Caught In a Bad Romance

Princess Prin Prin is kidnapped at the beginning of every Ghouls ‘n Ghosts game, and Arthur invariably sets out to rescue the fair maiden on every occasion. Unfortunately, everything he encounters will either shatter his suit of armor or kill him outright. The fact that Prin Prin survived the kidnapping attempts suggests that she’s significantly stronger than her knight in shining armor. (Arthur can’t be touched without dying, but Prin Prin was carried across the countryside without being harmed!) When the pair are finally reunited, Prin Prin instructs him to go back to the start and do it all over again. Unbelievable! Prin Prin is demanding, manipulative, and reckless with Arthur’s heart. Arthur, for his part, happily lets Prin Prin walk all over him. They’re one of gaming’s classic couples, but they have all the writings of an unhealthy relationship.

Starkiller was the secret apprentice of Darth Vader. He was trained in the ways of the Dark Side and dispatched to kill the Jedi that were scattered across the galaxy, but he decided to betray his father figure and become a martyr for the Rebel Alliance because he fell in love with his space chauffeur. The problem with this romance is that both characters are completely void of charisma and personality. Juno Eclipse was not originally part of the game, and she was shoehorned into the story at the insistence of George Lucas. (The Force Unleashed? More like the forced romance, amirite?) The novelizations apparently give the characters more personality, but the games give you little reason to care about them and the romance falls flat. It’s the worst Star Wars romance this side of Finn and Rose.

Desmond Miles is descendant from a line of prominent assassins. Thanks to the wonders of 21st century technology, he is able to access memories of the past that are stored within his DNA. One of the more alarming memories involved an assassin named Altaïr who was in the process of chasing a cloaked woman through Acre. When he finally caught up to her, the two started making out without warning and got busy on a pile of hay that was conveniently placed on top of the tower. After making his deposit, Altaïr took off without saying a word and we were left wondering what we just watched. We later learned that Altaïr and Maria were married and had a family, but their rooftop excursion was devoid of romance. Desmond basically had to watch his ancestors raw dog each other. He had seen Altaïr stab people before, but never in that context.

Ethan Mars had a fulfilling career and a loving family, but his life went off the rails after his oldest son was killed in an accident. In the years that followed, he fell into depression, his marriage fell apart, and his other son was kidnapped by a serial killer. While searching for the killer, he meets a journalist named Madison Paige whose main purpose in the game is to flesh out the story (if you know what I mean). Depending on the choices the player make, Ethan and Madison can become intimate with one another. It’s weird watching Ethan rail a chick in a dingy motel room when he’s supposed to be looking for his son. Things get even more uncomfortable if Ethan is unable to save him. While he’s standing over his grave a few hours after the funeral, Madison tells Ethan that she’d like to have a child with him. Awkward.

There are many strange pairings in the Final Fantasy series, but none make less sense than Lucercia and Professor Hojo. Even though she has other men pining for attention, Lucercia decides to shack up with an amoral bastard who makes no effort to disguise how awful he is. Everyone knows that Hojo’s a total scumbag, and there’s no evidence to suggest that he cares about Lucercia at all. She’s clearly out of his league in the looks department too, so I can only assume she’s trying to advance her career as a scientist or something. After Hojo knocks her up, Lucercia lets him conduct unethical experiments on their unborn child. She wrestles with guilt and regrets her life choices, but it’s not as though she was a victim in the relationship. She’s just as horrible and unsympathetic as Hojo is, so I guess they were a good match after all.

Cringe-worthy romances are all-to-common in the Metal Gear Solid universe. Otacon fell in love with a terrorist, Rose rambled on about her relationship with Jack, and Meryl was swept off her feet by a walking poop joke. Meryl Silverburgh is a military brat who became a decorated soldier in her own right. Johnny Sasaki is a guard with chronic diarrhea who serves as a source of comic relief. Nearly everything he does is embarrassing. He’s knocked unconscious, he’s stripped naked, he mistakes ketchup for blood, and he delivers dramatic monologues while using the bathroom. Johnny is smitten with Meryl from the moment they meet, but Meryl shows no interest in him whatsoever. There’s no relationship to speak of until Metal Gear Solid 4 when Meryl inexplicably proposes in the middle of a gunfight.

Carla Valenti is a devoted NYPD detective with an inquisitive personality and an eye for detail. Lucas Kane is some schlub who went on a heinous killing spree after he was possessed by an ancient Mayan shaman. Carla believes that Lucas is a deranged murderer and pursues him without relent, but she has a sudden change of heart and starts to trust him emphatically. She also bangs him emphatically. It was out of character for Carla to cast her skepticism aside, and her intimate encounter with Lucas was out of left field. Carla barely spoke with Lucas before declaring her love. Also, Lucas was technically a zombie when she fucked him. (Lucas had been resurrected by an advanced A.I. clan that wanted to manipulate him.) I hope it goes without saying, but it’s unethical for police officers to have zombie babies with murder suspects.

The gameplay in the Bionic Commando franchise has always been centered around the protagonist’s bionic arm, but the ill-advised 2009 entry decided to explore the concept in more detail. In this outing, Nathan Spencer’s bionic arm was apparently created from the remains of his dead wife. (For reasons that are never fully explained, the bionics only function properly if they are synced with the host on both a physical and emotional level.) Nathan’s wife will be a part of him forever, and this is destined to have profound ramifications in the bedroom. If Nathan is ever intimate with another woman, he will technically be having a threesome with his late wife. He can’t even have alone time with his bionic arm without committing necrophilia! What’s the point of having a bionic arm if you can’t have fun with it?

After her parents died, Elise was turned into a vessel for an immortal being of mass destruction that would apparently be released if she ever cried. As such, she was forced to keep her emotions bottled up for her entire life. Elise fell for Sonic after he helped free her from this burden, but I don’t think she was emotionally ready to pursue a relationship with him. Also, they’re not even the same species! Sonic is an anthropomorphic hedgehog with cartoon features. Princess Elise the Third is a normal human with realistic proportions. It’s kind of weird that they even exist in the same continuity, and it was really fucking weird to watch their relationship evolve from a simple friendship into borderline bestiality. Their on-screen kiss has inspired an unhealthy amount of fan art, but my opinion can be summed up with a single word – yuck!

Clement Darling is the warden of a jail that was built on top of an abandoned government laboratory. After stumbling upon the facility, Clement began researching ways to extend the life of his aging mother. Sadly, his plan wasn’t nearly as wholesome as it sounds. After finding a sexy stripper with an amazing rack, Clement decided to transplant his mother’s brain into her youthful body. He then began to crisan the new body with a passionate make-out session. The horrified onlookers were taken aback by the revelation that Clement was a literal motherfucker, but the sickening scene was cut short when his mother mutated into a giant monster. Clement was so overwhelmed by guilt that he insisted on returning to the womb to atone for his wrongdoings. The whole thing is played for laughs, but that doesn’t mean it’s not gross.