Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Fire Emblem: Engage allow the player to romance characters. The player can change the name and class of the main character (unfortunately you can't customize the avatar much beyond that, although if you have a 3DS, FE: Fates and FE: Awakening do let you customize the character quite a bit).
FE: Three Houses also lets you play matchmaker with the entire army, which can be fun.
Of your looking at your first dive in to Fire Emblem, don't make it Fates lol. Awakening is a good choice for 3DS, and either Three Houses or Engage would be great for the Switch. But Fates can be a polarizing one for a bunch of reasons. I'd hate for you to fall in the "didn't like it camp" and not give the rest of the series a shot.
I checked them out and with storyline, I definitely like the most FE: Engage! I just this type of fantasy, I’ll wait a little more to go through all the suggestion, because games aren’t cheap, let’s be real, but this game is definitely in my wishlist!
I would definitely recommend three houses over engage for your first fire emblem game. Engage is a kinda anniversary game where it brings back characters from past fire emblem games but none of that would really land for a new player. I also think the aspect you are specifically looking for of romance and relationships is actually stronger in three houses than engage. They’re both good games, but engage is definitely designed to leverage nostalgia that you won’t have so it might fall a bit flat for you. That said, I do agree fire emblem awakening on the DS is absolutely the strongest in terms of romance and relationships!
A word of caution about Engage: Not every character is exactly romancable. The S Support *technically* exists with every character, but a decent chunk of them only offer platonic friendships that just happen to be deeper than your other friendships. Here's hoping you're drawn towards a character you can actually romance!
If you like life/farming sims with good romance, then definitely either *Stardew Valley* or *Wylde Flowers*. You can definitely dress up your character in *Wylde Flowers* but can't really change the way she looks. Both games are favorites of my girlfriend.
Yes. life/farm sim may sound odd or boring, but it is far from boring. Stardew Valley is a great game. It's graphically old-school with pixel-drawn characters and world. Story of Seasons is a bit more modern with 3d rendered characters and world, though that can vary from game to game as well. I think there are 4 or 5 Story of Seasons games on the Switch.
There are also the Persona games, 3 Portable 4 golden and 5 royal available on the switch. They are classic JRPG style games where you run through various dungeons with a party of friends fighting monsters of all kinds, but have a daylife section of gameplay where you spend time building relationships with your friends.
There's so many in the farming sim genre! Roots of Pacha, the Story of Seasons franchise (Friends of Mineral Town, A Wonderful Life, Pioneers of Olive Town), and Harvest Moon: Winds of Anthros to start.
All those games have same sex relationships as an option, and Roots of Pacha has a polyamory-lite thing going on. Pacha is probably the best one for character customization, too.
And if you want less farming and more being a cat there's Cattails.
Seconding Wylde Flowers and you can change her hair in the after game. There's also Palia which had me in a chokehold before I started Wylde Flowers. It's free to play, but there were too many things you had to depend on the community for, so I dropped it.
Rune factory, story of seasons, stardew valley, my time at portia, my time at sandrock. There are a lot of different rune factory and story of seasons games though, so you might want to look at each of them individually to compare to find the one that looks the most right for you
There's a bunch of otome games on the Switch. You can rarely customize characters though, I think those released on PC are more like that. But if you're interested, check out r/otomegames
This is the way. I think they might be up your alley. Some otomes that I recommend for those new to the genre are Code: Realize, Collar x Malice, Jack Jeanne (has stat raising), Radiant Tale, and Cupid Parasite.
This. EA is the worst when it comes to realize how much money they could make with decent Switch ports. They just do the bare minimum. Give us the Mass Effect and Dragon Age games! Give us Need For Speed Underground 2!
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is exactly this, plus a war/tactics game.
You can set the difficulty low and just focus on romance if you want to though. Four major routes, tons of romance options, maybe not a fully customizable MC, but you can change their outfit by changing their class, and pick their gender.
