prisoner_24601 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
prisoner_24601) wrote2009-12-17 12:26 pm
prisoner_24601) wrote2009-12-17 12:26 pm
Entry tags:
I finally finished Dragon Age.
I kind of feel like I just ran a marathon or something. I have no idea how you all ended up beating the game so damn quickly, because it took me like 90+ hours to finish it (and I didn't even do everything). True, probably 20 of those hours were spent with the game idle and me afk chasing after the anklebiters or making dinner or whatever, but still, that was a damn long game.
Overall, I thought it was pretty fun. Not the greatest or most original game ever, but pretty consistently entertaining. If I were going to grade it against other Bioware titles, I'd have to say that I didn't enjoy it as much as Knights of the Old Republic or Balder's Gate 2, but thought it was light years better than Jade Empire. I'd put it on the same enjoyment level as Mass Effect, although the strengths of those two games seem to be the opposite from each other. Mass Effect had a more interesting plot line that was much tighter and very well thought out, but the NPC's fell kind of flat. Dragon Age had this sprawley behemoth of a plot that many times was too big and too disorganized and was often really, really contrived, but I liked the NPC interaction much better.
Some thoughts:
The Characters
Bioware really loves those character archtypes don't they? This time we get Canderous (Sten) and HK-47 (Shale) from Knights of the Old Republic and Viconia (Morrigan) from Balder's Gate. If Bioware is going to insist on putting a Canderous analog in every single one of their games, I think we need to start insisting that they finally let us romance him. At least Alistair wasn't giving off Carth vibes, which is a big improvement over the last several games.
Overall, I liked the characters though, even the ones that were regurgitations from past games. I thought that Alistair was a lot of fun to have around and had some of the best banters with everyone in the party. Honestly, I kept waiting for him and Morriagan to just start making out, so I felt vindicated in the end when he sleeps with her for the ritual. True love or whatever with the PC aside, I bet Alistair had been wanting to tap that since they met.
Leliana grew on me too, although she annoyed me at first. Zevran I thought I was going to hate (I hate elves on general principle), but his Antonio Bandares voice and shameless sexual advances and dialogue towards the party as a whole cracked me up. He and Wynne had the best banters of the whole damn game (that shit was hilarious). I wish I could have kept him around more, but I never really got around to making him like me, and he ended up betraying my party which was a bummer. Ogren was really funny to have around as well (loved the line about tattooing his name on your ass in bruises).
As for non party NPC's, I liked both Anora and Logain (although I suspect that there is probably much fangirlish rage directed in Anora's direction). I ended up choosing her for the throne over Alistair, because let's face it - as nice of a guy as Alistair is, he'd make a totally shitty and weak king. So I ended up getting the ending where you both stay together and rebuild the Grey Wardens, which after finding out what all the endings were, made the most sense to me. I may end up going back though and convincing Alistair and Anora to marry to see what happens, because that also made sense too.
The Romances
I thought the Alistair romance was okay. Overall, I liked him as a character, but he's just not my type. I think I understand all of the fangirl squee - he trips all the right buttons (he's young, hot, funny, and has that whole awkward thing that's supposed to be endearing) and on top of it, he doesn't come with baggage that a frustrated a lot of the true love fangirl contingent with Carth (dead wives and hostile kids - although that's why I found Carth interesting myself, lol). Maybe it's my age, or maybe he's just too goofy to be my type, but I was pretty indifferent about the romance angle and really only completed it out of curiosity more than anything else.
Having watched my husband romance Morrigan on his Dwarf Rogue though, I have to say though that the Alistair romance is 100 times better than the goofyness that is the Morrigan romance. I wanted to romance Leliana, but I failed to trigger it one of the early conversations (because I thought I could get to it later) and then it never came up again. And Zevran - he was just way too goofy and over the top for me to really even try.
And omg, I didn't think there was a way to make the sex even sillier than in Mass Effect, but the good people at Bioware have totally proven me wrong.
The Gameplay
Sometimes it was fun, but a lot of times it was a tedious slog. I thought I was NEVER going to get out of the Deep Roads. They should keep the difficulty (I liked that the combat wasn't super easy like other Bioware games) but cut the number of battles and the sizes of the dungeons in half.
Also - wtf, Bioware? Why do you have such a freaking hard time making hair that doesn't look completely ridiculous? And what the hell is up with the mage robes? Please, for the love of god, go over to Mod the Sims, and hire some of those artists to create hairstyles and clothing that doesn't look completely idiotic.
