game eater blog

Fascinating review of a.. dating sim rhythm game RPG? i'm still a little unclear.

One of the things that really fascinates me about dating sims is the way they let the player decide their measure of success: "victory" is ending up with the romantic interest of your choice. Cordo d'Oro has its own set of romance options, but also separate notional goal, victory in the recitals. But from what I'm reading here, the game doesn't condemn you for deciding that pursuing that goal isn't worth your time. I imagine that I'd try optimizing to get both the romance option and the victory at the recitals, but that probably says more about me than about the game.

The notional goal with the well-supported possibility of ignoring that goal reminds me of some TTRPG design motifs, but my thoughts on the resemblance aren't terribly well-formed