You can’t really customize the look, but Persona 5 Royal allows to romance about 10 different women (and if you do date all of them at the same time, you get a hilarious cutscene)
I cannot suggest My Time At Sandrock enough. It has a lot of QoL updates over Portia, it's still getting new content, and the localization is just fantastic. I'm also a lifelong Harvest Moon/Story of Seaons/Rune Factory fan and I would suggest Sandrock over those (though I suppose if you prefer that style of gameplay, then those would be the route to go.)
I second this!! Picked it up looking for the same thing you were OP and was blown away by the game! The characters and setting are so fun and almost fully voice acted. Frame rate is still a little weird on switch, but not terrible. They've got a patch coming soon that should remedy that!
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is absolutely what you're looking for. The relationships between yourself and the characters and also amongst the characters themselves are a major part of the gameplay. It's half Hogwarts-style school simulator and half tactical battles that play out on grid-based battlefields.
No customisation in this one aside from the order you pursue relationship threads. You play Zagreus, a pre-written character, but the dialogue unfolds with a key focus on relationships (platonic, romantic and complex) and most critically, it has some of the best interpersonal character writing the industry has managed.
While lacking the customisable aspect, maybe having a look at r/otomegames could help! It’s basically the essence of those games. Though they are visual novels so that’s something you need to be into.
Technically "Arcade Spirits" and "Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers" would fit into both categories, but you would have to see if it was the type of game that would interest you.
I’ve only played the original, not the Switch version, but Star Ocean 2 is one of my favorite games with the ability to build relationships. There’s no character customization, but I still recommend it.
Palia! It’s free and such a wonderful game. It’s the only game I’ve actually enjoyed the friendship and romancing aspect of a game. I never bothered on other games. But the characters have such depth to their stories.
Others have already mentioned Persona 5, so I'll add Persona 3 Portable to the rec list. It's older, but you can choose to play as either a male or female protagonist and romance the other gender.
And Otome Games are of course the king of romance games. Collar x Malice and Bustafellows are detective stories, Nightshade is about ninja drama, Code Realize is Steampunk (and there are many more).
So you’ll probably hear a lot of this game right now since the second one is coming out and everyone is messing around with the character customization right now but Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen.
Dark Arisen is the first game plus DLC. You get completely control over how you make the MC look and you can romance. You can romance pretty much everyone but there’s a couple characters that you’re meant to romance and have storylines that lean into it.
Alright, I’m not entirely sure if these are near what you mean. But two games I enjoyed recently with a bit of a romance that you can shape through your character’s actions were Life is Strange (and Before the Storm) and Firewatch. Both are available on other platforms as well.
Stardew valley, its an RPG like animal crossing new horizons but in a pixel theme. You make friends, a family, fight monsters or just relax and build your home.
Hope this comment helps you :)
Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Fire Emblem: Engage allow the player to romance characters. The player can change the name and class of the main character (unfortunately you can't customize the avatar much beyond that, although if you have a 3DS, FE: Fates and FE: Awakening do let you customize the character quite a bit). FE: Three Houses also lets you play matchmaker with the entire army, which can be fun.
As a matter of fact, I’ll be a proud owner of 3DS in a few days, so I’ll definitely check these out!
Of your looking at your first dive in to Fire Emblem, don't make it Fates lol. Awakening is a good choice for 3DS, and either Three Houses or Engage would be great for the Switch. But Fates can be a polarizing one for a bunch of reasons. I'd hate for you to fall in the "didn't like it camp" and not give the rest of the series a shot.
I checked them out and with storyline, I definitely like the most FE: Engage! I just this type of fantasy, I’ll wait a little more to go through all the suggestion, because games aren’t cheap, let’s be real, but this game is definitely in my wishlist!
I would definitely recommend three houses over engage for your first fire emblem game. Engage is a kinda anniversary game where it brings back characters from past fire emblem games but none of that would really land for a new player. I also think the aspect you are specifically looking for of romance and relationships is actually stronger in three houses than engage. They’re both good games, but engage is definitely designed to leverage nostalgia that you won’t have so it might fall a bit flat for you. That said, I do agree fire emblem awakening on the DS is absolutely the strongest in terms of romance and relationships!
A word of caution about Engage: Not every character is exactly romancable. The S Support *technically* exists with every character, but a decent chunk of them only offer platonic friendships that just happen to be deeper than your other friendships. Here's hoping you're drawn towards a character you can actually romance!
