#da:o's got issues but it's pretty solid

[s1ithers]

finished da:o at last. thinking about my assortment of half-developed warden ocs who never quite gelled the way hawke did and i feel like it's partly that i never hit on a sequence of endgame choices that really felt like a payoff. da:o is a such a great build-your-own-blorbo kit, you get such juicy character concepts out of the origin choice & reactivity but i'd always get an oc to mid-late game and feel like they were a bit dressed up with nowhere to go bc the ending just doesn't... really cap their arc in a way that feels satisfying

there's some good crunchy episodic drama contained within the treaty quests but in terms of the overall structure, the warden hits their lowest point at the beginning and you spend the game powering up until you win, pretty straightforwardly depending on your choices. like yeah the dark ritual is edgy sexist bullshit but you need it, you need something there.

like the first 2/3 are a great arc. hero leaves home in exile, goes around finding friends & adventure, returns home changed by said adventures, confronts their past, wrenching emotional ordeal etc, moves on as their new actualized self to take on the big bad. which is great except everything pretty much comes up warden from there on out. you need some kind of climax crunch to test that actualized self, another pain point at the end

which they tried to do, it just falls a bit flat for me. i've heard the 'grey warden must die' twist criticized as feeling sprung out of nowhere but i don't mind that so much. between the whole 'in death, sacrifice' thing, duncan & jory, sophia dryden, etc, i think it's pretty well set up that this is an organization with dark secrets that their two bumbling junior recruits know way too little about. i do think it's a bit stock. 'will you die to save the world?' just isn't that interesting, there's a plain right answer both ethics & genre are pointing you to, which more importantly is not really tied to your character at all.

like say what you will about da2 but the ending pays the hell off bc it forces hawke to show who they are. a person could justify making either decision, so who your hawke is matters. every bit of character development is leading up to how they'll jump in that moment

and then after dropping the warden sacrifice on you, dao immediately offers you an escape hatch, which, unless your warden is really fussed about blood magic or whatever, of course you're gonna take. structurally i think this decision is leeched of a lot of potential by the fact that both options are coming as new information.

new guy we just met: wait! there's a problem! morrigan: don't worry i fixed it! okay! on we go then! thanks morrigan

(could've been cool if alistair knew a warden had to die from the start, so you're struggling to go on with this journey, knowing how it ends, really get some time to stew on that before morrigan drops her bomb. the full relief of a stay of execution, plus 'you're only telling me this now?!' gives the warden a somewhat more sympathetic reason to feel betrayed than like, self-centered dickishness)

but more than that, the options the game gives you to object don't acknowledge what's really so awful about it. like you get 1) dark magic scary. part of a pattern in how i think this franchise tends to (mis)apply blood magic etc as a narrative device, but, like, good option to have for roleplay. 2) is oldgodbaby a bad idea? valid question but doesn't really go anywhere (and is more or less locked into being an anticlimax, can't be world-shaking as a choice-dependent outcome)

but like that post that was going around. what it means for morrigan is so wrenching. is it what she wants for herself or is she still acting out her mother's will? can the warden know, or believe they know? if they ask her to go through with it, are they complicit in flemeth's abuse? or are they overriding morrigan's agency if they refuse out of concern for her? how does your warden's origin & personality frame how they see this - what they're entitled to, what they owe, what they believe about duty & autonomy & respect, they're relationship with morrigan, & with magic, & their own impending death.

these people who are so young & so traumatized flailing around hurting each other in their good intentions. the dark ritual as this awful act of desperation & mixed motivations & regret that tears this hard-won friend group apart (especially if alistair is involved). saving the world as a good clean victory over evil in the grand scope, at the cost of this cataclysmic sacrifice on the personal level - so intimate, so devastating, so small. THAT'S drama.

[thrumbolt]

So, in November my girlfriend gifted my all the Dragon Age games because our DnD sessions were cancelled. 'Go date some elves there!' - and so I did. I went in completely blind, knew basically nothing about the series (except that you could date elves). So now, a month after finishing the last one, I feel my thoughts have rested enough to voice an opinion™. I'll drop my personal ratings here and elaborate under the cut.

Dragon Age: Origins 8/10

Dragon Age Awakening 6/10

Dragon Age 2 9/10

Dragon Age: Inquisition 4/10

Dragon Age: Trespasser 7/10

In short, I thought DA:O was pretty dope. Very solid adventure rpg fantasy dating sim. The characters are very fun and mostly lovable and the lore is interesting enough even if the art direction was pretty generic fantasy.

