Dragon Age - I'm finally HAPPY!!!

[Linus Li Lelouch]

BEFORE I start let me say, No I have not played Fable
So I searched the forum to find a recent thread of Dragon Age and there was a closed one from 2009 so here it is in 2011 another Dragon Age thread.

First off let me say I just introduced myself to the Dragon Age series about 3 days ago when I splurged a bit to buy a PS3, Dragon Age Origins, Awakening, Dragon Age II, White Knight Chronicles II, and Atelier Rorona(yes i dropped $400 easily)

Now the reason the title of this thread is titled "I'm finally HAPPY" is because in 23 years of gaming in my life(currently 25) I found a game where when I make really zhitty choices that would otherwise be considered *evil* the game does nothing(I mean nothing!) to stop me.

I'm quite content with this as recently(as in 10 mins ago) I killed a recruitable character just because he tried(and failed) to kill me. My motto in this game is *If you try to kill me, then you're gonna die* To my knowledge this has been the case every single time. The excitement I feel when I play such a game to let me make those decisions is just mind-blowing.

Dragon Age Origins(so far hopefully Awakening and II don't let me down) is THE BEST GAME I ever played HANDS DOWN.

I just had to get this off my chest, since my co-workers would just think I'm weird and wouldn't care.

Your thoughts?

[Andromeda]

Dragon Age had a decent story, but failed on most other levels. Dragon Age II fails on even more levels, the most annoying being that you don't get to keep your character from the first game. You don't even see your character, you just get a few passing conversations and that is it. The first game has a more epic story and the second has a more political and social story, both stories are decent on their own, but the everything around it is just bad execution. I can go in greater detail if interested.

Atelier Rorona was awesome, though it was clear that they were still feeling out where they wanted to go graphically. Totori they figured it out and looks beautiful and Memeru is even better visually. The Atelier games are fun if you enjoy a light hearted story and a heavy focus on crafting. The crafting is enjoyable and deep. They are good games to unwind on since they are much more simple affairs.

White Knight Chronicles II is a better game than the original and fixes a number of the problems the original has. It does look better as well. There is a fair bit of retread which is a little bothersome, but there is a ton of content and customization that will keep you busy for months if you let it. It is pretty much Monster Hunter with fantasy mecha. Unfortunately, the crafting and enhancement system is not nearly as enjoyable as past games from Level 5 like Dark Cloud and Rogue Galaxy.

[Linus Li Lelouch]

Dragon Age had a decent story, but failed on most other levels. Dragon Age II fails on even more levels, the most annoying being that you don't get to keep your character from the first game. You don't even see your character, you just get a few passing conversations and that is it. The first game has a more epic story and the second has a more political and social story, both stories are decent on their own, but the everything around it is just bad execution. I can go in greater detail if interested.

Atelier Rorona was awesome, though it was clear that they were still feeling out where they wanted to go graphically. Totori they figured it out and looks beautiful and Memeru is even better visually. The Atelier games are fun if you enjoy a light hearted story and a heavy focus on crafting. The crafting is enjoyable and deep. They are good games to unwind on since they are much more simple affairs.

.

When you say *bad execution* what do you mean exactly if you are willing to go into greater detail. I only ask, because I'm still awe by the decision-making added, so in a sense I still have tunnel vision.

As far as the Atelier games goes, I had no idea, they we're making them back to back. The last one I played was Iris 1, 2, and 3. Rorona caught my eye obviously while I was looking at the games, and Yes I love the light-hearted story theme(despite my evil nature in DArigins). Along with them Phantom Brave was also has a nice light-hearted story as well as Eternal Sonata.

[Xanatos]

Dragon Age Origins is one of the finest games I ever played, definitely in my top five. Everything this game has to offer is perfect to say the least, from battle system which requires your outmost attention and bit of thought, to excellent story, music, characters, building up relationship with those characters, customization, decisions and consequences of those decisions, challenge,...

Unfortunately, same can't be said for Dragon Age II which is inferior to it's predecessor in every possible way. They turned this game into hack and slash, and not a good one while I'm at it, like Diablo or Torchlight for instance. The more you play it the more it feels unfinished, locations are way too repetitive, there's barely any customization, dull characters and story, simple battle system... playing this game after going through Origins makes me feel like it's meant to be played by kids with special needs.

[Linus Li Lelouch]

Hearing those words from The Great Xanatos actually makes me a sad panda. I had such high hopes for DA II(hence why I bought it), just to hear such words, but isn't that the fate of great games, the sequel made to it(sometimes) are inferior to it's predecessor.

