What is your favorite JRPG with a dating sim element in it?

Ah yes, fire emblem is my favorite dating sim

A Growlancer reference? Me and the 16 other remaining fans salute you good sir.

That mechanic alone most of the time (not all) is the reason why I got into and fell in love with JRPGs. The fact that you can date a cute anime girl of your choice really got me when I first found out about JRPGs back during 2020 and 2021 and it still does to this day.

"Sakura Wars is a series you can argue is more dating sim than rpg" yeah lol. I like to describe it as "playing a romcom mecha anime". It's amazing though, got a vibe all to itself. Love it all.

Oh, Thousand Arms. That game is from my childhood.

for final fantasy base on my personal taste, the best romance is squall and rinoa in the FF8

The problem with Trails of Cold Steel is Cold Steel 3, since Cold Steel let you romance one of multiple girls. Then Cold Steel 2 let you continue your choiced girl. But Cold Steel 3 says, "*uck your girl, i'll only let you pick one of 3 girls and if your picked one is not there i don't care". Cold Steel 4 tries to fix that problem but the damage is done. Furthermore, Cold Steel games give you multiple girls to choose but the story and events let you know pretty clear which girl is the "cannon girl" that you should pick which can be a bit annoying. Most of the fans dislike the romance system of Cold Steel, it's a mess and only works if you don't care enough about your choices. Trails in the Sy 1 and 2 is a better choice, i mean, it hasn't a romance system but it has a better romance story.....one of the best in rpgs in my opinion.

Tales of Arise is a beautiful game, the story itself is absolutely fantastic. Alphen and Shion are so well thought out too, I really like how their love grows throughout the game. Such a good game!

Gave you a like just for having Petra in the thumbnail lol

It is only a dating sim if player can choose among multiple romantic partners and be the match maker. Built in love story like FFX doesn't count as dating sim in my opinion. My favorite has to to Fire Emblem series because not only you can pair up the protagonist, but also other characters and they all have different paired endings. FE4, in particular, is the best because each pairing affects the second generation. Children of said pairing will have different build depending on the father. I haven't seen any dating sim in RPG as deep as FE4 yet. Now what I want from dating sim is to have real consequence on the story. imagine your loyal companions like Wakka, Lulu, and Yuna date somebody ELSE in FF10 and they become your enemies. Or a political match making with no romantic feelings to change the direction of the main story. For example, to turn a powerful foe into an ally. Or a very unlikely pairing that gives unexpected turn of events... the combination is limitless.

Good list can't say id agree with Rune factory 5 considering how they gutted the DLC option for some of the other girls, so 4 would be the better option.

I was actually surprised to see Cold Steel 1 on this list. It might be a little more appropriate to put one of the sequels there instead, but who am I to criticize a recommendation of one of my favorite games ever?

Great list, too bad I know all of these and played most of them :D Maybe do a list for straight up dating sims? Or VN/dating sim hybrids? Id give that a watch for sure.

Glad you included my favorite girl Makoto in the thumbnail!

The brief moment of Final Fantasy X-2 in the video during the Final Fantasy X section made me smile. ❤

My fav game of all time has romance in it, Eternal Sonata. It's such a sweet relationship too between Polka and Allegretto. There are other relationships like with Jazz and Claves (all the while 2 other women pine after him lol), but those 2 chars are the main focus. Allegretto's English VA deserves an award for one moment in the game near the end (which I won't spoil). The Grandia games (1st 3 at least) have romance in them too. I never played the first one, I just heard it had romance in there, but I have played 2 and 3 (2's one of my fav games and 3 was a disappointment due to changes in the gameplay). Between 2 and 3, I do prefer the romance in 3 mostly because I am not a fan of love triangles (2's love triangle is basically what prevent it from being my fav game). While it's not a main focus there is romance in Skies of Arcadia. I see the 3 main chars as friends, I never got any romance between Vyse and the 2 girls. However, there was an obvious romance between another playable char, Enrique and one of your crew members, Moegi. Heck, it's really funny when even Moegi's brother sets them up hehe. Out of the ones mentioned, the only one I've played is RF5, but I haven't completed the main story because of one major reason, I am not a fan of the farming mechanics, they feel too complicated. Darn shame because I love everything else, especially the chars. I'll try to get back into it because I do want to finish the main story and get married and have kids. Most of the male LIs are awesome (I am a straight female btw).