I was really surprised just how much they crammed into this game. The several different origins was a huge surprise and very nice incentive to replay the game, though so far I only played as a melf (mage elf). The storyline was engaging enough for me to follow and it makes you travel to all the different origin places, so everyone gets to connect with something in the main plot - smart!

I have to add however that I played as a male character - as I usually do - and I am very glad I did because despite the promise that men and women are equal (and the dominant religion being female centric) the writers did not really manage to capture that as it seems haha. I would've probably given the game a lower rating if I wouldn't have played as a dude as I'm a sensitive snowflake that way. And not even because of the rape as plot device or the brood mothers, but more the casual 'wow a woman with sword wow' stuff. I'll excuse it as 'it was a different time' kinda, but still would ruin my immersion.

Awakening I mention separately as it's kind of a sequel rather than just a DLC. I liked it. It's a nice extra adventure for your Warden character and the companions are very good (though I could've done without Oghren, sorry Oghren fans). I especially liked the Legion of the dead dwarf, she was adorable - and Anders, of course. You can give him a kitty!

So why am I rating it so low? They changed how shit works, don't tell you about it and it makes you miss half the game lol. Idk, it just pissed me off you had to click on background shit to talk to your companions and I didn't notice it until I was already halfway done. It's such a stupid idea, too. Click on this tree to talk to Nathaniel?? Weird tbh. It's especially bad for me, as I am not playing a lot of games (I am a filthy casual) and am not a completionist - also I already know who Andraste is, so why would I click her statue?

So yeah, that's my personal gripe with Awakening. At least it's short enough to replay, so hopefully I will catch all the stuff next time haha.

Dragon Age 2....ahh, I was very surprised to hear that it was so unpopular, several of my friends said they had not played it at all because they heard it was so bad. And I am very confused, because it is my favorite. I can see how it got flack for being on a smaller scale, the dungeons and areas repeat - but honestly, I didn't care much. I enjoyed the smaller scale and the more personal story greatly. I feel it makes more sense for a 'choice' based game anyway, as it lets you tell more stories without problems. And in this instance, a story about a refugee family and a bigger focus on social justice issues just vibed well with me. I can see how it's not everyone's cake I guess, but it's definitely worth playing! I think it has the best companions in all the games. They're all great fun and the dating options are amazing. I personally prefer when everyone is date-able by either gender - it makes me not having to worry and research ahead of time on what character to make (looking at you inquisition) and I can just headcanon for myself who is queer, straight, whatever. Yes, I might still be upset I wasn't able to date Alistair haha in DA:O.

I loved the 3 act structure and longer time period. I liked how people you meet/help in your side quests write you letters or get updates. I just loved how personal it was.

My only gripes with DA2 is the rushed Act 3 (can't even give everyone another gift ;_; ) and how the ending was handled. Chosing between templars and mages - sure, fun. But when you choose the mages, how come 80% of the people you are fighting are mages? Why is Orsino turning into an abomination and attacking *you*? It makes no sense. Poor Orsino. They did him dirty.

But otherwise I had great fun. Needless to say this game cemented my chantry hate lol. Doesn't help I live in a pretty gay oppressing catholic country now, but it felt fucking personal. I cheered when that fucking building blew up. It was cathartic. So I was hyped for the next game!

Which leads me to Inquisition. By the rating you can already see: I didn't like this game. For many reasons. The church dick riding was definitely one of them. But I mean, if you write it well I probably wouldn't have minded to get a different viewpoint (and there was still plenty of critical content in this game like with the former Inquisitor and all), sadly though, for me it didn't work in so many ways.

First of all I had to restart the game after 30 minutes because my girlfriend told me I can only date the elves if I'm a girl. Gee, good to know, or my tripple elf combo would've been ruined.

And I have to say: I liked how un-segregated the whole gender selection screen was. I got to make a pretty boyish looking twink even by choosing female, up to the point I was forgetting I was playing a girl until someone called me LADY Lavellan and ruined my immersion, so....props to that. I also liked the art design? Like all the little character cards, all the artworks just felt like they finally found their own style, kinda. (This was already started in DA2, which I really liked, I feel this series needs it's own, distinct look in some way, so it was nice to see they were trying to). Anyway, nice looks.

But the gameplay immediately felt weird and sluggish to me. It was way too hard even on the easiest setting. Enemies take FOREVER to die, even a stupid wolf or bear takes a gazillion hits. It wasn't fun. Not for me anyway, just tedious.

