As a long-time great fan of the Imoen Romance I might be biased, but I'll list a few pointers of the IMO good and bad points of it (spoilers, of course, some very big ones) :
Good:If you aren't romancing Aerie, Imoen becomes a close friend of her. Basically, the absence of you making Aerie stronger by helping her means Imoen does it instead, and makes a special friend in the process (so Imoen has others than just you to rely on). The bond between them is pretty interesting, and the interactions between them were entertaining. It was also interesting that in many cases where your behaviour made Imoen abandon your party (usually in either rage or sorrow), Aerie would leave too and go with her.
Despite what a lot of people seem to think, Imoen doesn't "throw herself" at you the minute you pick her up from Spellhold. She will slowly (over several dialogues) start talking about what was done to her, and in between that you have to force-talk her and tell her that you had dreams of her, then pressure her to tell you about whether or not she had something similar of you. She will (regardless of your forcetalk) eventually tell you what was done to her by Irenicus, and later on, when you exit the Underdark, you can end up sleeping with her, if you do it "right". Afterwards she will be ashamed of what you two did because you are siblings (the whole incest issue) and refuse to talk to you until you get her soul back from Bodhi. At that point, you have the opportunity to talk to her privately about your problems, and it is here you have to convince her that you being "siblings" doesn't matter.
The dialogue that ensues is one of the romance's finer points, I think (but again, I could be biased). It is very in-depth, and there are several ways it can go right or wrong. You can badger Imoen, then turn it either into how your own feelings have been trampled by her in order to gain her sympathy before taking your argument further, or you could simply verbally abuse her with it. You can also try to take the whole "we're not genetically siblings, just the taint and/or childhood friends type of siblings" argument. Or try to convince her that it doesn't matter, which she will disagree on, at least initially. Or you could just say that you love her, which is a pretty bad idea if you're looking for a steady romance.
This is all simplified for brevity.
Imoen reacts to certain conditions you meet. For instance having the Robe of Vecna, a Girdle of Giant Strenght or the Ring of Gaxx in your inventory. Also, she has banters for the different keeps (and a special event for the Druid Grove), she reacts to the amount of money you have (at 30k, 60k and 120k). It's a nice flavoring.
Being age 25, I can't say that the more graphic descriptions in the Mod bothers me any. Not any more than some of Jason Compton's flirt-pack descriptions do. If you do take offense at softcore descriptions, you're probably what Imoen calls a "stick-in-the-mud". 99% of the romance "action" has to be started by you, by force-talking Imoen, so the arguments that the romance is some kind of sex-orgy is bull. You can do as much or as little as you like, which I don't find any more disturbing than my obsession of bathing with Jaheira/Aerie in the Flirt Packs
.
Another point a lot of critics make is the fact that you can be violent towards Imoen. How is this any worse than what you do outside dialogues (like using Wish to Abi-Dalzim women, children and everything else in an entire area)? Yes, you can be violent. In some cases, you can use the dialogues that ensue to RP that it was the Bhaal taint that caused it, other times you'll just piss ofspellholdstudios.netspellholdstudios.netf Imoen (sometimes she'll kill you, if what you did/tried to do was bad enough). Usually, you'll experience alignment change if you get out of line.
Personally, I think the Evil and Chaotic replies are almost a necessity, even though I never use them. The reason for this is that it gives you a choice, and the fact that you can be very evil gives all the good replies that much more meaning. If you could do only good (and "normal") things, what would be the point of being allowed to choose a reply at all? If you want the romance to proceed you'll have no choice but to be nice to Imoen, but at least you're given a choice. Besides, take the Bioware romances as an example: You can tell Aerie in just about every single LoveTalk that she's a whiny bitch, despite the fact that it will terminate the romance. You can similarly be "not nice" to the other romances at every step. Why should Imoen be immune to abuse from evil/chaotic characters? And the fact that her romance happens while you have no soul and are struggling to keep the taint under control, makes the evil/violent choices all the more likely, and IMO meaningful.
In a way, you could say that the wildly different dialogue choices mirror the internal struggle you face after having your soul ripped from you. The Bhaal taint is struggling to gain control over you, and whether it does or not depends on your ability ignore the "voices" that tells you to rip Imoens heart out, and instead kiss her.
I personally find her romance to be very sweet, kind of akin to what the Flirt Packs do for the Bioware romances.
If you force talk Imoen when you (or her) are wounded, she will react depending on how serious the wound is. It's kinda amusing to say "I'm...*cough* I'm fine... *cough*" and then having Imoen react to you coughing up blood.
Bad:I tend to disagree with Lord M's choice of words when it comes to Imoen's dialogues. For one, I think that Imoen's swearing when she get's royally PO'ed is a bit out of character, but as Bioware never put her in a position where she REALLY looses her temper, it's a bit hard to say how she would react in such a situation. In the end, I guess it's up to the artist to decide how Imoen should respond to such.
The mod itself was expanded and improved over many months, and a lot of patches were released. The content you get now is far better and more comprehensive than the initial versions were. The problem is that this "modular" building has left out a few situations where it seems extremely odd that Imoen doesn't say anything, like when you turn into the slayer and try to kill your romance when resting after the Bodhi fight in Spellhold. Of course, if we ever want to see the
ToB part finished, constantly adding stuff to the
SoA part has to stop.
It can sometimes be difficult to gauge the seriousness of the replies you give. Due to the fact that Lord M seems to like including "chaotic neutral" replies (some of them are pretty funny), almost Jan style, you never quite know whether your character will just be joking if you choose that reply, or if it's a "serious" Chaotic/Neutral answer that could impact the romance and/or your alignment. Of course, you could just NOT pick such a reply, but why should chaotic neutrals have all the fun?
Edited by AG3, 24 September 2004 - 08:05 PM.