The Fans
Frankly, the Alistair fangirl contingent scares the hell out of me. The rabid devotion that Alistair has inspired is rather amazing, and I think it even tops the Carth fangirls from back in the day.
I found all of the outrage over Mages, Dwarves and Elves not being able to marry Alistair and become queen really hilarious. I mean, the dude so obviously does not want to be king, and here is this woman who would actually make a decent queen who wants the job, but they end up goading Alistair into taking the throne anyway, and then he ends their romance. Whereas if they'd listened to what Alistair actually wanted and gave Anora the throne they'd get to be Grey Wardens with their one true love. I'm sorry, but that's freaking priceless.
All the fangirling inspires evil urges where Alistair and Anora end up getting married and Alistair gets over the PC and lives a happy life with his wife. Or an Alistair/Leliana story or something. I kind of want to write some Sten/Leliana stuff too - they seem like they'd make an interesting pair.
Anyway a fun game, but not super awesome. I may go back and play through the other beginnings just to see those parts, but there's no freaking way I'd play through the whole thing again.
Overall, I thought it was pretty fun. Not the greatest or most original game ever, but pretty consistently entertaining. If I were going to grade it against other Bioware titles, I'd have to say that I didn't enjoy it as much as Knights of the Old Republic or Balder's Gate 2, but thought it was light years better than Jade Empire. I'd put it on the same enjoyment level as Mass Effect, although the strengths of those two games seem to be the opposite from each other. Mass Effect had a more interesting plot line that was much tighter and very well thought out, but the NPC's fell kind of flat. Dragon Age had this sprawley behemoth of a plot that many times was too big and too disorganized and was often really, really contrived, but I liked the NPC interaction much better.
Some thoughts:
The Characters
Bioware really loves those character archtypes don't they? This time we get Canderous (Sten) and HK-47 (Shale) from Knights of the Old Republic and Viconia (Morrigan) from Balder's Gate. If Bioware is going to insist on putting a Canderous analog in every single one of their games, I think we need to start insisting that they finally let us romance him. At least Alistair wasn't giving off Carth vibes, which is a big improvement over the last several games.
Overall, I liked the characters though, even the ones that were regurgitations from past games. I thought that Alistair was a lot of fun to have around and had some of the best banters with everyone in the party. Honestly, I kept waiting for him and Morriagan to just start making out, so I felt vindicated in the end when he sleeps with her for the ritual. True love or whatever with the PC aside, I bet Alistair had been wanting to tap that since they met.
Leliana grew on me too, although she annoyed me at first. Zevran I thought I was going to hate (I hate elves on general principle), but his Antonio Bandares voice and shameless sexual advances and dialogue towards the party as a whole cracked me up. He and Wynne had the best banters of the whole damn game (that shit was hilarious). I wish I could have kept him around more, but I never really got around to making him like me, and he ended up betraying my party which was a bummer. Ogren was really funny to have around as well (loved the line about tattooing his name on your ass in bruises).
As for non party NPC's, I liked both Anora and Logain (although I suspect that there is probably much fangirlish rage directed in Anora's direction). I ended up choosing her for the throne over Alistair, because let's face it - as nice of a guy as Alistair is, he'd make a totally shitty and weak king. So I ended up getting the ending where you both stay together and rebuild the Grey Wardens, which after finding out what all the endings were, made the most sense to me. I may end up going back though and convincing Alistair and Anora to marry to see what happens, because that also made sense too.
The Romances
I thought the Alistair romance was okay. Overall, I liked him as a character, but he's just not my type. I think I understand all of the fangirl squee - he trips all the right buttons (he's young, hot, funny, and has that whole awkward thing that's supposed to be endearing) and on top of it, he doesn't come with baggage that a frustrated a lot of the true love fangirl contingent with Carth (dead wives and hostile kids - although that's why I found Carth interesting myself, lol). Maybe it's my age, or maybe he's just too goofy to be my type, but I was pretty indifferent about the romance angle and really only completed it out of curiosity more than anything else.
Having watched my husband romance Morrigan on his Dwarf Rogue though, I have to say though that the Alistair romance is 100 times better than the goofyness that is the Morrigan romance. I wanted to romance Leliana, but I failed to trigger it one of the early conversations (because I thought I could get to it later) and then it never came up again. And Zevran - he was just way too goofy and over the top for me to really even try.
And omg, I didn't think there was a way to make the sex even sillier than in Mass Effect, but the good people at Bioware have totally proven me wrong.