And the story....I just didn't feel it. It didn't help that you don't even have a proper origin (for a good while you have amnesia even). It made it difficult to even understand my own motivations imho. Playing it as an elf was definitely a bad choice as well, as this whole plot was clearly written with a human in mind. Pretty wild a DALISH elf is even an option. If they kept you as a prisoner, it would've made sense, maybe? But it just feels off to put this random Dalish immediately on top of your organization and calling them the herald of Andraste even though you keep insisting you don't even believe in that stuff haha. A wild ride indeed. Also I screamed at the whole 'Dalish only have 3 mages per clan and just YEET THE EXTRA CHILDREN INTO THE FOREST TO DIE' retcon. It absolutely makes zero sense with how the Dalish were described up to that point (as people who greatly care for their own and also really want to honor and learn about their roots. They know the elves were all originally magical. Why would they have a fucking mage limit. Why would they yeet a child out to die when they already suffer from diminishing numbers? What the FUCK Inquisition?).

The maps were too big, the game is sooo bloated and the main plot for the larger part completely disconnected from everything else (and also, pretty short in theory). Because of this, the pacing was kind of off. The war table....the WAR table. I did not like it. So many things that got shoved there should've been quests, while many of the actual quests should've just been deleted. And apparently my whole clan can just die in a small war table side thing and no one will care. lol

I also did not vibe with most of the companions that much. I liked Dorian a lot, but other than that most were just a lot of missed opportunities. Like, they were ok, but not as great as any of the other games.

Though I feel nothing quite shows the pacing issues of this game like Solas' romance haha. I still can't believe he breaks up with you immediately after kissing you and offering to take your vallaslin. It would've made so much more sense if he left during the ending party ceremony. What were they thinking?

Generally my issue was how a lot of characters just talk at you, not so much with you. You ask them questions, but they hardly ever ask you questions back, even though it would've been a great way to learn more about your characters backstory as well. I think Josephine was one of the only characters who ever asks how you're holding up. In the other games, it is way more interactive.

This resulted in me just never really connecting as much in Inquisition. Felt more like hanging with coworkers than friends. It was also weird how everyone acts like you're achieving great things, when really, none of it is something you do. The inquisition itself, the army, it already exists. Solas literally just points at Skyhold (you do not even have to fight anything to get it) and so on.

I hated that you have an animated main plot cut scene where your Dalish elf asks a human who Mythal is. And of course I really disliked how the mage rebellion was handled. Why do I have to choose between templars and mages AGAIN when, in this game at least, being able to recruit both would've kinda made more sense? Unite against a bigger enemy, bla. I wouldn't have super liked it as a resolution for the mage oppression issue, but at least it would've given that conflict SOME form of resolution.

So yeah. Did not enjoy it that much. Was very surprised to learn how many did and that it won game of the year. Maybe it would've been more enjoyable just on its own, without context, but coming in right after DA2 it was quite the clash in my opinion.

There was definitely potential for a good game. It had good elements. I think they fixed a bunch of issues in Trespasser, which I quite enjoyed. But I kind of am not looking AS much forward to the 4th installment. I'll play it for sure, but I feel the writers just want to do something different with this series than what I enjoy about it.

Overall though I still had great fun! I like Dragon Age. Seeing everyone's oc's is so cute and I will definitely keep on enjoying that no matter what.

[hopefully-inspiring-persona]

So I’m watching Dragon Age: Dawn Of The Seeker: A Live Blog

Spoilers for the movie, but also if you’ve played DAI and shit you already know what happens so. It’s the story of how Cassandra became the right hand of the divine. Yep, that story, and it’s pretty good.

English dub, ofc. I thought it would be voiced by the actual cast but it’s not???

Funimaton controlled the casting so ofc it’s all the classics. brought everyone in except vic mignogna smh.

I guess if you were going to have someone from them voice Cassandra it would be Riza, and i love her, but omg she cannot do the accent. It’s so bad I love her. I think she game up 20 minutes into the movie because she sometimes tried but some scenes she’s just talking in a weird British accent. I’m crying. Seriously though I still love her. No clue what the Japanese dub did for her accent or if there even is one.

Also the designs and animation are honestly not really bad? I’ve seen way worse. I think Cassandra looks way too anime and she should have her jawline back, but overall, yea pretty solid. I really like how it looks like DA:O mixed with Dragon Prince. Gritty but also nice.

Cassandra’s VA be like “Yea, I’d bang Cassandra” when I was watching an interview to see if her accent was natural or not

fucking knew ciel was the betrayer. I was halfway through the movie when I was like “Yea no, Cassandra becomes the right hand *and* this bitch plays Ciel there’s no way she’s not a bad guy.”

what a badass. the spin head chop off.