Hopefully if they made another DA game, it will be as great as the Origins was, or else I'm going to boycott Bioware's Azz.

[Andromeda]

As Xanatos started, DA2 is quite the downgrade from DA1. DA2 they favored simplification to most features that existed in DA1. There were only a couple of things that they actually managed to improve. But at work I usually go on rants about all of the faults of the Dragon Age series.

The biggest one and the most important part for what the game is about, choice is meaningless in the games. They give you the illusion of choice and making decisions, but in the end you're still funneled down the exact same story as everyone else playing. If you kill this person rather than this one, you will still end up going the same path. If you're good or evil you're still saving the world. If you can't actually deliver on the primary selling point of the game, then it has already failed in my mind. Give me, the player, control of the story if you're giving me choice. Make me the director, not the game designer.

The relationships are all shallow and too easily bought off in the first game. The relationships were still shallow, but you didn't just buy your relationship like in the first game. If they don't agree with a decision, even slightly you can't actually have a relationship with them. Approval equals relationship. There are plenty of times people have relationships and they don't agree on things, differences often attract as they say. This approval equals relationship was corrected in the second game. It also ran better with an a rival or friend rather than approval.

The choices are not always clearly stated for the tone that they are delivered. So you could make a choice that you thought would be serious and they make it a joke or the other way around. Which is totally not what you were wanting. This is improved in the second game, but at the cost of not knowing what you're going to say. So you can pick something and not have any clue if it is really want you wanted to say, you just know the intent it is being delivered.

All solutions in the game are ended by the death of someone. There are no other solutions but the one sided killing, no middle ground no reconciling your differences. Just death. Which I find to be shallow and the easy way out. For a developer that is touted for crafting complex stories they could not find another solution to the end of a main story arc than killing. There is never any room to even try to convince them otherwise.

You can't defend your own choices. Your party members disagree with your choice and it just ends there. You can't explain yourself to them trying to convince them that this is actually a good decision.

There are a ton a visual errors in the games. I've never seen so many animation bugs in a single game until I played DA1. I actually stopped playing the game started finding bugs, it is the only game to have been able to do that to me.

DA2 is heavily recycled. You play in a single city and the surrounding lands and underground. It is all very clear how they made several large dungeons and then sectioned them off to use for specific quests. You will see the same dungeons a lot even though you're in different areas.

DA2 made party customization nearly non-existent. You had no control over their equipment, only their skills/abilities and point allocation. So you could not tweak their armor. I think you still controlled their weapons, but that was it.

DA2 none of the romance options for characters were interesting. DA1 actually had some appealing characters to pursue.

If you want to be good in DA2, less so in DA1, you have to micro manage your party members quite a lot. The game would have been better as a turn based affair since you could not trust your AI to actually play well enough to survive. The amount of pausing I had to do for an "action game" was just not right.

DA2 definitely went more towards the flash rather than practical. Everything looks when it is being done in DA2, so they succeeded there, but it is all a fairly empty feeling. It doesn't have the right action RPG feel to be an action RPG, it fits better as a slower turned based affair with what it is trying to work with rather than being an action RPG.

[Linus Li Lelouch]

As Xanatos started, DA2 is quite the downgrade from DA1. DA2 they favored simplification to most features that existed in DA1. There were only a couple of things that they actually managed to improve. But at work I usually go on rants about all of the faults of the Dragon Age series.

The biggest one and the most important part for what the game is about, choice is meaningless in the games. They give you the illusion of choice and making decisions, but in the end you're still funneled down the exact same story as everyone else playing. If you kill this person rather than this one, you will still end up going the same path. If you're good or evil you're still saving the world. If you can't actually deliver on the primary selling point of the game, then it has already failed in my mind. Give me, the player, control of the story if you're giving me choice. Make me the director, not the game designer.

The relationships are all shallow and too easily bought off in the first game. The relationships were still shallow, but you didn't just buy your relationship like in the first game. If they don't agree with a decision, even slightly you can't actually have a relationship with them. Approval equals relationship. There are plenty of times people have relationships and they don't agree on things, differences often attract as they say. This approval equals relationship was corrected in the second game. It also ran better with an a rival or friend rather than approval.

The choices are not always clearly stated for the tone that they are delivered. So you could make a choice that you thought would be serious and they make it a joke or the other way around. Which is totally not what you were wanting. This is improved in the second game, but at the cost of not knowing what you're going to say. So you can pick something and not have any clue if it is really want you wanted to say, you just know the intent it is being delivered.