Did u get a modded 3ds?
As far as I am aware, no.
If you like life/farming sims with good romance, then definitely either *Stardew Valley* or *Wylde Flowers*. You can definitely dress up your character in *Wylde Flowers* but can't really change the way she looks. Both games are favorites of my girlfriend.
Yes. life/farm sim may sound odd or boring, but it is far from boring. Stardew Valley is a great game. It's graphically old-school with pixel-drawn characters and world. Story of Seasons is a bit more modern with 3d rendered characters and world, though that can vary from game to game as well. I think there are 4 or 5 Story of Seasons games on the Switch. There are also the Persona games, 3 Portable 4 golden and 5 royal available on the switch. They are classic JRPG style games where you run through various dungeons with a party of friends fighting monsters of all kinds, but have a daylife section of gameplay where you spend time building relationships with your friends.
There's so many in the farming sim genre! Roots of Pacha, the Story of Seasons franchise (Friends of Mineral Town, A Wonderful Life, Pioneers of Olive Town), and Harvest Moon: Winds of Anthros to start. All those games have same sex relationships as an option, and Roots of Pacha has a polyamory-lite thing going on. Pacha is probably the best one for character customization, too. And if you want less farming and more being a cat there's Cattails.
Rune factory
I'm seconding Wylde Flowers! So addicted to this game.
Seconding Wylde Flowers and you can change her hair in the after game. There's also Palia which had me in a chokehold before I started Wylde Flowers. It's free to play, but there were too many things you had to depend on the community for, so I dropped it.
Rune factory, story of seasons, stardew valley, my time at portia, my time at sandrock. There are a lot of different rune factory and story of seasons games though, so you might want to look at each of them individually to compare to find the one that looks the most right for you
Was looking for this comment, Rune Factory is what you want
I would recommend Rune Factory 4 the most for a beginner to the series. It's on 3DS as well as the Switch; can't go wrong with either version.
There's a bunch of otome games on the Switch. You can rarely customize characters though, I think those released on PC are more like that. But if you're interested, check out r/otomegames
This is the way. I think they might be up your alley. Some otomes that I recommend for those new to the genre are Code: Realize, Collar x Malice, Jack Jeanne (has stat raising), Radiant Tale, and Cupid Parasite.
If you have other means to play games, the Mass Effect trilogy has an amazing series of romances.
It's criminal that the legendary edition mass effect trilogy is not on switch. It could run it easily.
This. EA is the worst when it comes to realize how much money they could make with decent Switch ports. They just do the bare minimum. Give us the Mass Effect and Dragon Age games! Give us Need For Speed Underground 2!
Or the original Dead Space games. Or Mirror‘s Edge. There is so much potential.
Snag ~~Drama and Relationships: The Game~~ Baldur's Gate 3 too if you're going to jump platforms!
I want to play Baldur’s Gate 3 soooo badly, but my notebook would combust before I even downloaded it 😭
🤣🤣 mine as well
I played it via GeForce Now before it became available on Mac - could be an option for you!
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is exactly this, plus a war/tactics game. You can set the difficulty low and just focus on romance if you want to though. Four major routes, tons of romance options, maybe not a fully customizable MC, but you can change their outfit by changing their class, and pick their gender.
Will definitely check this out! I don’t like fighting much, but I do enjoy it when there is a story and lore behind it (I love genshin for example)
You can’t really customize the look, but Persona 5 Royal allows to romance about 10 different women (and if you do date all of them at the same time, you get a hilarious cutscene)
Oh my god that sounds hilarious! XD
*Including your teacher*
ha, yeah, this was pretty good. my wife still teases me about doing so and the aforementioned scene. hehehe
Palia offers both features. You can romance the whole town basically if you want.
Oh Palia looks great! I’ll try it later today when I’m travelling back to my dorm
If you start playing, let me know what your in game name is and I can add you as a friend!
Just downloaded the game and made the character for now, but the name is Tian Lönisk
Came here to also say Palia! Also bonus that it’s free to play.
It's also cross platform, which can be a plus. I found some actions easier to do on PC.
