Dragon Age: Origins (this is EPIC, holy cow man)
Figured since I just finished my first campaign on this game I might as well give it a review. My first thought though is this, yeah this game was great fun, but it still surprises me that it's gotten AS MUCH acclaim as it has gotten.
Honestly it was like every other BioWare game but with slightly better graphics. Though you have 60 hours of game play you'll end up playing MUCH longer than that solely due to load times, which kills me to be honest. I hate games where every five minutes I have to stop what I'm doing and wait for it to load. Maybe this isn't as bad on the PC (I know for sure the graphics are better on the PC, the framerate on the PS3 sucks and from what I've read it's not even slightly better on the XB360), but on consoles its frustrating. Granted I've had a steady stream of games where I pretty much can just jump in and start playing for hours with maybe a total of 10 minutes loading time.
Which yeah, I know the loading time speaks to how massive the game is and though that's well and good about 20 hours in I was starting to not care about the game at all. I was waiting more than being engaged. Yes this changed as I rounded the half way marker and started getting all my party members to like me so they were asking me favours (or bedding me, whichever came first), but it was a LONG stretch to get that far.
I also think the game wasn't very balanced. There are some portions of the game that go by really fast, then other bits of the game that seem to stretch for an eternity until the point I'm getting SERIOUSLY bored.
At the end of the day though the story was engaging. For your Grey Warden you were able to choose the type of personality you'd want, merciful, cynical or a downright asshole who wouldn't do anything without getting paid and didnt' care who died in the process (but unlike inFAMOUS, being an asshole doesn't change the gameplay, just how your party members act towards you).
I liked the game. I liked the variety of personalities that you get to interact with, but I wish a few more of my party members were more fleshed out. There's lots of backstory for Alistair and Leliana, which are the two main characters you are set up to have a relationship with (obviously not coincidental). There is also Morrigan who has a rich backstory, but I can't help to think based on her storyline that she's entirely set up to return in future Dragon Age installments. But I would have LOVED a richer backstory for Wynn, Shale and Sten. Sten for the most part just kind of judges you and says little. Shale is also quite judgemental but you can't really blame a rock monster for being judgemental of a creature it can squish in two seconds. And Wynn is CONNECTED to a major plot point of the game but her backstory is very thin.
Yes I know, richer backstories would mean LONGER load times.
Anyway on the to the game breakdown itself, and there be SPOILERS here.
In game story: To start the game off you get SIX choices of origin story, which means you get 12 hours of original game play right off the bat (each origin story is approximately 2 hours in length). There's three races to choose from elf, human or dwarf and two social standings in each race. I've played two so far, the Dalish elf (elves who live in the wild free of slavery) and I'm currently playing a city elf who grew up in an Alienage and was going to be forced into an arranged marriage. You can also choose the type of character you want to play, a Rogue, Warrior or Mage.
Along the way you get recruited to be a Grey Warden, the saviours of the world from the Blight (which in the end you find out why but I'll get to that). This is the beginning of probably one of the denser RPG stories out there. After being recruited to a Grey Warden for one reason or another (each origin is different on how you get recruited) you end up in your first battle against the darkspawn at Ostagar. You meet Alistair who is a fellow Grey Warden and you are both tasked with lighting the signal fire during the battle so the flanking troops know when to attack.
Needless to say the battle doesn't go quite as smoothly. You and Alistair have to fight your way to the top of the tower once soldiers proclaim that darkspawn are working their way up from the basement and killing everyone in site. After fighting your way to the top and lighting the signal fire the battle takes a turn for the worst. Not only are you and Alistair overrun by the darkspawn in the tower, but the king was betrayed by his general and the flanking warrior retreat from battle causing the death of the King and your Grey Warden leader.
For an earlier quest you met two witches of the Kocari Wild's who helped you obtain some treaties for Duncan, and when you awake after the battle of Ostagar you wake up to Morrigan, one of the witches of the wild. Seems Morrigan's mom, Flemeth is a shape changer and flew you and Alistair out of the tower before the darkspawn completely overran Ostagar. Flemeth then sends Morrigan with you when you decide to unite Fereldan against the darkspawn and stop the Blight.
From the Kocari Wilds you head up to the small village of Lothering where you find refugees from the ruins of Ostagar. None of them really too happy to see a Grey Warden because Teryn Loghain (the general who betrayed the King) is now a Regent (his daughter was Queen) and proclaimed the losses at Ostagar to be due to the betrayal of the Grey Wardens. After picking up some supplies and running some errands for a few people you pick up two more companions, Sten, a Qunari warrior who killed some farmers in a rage, and Leliana, a worker in the Chantry who has far better battle skills than any priest should have. At this point all you know about either character is what's at face value, that Sten is a convicted murderer and Leliana was part of the Chantry.
Also on the road you'll run into Dog, a Mabari war dog you saved before the battle of Ostagar. He will be your faithful company through the end of the game, always by your side. He also loves to bring your random gifts!
Morrigan and Alistair look to you for guidance, and it's made clear the treaties that Duncan made you look for need to be used. These treaties are asking for four corners of Fereldan to be united in fighting the blight. So that means you need to head to Circle of Magi (where the Templars and Mages live), Redcliffe (where Arl Eamon, Alistairs surragote father lives), the Dalish Elves (somewhere in the Bracillian forest) and Orzammar (the Dwarf kingdom) to invoke the treaties for allies in the coming battle. Alistair tells you that Arl Eamon knew the king well and wouldn't betray them.
So after taking your party to Denerim, the capital city of Fereldan, to get some supplies, and meet a few people who give you quests which is an excellent way to make money in your adventures you head off to the Village of Redcliffe. Also while taking some time in your party camp along the way you can find out a lot about Morrigan, Alistair, Sten and Leliana.
Morrigan will talk about growing up in the wild and how it was different. She mostly observed people outside the wilds in animal form, since being a mage outside of the Templars control makes them a target. This is why she's very standoffish and doesn't believe in any kind of real love at all (unfortunately you have to be a Male Grey Warden to actually teach Morrigan what love is, but you can soften her character no matter what gender you are). Morrigan will also tell you about a book, a Grimoire, that was Flemeths and she'd like you to find it because it contains Flemeths spells. You won't find out more about this book until you head to the Circle of Magi.
Sten was sent to Fereldan by the Qunari to find out about the Blight. He'll also tell you that along the way he was in a fight along with the other members of his party and when he work he was surrounded by farmers and his sword was missing. In his panicked rage he accidentally killed the farmers. Sten won't ask you to find his sword but he's grateful that you decide to take on a task that seems impossible. Eventually you'll track his sword down in Orzammar where Sten stops seeing you as someone who doesn't know what they are doing, and instead he'll see you as a warrior more his equal.
