Dragon Age

Huh. Odd. I have the exact opposite opinion in almost everything you mentioned. Almost everything.

It seems the game just didn't connect with you so much. Oh well. It happens. Me, I rank this game as my favorite of all time, for pretty much the exact things you seem to dislike, even.

I'll second Arha's opinion here. Don't play DAII. It'll be more of the same, but with less quality and variety this time around.

I actually mostly agree with you about Origins, but completely disagree with the two above comments about DA 2. DA 2's way more inventive, just more personal. It does recycle a lot of maps, but there's more mechanical variety to the enemies, which sets up more interesting encounters. There aren't as many spells or prestige classes, but I feel like the spells they do have are more strongly differentiated.

DA 2 is very much a sequel that doesn't feel much like the original. Since I found the original felt like a clunkier version of the Infinity Engine games, I didn't really mind that. DA 2 is a pared-down brawler, I can admit that, but I prefer the story and characters to the kinder, gentler Game of Thrones thing they had going with Origins. That being said, DA 2 does have you playing as a fugitive and a crew of mostly criminals in what feels like an old '80s adventure series, so you can judge whether or not that's something you'd like.

I did kind of enjoy Awakenings, which feels like a bridge between the two.

Edited by Unsung on Sep 11th 2018 at 6:18:12 AM

I can't agree with PRC 4's criticism considering their what I like about Origins. As for 2, I find that the gameplay can be made fun if you use gameplay mods or have a way to save edit your game files, but the story and characters are weaker or not engaging enough outside a scant few exceptions.

I quite like DAII, despite it's issues. It's more Dragon Age, just with a more personal focus and a darker tone. There's nothing about that sentence I dislike. While the game does clearly suffer from being rushed, leading to it feeling a lot less creative and taking a hit in quality, I still find the story and the characters are great, and Elves aside, the series does get a good visual upgrade here. The mechanics are a bit more hit-and-miss for me, particularly how damage is calculated more like an MMO than an actual RPG from now on, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Sep 11th 2018 at 7:11:13 AM

It initially kind of connected with me, and then the annoyances stacked up until they outweighed.

What did you like about it, from a gameplay, writing, or characters perspective?

Did you like frequently pausing to issue commands?

Did you like big long mazes that take time to travel through and cannot be fast-travel'ed?

Did you like the top-down RTS-like controls?

Did you like party members bantering/bickering with each other all the time?

Did you like the attempt to cast Loghain as a tragic figure blind to his own biases?

Did you like the choices you need to make?

Regarding the gameplay, there's a couple major breaking points for me:

1. I noted how the optimal way to play this is like an RTS, which tends to kill immersion because I'm so small and zoomed far away from my characters.

2. However, it lacks the quality of life features of RTS, namely a one-click way of "attacking the first thing you see" and the ability to actually pan across the entire map. It would be great if it actually kept the "fog of war" effect in RT Ss, where you need to scout ahead with something if you want to see what's ahead of you. Instead, we have this thing where planning is extremely limited, for I can see a cluster of enemies in front of me, but I can't actually prepare anything to deal with them. It's also extremely arbitrary when I can see things and when I can't. I can, for example, see into and cast Mana Clash into pretty much all the rooms in the mage tower, but I can't cast Tempest in most of the rooms in Fort Drakon. Also, characters need to be told to attack things. People will literally stand there and get stabbed by enemies if they are not told to attack them.

3. Tactics are limited in such a way that a lot of commonly used options are missing. I cannot tell poison-making characters to always apply poison prior to combat. I cannot tell people to use their autocrit abilities on things that are frozen. I cannot tell people to use revival abilities when at least one team member is dead.

That doesn't sound right — they should attack enemies automatically if left alone and set to preset tactics / properly configured custom tactics. It's been a while since I played Origins, but bugs aside, if you had the whole party selected, i.e. were controlling multiple members at once, it's possible you would've disabled their AI because you were ostensibly manually controlling them.

Edited by Lavaeolus on Sep 11th 2018 at 12:34:02 PM

It's not really a matter of whether DAII is good or not. If he didn't like Origins he's unlikely to like DAII.