The Divine’s accent is really good ngl, like it’s pretty spot on. I don’t quite remember what DAI’s divine sounds like but it’s close.

Oh I think I know why they made this 3D, they already had all the Textures and models they needed, so they probably just borrowed a fuck ton of Bioware’s textures which made the whole thing go a lot quicker and cheaper. That’s just my guess. 

Also pretty cool that I got to hear all of this from Cassandra’s mouth before watching this. It made me not feel bad when she spoke about her brother because I know that’s a really private thing to her that she doesn’t let just anyone know.

Seriously though, Idk if I have bias but Riza’s doing a really good job. I don’t remember the VA’s actual name, I just know everyone from their FMA characters. Like, despite the horrific accent issues, she’s doing Cassandra some pretty good justice and I appreciate her effort.

Also I forgot the Pentaghast line were dragon hunters lol. Really cool seeing Cassandra in action.

YOOOO the blood magic looks just like it does in the games thats so cool.

Only thing, where the fuck is Todd Habberkorn. I saw Todd in the wiki whem I was looking through voice credits and I haven’t heard him. I’m like, really fucking good at spotting his voice too so I probably didn’t miss him, no clue.

Also darkspawn cameos are always cool.

ALSO BLOOD MAGES CAN JUST, TURN INTO DEMONS???? LIKE, THEY CAN JUST TRANSFORM THEMSELVES INTO A SIN DEMON AND BE LIKE “fuck you”??? Like, fucking rad design, but holy shit. Reason #556 why mages are fucking scary.

ALSO CASSANDRA FUCKING RAN UP A VERTICAL WALL. WHAT A GIRLBOSS.

also yea. definitely used DA assets for the 3d stuff. 100% why 3d was used im calling it. I’m really glad they did. Again, honestly really good quality even today. The fights are impressive and the expressions are pretty good too. Like, really cool stuff. I think because they had so many assets and shit ready they were able to really hone in on the correct animations and lighting. Good shit.

Cassandra deserves to gloat about this. This was cool as shit she’s underselling herself. “It wasn’t all that impressive” bitch you literally did so much in this fucking story what. Also kinda wished Gallion was mentioned in DAI and if you didn’t romance Cassandra she and him found eachother again and started dating kinda like the thing with Bull and Dorian. Would be so cute. Hopefully in DA4? I doubt it though sadly. 

Was Gallion even spoken about in any of the games??

OH WAIT HE WAS

BUT THEY WERE ALL FORGOTTEN

NO THAT MAKES THAT DIALOGUE SO MUCH SADDER NOOOOO FUCK.

ALL THE MAGES THAT HELPED WERE FORGOTTEN AAAAAAH THAT MAKES ME SO SAD NOW. ugh. damnit. What a fucking great game and nod to that. Seriously, I hope to see Gallion again. Maybe one day. I’ll have to go back and see if he’s there.

Also what did the Knight captain mean when he was talking about “What happened in Kirkwall”? Did DA2 happen before this? Doesn’t that not make sense? I guess this might be after the blight, actually so it is entirely possible that it happened post DAO and DA2 since they happened at the same time. 

The romance for Cassandra and Gallion felt a little cliche, but also it was still really good for Cass to grow and also pretty cute in the end. Though thinking on it, probably not a long term thing? Maybe end up being close friends just due to him being a mage. Idk how deep Cass’ trauma runs, if Fenris can date a mage Cass probably could too (oh ig if you romance her as a mage she’ll still date you so yea, I like them together.)

But also I love the set up at the end for DAI. I fucking love how much detail there was in this honestly, like it was really lore accurate and referenced the games, def for fans of DA and highly recommend. Kinda predictable but really cool seeing Casandra. also the end song is a bop.

[userwithnoname]

ive played skyrim before and liked it an a friend recommended dragon age but i dont know which one i should pick

Hm… this is still a little bit complicated, so I’m going to put another cut here just because it gets a little long.

tl;dr Your friend was probably talking about Inquisition, and while I recommend you start with Origins, Inquisition’s not a bad game to jump in with.

If Skyrim is your only basis for comparison, then I think your friend was recommending for you Dragon Age: Inquisition. I was in a very similar place when I started playing Dragon Age: had just beat Skyrim for the thousandth time, was getting bored and didn’t know how to mod my game, so I started looking at Steam recommendations. However, I had a bit of a buffer. Steam recommended me Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which is a pretty good game, but not quite what I was looking for.