Alistair turns out to just be terrified of any kind of responsibility, which is why he looked to you for answers. If you talk to him long enough he'll eventually tell you his big secret. He is the bastard son of King Maric (father to the king that died at Ostagar). This makes Alistair a contender for the throne and you spend your journey trying to convince him he needs to take the throne to lead his people (towards the end of the game your character will be forced into a game changing decision concerning this). Alistair will also tell you he was training to be a Templar before he ended up becoming a Grey Warden, but it wasn't something he was happy with. It doesn't stop him from looking down on Morrigan simply because she's a mage without a leash (a maleficar more or less).
Leliana turns out to have been a Bard before she entered the Chantry. Which more or less means she was an assassin and mercinary who would use any means to get what she wanted from someone. She'll even confess to manipulation of EVERY kind in order to get what she wanted in a less violent way. Eventually in Denerim you'll run into Leliana's old lover, Marjoran who was afraid Leliana was out to take revenge on her. From this Leliana can learn from her past and depending on your responses she will be more open to accept her more ruthless side and try to balance it with the peace she recieved at the Chantry.
Upon arrival at Redcliff it becomes very apparent that something is wrong. When you speak to some of the villagers they talk about how every night strange creatures come from the castle and no one knows of the arl is even alive. Before nightfall you rally the villagers together and give them hope they'll live through the night with your help. After fending off the walking dead Lady Isolde makes an appearance the next morning. She tells you and the guy who's been holding Redcliff together that he needs to go back with her because something happened with Conner (the arl's son, Isolde is the arl's wife). After talking with her you discover that the arl was poisoned by a mage but that's all she's willing to tell at that point in time. After gathering supplies you head into the castle through a secret passage. In the dungeons you run across a guy named Jowan, the mage who poisoned the arl. He'll inform you he was hired by Teryn Loghain to poison the arl. He was asked to go there by Isolde because Conner had showed signs of being a mage. Jowan makes it clear he had nothing to do with the monsters and believes something happened to Conner.
Here you must make a choice. If you kill Jowan you won't have help later when you find Conner so you'll be forced to kill the boy since he's possessed by a demon (that is if you don't stop Isolde from killing Conner first since he begs her to make the demon stop). If you allow Jowan to live he will offer assistance when you later find Conner. You can kill the demon in the Fade, but he can't do it alone without killing someone. Isolde will offer her life so that her son can live, or you can travel to the Circle of Magi to request assistance from the mages. If you want everyone to live this is the choice you'll make.
So quickly your party heads to the Circle Tower but unforunately it doesn't seem as things are going well there either. On the lake you talk to the old ferry boat runner, and he informs you that something is going on at the tower and the Templars have cut off all travel to the tower. When you talk to the Templar you can convince him to take your party to the tower so you can offer help to those in charge. From here you learn that the circle has fallen and the mages have turned into abominations. The Templars inform you they have sent out word that the mages are all to be killed so no abominations can leave. You tell him you'll help but from this point on until you find out what's goign on at the tower, once you step through the doors you will NOT be allowed back out.
After stepping through the doors you end up bumping into a familiar face, Wynn. She was with the circle at the battle of Ostagar. Wynn tells you that one of the mages, Uldred, went sour and is turning everyone into abominations that he can. The first enchanter is with him, and he's the guy you need to bring back to the Templars.
As you make your way up the tower, saving everyone you can, you come in contact with a demon who forces your entire party into the Fade. As you battle your way through the Fade each member of your party must face something that's hard for them to let go of in some way or another. Morrigan is the only person in your party who knows what's happening isn't real, not only because she understands the Fade, but also because the Sloth Demon in charge created a bad impersonation of Flemeth.
In the Fade is where you find Niall, a mage who was trying to stop Uldred. He tells you about a book that's needed in order to save all the mages. The only reason he wasn't with Uldred is because he ran in fear once everything started going down. Once he got the book he decided to try to help but the Sloth Demon got him. Niall won't come back with you from the Fade because the Sloth Demon has sucked away his life energy but he tells you the book is on his corpse and to take it.
Once the demon is defeated and the book is grabbed you head up to the top of the tower to confront Uldred. Two things can happen here. You can either save the mages, or let them die. The book is the only thing stopping all remaining mages from turning into abominations. No matter if you decide to save the mages or not, Wynn will stay with you. Your choice only matters in the final battle. If you save the mages they will be there to help you against the Archdemon. If the mages die the Templars will honor the treaty and be there to help in the final battle. The ONLY way to keep the entire family of Arl Eamon's alive is to save the mages. The first enchanter will agree to come back to Redcliff with you to save Conner. Also in a chest in the tower Flemeth's Grimoire can be found, which will disturb Morrigan when you give it to her. It details how Flemeth has daughters, teachs them magic and then takes over their body when she gets too old. Morrigan asks for the death of Flemeth to stop this from happening and so Morrigan can get Flemeth's real grimoire. (You can do this later, but you are given a choice as to whether or not to kill Flemeth, either way you'll get the grimoire and you can lie to Morrigan, it won't affect the rest of gameplay. Flemeth is NOT an easy kill though since she shapeshifts into a frickin High Dragon).
Heading back to Redcliff you can take some time in your camp to get to know Wynn. She will inform you that by saving one of the children at the tower she ended up more or less dieing. But there is also benevolent beings in the Fade and that's what saved Wynn. She doesn't know how long she has to live, and she tells you about one regret she had in her life. When she was a younger teaching mage one of her students was an elf who wouldn't listen, and Wynn would constantly yell at him. She ended up pushing him till he ran off to find the Dalish elves. Wynn is convinced the boy died since the Templar's are so good at finding and killing mages. When you meed the Dalish for the treaties you'll meet up with this guy and he forgives Wynn and she can move forward.
Once in Redcliff the mages will get everything together, but they only have enough supplies to send on person into the Fade, so you can either send Morrigan, Jowan or Wynn in to try to save Conner. By killing the demon Conner will be free, if not regretful for reading a spellbook he didn't understand (his reading the book to help his dad is what started the whole mess). Isolde wants Jowan killed no matter what, blaming him solely for what's happened until she's reminded it was her actions of secrecy that allowed any of these events to take place. You can convince Jowan's life to at least be spared until the arl is saved from the poison. Unfortunately you'll need to find the ashes of Andraste for that to happen.