As for RF5, with the help of growing modding community. You could actually forming band of harem's here, and not bound by 1 spouse. So its a goodway to enjoy your favourite characters romance event just one in single run rather than makes different save files for different spouse

Thousand Arms is one not enough people talk about. It wasn't perfect, but it has a lot of interesting qualities, and to this day I still remember quite a bit of it ... most definitely including the huge cliffhanger ending. I'd be curious how many have actually played this one. The dating elements were a novelty back then. I did not know they led to different endings though. Especially since there were some natural couplings between the characters already. Still, it was a good game in many ways, and it's a little sad it's stuck back on the PS1. I'm generally not a fan of dating elements in games, even though I will do them. The romance aspect almost always feels forced. Give me a narratively driven love story intigral to the plot, such as Lunar, Ff10 or Tales of Arise any day.

You have great taste choosing Edelgard

NOICE! Also 10/10 thumbnail mate!

I'd say Rune factory 4 special is a better option than Rune factory 5. The graphics my be a bit inferior to RF5 but RF4S is actually difficult on hard mode and hell mode unlike RF5, the combat feels better and the characters are much funnier and feel more vibrant. But RF5 is also good

the fact that sakura wars is still not on steam, is a fucking crime

I just like how the thumbnail says in 2024 but shows two games that came out years ago

Man what'd you do to Manuela's face in the thumbnail.

cheered when Alphen and Shionne kissed haha

I prefer Conception 1

Conception II is on 3ds too btw

Technically Sakura Wars 2019 is not JRPG it's Visual Novel / Dating Sim but in full 3D, 90% of game is reading / 10% gameplay (and this is a reason why casuals mistake this game series with JRPG, because Sakura Wars 2019 is first game from this genre in full 3D, it's much closer to Shenmue than traditional Visual Novel with 2D sprites). Sakura Wars don't have traditional RPG elements like leveling up, itemization, grind etc. but instead of that (in previous games) you boost stats for upcoming battle with each heroine by interactions in Visual Novel segments. So it's pure Dating Sim with ,,gameplay''. Previous games in series were also prototype to Valkyria Chronicles series (same dev team), battle system ARMS from Sakura Wars 3-5 was improved later into BlitZ in Valkyria Chronicles,

My problem with like half of these games is that I'm only interested in dating men hahahah.

conception 2 was such a gem of a game.

You deserve it i am going to subscribe to you now will you hopefully make a top 10 favorite waifus and top 10 favorite characters of final Fantasy and top 10 of kingdom hearts charachters please😉👍🏻

Growlanser and Arise are the best in my opinion

Conception 2 never came out on ps4 or switch. It was a vita/3ds game.

You choose 3 houses really the past entries had better romance and marriage

People LOVE to talk about Fire Emblem as a dating sim, but it has literally none. It's 100% advertisement and memes.

Thousand Arms was a great game but it's SOOOOOO hard to find nowadays.

@TagTheLegend, I think you should play the Thousand Arms first before you review it. Because at the end of the game, there is no story or sidequest which allow the player to marry with the women

Thousand arms is top tier I wish it was remade at least

Squall and Rinoa are crying on their eternal loop for being forgotten

Cold Steel shouldn't have a dating sim feature. The story obviously shoves Alisa Reinford in your face, so they should've made that the canon one, instead of the 20 girls by the end of the tetralogy.

Weaboos UNITE!

I'm glad you didn't put FF8 in here. Going back to that game I realize rose tinted glasses really do exist. The writing and dialogue is horrible. Squall and Rinoa felt like Twilight but with less(more?) sparkles.