Possibly, except he did like KOTOR, and I feel like a lot of the QOL changes he's talking about were sort of covered by the more arcade-y controls of DA 2. On consoles, at least. It doesn't control well on PC, admittedly, but the first game did seem like a step back from the late Infinity games, which were unabashedly RTS-like.

That said there is a lot more banter and heroically cathartic it is not (even though I still think Origins' companions are bland), so if that's what you're looking for, then yeah, not so much.

There are some noticeable differences that may or may not be to their liking. The top-down perspective is removed, although the basic gameplay is still the same. The level design for dungeons and the like tends to be a lot smaller. Whether this will all work out for them, I don't really know.

Edited by Lavaeolus on Sep 11th 2018 at 12:48:08 PM

Going by the specific complaints, though, I'd have to say I recommend skipping. Like the gameplay issue most often complained about in DAII is the constantly spawning waves from behind you that either kill your mages because of bad AI or just waste your time, which seems to line up with complaints about the finale. And the writing is generally considered to be worse and the story generally comes across as grimmer and edgier. Not much levity along the lines of Alistair.

I mean, I think it's an okay game, I just don't recommend it to someone who didn't like Origins, especially someone who didn't like it the way they didn't.

Edited by Arha on Sep 11th 2018 at 6:54:02 AM

In order:

Actually, yes. It felt like a fun mix of turn-based and real-time strategy which I quite enjoyed.

Yes to the first. The second does bother me a bit, especially in repeat playthroughs.

Yes. Quite a bit. Especially with how much I could zoom the camera in and out and use that in strategic combat.

Most certainly. Their banter is one of my favorite things about this game. I'll go on about this when I talk about the characters.

Admittedly, not the first time around, but then, first time around I just straight-up killed him. In my second playthrough, when I went a bit more into the character due to certain choices, I got to hear his story, and while I still don't see him as a tragic figure, I do understand his point of view a lot better.

Most of them, yeah. The Dwarves have two choices I really enjoy, the Elves have a very clear-cut choice to me, but still one whose story I appreciate (and even then, roleplaying means I make a different choice in this quest almost every playthrough), and I have similar feelings about Redcliffe. The Mages are the only choice I'm not really very fond of.

I'm more of a roleplayer than an optimizer, so I've always played with the camera close to the character I was controlling at the time. It helps loads with the immersion and roleplaying, and gives an extra feeling of urgency and excitement at times, since with that you occasionally don't pay attention to a character and all of a sudden you have to rush to save them.

Well, yes, but that's because it's not an RTS, it's an RPG. One with RTS elements, yes, but an RPG nonetheless.

Undeniably.

There is a mechanic for that, I can't remember the specific name right now, that allows you to tailor the companion AI to deal with things automatically. If you don't want to waste time with that, they come with some standard templates for that that you can toggle depending on what you want their role to be. Personally, I like giving each character their orders. Like I said, I'm a roleplayer. Growing the characters one by one and playing as each of them is a great source of fun for me.

I'm pretty sure you can do that last one, but I would have to check. Either way, yes, those are an issue.

I've written about the gameplay above, so I'll go for the last two points. I love almost all of the companions (Shale aside, but even then it's still "Like her quite a lot" instead of "Love"), from Alistair's sillyness and all the details hiding underneath that, to Leliana's entire story and characterization, Zevran's whole personality and how layered he is once you get to know about him, Wynne being the team's grandma and her interactions with any Warden who bothers to engage her intelectually, Oghren's big heart and full knowledge of how much he screwed up and how much he wants to fix it all, Sten's viewpoint as an outsider and the process of earning his respect, Morrigan's no-nonsense attitude and gradual growth into a proper human, and even Shale's comical additions to the party. I find them all to be wonderful, flawed, interesting people, even if at this point I know the characters and their programming through and through.