When you are heading down towards the village of Haven, the last known place of a guy who spent his life searching for the Urn of Andraste's ashs, you can make a pit stop to talk to a guy about some supplies. He will then give you a golem control rod and tell you where the golem is at. It can never hurt to have a golem on your team right? The village the golem is in has been overrun by darkspawn, and when you try to activate the golem the code word doesn't work. In a brewery you'll find the remaining villagers who are under attack by darkspawn. A mage's son has erected a forcefield to protect everyone but he won't give you the code word to the golem until you go save his daughter. His daughter is in the basement of the place and she's been taken under the wing of a desire demon in the form of a cat. The cat won't let her free unless you free the demon. After using your skills to complete a slide puzzle the demon renigs on it's deal so you are forced to fight the demon to save the girl. Once the demon is dead the mage's son gives you the correct password for the control rod so it's time to wake the golem up.
The golem promptly realizes the control rod has no power over it, and it has free will. The golem chooses to follow you though and you find out it's name is Shale. Shale apparently killed it's former master but can't quite remember what exactly happened. Shale thinks maybe it all has something to do with why the control rod no longer works. Once in Orzammar Shale will find more out about itself, but until then it has little like for squishy humans.
Once your party reaches Haven it doesn't take long to realize there's more to this village than what's on the surface. The entire village is overrun by religious fanatics who will kill to keep anyone from the Urn. Once you slash your way through these guys you'll find the guy who has been searching for the Urn all his life. He'll tell you where to go once you save him.
At the top of the mountain is where you'll find the resting place for the Urn. You can choose to fight the High Dragon watching the urn or not, it's not necessary one way or another. It will only affect the results you get AFTER you defeat the game. In the cave you are put through several tests to see your worth. Only the worthy can get to the ashes. Once to the ashes you again can make a choice to be respectful or defile the ashes (if you defile them you lose a LOT of points with Leliana). Once you have the ashes in hand it's time to save Arl Eamon.
Once the arl is awake he will agree with what you have done so far. Fereldan MUST be united in order to defeat the Blight. An army must be created to fight the darkspawn and kill the archdemon. The arl is going to put together a Landsmeet in order to try to confront Teryn Loghain on his treason, it's your job to get the treaties to the Dalish and to Orzammar and try to get as many nobles to side with the Grey Warden's against Teryn Loghain.
Orzammar is close so might as well head there first. Along the way an assassin will be sent from Teryn Loghain to try to kill you. If you are a merciful Warden you can recruit him into your team, you learn that he is an Antivan Crow named Zevran. He flirts all over the place and you learn he had little choice in joining the Crows, even though he doesn't exactly have the most morals of anyone around. Zevran will forever be in your debt when another fellow Crow tries to kill him but you and your team stop that from happening.
Once in Orzammar the Warden is met with yet ANOTHER problem. The king of the dwarves recently died and there's a feud as to who should be the next king. Traveling around Orzammar and doing various quests (you can pick up a nug for Leliana here, which she will love even if it makes annoying squeaky noises) it's easy to play both sides of politics to try to discover WHO will be the best person to take the throne for the dwarves. Finally both contenders will ask you to do the same thing, go into the Deep Roads (where darkspawn live) and find the living paragon Branka. And just like at the Circle Tower another person will force their way into your crew, Oghren, a drunk warrior who happens to be Branka's husband. He will help lead you in the Deep Roads and eventually you'll find Branka, who has gone quite mad. She has become obsessed with the Anvil of the Void where the original golem's where created.
Finally your crew and Branka will make it to the Anvil of the Void where you'll come face to face with Cairidin, the original smith of the golems. He tells that the golems were originally empty husks, only given life by taking the souls of other dwarves. So to create a golem army, dwarves were being slaughtered. You are again faced with a choice, destroy the anvil so no more golems can be created and freeing Cairidin from his prison, or allowing the anvil to fall into Branka's hands so she can make more Golems. This affects your final battle as well, if you destroy the anvil the dwarves will come to your aid, if you give the anvil to Branka golems will come to your aid. This is how Shale finds out it used to be squishy and not always a massive impenetrable rock.
Once this is complete you can now choose who you want as King of the dwarves. Choice doesn't matter, it only effects your end game results, either person will honor the treaty and come to the aid of the Grey Warden's to stop the Blight.
Only one more stop for the treaties and that's the Dalish elves. Traveling to the Bracillian forest is where you'll find the elves. Unfortunately you are left yet again to help someone else before they'll help you. Werewolves have attacked and infected all the elvish hunters, and the elf leader asks for your help to save them by killing Witherfang or he won't be able to honor the treaty simply because he won't have any warriors. So deeper into the forest you'll travel, but the story of the werewolves isn't so cut and dry. Your party discovers that the werewolves can speak now and after fighting your way through many they decide to take you to the Lady of the Forest. She tells you that the curse was created by the elf leader when his family was tortured and killed by humans many hundreds of years ago, and his continued life span is linked to the curse itself. You then go back to get the elf leader and bring him to the lady of the forest, who turns out IS Witherfang. This leads to another choice, you can convince the elf leader that he needs to let go of his revenge and allow himself and Witherfang to die, you can side with the Werewolves and allow them to kill all the elves, or you can side with the Elves and kill all the werewolves. Like all other choices this just gives you a choice of who will fight by your side in the end battle, the werewolves (if you kill the elves) or the elves (if you choose another other than killing the elves).
From here you can head back to Denerim with the Arl Eamon and an assistant to the Queen comes to seek your aid. Loghain had Queen Anora locked up so it's off to save the Queen now. After making your way through many guards and finding the mages who have erected the magical force shield over the Queen's door Arl Howe's right hand elf comes to capture you. Depending on your Warden's personality is what option you can take, you can go the peaceful route and surrender without a fight so no one else gets killed, or you can fight everyone. If surrender is chosen your Warden and Alistair will be taken to Fort Drakon and thrown in prison.
While in prison your team will rally with Arl Eamon, but it's up to you and Alistair to get yourself out of the Fort. Thankfully everyone is a little dumb and it doesn't take much to trick any of the guards about who you are to the point you can get sent out of the prison on your own free will under the guise of going on patrol.
Once reunited with the Arl it's time to figure out what needs to be done. Arl Eamon wants Alistair to take the throne and Queen Anora thinks she deserves the throne. A decision has to be made, but if your Warden is one to make a compromise then you can convince Alistair and Anora to marry and rule jointly. The Landsmeet is almost gathered, but there's unrest in the alienage so the Warden has to go figure out what's going on.
It doesn't take long in the alienage to discover that Loghain is using a fake illness created by mages in order to sell people off into slavery. Even one of the noble's sons has been captured to be sold. All the information the Warden has discovered in the travels must be given to the nobles before the Landsmeet is called. If the Warden has done their job right the nobles will easily side with the Grey Warden's in the coming Blight. Unfortunately Loghain won't go down without a fight. This is where the story starts to make big changes.
