for certain kinds of platonic relationships to exist. Those platonic relationships can be very satisfying as well. These are extreme examples but i'm going to compare Garrus to Halsin.
Femshep and Garrus have a great romance. highly rated among players, but broshep and garrus also have a great brotherly bond that is highly rated. Garrus's relationship is just as memorable to those romancing him as it is to those who are just friends with him.
Halsin on the other hand only works if you are interested in romancing him. Otherwise he just feel like a thirsty fiend trying to coerce sex out of you the whole time. After a while it seems like his only reason for being with your party is to try and hookup with you. This issue happens in mass effect as well with Liara. She is the only playersexual character in mass effect. But if you don't romance her, she comes off like a weird stalker to the point where i almost feel pressured to treat her as the canon romance in each playthrough. Making a character player sexual essentially makes their entire personality revolve around being horny for the main character instead of being well written with their own traits.
The availability to romance a character also removes the possibility for other types of relationships with that romanceable character to exist. I think about the popularity of these so called dad sims, for example god of war ps4. I think it would be cool to have a little brother/sister or son/daughter as a character in BG3, but that would be impossible because every companion has adhere to an algorithm to make them a desirable romance option to as wide an audience as possible. that's why instead of if a younger companion like Atreus or Maelle (expedition 33) , or even any short race companions, you have not 1 not 2, but FIVE recruitable elf (and elf adjacent) characters. Astarian, Shadowheart, Halsin, Minthara, & Jaheira. 4 of the elf characters even have white hair like they designed their sex appeal in to include all the same desirable traits for the widest mass appeal.
Now, at the same time i understand also being frustrated at a lack of romance options, Cyberpunk basically has just one option per gender/sexuality combo. That is another extreme to be avoided. Maybe i'm a straight male that doesn't like Panam, now what? Thats why i feel like Mass effect is the better balance between the two extremes. (they do fumble relationship continuity between games but that is another discussion. What do you think?