What Skyrim lacked to me was character involvement. That isn’t to say there aren’t good characters, but they are limited and of the companions you’re given, they have little to do with the actual story and almost no involvement other than one quest here or there. Kingdoms of Amalur is similar to Skyrim in terms of story and gameplay, and if you liked Skyrim’s open-world and hack’n’slash combat, you’ll like Kingdoms.

To that end, Dragon Age is a pretty logical leap from either of those. But I can see where it would get confusing. The games are both reliant upon each other, yet can contradict each other horribly. When most people talk about Dragon Age. they’re referring to Inquisition because it’s the newest game to come out in the series. But as I mentioned, there are three games in total, not counting Awakening or Heroes of Dragon Age.

There’s no easy way to do this, so I’ll do a brief description then a (personal) pros and cons to each game before talking about the flaws the series has on a whole.

(Disclaimer: I am not a games reviewer or expert in any sense, these are personal opinions so take them with a grain of salt.)

(Also: SPOILERS)

Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O):

The first game in the series, DA:O focuses on the Warden or Hero of Ferelden. Without getting too much into the story, it heavily focuses on the arc of your character and the story that unfolds, allowing you a range of choices and quests that help keep replaying the game from getting boring.

   Pros:

Personalized character backstory.

Character creation is interesting.

Pretty backgrounds (for the time).

Pausing combat doesn’t interrupt the flow of combat too much.

Gameplay is pretty straightforward and intuitive (at least on PC).

A lot of dialogue options.

Just enough side quests to pad out the story without distracting from the main quests.

Quest timing options.

Gifts to fix things if you mess up the dialogue options and can’t reload a save (they have diminishing returns, so be wary).

Companion options–don’t like someone? Kick them out of the party!

Weapon and armor options–spell casting doesn’t work well for this, but most weapons and armor aren’t class restricted.

DOG. PUPPY. WHO NEEDS ROMANCE, I HAVE A DOG.

   Cons:

Main character has no voice acting.

Clunky animations. Like… mages in particular just stand there and point a staff in the air and sometimes wave their hand.

Sometimes confusing leveling mechanics.

Too much Codex stuff too fast.

Focuses a little too much on Alistair romance (even if I love him) and not much on the other characters.

Dialogue options can be hard to understand–this was before Bioware got their choice menu properly sorted out.

Will probably never see the Warden/Hero ever again no matter what they accomplish.

No armor modifications, only giving runes to some weapons.

Repetitive environments.

Limited romance options.

Hats.

Dragon Age II (DA II):

As the name implies it is second in the series, focusing on Hawke, the eventual Champion of Kirkwall, and has only a little to do with Origins. Not a direct sequel, DA II is very disputed across the fandom, and could have been handled better in general. Bioware changed their story-telling rhythm in this, instead breaking it up into 3 acts rather than major quests you can pick and choose the order of.

   Pros:

New main quest each Act that focuses on Hawke as a person.

Varric.

Combat animation feels involved and fluid–you’ve upgraded from a person standing to actual fighting.

Hide hats option in menu.

Main character is voice acted now–yay!

Fixed the dialogue options so it’s not as confusing.

Dog is no longer a party member, so you have a back up you can summon if shit hits the fan.

Gives you a junk slot in your inventory so you know what you can sell.

Rival and Friendship system make it so you can hate someone you need and still keep them in your party.

Rival and Friendship system make it so you can romance someone even if you don’t particularly like them.

   Cons:

Rival and Friendship system also, unfortunately, can lead to weird things happening in the story unless you go all out one way or another.

Cannot have a set team you use all the time unless you’re willing to possibly lose a few companions *coughs*Isabela*coughs*. Characters must be rotated out on quests if you want to get Friendship/Rivalry where it needs to be.

Specific, limited gifts that are easy to miss.

Confusing leveling mechanics.

The fuck did they do to the elves in this one?

Almost no interaction from anything in DA:O.

The screen layout got worse.

Facial animations (specifically eyebrows and mouth) are sometimes horrifying.

Character relationships are harder to manage.

Spend more time thinking about who you want on what quest than you probably should.

Romances are weirdly broken up in this one.

Armor picked up can only be worn by Hawke.

Please. Just let me romance Varric.

Combat animations are a little over the top and unrealistic.

Story makes it feel like your actions only effect Kirkwall, but actually end up effecting the whole world.

Race options–it forces you to play as a human.

Very repetitive environments.

Background is glanced over and explained away with no interaction.

Sibling death.