You can choose Alistair to fight Loghain, unfortunately Alistair is merciless and will kill Loghain in the name of Duncan. Queen Anora will refuse to marry Alistair after this, but his first Kingly duty will be one of mercy, he will lock her up instead of killing her. Which Anora confesses she wouldn't have done.
You can choose to fight Loghain. Two things can happen here. You can give Loghain the warriors death he requested and Anora will still choose to rule jointly with Alistair, or you can choose to recruit Loghain as a Grey Warden (recruiting Loghain causes Alistair to leave your party for good).
The darkspawn has attacked Redcliff so it's time to save that city before it falls. Once this is done it's learned that Redcliff was a distraction and that all darkspawn troops as well as the archdemon are headed towards Denerim. The final battle is just ahead. Before leaving Morrigan comes to you with an offer. She overheard the conversation where the Warden discovers that killing the archdemon will kill the Warden (that's why they have to ingest darkspawn blood in their joining). Morrigan's work around is that Alistair, Loghain (if you recruited him) or your Warden (if you are male) must sleep with her that night to create a child, the child will have the darkspawn blood in it. When the archdemon is slayed the spirit will go to the unborn child and the Wardens will live. Her only request is she gets to leave and no one will come search for her or her child. Your decision here is what chooses your end result in the game.
Once in Denerim you fight your way through hordes of darkspawn to try to reach the archdemon, along the way calling on all your allies to help you. Once to the archdemon several things can happen. If you took Morrigan up on her offer, the Grey Warden takes the final blow, the archdemon dies and then everyone walks off into the glorious sunset. Well except for Morrigan who disappears right after the battle (in your final game text that explains the effects of your actions one of the blurbs is travels spot a dark haired woman who appeared to be with child blah blah blah).
If you did not take Morrigan up on her offer it changes things. If Alistair is still in your party and your approval points are high with him, he will sacrifice himself if you don't leave him at the gates to stop darkspawn there. If you leave Alistair behind you make the ultimate sacrifice and a funeral is held in your honor.
There is also a wrap up at the end of what came of all the decisions you made throughout the game, it's different for all the different decisions so I couldn't even begin to list that out, but right there is the summary of the game story in a nutshell.The gameplay is not what I expected at all. It just shows how spoiled I am with Final Fantasy. I feel more freedom and more strategy is needed in Final Fantasy to beat some bosses. A lot of the time in Dragon Age I just ended up running away until I could stop to heal and then continue on. But I'm not much on strategizing for each team member so maybe that was my downfall.
I didn't really like the game controls. If I wanted to select anything outside of my hot picks I had to pause the game and go through several different windows in order to choose what I wanted. It was inconvenient and was clunky for a console game, especially now. I will give the game that it was started five years ago so perhaps it wasn't as clunky then, but now it wasn't streamlined at all.
It didn't help that I had no control over when I hit. I thought maybe I could bash x and then get some hits in but I couldn't. Instead my characters took the slowest swings known to man in order to hit something. It just added to the clunkiness of the game controls.
Stuff like this just reminded me that this game was not originally intended for consoles. Which is fine, I don't mind that. What I do mind is that little thought was put in to how to make it WORK well with consoles. The framerate are shitty, the load times are over a minute long (I know it doesn't seem like much but considering most PS3 games your longest load time is at the BEGINNING of the game, and 10 to 20 seconds occasionally throughout the game, this is an enormous amount of time), and it just screamed that none of the mechanics were utilized on the consoles at all. That makes me sad. Wait a year and refurbish the game to use EVERY OUNCE of power that the PS3 and XB360 can give, and the game would DEFINITELY be the better for it.
Also another minor gripe. I'm getting sick of games that have all the writing so tiny it almost ends up blurring if you sit more than 2 feet away from a regular tv. Dragon Age isn't the only game guilty of that. I can't read any of the codex entries unless I'm sitting right on top of the TV. It's annoying and inconvenient.
I was also disappointed with the character animation. We get an incredibly dense story but when the characters talk they make the same 5 arm gestures over and over. It's really weird, especially if the gesture isn't matching what the character is saying, or the mood of things at all.
The voice acting in this game was however some of the best voice acting I've heard on a game in a while, topped only by Uncharted in my eyes. Even secondary characters were voiced well, and the dialogue was amazing. Throughout the game your party members would have random conversations and they MADE SENSE. And sometimes were really funny. It didn't hurt that this game had an amazing vocal cast (Tim Curry, Kate Mulgrew and Claudia Black just to name a couple). This really made the game enjoyable for me, especially after coming off of Final Fantasy XIII where the voice acting was less than stellar (either the characters were almost monotone, or chirpily annoying...the 2D dialogue didn't help either).
And finally, the bugs. Though this is one of the larger games I've played in a while, it's one of the buggiest. Yeah there's lots of bugs in other games, but they don't affect game play, they are more background bugs were some areas once were, but then closed off (but not completely). The bugs in this game actually affect gameplay. I've had mysteriously floating people, armor where the arms flap behind me so my character literally has invisible arms, areas in the middle of game play I get get around because it's an invisible rock, characters talking but no sound coming out, and the game checking the wrong states in certain parts so an action fails. Again, I don't know what this is like for PC, but this is just a few bugs I've run across so far.
Dragon Age 2 has me a bit worried. It's not picking up at all from the original, which I'm ok with that. I've played Final Fantasy and none of those pick up previous stories. BUT, each edition EXPANDS on what worked and didn't work in the games before it. The fighting has been streamlined and isn't nearly as clunky as it once was in those games (though they screwed up in FFXIII by having the whole team fail if your lead dude died but everyone else still lived). What I've read about Dragon Age 2 is it seems BioWare is going backwards in that game. They are making the fighting more hack and slash instead of improving the system they have. Also they have only ONE origin story and you can ONLY be a human. This is a major step backwards instead of forward.
What I DO see happening is BioWare introducing difference race origins to the second one in DLC. And that fucking sucks, but that's EA's modus operendi. Hell when Dragon Age: Origins was released it was released WITH DLC, and that's just a slap in the face to people who buy a game new. I don't mind paying for DLC, but if the DLC is released with the game that means it was obviously CUT from the game.
I also hate the fact that Dragon Age is going to have your character be voiced. That's lame to me. In a western RPG, its pretty standard that you pick who you want to be, age, race, gender, etc., it's all an extension of a character built in your head. Having the main character fully voiced will take part of that away from players. It's turning and RPG into an adventure game. Which is fine, but it's a sequel OF an RPG game. That would be like Final Fantasy XV ending up being like Uncharted. I don't like the idea of full voice over. It'll be even worse if the phantom conversations still happens in the next game.
It'll be even worse if the voice actors have annoying voices.
