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The Most Awkward Romantic Moments in Video Games

By Nick Winter - Thu Nov 5, 2009 9:01am

If you pick up any great novel penned over the last three centuries, you will probably find a plot featuring a captivating, believable love story. But pick up any video game, and chances are you will find a romantic tale so awkwardly-written, and so unrealistic, it would struggle to make the pages of Playboy magazine.

I'm not sure why this is. Video games feature all the requisite elements for a love story: desire, devotion, envy, conflict. But for some reason, whenever a game reaches that stage where the romance between two characters ought to blossom, things get a little, well, awkward.

Sure, video games do a lot of things well – including producing accurate blood splatters, and realistic chainsaw noises – but they don't do romance.

To honour this, I thought I would list the worst offenders out there. Those games that feature the most embarrassing, brain-jarring, puke-inducing romantic moments of all time. Enjoy.

#07 - Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4 was almost a masterpiece. Almost. However, it was let down by one excruciatingly annoying character: Ashley Graham. So infuriating was Ashley to players worldwide, she now has her very own urban dictionary definition, where she is defined as one of the most irritating characters to ever grace a video game.

With a reputation like that, it's unsurprising that Ashley is also responsible for one of gaming's most awkward romantic moments. At the end of RE4, Ashley is speeding away on a jet-ski with her saviour, Leon Kennedy. Despite the fact they are escaping a gigantic explosion, which almost killed both of them, Ashley turns to Leon and asks: "so, after you take me back to my place... how about we do some overtime?"

Leon turns to Ashley and says no. The game ends about 30 seconds later. It's awkward, and you can watch the entire bumbling conversation here.

Overtime, anyone?

#06 – Final Fantasy X

Flirting is an embarrassing human ritual. It's embarrassing for those involved; it's embarrassing for anyone else watching. But when flirting occurs between two Final Fantasy characters, over an entire Final Fantasy game, it can be downright excruciating.

The worst example of FFF (Final Fantasy flirting) occurs between Tidus and Yuna in FFX. There are many examples of this sick behaviour throughout the game, but one particular moment to note is when Yuna attempts to cheer up Tidus by laughing. You can watch the entire cringe-worthy saga here.

Needless to say, the episode is embarrassing to witness. I'm sure it was embarrassing to voice act. And I can only assume that whoever wrote it at Square in Japan was so embarrassed by how it turned out, they committed harakiri soon after.

While Tidus and Yuna laugh, most players dry-retch

#05 - Prey

Released in 2006, Prey followed the tried-and-true gaming plot of a man trying to rescue his girlfriend from evil. Yawn. The developers must have realised how clichéd this premise was about halfway through development, because the story unexpectedly changes tact at the end of the game. Instead of rescuing the girl, you become forced to kill her.

Why? Because your girlfriend has mutated into a reptile-like monster. You are given about 10 seconds to come to terms with this horrible transformation, before your former lover starts firing missiles straight at you. The only way to progress in the storyline is to shoot your now extraterrestrial girlfriend in the face.
Romeo & Juliet featured a tragic love story. But this rapid and hilarious plot development was just plain tragic.

Now this an awkward end to a date

#04 – Super Mario Bros.

The relationship between Mario and Princess Peach may be one of the most enduring in gaming history, but things between the pair weren't always so peachy. The couple first met in the original Super Mario Bros., where Mario, like so many other heroes of the era, set off to rescue Peach.

But after fighting through eight gruelling worlds of nasty enemies, and probably getting severe leg-cramp from incessant coin-collecting, Mario discovers Peach is quite nonchalant about the whole ordeal. Instead of rewarding her saviour with a kiss, Peach says: "Thank you Mario. Your quest is over. We present you with a new quest."

It's a pretty harsh rejection. Mario has just beat Bowser eight times, and saved Peach's life. But it counts for naught. Talk about playing hard-ball, Peach.

It wasn't always smooth-sailing for Mario and Peach

#03 – Karateka

Jordan Mechner's Apple II classic Karaketa is yet another 1980's game where the protagonist quests to rescue a princess. But this romantic moment is even worse than Super Mario Bros.

After beating the final boss, the player finds the princess trapped in a cell. If the player accidently approaches her while still in “fighting stance”, she will kick him in the head, killing him instantly. Tough love. Watch the hilarity here.

BANG! The princess boots the hero in the head

#02 – Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Back in 2005, the US was overcome with mass moral panic. No, I'm not referring to the public outrage that accompanied Hurricane Katrina. That was mild in comparison. What I'm talking about is the "hot coffee" modification to GTA: San Andreas.

The "hot coffee" mod allowed players to have sex with their in-game girlfriends, and it caused a moral firestorm. It led to public protests, lawsuits, and, eventually, the game's partial censorship.

Which is all a bit silly, really, because the “hot coffee” mini-game, far from being offensive, was actually pretty dumb. It required players to mash buttons in a frenzied attempt to make their character climax. It was boring to play, boring to watch, and was about as far removed from real "love-making" as you could possibly get.

It did, however, made an entire nation feel very, very, very uncomfortable.

Hilary Clinton described the hot coffee mod as a "major threat" to morality

#01 – Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)

When it comes to awkward romantic entanglements, it's hard to beat 2006's remake of Sonic the Hedgehog. Not only did Sega create a playing experience that was atrocious in almost every way – with shoddy controls and ugly glitches – they also decided to include an interspecies romance between Sonic... and a human.

There are certain unwritten laws when it comes to writing storylines involving cartoon characters. One of these laws is that cartoon animals can only fall in love with other animals of the same species. Think Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Or Donald and Daisy Duck.

Sega must have missed the memo on this, because players are treated to a poorly-written and highly uncomfortable romantic frolic between Sonic and Princess Elise. We see them flirt in flower fields, crack terrible jokes, and, at one stage, kiss.

It's gross. It's borderline bestiality. And it's awkward for everyone.

It's wrong. It's just plain wrong.