Dragon Age: Inquisition (DA:I):

The baby of the series, the most recent game and prettiest overall. DA:I has way more options in just about everything in comparison to the previous two games. You play as the Herald of Andraste, eventually becoming Inquisitor.

   Pros:

That character creation tho.

Armor and weapon creation and customization.

Fixed elves appearances–no longer aliens.

Races now have different body types.

Fixed the combat ratio of fluidity to excessive.

Open world.

Actually get a horse/hart/dracolisk/freakishly large nug to ride this time.

Voice options (only two, but that’s one more than DA II and two more than DA:O).

Way more companion options.

Can play as a qunari.

Interesting cameos from companions in DA:O and DA II.

Cool search mechanic.

Cole.

HUGE map.

More romance options.

DRAGON MASTER.

Don’t have to play Origins or II to get the story-type you want, just log in to Dragon’s Keep and fill out some stuff.

Screw attributes completely.

   Cons:

The hair. For everyone, but mostly qunari.

Undermines other choices in previous games.

Ooh… you might wanna get that hand looked at, buddy.

Hardens companion from DA:O regardless of actual choices in game.

Cut scene animation is a little weird sometimes.

Save files corrupt so quickly.

Sudden retconning of Dalish facts and changes the way mages are handled by the Dalish.

Main character disappearances.

Needs DLC in order to get the “real” ending.

Does not mod easily.

Bugs with animation and placement.

WHERE IS MY DOG, BIOWARE??????

THE MOUNT IS NOT A REPLACEMENT, IT CANNOT FIGHT OR FOLLOW YOU.

Doesn’t feel like a solid story ending, regardless of DLC.

You know those helpful numbers and bars we had to measure friendship in DA II and DA:O? Fuck ‘em. Don’t need ‘em. Oh, but likability is still being measured by the game, just not visibly.

Fuck gifts, too.

No more healing spells.

Oh, and let’s limit the number of healing items you can carry at once.

And we can’t make it too easy to make money, either.

Random loot is incredibly buggy.

Weapons/armor now class coded.

Gameplay takes some getting used to on the PC.

Screw attributes completely.

And that’s not including Awakening and Heroes of Dragon Age, which I am not discussing in this post.

Now, despite what you might think after that, I love these games.

They just… have their issues.

They pull a “Supernatural” on us, if you will. Each game, the enemy somehow gets bigger and badder. In the first one, you’re trying to stop the Blight and save your home, which is already a big feat. In the second one, you end up causing a civil war across multiple countries (even if it doesn’t feel so big at the time). In Inquisition, you have to save at least three countries at once, and in the fourth it looks like you’re going to have to save the world.

Each game focuses on a new protagonist, which is great in that it means a fresh new take on each challenge and new characters, but it really, really sucks in that it feels like you’re leaving a story unfinished. I mentioned we’ll probably never see the Warden in-game again and it’s been confirmed by Patrick Weekes, the lead writer for DA (I’d put a link here, but I can’t find it right now). This is mainly because the story has moved on from the Warden, but also because importing a Warden from DA:O to any new DA game would be almost impossible from a technical standpoint. While this is sad, it’s understandable from a story standpoint. But this method wasn’t what fans were expecting when DA II came out.

Which is probably the biggest reason for all the hatred towards DA II. It was marketed as a sequel to DA:O, and people kind of automatically thought of it as a direct sequel, mostly because the only other RPG series Bioware had running was Mass Effect and that’s what happened there. But it didn’t happen with DA II. Instead, we were given a new hero with new goals, no familiar companions and in a place DA:O didn’t even mention. Other than a few cameos, a couple characters, and a mention every now and then, there was nothing from DA:O in DA II.

And that’s really Dragon Age’s biggest problem. Playing DA II, it makes it feel like all those choices you made in Origins were insignificant (which on a scale they were). And Inquisition didn’t fix this. In fact, in some ways, it made it worse. It gave Hawke and the Warden more stories, which isn’t a bad thing, but it took your characters and tried to generalize your Warden and your Hawke into The Warden and The Hawke. Imagine you’d been given a choose-your-own-adventure book and the first two chapters are about one character, and then the next two about another, and so on and so forth. But in each of these chapters, you get glimpses of the previous characters doing other things in the same world. No interaction, no conclusiveness, just your character doing things that your character might not do. You have no control of the character whose choices are supposed to be yours after those two chapters are done.