I won't be preordering Dragon Age 2, but I will keep an eye on it, and probably get it when it goes on sale. What I see now about it though doesn't make me want to jump on the DA2 train at all.
Hope I didn't miss anything!
Honestly it was like every other BioWare game but with slightly better graphics. Though you have 60 hours of game play you'll end up playing MUCH longer than that solely due to load times, which kills me to be honest. I hate games where every five minutes I have to stop what I'm doing and wait for it to load. Maybe this isn't as bad on the PC (I know for sure the graphics are better on the PC, the framerate on the PS3 sucks and from what I've read it's not even slightly better on the XB360), but on consoles its frustrating. Granted I've had a steady stream of games where I pretty much can just jump in and start playing for hours with maybe a total of 10 minutes loading time.
Which yeah, I know the loading time speaks to how massive the game is and though that's well and good about 20 hours in I was starting to not care about the game at all. I was waiting more than being engaged. Yes this changed as I rounded the half way marker and started getting all my party members to like me so they were asking me favours (or bedding me, whichever came first), but it was a LONG stretch to get that far.
I also think the game wasn't very balanced. There are some portions of the game that go by really fast, then other bits of the game that seem to stretch for an eternity until the point I'm getting SERIOUSLY bored.
At the end of the day though the story was engaging. For your Grey Warden you were able to choose the type of personality you'd want, merciful, cynical or a downright asshole who wouldn't do anything without getting paid and didnt' care who died in the process (but unlike inFAMOUS, being an asshole doesn't change the gameplay, just how your party members act towards you).
I liked the game. I liked the variety of personalities that you get to interact with, but I wish a few more of my party members were more fleshed out. There's lots of backstory for Alistair and Leliana, which are the two main characters you are set up to have a relationship with (obviously not coincidental). There is also Morrigan who has a rich backstory, but I can't help to think based on her storyline that she's entirely set up to return in future Dragon Age installments. But I would have LOVED a richer backstory for Wynn, Shale and Sten. Sten for the most part just kind of judges you and says little. Shale is also quite judgemental but you can't really blame a rock monster for being judgemental of a creature it can squish in two seconds. And Wynn is CONNECTED to a major plot point of the game but her backstory is very thin.
Yes I know, richer backstories would mean LONGER load times.
Anyway on the to the game breakdown itself, and there be SPOILERS here.
In game story: To start the game off you get SIX choices of origin story, which means you get 12 hours of original game play right off the bat (each origin story is approximately 2 hours in length). There's three races to choose from elf, human or dwarf and two social standings in each race. I've played two so far, the Dalish elf (elves who live in the wild free of slavery) and I'm currently playing a city elf who grew up in an Alienage and was going to be forced into an arranged marriage. You can also choose the type of character you want to play, a Rogue, Warrior or Mage.
Along the way you get recruited to be a Grey Warden, the saviours of the world from the Blight (which in the end you find out why but I'll get to that). This is the beginning of probably one of the denser RPG stories out there. After being recruited to a Grey Warden for one reason or another (each origin is different on how you get recruited) you end up in your first battle against the darkspawn at Ostagar. You meet Alistair who is a fellow Grey Warden and you are both tasked with lighting the signal fire during the battle so the flanking troops know when to attack.
Needless to say the battle doesn't go quite as smoothly. You and Alistair have to fight your way to the top of the tower once soldiers proclaim that darkspawn are working their way up from the basement and killing everyone in site. After fighting your way to the top and lighting the signal fire the battle takes a turn for the worst. Not only are you and Alistair overrun by the darkspawn in the tower, but the king was betrayed by his general and the flanking warrior retreat from battle causing the death of the King and your Grey Warden leader.
For an earlier quest you met two witches of the Kocari Wild's who helped you obtain some treaties for Duncan, and when you awake after the battle of Ostagar you wake up to Morrigan, one of the witches of the wild. Seems Morrigan's mom, Flemeth is a shape changer and flew you and Alistair out of the tower before the darkspawn completely overran Ostagar. Flemeth then sends Morrigan with you when you decide to unite Fereldan against the darkspawn and stop the Blight.
From the Kocari Wilds you head up to the small village of Lothering where you find refugees from the ruins of Ostagar. None of them really too happy to see a Grey Warden because Teryn Loghain (the general who betrayed the King) is now a Regent (his daughter was Queen) and proclaimed the losses at Ostagar to be due to the betrayal of the Grey Wardens. After picking up some supplies and running some errands for a few people you pick up two more companions, Sten, a Qunari warrior who killed some farmers in a rage, and Leliana, a worker in the Chantry who has far better battle skills than any priest should have. At this point all you know about either character is what's at face value, that Sten is a convicted murderer and Leliana was part of the Chantry.
Also on the road you'll run into Dog, a Mabari war dog you saved before the battle of Ostagar. He will be your faithful company through the end of the game, always by your side. He also loves to bring your random gifts!
Morrigan and Alistair look to you for guidance, and it's made clear the treaties that Duncan made you look for need to be used. These treaties are asking for four corners of Fereldan to be united in fighting the blight. So that means you need to head to Circle of Magi (where the Templars and Mages live), Redcliffe (where Arl Eamon, Alistairs surragote father lives), the Dalish Elves (somewhere in the Bracillian forest) and Orzammar (the Dwarf kingdom) to invoke the treaties for allies in the coming battle. Alistair tells you that Arl Eamon knew the king well and wouldn't betray them.
So after taking your party to Denerim, the capital city of Fereldan, to get some supplies, and meet a few people who give you quests which is an excellent way to make money in your adventures you head off to the Village of Redcliffe. Also while taking some time in your party camp along the way you can find out a lot about Morrigan, Alistair, Sten and Leliana.
Morrigan will talk about growing up in the wild and how it was different. She mostly observed people outside the wilds in animal form, since being a mage outside of the Templars control makes them a target. This is why she's very standoffish and doesn't believe in any kind of real love at all (unfortunately you have to be a Male Grey Warden to actually teach Morrigan what love is, but you can soften her character no matter what gender you are). Morrigan will also tell you about a book, a Grimoire, that was Flemeths and she'd like you to find it because it contains Flemeths spells. You won't find out more about this book until you head to the Circle of Magi.
Sten was sent to Fereldan by the Qunari to find out about the Blight. He'll also tell you that along the way he was in a fight along with the other members of his party and when he work he was surrounded by farmers and his sword was missing. In his panicked rage he accidentally killed the farmers. Sten won't ask you to find his sword but he's grateful that you decide to take on a task that seems impossible. Eventually you'll track his sword down in Orzammar where Sten stops seeing you as someone who doesn't know what they are doing, and instead he'll see you as a warrior more his equal.
