Two points :
- how do you - as a writer for such a game - write "un-cheesy", and rather "mature" romances ? How do you develop that in words ?
- how do you do that without going into the directions of "not appropriate towards teens" and even worse bad taste ? Because the problem is
a) Tennager are players of such games, whether you want it or not
b) "Taste" in something is an highly individual thing, and considered quite differently (just think of Monty Python). Which will result in some people really disliking the way some romances are writter/"performed", and others not.
That's a silly question. You might as well ask "How do you make a good game?" A lot of things are subjective, but there
are such a thing as standards in storytelling, writing, and so forth. If you're going to go "but it's an indeeveeduaaal thiiiing" at everything, why then, we should all praise every game, every book, every movie and criticize nothing ever. Daikatana was probably a masterpiece to somebody, just as
The Da Vinci Code and assorted terrible fiction must be. Relativism becomes pretty ridiculous after a certain point.
But to answer: to begin with, you're mistaking "mature" for "sexually explicit." Mass Effect has sex scenes, but do I think those make the game--or the romance--mature? No, quite the opposite, if anything. Most Bioware romantic interests, quite simply, act like teenagers. Emotionally needy, codependent teenagers even if they are thirty-seven-year-old veteran pilot with a son in his teens, or a druid who's probably over a century old and has already gone through one husband. The moment the romance begins, they lose all control of their composure, spew their tragedies at the drop of a hat, and bawl for attention. They can barely decide what to have for breakfast without asking the PC; they can hardly tie their shoes without the PC's assistance. In short, they're stupid, clingy, and whiny. It's some bizarre way of massaging the player's ego. Look, here's this supposedly distinguished war veteran or a Jedi with special powers, and isn't it nice to see how they are all over your avatar? Every scrap of attention you throw their way flusters them and makes them beg for more as if they were all of
thirteen. Liara throwing herself at Shepard constantly, for instance, and acting in general emotionally stunted. She may be a century old or nearly, but she has the mentality of a prepubescent girl.
In real life, this would make for an unbearable and very unhealthy relationship. Well-adjusted adults simply don't act like that, or at least shouldn't. That's what makes these romances immature: they give you teenage-level angst and behavior, and want to pass it off as unbreakable twuuu wurrve that's just oh-so-wonderful. It's nice for stupid, impressionable teenagers, but are you saying that everything should be dumbed down to the level of unintelligent teenagers (and I'll qualify that there're plenty of mature, smart teenagers: but they aren't the ones these virtual love affairs seem to pander to) because they're part of the player base?
Planescape: Torment and NWN2: MotB handled romances pretty well, the latter more than the former. It's not even a little sexually explicit, it doesn't force the player into sickening sweet-talk, and the characters lose neither their brains nor their maturity. Compare Fall-from-Grace to Bastila or Liara. Even the Witcher does it all right, discounting the sex cards. Shani and Triss retain their personal goals, personal wants, without centering them around Geralt (Triss, if anything, uses him to further the Lodge of the Sorceresses' political ambition).