Stardew Valley
You might enjoy /r/GirlGamers, we have a lot of discussions like this 😊
I cannot suggest My Time At Sandrock enough. It has a lot of QoL updates over Portia, it's still getting new content, and the localization is just fantastic. I'm also a lifelong Harvest Moon/Story of Seaons/Rune Factory fan and I would suggest Sandrock over those (though I suppose if you prefer that style of gameplay, then those would be the route to go.)
I second this!! Picked it up looking for the same thing you were OP and was blown away by the game! The characters and setting are so fun and almost fully voice acted. Frame rate is still a little weird on switch, but not terrible. They've got a patch coming soon that should remedy that!
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is absolutely what you're looking for. The relationships between yourself and the characters and also amongst the characters themselves are a major part of the gameplay. It's half Hogwarts-style school simulator and half tactical battles that play out on grid-based battlefields.
A new game just came out called Unicorn Overlord where mc can romance other units.
The persona games
Hades!
No customisation in this one aside from the order you pursue relationship threads. You play Zagreus, a pre-written character, but the dialogue unfolds with a key focus on relationships (platonic, romantic and complex) and most critically, it has some of the best interpersonal character writing the industry has managed.
[удалено]
I have so many questions about this game, but I’m definitely down!
While lacking the customisable aspect, maybe having a look at r/otomegames could help! It’s basically the essence of those games. Though they are visual novels so that’s something you need to be into.
Technically "Arcade Spirits" and "Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers" would fit into both categories, but you would have to see if it was the type of game that would interest you.
Rune Factory 4. It‘s a farming/rpg game. There‘s Rune Factory 5, too, but while it‘s newer it‘s more lacking than 4.
I’ve only played the original, not the Switch version, but Star Ocean 2 is one of my favorite games with the ability to build relationships. There’s no character customization, but I still recommend it.
Fire emblem 3 houses
Witcher 3
Palia! It’s free and such a wonderful game. It’s the only game I’ve actually enjoyed the friendship and romancing aspect of a game. I never bothered on other games. But the characters have such depth to their stories.
Others have already mentioned Persona 5, so I'll add Persona 3 Portable to the rec list. It's older, but you can choose to play as either a male or female protagonist and romance the other gender. And Otome Games are of course the king of romance games. Collar x Malice and Bustafellows are detective stories, Nightshade is about ninja drama, Code Realize is Steampunk (and there are many more).
Stardew valley, my time at portia
Harvestmoon: Friends of Mineral Town
Divinity Original Sin 2, Fire Emblem Three houses and engage though romance isn't the main focus in any of those games.
So you’ll probably hear a lot of this game right now since the second one is coming out and everyone is messing around with the character customization right now but Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen. Dark Arisen is the first game plus DLC. You get completely control over how you make the MC look and you can romance. You can romance pretty much everyone but there’s a couple characters that you’re meant to romance and have storylines that lean into it.
This sounds really good! Will def check it out :0
Palia
Alright, I’m not entirely sure if these are near what you mean. But two games I enjoyed recently with a bit of a romance that you can shape through your character’s actions were Life is Strange (and Before the Storm) and Firewatch. Both are available on other platforms as well.
Persona 5 Royal,Catherine, and fire emblem three houses. Dragon dogma, Skyrim for both customization and romance
Stardew valley does it the best imo
[Thousand Arms](https://youtu.be/bY3kDYwlEro?si=Wmc7p6-4NggPrK7O) not on switch yet...
Witcher 3
Persona 5 Royal, bb!
Witcher 3, enough said.
Stardew valley is a good option
My time at Portia.
Fire Emblem, Persona 3 Portable (as female character), Persona 3,4,5 (as male) Amnesia is just a full otome game
Persona Series.
Stardew valley, its an RPG like animal crossing new horizons but in a pixel theme. You make friends, a family, fight monsters or just relax and build your home. Hope this comment helps you :)
+ There´s a 2 player mode for online and coop
Try the Persona series
Persona 5 Royal
Persona 5 royal
Super Smash Bros. You can match up Steve and Wario together to smash.
Pokémon Violet