Alistair turns out to just be terrified of any kind of responsibility, which is why he looked to you for answers. If you talk to him long enough he'll eventually tell you his big secret. He is the bastard son of King Maric (father to the king that died at Ostagar). This makes Alistair a contender for the throne and you spend your journey trying to convince him he needs to take the throne to lead his people (towards the end of the game your character will be forced into a game changing decision concerning this). Alistair will also tell you he was training to be a Templar before he ended up becoming a Grey Warden, but it wasn't something he was happy with. It doesn't stop him from looking down on Morrigan simply because she's a mage without a leash (a maleficar more or less).
Leliana turns out to have been a Bard before she entered the Chantry. Which more or less means she was an assassin and mercinary who would use any means to get what she wanted from someone. She'll even confess to manipulation of EVERY kind in order to get what she wanted in a less violent way. Eventually in Denerim you'll run into Leliana's old lover, Marjoran who was afraid Leliana was out to take revenge on her. From this Leliana can learn from her past and depending on your responses she will be more open to accept her more ruthless side and try to balance it with the peace she recieved at the Chantry.
Upon arrival at Redcliff it becomes very apparent that something is wrong. When you speak to some of the villagers they talk about how every night strange creatures come from the castle and no one knows of the arl is even alive. Before nightfall you rally the villagers together and give them hope they'll live through the night with your help. After fending off the walking dead Lady Isolde makes an appearance the next morning. She tells you and the guy who's been holding Redcliff together that he needs to go back with her because something happened with Conner (the arl's son, Isolde is the arl's wife). After talking with her you discover that the arl was poisoned by a mage but that's all she's willing to tell at that point in time. After gathering supplies you head into the castle through a secret passage. In the dungeons you run across a guy named Jowan, the mage who poisoned the arl. He'll inform you he was hired by Teryn Loghain to poison the arl. He was asked to go there by Isolde because Conner had showed signs of being a mage. Jowan makes it clear he had nothing to do with the monsters and believes something happened to Conner.
Here you must make a choice. If you kill Jowan you won't have help later when you find Conner so you'll be forced to kill the boy since he's possessed by a demon (that is if you don't stop Isolde from killing Conner first since he begs her to make the demon stop). If you allow Jowan to live he will offer assistance when you later find Conner. You can kill the demon in the Fade, but he can't do it alone without killing someone. Isolde will offer her life so that her son can live, or you can travel to the Circle of Magi to request assistance from the mages. If you want everyone to live this is the choice you'll make.
So quickly your party heads to the Circle Tower but unforunately it doesn't seem as things are going well there either. On the lake you talk to the old ferry boat runner, and he informs you that something is going on at the tower and the Templars have cut off all travel to the tower. When you talk to the Templar you can convince him to take your party to the tower so you can offer help to those in charge. From here you learn that the circle has fallen and the mages have turned into abominations. The Templars inform you they have sent out word that the mages are all to be killed so no abominations can leave. You tell him you'll help but from this point on until you find out what's goign on at the tower, once you step through the doors you will NOT be allowed back out.
After stepping through the doors you end up bumping into a familiar face, Wynn. She was with the circle at the battle of Ostagar. Wynn tells you that one of the mages, Uldred, went sour and is turning everyone into abominations that he can. The first enchanter is with him, and he's the guy you need to bring back to the Templars.
As you make your way up the tower, saving everyone you can, you come in contact with a demon who forces your entire party into the Fade. As you battle your way through the Fade each member of your party must face something that's hard for them to let go of in some way or another. Morrigan is the only person in your party who knows what's happening isn't real, not only because she understands the Fade, but also because the Sloth Demon in charge created a bad impersonation of Flemeth.
In the Fade is where you find Niall, a mage who was trying to stop Uldred. He tells you about a book that's needed in order to save all the mages. The only reason he wasn't with Uldred is because he ran in fear once everything started going down. Once he got the book he decided to try to help but the Sloth Demon got him. Niall won't come back with you from the Fade because the Sloth Demon has sucked away his life energy but he tells you the book is on his corpse and to take it.
Once the demon is defeated and the book is grabbed you head up to the top of the tower to confront Uldred. Two things can happen here. You can either save the mages, or let them die. The book is the only thing stopping all remaining mages from turning into abominations. No matter if you decide to save the mages or not, Wynn will stay with you. Your choice only matters in the final battle. If you save the mages they will be there to help you against the Archdemon. If the mages die the Templars will honor the treaty and be there to help in the final battle. The ONLY way to keep the entire family of Arl Eamon's alive is to save the mages. The first enchanter will agree to come back to Redcliff with you to save Conner. Also in a chest in the tower Flemeth's Grimoire can be found, which will disturb Morrigan when you give it to her. It details how Flemeth has daughters, teachs them magic and then takes over their body when she gets too old. Morrigan asks for the death of Flemeth to stop this from happening and so Morrigan can get Flemeth's real grimoire. (You can do this later, but you are given a choice as to whether or not to kill Flemeth, either way you'll get the grimoire and you can lie to Morrigan, it won't affect the rest of gameplay. Flemeth is NOT an easy kill though since she shapeshifts into a frickin High Dragon).
Heading back to Redcliff you can take some time in your camp to get to know Wynn. She will inform you that by saving one of the children at the tower she ended up more or less dieing. But there is also benevolent beings in the Fade and that's what saved Wynn. She doesn't know how long she has to live, and she tells you about one regret she had in her life. When she was a younger teaching mage one of her students was an elf who wouldn't listen, and Wynn would constantly yell at him. She ended up pushing him till he ran off to find the Dalish elves. Wynn is convinced the boy died since the Templar's are so good at finding and killing mages. When you meed the Dalish for the treaties you'll meet up with this guy and he forgives Wynn and she can move forward.
Once in Redcliff the mages will get everything together, but they only have enough supplies to send on person into the Fade, so you can either send Morrigan, Jowan or Wynn in to try to save Conner. By killing the demon Conner will be free, if not regretful for reading a spellbook he didn't understand (his reading the book to help his dad is what started the whole mess). Isolde wants Jowan killed no matter what, blaming him solely for what's happened until she's reminded it was her actions of secrecy that allowed any of these events to take place. You can convince Jowan's life to at least be spared until the arl is saved from the poison. Unfortunately you'll need to find the ashes of Andraste for that to happen.
When you are heading down towards the village of Haven, the last known place of a guy who spent his life searching for the Urn of Andraste's ashs, you can make a pit stop to talk to a guy about some supplies. He will then give you a golem control rod and tell you where the golem is at. It can never hurt to have a golem on your team right? The village the golem is in has been overrun by darkspawn, and when you try to activate the golem the code word doesn't work. In a brewery you'll find the remaining villagers who are under attack by darkspawn. A mage's son has erected a forcefield to protect everyone but he won't give you the code word to the golem until you go save his daughter. His daughter is in the basement of the place and she's been taken under the wing of a desire demon in the form of a cat. The cat won't let her free unless you free the demon. After using your skills to complete a slide puzzle the demon renigs on it's deal so you are forced to fight the demon to save the girl. Once the demon is dead the mage's son gives you the correct password for the control rod so it's time to wake the golem up.