The Gameplay
Sometimes it was fun, but a lot of times it was a tedious slog. I thought I was NEVER going to get out of the Deep Roads. They should keep the difficulty (I liked that the combat wasn't super easy like other Bioware games) but cut the number of battles and the sizes of the dungeons in half.
Also - wtf, Bioware? Why do you have such a freaking hard time making hair that doesn't look completely ridiculous? And what the hell is up with the mage robes? Please, for the love of god, go over to Mod the Sims, and hire some of those artists to create hairstyles and clothing that doesn't look completely idiotic.
The Fans
Frankly, the Alistair fangirl contingent scares the hell out of me. The rabid devotion that Alistair has inspired is rather amazing, and I think it even tops the Carth fangirls from back in the day.
I found all of the outrage over Mages, Dwarves and Elves not being able to marry Alistair and become queen really hilarious. I mean, the dude so obviously does not want to be king, and here is this woman who would actually make a decent queen who wants the job, but they end up goading Alistair into taking the throne anyway, and then he ends their romance. Whereas if they'd listened to what Alistair actually wanted and gave Anora the throne they'd get to be Grey Wardens with their one true love. I'm sorry, but that's freaking priceless.
All the fangirling inspires evil urges where Alistair and Anora end up getting married and Alistair gets over the PC and lives a happy life with his wife. Or an Alistair/Leliana story or something. I kind of want to write some Sten/Leliana stuff too - they seem like they'd make an interesting pair.
Anyway a fun game, but not super awesome. I may go back and play through the other beginnings just to see those parts, but there's no freaking way I'd play through the whole thing again.
no subject
I agree with mostly all your points. I couldn't decide if I liked or hated Alistair until the end of the game, and then I decided that he worked. For a while, I couldn't reconcile Mr. Noble Grey Warden/ex-Templar with Virgin Awkward McJokesALot. I played a City Elf, and when he asked if I'd ever "licked a lamp post," I answered no (figuring that the elves with their arranged marriages and what not probably didn't?)-- and then found the sex scene particularly hilarious since both of them were supposedly virgins.
I also couldn't decide if I bought/liked Leiliana for a while--up until she started describing how she'd dress up Morrigan if she could. Then I loved her, lol.
I thought it would take me a lot longer to get through it than it did...it could be that I have the PS3 version, and thus could play it while hanging out with my fiance (rather than shutting myself in the office at the computer).
I had some big issues with my PS3 version. I also chose Anora over Alistair (Such a DUH choice. Although then afterwards, at the battle, where he made the big speech, I was like, um, weren't you bitching earlier that you didn't want to be king because you'd have to make speeches?). However, while I got the right cutscene at the time, something broke in my game, because every single person/event afterwards acted as though I had chosen Alistair. It was supremely annoying, and I kept yelling at the TV, "I didn't do this!"
I also broke a few companions at the end apparently too--I got a marriage conversation with Alistair, and then suddenly afterwards had a "What happens when you're king?" conversation, where he was all uncertain about our future. This was doubly annoying. Despite clearly rejecting Leiliana as a romance earlier in the game, I somehow turned it back on and she told me she loved me-- leading me to have the jealousy "pick one of us!" conversation with Alistair next-- AFTER we had the marriage conversation! Not sure if it is my fault or the game's, but the bugs made the end of the game less enjoyable for me.
Check out
I loved the banter. It was one of my favorite parts of the game, and at one point I was just running around aimlessly with different combinations of people trying to trigger it. I also got an Alistair/Leiliana vibe from their banter--like if I wasn't around/was male, they would totally hook up.
I couldn't get Zevran to like me either, although he didn't betray me (dunno if this was more stuff breaking?). I hear that if you romance him, although you sleep with him like immediately, he becomes pretty interesting and less over the top through the rest.
I also want to play through the rest of the origins, but I doubt I will play through the rest again too--unless I try to reload and get the game to actually acknowledge that I chose Anora, lol.
no subject
Spam gifts.
no subject
I think maybe it took so long because I just suck at combat. I played on normal (which seemed more like hard to me), and parts of the game were rather difficult for me. During several main battles, I kept dying and I had to reload a lot.
The banter was really fun. I kept swapping people out too just to see what they'd do. My husband is playing too, so I get to see some of the stuff I missed (he seems to be much better at triggering it than I was). I don't think I'll play through the rest of the game again to catch stuff I missed. I think I'll probably just go to you tube and find the banter I didn't get.
no subject
IronforgeOrgrimmarIronzammar seems to trigger NPC banter a lot.no subject
no subject
no subject
I got that vibe too! I thought I was the only one.
no subject