Basically: for the story, with the way they’ve set it up, it forces you to bond to a character that you create but only briefly glimpse into their lives before someone else takes over. Yet instead of divorcing entirely from said character, the shorter timeline forces the heroes to interact in some capacity that we’ll never get to see. Varric is the perfect example of this. DA II is set up in a way that you know Varric will have to be involved in Inquisition. But after people started really liking him and the general backlash of DA II, Bioware couldn’t kill him off and couldn’t send him away. So they gave him a minor role in Inquisition and then retired him.

They do this again with the Inquisitor. The way DA:I ends left many fans to believe DA4 had to continue as the Inquisitor; after all it didn’t feel like the Inquisitor’s story was finished and the next Big Bad had been hinted at being kind-of their fault. But we’ve already been told that DA4 will not star the Inquisitor–instead, their story is supposedly done and the only chance we have of their involvement is probably a letter, a cameo, or as an advisor. That’s if Bioware doesn’t kill them.

Once again, they put away another character when it feels like they should still be involved, thus reducing the choices made in the previous games by an even smaller margin. Bioware takes a character you made, tells you their story is over when it feel like it’s just starting, then takes control of them.

The solution?

The Elder Scrolls series actually does a pretty good job at doing the same thing–by spreading the events out. I get that the whole name of the series is focused on a hundred year margin, but that’s still a hundred years for you to spread events out. Over the course of three games, only about 10-20 years have passed. DA:O takes place over the course of 1-2 years, maximum. DA II takes place over 7. And DA:I is about 2-5 (depending on if you count Trespasser), with a short gap between II and Inquisition.. That’s a lot of shit to happen over such a short time.

Give the games space. Let them breathe. Let the actions of the Warden fade as time passes, not lie ignored by NPCs just because it’s hard to account for all the choices. Let the stories have their own weight before you stack the other on, and maybe don’t rely to much on rapid storytelling.

And that really went off on a tangent, sorry.

Simply put, the games have their own flaws. If you have the money and prefer a newer-looking game and have the system to handle it, I recommend Dragon Age: Inquisition to start off. Being able to control the world through your choices in Dragon’s Keep gives you a good idea of previous stories without having to play them, while still preserving the themes from the series.

(But oh my god save frequently. Save every few minutes. And stagger save, too, don’t just save over old files because that shit corrupts EASY.)

[felassan]

How are you personally liking the singleplayer game so far? I'm just spending my trial time on multiplayer.

I’m liking it a lot! I’ve really enjoyed my time in the trial so far, and can’t wait for launch so I can restart and really get into it. For reference, all of my time (about 8 hours so far) has been spent in singleplayer (or in CC, or hopping in and out of the game or menus in order to test things like settings), to the first planet after the prologue, up to a point which I guess is not far from the story lock. It’s a good game, maybe even a great game, and a lot of fun. full response under a cut to trim dash clutter and for length. spoiler-free.

Considering the fact that I have a weird, apparently-shit and derpy graphics card, I was expecting performance/graphics to be pretty bad, but for whatever reason the game runs fairly smoothly/well even on my PC on medium settings, I don’t have issues with crashes, freezing, stuttering, lag spikes, etc, not even on the first post-prologue planet. load times are reasonable. Even with my lame card and on medium settings with some effects turned off (like chromatic aberration), the environments and set-pieces look decent to good, which is a nice surprise. I’m going to upgrade my graphics card tho because 1) it’s long overdue and 2) I want an experience playing this game where it’s “pretty”, not just “decent”. I think doing that would improve my frame-rate and get rid of some of the scratchy/fuzzyness in some places that I’ve noticed, like around character models. that issue is definitely on my weird lame graphics card though, not on BW.

Gameplay is good from what I noticed. I’m excited to go exploring. sidequests so far felt less sidequesty/better thought out/less tacked on than DA:I’s. the jump-jet is a rad addition, I love the new dimension to the world and exploring the new verticality adds and improved mobility is always a plus. I like the extra lore/flavor details you can get from using the scanner. Combat is fun and solid, better than the OT, tho I’m still getting used to it. combat feels fluid, and for once in a game of this kind I’m properly looking forward to trying out different skills/builds rather than repeating the same playstyle over and over. the Nomad handles well and better than the Mako (I use a controller for my PC and can’t speak to how it handles for kbm). Disclaimer/caveat: I don’t play these games for the gameplay, and I played the trial on a low difficulty to blast through combat in order to see the stuff I wanted to see in my limited time. I also don’t really pay much attention to mechanics in games. so I’m not the best judge, because I’d play games with poor gameplay and suffer through that if it was to access a BioWare world with the choices, characters, depth, etc. I will say that nothing about combat gameplay in ME:A has irritated or frustrated me, which is something - DA:O’s for instance frustrated me for being so slow, ME1′s for being clunky (Shepard handled like I was pushing her around as she sat in a shopping trolley), DA2′s repeating he-man/power rangers spawning waves of mooks were annoying. for reference, combat gameplay in ME3 and DA:I was never an issue for me.