The golem promptly realizes the control rod has no power over it, and it has free will. The golem chooses to follow you though and you find out it's name is Shale. Shale apparently killed it's former master but can't quite remember what exactly happened. Shale thinks maybe it all has something to do with why the control rod no longer works. Once in Orzammar Shale will find more out about itself, but until then it has little like for squishy humans.
Once your party reaches Haven it doesn't take long to realize there's more to this village than what's on the surface. The entire village is overrun by religious fanatics who will kill to keep anyone from the Urn. Once you slash your way through these guys you'll find the guy who has been searching for the Urn all his life. He'll tell you where to go once you save him.
At the top of the mountain is where you'll find the resting place for the Urn. You can choose to fight the High Dragon watching the urn or not, it's not necessary one way or another. It will only affect the results you get AFTER you defeat the game. In the cave you are put through several tests to see your worth. Only the worthy can get to the ashes. Once to the ashes you again can make a choice to be respectful or defile the ashes (if you defile them you lose a LOT of points with Leliana). Once you have the ashes in hand it's time to save Arl Eamon.
Once the arl is awake he will agree with what you have done so far. Fereldan MUST be united in order to defeat the Blight. An army must be created to fight the darkspawn and kill the archdemon. The arl is going to put together a Landsmeet in order to try to confront Teryn Loghain on his treason, it's your job to get the treaties to the Dalish and to Orzammar and try to get as many nobles to side with the Grey Warden's against Teryn Loghain.
Orzammar is close so might as well head there first. Along the way an assassin will be sent from Teryn Loghain to try to kill you. If you are a merciful Warden you can recruit him into your team, you learn that he is an Antivan Crow named Zevran. He flirts all over the place and you learn he had little choice in joining the Crows, even though he doesn't exactly have the most morals of anyone around. Zevran will forever be in your debt when another fellow Crow tries to kill him but you and your team stop that from happening.
Once in Orzammar the Warden is met with yet ANOTHER problem. The king of the dwarves recently died and there's a feud as to who should be the next king. Traveling around Orzammar and doing various quests (you can pick up a nug for Leliana here, which she will love even if it makes annoying squeaky noises) it's easy to play both sides of politics to try to discover WHO will be the best person to take the throne for the dwarves. Finally both contenders will ask you to do the same thing, go into the Deep Roads (where darkspawn live) and find the living paragon Branka. And just like at the Circle Tower another person will force their way into your crew, Oghren, a drunk warrior who happens to be Branka's husband. He will help lead you in the Deep Roads and eventually you'll find Branka, who has gone quite mad. She has become obsessed with the Anvil of the Void where the original golem's where created.
Finally your crew and Branka will make it to the Anvil of the Void where you'll come face to face with Cairidin, the original smith of the golems. He tells that the golems were originally empty husks, only given life by taking the souls of other dwarves. So to create a golem army, dwarves were being slaughtered. You are again faced with a choice, destroy the anvil so no more golems can be created and freeing Cairidin from his prison, or allowing the anvil to fall into Branka's hands so she can make more Golems. This affects your final battle as well, if you destroy the anvil the dwarves will come to your aid, if you give the anvil to Branka golems will come to your aid. This is how Shale finds out it used to be squishy and not always a massive impenetrable rock.
Once this is complete you can now choose who you want as King of the dwarves. Choice doesn't matter, it only effects your end game results, either person will honor the treaty and come to the aid of the Grey Warden's to stop the Blight.
Only one more stop for the treaties and that's the Dalish elves. Traveling to the Bracillian forest is where you'll find the elves. Unfortunately you are left yet again to help someone else before they'll help you. Werewolves have attacked and infected all the elvish hunters, and the elf leader asks for your help to save them by killing Witherfang or he won't be able to honor the treaty simply because he won't have any warriors. So deeper into the forest you'll travel, but the story of the werewolves isn't so cut and dry. Your party discovers that the werewolves can speak now and after fighting your way through many they decide to take you to the Lady of the Forest. She tells you that the curse was created by the elf leader when his family was tortured and killed by humans many hundreds of years ago, and his continued life span is linked to the curse itself. You then go back to get the elf leader and bring him to the lady of the forest, who turns out IS Witherfang. This leads to another choice, you can convince the elf leader that he needs to let go of his revenge and allow himself and Witherfang to die, you can side with the Werewolves and allow them to kill all the elves, or you can side with the Elves and kill all the werewolves. Like all other choices this just gives you a choice of who will fight by your side in the end battle, the werewolves (if you kill the elves) or the elves (if you choose another other than killing the elves).
From here you can head back to Denerim with the Arl Eamon and an assistant to the Queen comes to seek your aid. Loghain had Queen Anora locked up so it's off to save the Queen now. After making your way through many guards and finding the mages who have erected the magical force shield over the Queen's door Arl Howe's right hand elf comes to capture you. Depending on your Warden's personality is what option you can take, you can go the peaceful route and surrender without a fight so no one else gets killed, or you can fight everyone. If surrender is chosen your Warden and Alistair will be taken to Fort Drakon and thrown in prison.
While in prison your team will rally with Arl Eamon, but it's up to you and Alistair to get yourself out of the Fort. Thankfully everyone is a little dumb and it doesn't take much to trick any of the guards about who you are to the point you can get sent out of the prison on your own free will under the guise of going on patrol.
Once reunited with the Arl it's time to figure out what needs to be done. Arl Eamon wants Alistair to take the throne and Queen Anora thinks she deserves the throne. A decision has to be made, but if your Warden is one to make a compromise then you can convince Alistair and Anora to marry and rule jointly. The Landsmeet is almost gathered, but there's unrest in the alienage so the Warden has to go figure out what's going on.
It doesn't take long in the alienage to discover that Loghain is using a fake illness created by mages in order to sell people off into slavery. Even one of the noble's sons has been captured to be sold. All the information the Warden has discovered in the travels must be given to the nobles before the Landsmeet is called. If the Warden has done their job right the nobles will easily side with the Grey Warden's in the coming Blight. Unfortunately Loghain won't go down without a fight. This is where the story starts to make big changes.
You can choose Alistair to fight Loghain, unfortunately Alistair is merciless and will kill Loghain in the name of Duncan. Queen Anora will refuse to marry Alistair after this, but his first Kingly duty will be one of mercy, he will lock her up instead of killing her. Which Anora confesses she wouldn't have done.