As for the story, I find it a well-executed, if predictable, epic storyline. Almost all of the origin stories allow for a good deal of roleplaying and set a good foundation for your character (I do dislike the Mage Origin for being too simple and tangential to the rest of the game), the prologue at Ostagar is engaging, if a bit too short, and when the game opens you get a large world with several interesting characters and good worldbuilding. I actually like reading the Codex entries, all the little tales and the large stories, and the easter eggs. And yes, the game does feel a bit repetitive the longer you stay on it, and there are the occasional problems here and there, such as the length of the Deep Roads or all the bugs during the Landsmeet, but despite those, the game still draws me in after several playthroughs. When it lacks surprise and innovation it makes up with execution, and when it lacks execution, the characters still draw me in enough that I care.

Admittedly, without liking the story and the characters, I can see how the game would wear out it's welcome rather quickly, especially if you picked the Mages or the Dwarves as your first main quest. It relies a lot on the strength of the writing, but if this isn't your kind of story or if these characters aren't making it for you, there's little to help you through the sluggish parts of the game.

Origins, I feel, is a game where Bioware perfected parts of how it structured it's formula for this kind of game. There are no big surprises, no standout moments in gameplay, but I find it's a solidly, across-the-board good game, with a well-executed predictable story.

Granted, I could go way in-depth about this game talking about the characters alone, so I'm going to cut myself short here, but I hope I've at least made you understand my point of view, even if you disagree with it.

I've never really gotten that. The characters in general joke around a lot more, and the dialogue is wittier — Alistair always felt like a poor man's Xander Harris to me. Same goes for being edgy and grimdark — that's a complaint I would lodge with the first game's meat-filled Circle tower, Broodmother tunnels, city elf storyline, and Morrigan in general, more so than Kirkwall's Malevolent Architecture and Gotham-ishly absurd crime rates.

Edited by Unsung on Sep 11th 2018 at 11:10:29 AM

Hmm. Whole party selection causing tactics to not kick in sounds plausible.

To Lovecraftian - yeah, I get why you and others would like it. As pointed out, the core design concept seemed to be "throwback to classic top-down RP Gs", and in my case it's very much I found that a lot of those concepts were copied to create a certain look and feel without regard for whether they actually improve the overall experience.

In general I do like real-time-with-pause a la Mass Effect or Jade Empire. Just...not when I have like 20 different abilities to juggle, which in turn increases the frequency by which I need to pause, which just end up breaking the flow for me.

I did not find a "if ally is dead" status, therefore they can't use Revival or Qunari Prayers for Dead.

As for characters, I suppose that just boils down to individual taste. I didn't like the banter in this game mainly because they veer a bit too far into the vitriolic. I never get the sense that any of them particularly like each other. I prefer my party members to have shoot-the-shit-around-the-water-cooler moments like with Mass Effect, rather than, say, commenting on who looks like a slut or who wants to bang who or who's too dumb to get the reference.

To Unsung, quality of life changes could also have been covered by going more RTS. Let me see across the entire map, and if I must have some limits to ensure I don't just AOE every room I come across, give me fog of war that must be uncovered. It's a mix of RTS and RPG, but the elements tend to clash with each other more than they mesh.

As for DA 2, probably not playing that. For one thing, it's not in my library, and for another, as I understand it makes the Templar/Mage conflict its center in a very stupid way.

(I mean it's pretty obvious that the "correct" way is moderation, where perhaps templars and common people don't need to be viewed with so much suspicion bordering on enmity, but the mages also need some amount of control and oversight so they're not endangering others with their inherently dangerous abilities; any story that wants to make this its central conflict is fighting an uphill battle).

Pretty much, yeah, which given how much the story and a large section of the game depend on them can pretty much make or break the experience.

They do take a while, but as you go through each of their stories and they grow, I find most of them do start to feel like a weird, screwed-up family. The vitriol never quite goes away, but it does get less vicious for most of them. I would make that statement more for DAII's cast than for DAO's.

I can see how you would feel that. I personally didn't mind, in fact I quite enjoyed the experience the game provided me with, but that, again, is probably a matter of individual taste.