Mommy Manuela appreciation! 🥰

Tales of Arise is Good for Story and Romantic game

Hear are my Favorite RPG dating simulators that I’ve played 1. Dragon Age Origins 2. Dragon Age 2 3. Dragon Age Inquisition 4. Dragon Age Veilguard 5. Dragon’s Dogma 1 6. Dragon’s Dogma 2 7. Elder Scrolls Skyrim 8. Persona 5 Striker/Tactica 9. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth 10. Final Fantasy 16 11. Witcher 3 12. Greedfall 13. Baldur’s Gate 3 Here’s a list of RPGs romance simulators that I haven’t played but I wish to play someday 1. Fire Emblem Awakening 2. Fire Emblem Three Houses 3. Divinity Original Sin 2 4. Persona 3 5. Persona 5 6. The Mass Effect Trilogy Oh and I don’t think that both Tales of Arise and Final Fantasy X are dating simulators, more like two love stories between each main character duo. Alphen x Shionne from Tales of Arise and Tidus x Yuna from Final Fantasy X.

Tidus and Yuna love story. Best in gaming. No other games compare

Ar tonelico?

Most of these I would agree could qualify, however loosely, but I really don't think Arise or 10 count as "dating sim" jrpgs. Dating Sim implies you have options. Or, ya know, dates. The rest of these, sure you can one-on-one time with the girls to get to know them, but Arise and 10 are railroaded romance plots where you don't have any input and the relationship happens regardless of your contribution. That's not really a dating sim, that's just a romance subplot.

No kiss scenes??? Then, is not a romance game.

I dont like the dating sim part of cold steel. It feels like they had planned to make a canon romance with one of the girls but then cut it to allow players to date their favorite waifus. The romance was even one of the best parts of sky which makes ot double sad

3 girls on preview: 2 from persona 5. Where from third one?

tidus and yuna are the best romance ever

some of these are so old that they were on the playstation 2. Where are all the recent games?

Truth isn't a "preference"...

Conception 2 is about the closest you'll ever get to an English voiced hentai game. 😏🤭

Makoto is best girl and Edelgard did nothing wrong

Unfortunate that 3 out of 10 are unavailable on PC/Switch. Already finished Tales of Arise and FE: Three Houses while Persona 5 is waiting in my library. I started Trails games last year and I'm currently playing Trails from Zero so I've yet to reach Cold Steel arcs. Conception II has been on my WL for some time. FF10 I skip, I got spoiled the ending so I don't want to play it. Lastly Rune Factory doesn't interest me in the slightest, farming games are so boring.

Titus isn’t his Japanese name, you can pronounce it either way. The way Ti-dus pronunciation came to be was from an advertisement and that’s how the advertising announcer pronounced it. However, like many others, I’ll pronounce it as Tid-us. It also go along the game water theme, where Tidus is a tidal wave to the world of Spira.

no mention of ar tonelico tho 😥😥

i finish watching the video but still hasn't see my life

No Dragon Quest 11?

Ai face manuela jumpscare

Since you did say Top10 im not gonna trash the list. But yea throw up something not mainstream please 😅

I'm glad Rune Factory 5 is the first to include same-sex romance. Guess I will be playing 4 then

Does Persona really count though? The "romances" never go anywhere, and they ultimately turn into one of those silly, ephemeral "that thing that happened one summer". Where's the commitment?

little girls

Playing all these games. Ive had so many girlfriends and thus so many exes. 😢

And Sakura Wars is the worst of the Sakura Taisen series. Tite Kubo can't carry Kōsuke Fujishima's pens.

the first 2 are not dating sims

Xenogears. Fei and Elly are lovers who has and will always be lovers throughout time. They are born, meet each other, fall in love, dies, and are reborn to meet each other again over and over. Kind of like Hawk Man and Hawk Girl. But you don't know that. You have to play the game to have that story slowly be revealed. Dating Sim with no sex isn't my thing. Even with sex, the sex kind of sucks because you have almost no control over it. I rather have The Sims with sex mods than Dating Sims.