You can choose to fight Loghain. Two things can happen here. You can give Loghain the warriors death he requested and Anora will still choose to rule jointly with Alistair, or you can choose to recruit Loghain as a Grey Warden (recruiting Loghain causes Alistair to leave your party for good).
The darkspawn has attacked Redcliff so it's time to save that city before it falls. Once this is done it's learned that Redcliff was a distraction and that all darkspawn troops as well as the archdemon are headed towards Denerim. The final battle is just ahead. Before leaving Morrigan comes to you with an offer. She overheard the conversation where the Warden discovers that killing the archdemon will kill the Warden (that's why they have to ingest darkspawn blood in their joining). Morrigan's work around is that Alistair, Loghain (if you recruited him) or your Warden (if you are male) must sleep with her that night to create a child, the child will have the darkspawn blood in it. When the archdemon is slayed the spirit will go to the unborn child and the Wardens will live. Her only request is she gets to leave and no one will come search for her or her child. Your decision here is what chooses your end result in the game.
Once in Denerim you fight your way through hordes of darkspawn to try to reach the archdemon, along the way calling on all your allies to help you. Once to the archdemon several things can happen. If you took Morrigan up on her offer, the Grey Warden takes the final blow, the archdemon dies and then everyone walks off into the glorious sunset. Well except for Morrigan who disappears right after the battle (in your final game text that explains the effects of your actions one of the blurbs is travels spot a dark haired woman who appeared to be with child blah blah blah).
If you did not take Morrigan up on her offer it changes things. If Alistair is still in your party and your approval points are high with him, he will sacrifice himself if you don't leave him at the gates to stop darkspawn there. If you leave Alistair behind you make the ultimate sacrifice and a funeral is held in your honor.
There is also a wrap up at the end of what came of all the decisions you made throughout the game, it's different for all the different decisions so I couldn't even begin to list that out, but right there is the summary of the game story in a nutshell.The gameplay is not what I expected at all. It just shows how spoiled I am with Final Fantasy. I feel more freedom and more strategy is needed in Final Fantasy to beat some bosses. A lot of the time in Dragon Age I just ended up running away until I could stop to heal and then continue on. But I'm not much on strategizing for each team member so maybe that was my downfall.
I didn't really like the game controls. If I wanted to select anything outside of my hot picks I had to pause the game and go through several different windows in order to choose what I wanted. It was inconvenient and was clunky for a console game, especially now. I will give the game that it was started five years ago so perhaps it wasn't as clunky then, but now it wasn't streamlined at all.
It didn't help that I had no control over when I hit. I thought maybe I could bash x and then get some hits in but I couldn't. Instead my characters took the slowest swings known to man in order to hit something. It just added to the clunkiness of the game controls.
Stuff like this just reminded me that this game was not originally intended for consoles. Which is fine, I don't mind that. What I do mind is that little thought was put in to how to make it WORK well with consoles. The framerate are shitty, the load times are over a minute long (I know it doesn't seem like much but considering most PS3 games your longest load time is at the BEGINNING of the game, and 10 to 20 seconds occasionally throughout the game, this is an enormous amount of time), and it just screamed that none of the mechanics were utilized on the consoles at all. That makes me sad. Wait a year and refurbish the game to use EVERY OUNCE of power that the PS3 and XB360 can give, and the game would DEFINITELY be the better for it.
Also another minor gripe. I'm getting sick of games that have all the writing so tiny it almost ends up blurring if you sit more than 2 feet away from a regular tv. Dragon Age isn't the only game guilty of that. I can't read any of the codex entries unless I'm sitting right on top of the TV. It's annoying and inconvenient.
I was also disappointed with the character animation. We get an incredibly dense story but when the characters talk they make the same 5 arm gestures over and over. It's really weird, especially if the gesture isn't matching what the character is saying, or the mood of things at all.
The voice acting in this game was however some of the best voice acting I've heard on a game in a while, topped only by Uncharted in my eyes. Even secondary characters were voiced well, and the dialogue was amazing. Throughout the game your party members would have random conversations and they MADE SENSE. And sometimes were really funny. It didn't hurt that this game had an amazing vocal cast (Tim Curry, Kate Mulgrew and Claudia Black just to name a couple). This really made the game enjoyable for me, especially after coming off of Final Fantasy XIII where the voice acting was less than stellar (either the characters were almost monotone, or chirpily annoying...the 2D dialogue didn't help either).
And finally, the bugs. Though this is one of the larger games I've played in a while, it's one of the buggiest. Yeah there's lots of bugs in other games, but they don't affect game play, they are more background bugs were some areas once were, but then closed off (but not completely). The bugs in this game actually affect gameplay. I've had mysteriously floating people, armor where the arms flap behind me so my character literally has invisible arms, areas in the middle of game play I get get around because it's an invisible rock, characters talking but no sound coming out, and the game checking the wrong states in certain parts so an action fails. Again, I don't know what this is like for PC, but this is just a few bugs I've run across so far.
Dragon Age 2 has me a bit worried. It's not picking up at all from the original, which I'm ok with that. I've played Final Fantasy and none of those pick up previous stories. BUT, each edition EXPANDS on what worked and didn't work in the games before it. The fighting has been streamlined and isn't nearly as clunky as it once was in those games (though they screwed up in FFXIII by having the whole team fail if your lead dude died but everyone else still lived). What I've read about Dragon Age 2 is it seems BioWare is going backwards in that game. They are making the fighting more hack and slash instead of improving the system they have. Also they have only ONE origin story and you can ONLY be a human. This is a major step backwards instead of forward.
What I DO see happening is BioWare introducing difference race origins to the second one in DLC. And that fucking sucks, but that's EA's modus operendi. Hell when Dragon Age: Origins was released it was released WITH DLC, and that's just a slap in the face to people who buy a game new. I don't mind paying for DLC, but if the DLC is released with the game that means it was obviously CUT from the game.
I also hate the fact that Dragon Age is going to have your character be voiced. That's lame to me. In a western RPG, its pretty standard that you pick who you want to be, age, race, gender, etc., it's all an extension of a character built in your head. Having the main character fully voiced will take part of that away from players. It's turning and RPG into an adventure game. Which is fine, but it's a sequel OF an RPG game. That would be like Final Fantasy XV ending up being like Uncharted. I don't like the idea of full voice over. It'll be even worse if the phantom conversations still happens in the next game.
It'll be even worse if the voice actors have annoying voices.
I won't be preordering Dragon Age 2, but I will keep an eye on it, and probably get it when it goes on sale. What I see now about it though doesn't make me want to jump on the DA2 train at all.
Hope I didn't miss anything!