The voice-acting is strong. the aesthetic of the game is very Mass Effect. and it feels like Mass Effect too, even though we’re in a whole new galaxy - specifically a return to the atmospheric feel of ME1 (I don’t know how to articulate this, sorry. but I feel like I’m in the universe and back in ME1 when the galaxy was huge and there was so much to see, that retro scifi way). The story so far has been good - good opening, smartly-integrated tutorial that didn’t feel like a tutorial but like the prologue it is, compelling, interesting, emotional moments that got me, plot-hooks that have me wanting to keep going and find out more. the writing is mostly good, with a few odd/shoddy lines here and there. The squad characters are AMAZING. I love the squad and the ship. There’s lots of dialogue, banter and ambient dialogue from NPCs around the Nexus and Hyperion, and on the tempest and when exploring. I’ve only been playing for eight hours but already Liam and Cora feel more three dimensional and more interesting than Kaidan and Ash did in ME1 (I’m saying this as someone who quite likes Kaidan and Ash). I haven’t personally noticed Liam falling prey to the same issues Jacob did that people have been concerned about, which is good. Peebee feels differentiated from Liara (I wasn’t worried about that, but saw the sentiment around). I haven’t spent enough time with her to be able to tell if she feels differentiated from Sera (but I’m not really worried about that either anyway). Vetra is the best thing that has ever blessed the earth. there are little nods, callbacks and easter egg references to the OT that are pleasantly unexpected or even emotional in terms of content. I like the music, its a good mix of new exciting future stuff and callbacks to the music of the OT. plenty smiles and some laughs (good laughs, at jokes) had. quality cinematics, good cinematic design. I can’t WAIT to progress the story further and spend more time with these characters.

my main piece of negative feedback is the CC. it’s very limited, I think it’s quite poor really. but I’ve harped enough about that already so won’t repeat myself. full thoughts on CC here if you’re interested and haven’t seen it. my second main issue is more moderate in nature - I find the animations (specifically facial animations/emoting of human characters, including SisRyder, including talking) really quite off/jarring. your mileage may vary on this one, it’s not an issue for some people, it’s a relative thing I think how much it gets to you. for me it looks wrong/robotic/fake. secondary to but related to the animation issue is the dead/glassy-eyed look of human characters. I think they need to overhaul the CC, improve facial animations where possible (pls fix exploding mouths), and fix the eye textures (several artists by now have posted detailed breakdowns of what’s wrong with the eyes and why they visually look ‘dead’). I don’t actually have an issue at all with other animation glitches like tbone pose, weird walking, weird running up hills, etc. hasn’t happened much for me at all and doesn’t bother me when it does.

then I have some minor issues: no quicksave; no pausing during cutscenes; no saving during priority missions; in dialogue would prefer the choice of 4 tone responses to pop up more often than they do; differentiating instinctively between dialogue tone icons for me isn’t that good, maybe I just need more time at it though; the menu design doesn’t feel very intuitive but maybe I just need to get used to it? but there are menus upon menus within menus and I feel like the UI could be better; 2 ambient dialogue conversations triggering at the same time as I walk past like on the Nexus for example (have to move around hubs slowly so I don’t miss things and when one starts I stand still because moving too far ends it); it needs to be easier to quit menus (like hotkey m to enter and exit map, not m to enter and esc esc esc to exit [if you’re wondering I’ve been switching to kbm for menus. its great that the switch is seamless]); I do miss being able to directly order squadmates to use their skills in battle; I think Suvi and Gil should have been given custom models like Liam and Cora, at the moment it feels like a repeat of the issue we had with Traynor and Cortez, which isn’t great; I do feel a little railroaded having Ryder’s background depend on their gender, I don’t want to have to give a fuck about Prothean science digs. but these issues are definitely of the minor variety.

I think right now I’d give it a 7.5 or maybe eight out of ten, improving CC and fixing the facial animations/eyes would drive it up to nine for me I think. and this is on a normal common-sense-person scale, not a pro reviewer scale (where 80% is actually like a shit score). 

tl;dr loving it. 1 major issue, 1 moderate issue, numerous minor issues. absolutely loving it despite those and would definitely recommend and enthuse about it.