You hit that nail on the head right there. DAII's strongest story beats are centered around it's core cast's personal stories, particularly Hawke's, but then you'll probably run into the same issue you ran into in Origins, perhaps even worse. DAII's companions really do kinda hate each other all the time and never feel quite friendly, with some exceptions, and when they're not being that, they're being more of the silly, cheesy part of Dragon Age, so it really might not be to your liking.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Sep 11th 2018 at 9:33:06 AM

DAII could go from awesome to terrible to awesome again in a matter of seconds. There was very little in between IME.

As flawed as DAII was, I was able to get a lot of good hours playing it and trying out different character builds for Hawke and seeing how the Rival and Friendship paths worked out for the rest of the party.

I like Origins better, but DAII did a better job at making me feel invested in the lives of Hawke and their friends and family.

But then, there were the recycled environments, the annoying waves of enemies, and the fact that there was only one healer in your party if Hawke wasn't a Spirit Healer mage. Compared to Origins, the combat seemed almost dumbed down and faster-paced.

I don't regret buying it and playing it over and over again, despite its flaws. But I could totally understand why others would.

Edited by M84 on Sep 12th 2018 at 2:31:27 AM

Man, I miss Rivalry and Friendship. That was the best idea the game had and they just threw it away for boring old approval.

Agreed. Your companions still having character arcs even if they don't like you? This should be normal, not something best known in one game.

Edited by Novis on Sep 12th 2018 at 1:31:33 PM

I like the IDEA of Friendship Rivalry.

I HATED how much it felt like everyone was fighting me constantly and how I actually couldn't romance some characters because my Friendship/Rivalry scores kept taking two steps forward, three back, two forward, and then one back. I eventually got them all just high enough that no one abandoned ship but... Ugh.

I legit, in my lead up to Dragon Age 3, put fucking math to the test and wiki'd every fucking quest so I knew the exact party so NO ONE would be mad at me for the stupidest shit.

I hated Dragon Age 2 so much. For as much as I kinda liked a few characters, I outright hated others and asked the eight deadly words once or twice. *cough*Anders*cough*

The writing couldn't also quite keep up with WHY those points were being accumulated. Namely, I ended up rivaling Anders because I disagreed with his methods and what he wanted to do. I never gathered a single Rivalry point for being anti-mage. Period. Come his rivalry scene, he's calling me a hypocrite for being a mage and saying that mages should be locked up. Which, at first, fine, he made a dumbass assumption of why I don't like him. But none of my dialogue choices could reflect that, no, I don't think mages should be locked up. The game assumed that, if I don't like Anders, I don't like mages.

In all the replays of games I've been doing, DA 2 is always a chore for me and I doubt that will ever change.

Edited by InkDagger on Sep 12th 2018 at 3:04:23 AM

To add insult to injury, Anders is the only designated healer if Hawke is not a healing mage. So you pretty much have to have him in your party for most of the game if you don't want to rely on healing potions all the time.

I'm pretty neutral towards Rivalry and Friendship, but I do think the story should advance despite of any approval, with them only affecting interactions and certain points in the story. Zevran in DAO is an example I particularly like. The end of his sstory happens independently of how much he likes you, and that only affects who he sides with in the end. That's how it should be done, in my opinion.

Not only does the party only have one designated healer, there's also only one (technically two, but it's Sebastian, so no) archer in the whole game if Hawke isn't made to be one.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Sep 12th 2018 at 7:52:41 AM

And said archer cannot make use of the bows you find. Only Sebastian can — but like you said, it's Sebastian.

In general, I didn't like party members being restricted to their default armor and weapon style. One of the ways I improved my time playing the game was save editing the non Varric party members to using different weapon styles for a change. For example; Isabela could now use any normal and elemental bows you find, and Sebastian would be the Dagger rouge for a change. Can't do anything about armor, at least not seriously, but even just the weapons was batter than the default.

Inquisition was so much better about all of this.

These days I'm just annoyed by the fact that the plot hooks it set up (Avernus' research results, explosive mage population growth, hybris talk, the enigma of kirkwall etc) probably won't ever get followed up on thanks to it's reception.

So I found this on Twitter and it's... kinda intriguing imagining a purple Morrigan (green doesn't seem like her color)