Here's a list from 2010: http://www.gamesradar.com/the-14-best-videogame-couples/ I haven't played many of those games, though. And I'm not really a fan of a Link and Midna pairing. In the Zelda world, I'd have to say that I was fond of a Link and Saria paring from Ocarina of Time. I haven't played the game since I was a kid, but they seemed to dig each other as kids, until, you know, destiny sort of dragged them apart. I also think that Mass Effect does an obviously good job with romances. However, while it seems like a Shepard/Liara coupling is probably the deepest in the game, I was very drawn to a Shepard/Jack romance, as I'm kind of a sucker for the whole tragic thing. Jack's background was very deep and unsettling, and I liked how Shepard was able to restore her faith in the galaxy again. I know many of you will probably mention Revan/Bastila, but that's one I can't really get behind. I recall Bastila being a huge, huge annoying, stuck up douche. My favorite KotOR series romance was probably my evil female Exile and Atton. Some really good dialogue there, and much more satisfying than my good male Exile and the Handmaiden. Halo's Masterchief and Cortana also seem to have something going on, but I don't think it's the best type of romance. It's actually kind of weird.
I'll go with Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher. Especially at the end of Uncharted 2. Their banter at the end is just golden. Haven't played Uncharted 3 yet but I really want to.
During my replay of ME1 last night, I finally had "the talk" with Ashley and Liara, and yeah, the whole thing actually came out of nowhere. I mean, the banter between/about them before this was pretty minimal, and then suddenly Ashley explodes with a sudden desire to know which woman Shepard digs. Pretty abrupt.
If you talk to anyone else aboard the ship besides the respective party members, I think you can get dialogue that there are rumors about Shepard fancying someone. So, perhaps the confrontation was born out of the rumor mill? Haha. I think one of my favorite video game romances would have to include Tidus and Yuna from Final Fantasy X, Claude and Rena from Star Ocean: The Second Story, as well as pretty much any BioWare romance. However, I also really liked the brief romance between Zoe and Damian in Dreamfall.
Scuttlebutt. That's the name of gossip within a ship. The confrontation doesn't come out of nowhere. It occurs if you've been hitting on both and the game forces you to make a choice. Same thing happens if you're playing a FemShep and you're doing the same with Kaidan and Liara.
Jaheria and the Bhaalspawn in Baldur's Gate II was probably my first video game romance (unless you count Mario and the Princess ) and still my favorite.
the really annoying thing about ME1 romances is that the only way to not hit on Liara is to not talk to her at all. And with Ashley/Kaidan you have to hit a specific dialogue option early in the game otherwise they think you love them long time. ... Yeah, I had to make sure to do that. FemShep/Garrus is my fave. Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
The ME series has a lot of options, and depending on your personal preferences they worked to varying degrees. Ash was my favorite in ME1 because to me it seemed like she was the only one you actually got to flirt with - flirt as in have fun and banter, with the other party zinging you a few times. Kaidan was a bit too serious - as femShep you kind of had to take all the initiative up until after Virmire. Liara just felt off to me. Too inexperienced with humans and relationships; despite the fact that she's 106 it felt like you were hitting on a naive teenager. In "Lair of the Shadow Broker" and ME3 she's much better. As far as ME2, I've got Thane coming up and I'm trying to decide between Miranda and Jack for next time. I've gone with Tali on two playthroughs and Garrus once; both were great.
From that list I definitely agree with the Prince/Farah romance from Sands of Time, and later Two Thrones. She was a useful companion and she complemented the Prince's skills. She didn't stand around waiting to be saved, but got right into the fray with you. They were forced together, which I thought made for a good dynamic between the two. They had to go from being enemies to allies in a matter of minutes, and didn't have any choice in the matter. Over the course of a game she creates a change in the character, to make him a real and honorable Prince of Persia. The implied love scene between the two and the music was also nice, and that's just counting the first game.
The narration for Sands of Time and Two Thrones was really awesome. The Disney movie, however, was kind of lame
Not sure if it's THE best, but the first one that occurred to me when I read the topic was Hana and Rain from Fear Effect 2. Yeah the game played up a lot of fanservice with them, but when it wasn't busy doing that, there were really well written scenes that conveyed just how in love they were, how much they really cared about each other, and how they saw their relationship as the most natural thing in the world. Considering the game was released in 2001, I found it quite refreshing. The truth is I can't really think of anything more recent. People keep telling me I HAVE to play the Mass Effect series and it has some good ones...I'll get to it some year I'm sure.
The love triangle between Sora, Riku, and Kairi in Kingdom Hearts springs to mind. Course I'm a KH fanboy so.
I'm not picking this because I'm a Star Wars fan, or because I'm on a SW site, but I like the romance between Starkiller and Juno in The Force Unleashed. It wasn't really a big part of the story but IMO it had a big impact, especially if you consider the plot of the second game (and yeah I know it wasn't that great).