All solutions in the game are ended by the death of someone. There are no other solutions but the one sided killing, no middle ground no reconciling your differences. Just death. Which I find to be shallow and the easy way out. For a developer that is touted for crafting complex stories they could not find another solution to the end of a main story arc than killing. There is never any room to even try to convince them otherwise.

You can't defend your own choices. Your party members disagree with your choice and it just ends there. You can't explain yourself to them trying to convince them that this is actually a good decision.

There are a ton a visual errors in the games. I've never seen so many animation bugs in a single game until I played DA1. I actually stopped playing the game started finding bugs, it is the only game to have been able to do that to me.

DA2 is heavily recycled. You play in a single city and the surrounding lands and underground. It is all very clear how they made several large dungeons and then sectioned them off to use for specific quests. You will see the same dungeons a lot even though you're in different areas.

DA2 made party customization nearly non-existent. You had no control over their equipment, only their skills/abilities and point allocation. So you could not tweak their armor. I think you still controlled their weapons, but that was it.

DA2 none of the romance options for characters were interesting. DA1 actually had some appealing characters to pursue.

If you want to be good in DA2, less so in DA1, you have to micro manage your party members quite a lot. The game would have been better as a turn based affair since you could not trust your AI to actually play well enough to survive. The amount of pausing I had to do for an "action game" was just not right.

DA2 definitely went more towards the flash rather than practical. Everything looks when it is being done in DA2, so they succeeded there, but it is all a fairly empty feeling. It doesn't have the right action RPG feel to be an action RPG, it fits better as a slower turned based affair with what it is trying to work with rather than being an action RPG.

I'm going to try and make a sensible response to this despite the alcohol in my system.

As far as them reverting to the usual pace of an illusion decision as nearly all games do, I still do not understand the reasoning behind such a change. I think it will make the player more willing to play knowing that they were not just playing through a movie, but as you stated earlier we're able to be the director of it. Either they received some negative feedbacks for their decision to make DA Origins the way it is

Spoiler: Hence the decision to kill Connor the little kid, I can see how that might have anger ALOT of people

The fact of going down the same path no matter what you do, honestly to me makes absolutely no sense, granted I haven't played DA II yet, I can understand a lot of it from reading what you guys post.

As far as the relationships being shallow, I can understand what you said about Approval equals Relationship when you have a rival, because then it actually makes things challenging to do if you wanted a specific male or female. I actually agree with this alot, knowing that in DA Origins all you had to do was make *said* person happy.

The fact that you cannot defend the choices you make also makes me a sad panda. That's like going to court, stating something, then the Judge automatically ruling you out, because he did not have the time or patience to listen to your reasoning. This alone makes me surprisingly angry.

As far as visual bugs, I never really paid attention unless it REALLY threw me for a loop. ie: my character keeps twitching his head in Origins(PS3) when he tries to turn to look at someone, this alone drives me NUTS!!!!

Party customizations was also a + in Origins, since it is nearly absent in DA II, I'm starting to believe the game will rely more on how you can(as you said) micro manage your party rather than setting some skills, and options, and hoping for the best.

All in all, I get the feeling that the developers are making DA II more like an introduction to the series rather than improving an already great game. It's kinda like Final Fantasy in a way. We all played 1-10, then we get XII and XIII, which XIII is different all over, but when you think about, changing the game, making it more easier for the average person to get into, rather than the strategic level of planning you had to use in previous game would surely attract more gamers into the franchise.

I don't know, this is just what I've come up with.

oh well at least I still have the greatness of Origins to come back to.

[Xanatos]

As Xanatos started, DA2 is quite the downgrade from DA1. DA2 they favored simplification to most features that existed in DA1. There were only a couple of things that they actually managed to improve. But at work I usually go on rants about all of the faults of the Dragon Age series.

The biggest one and the most important part for what the game is about, choice is meaningless in the games. They give you the illusion of choice and making decisions, but in the end you're still funneled down the exact same story as everyone else playing. If you kill this person rather than this one, you will still end up going the same path. If you're good or evil you're still saving the world. If you can't actually deliver on the primary selling point of the game, then it has already failed in my mind. Give me, the player, control of the story if you're giving me choice. Make me the director, not the game designer.

The relationships are all shallow and too easily bought off in the first game. The relationships were still shallow, but you didn't just buy your relationship like in the first game. If they don't agree with a decision, even slightly you can't actually have a relationship with them. Approval equals relationship. There are plenty of times people have relationships and they don't agree on things, differences often attract as they say. This approval equals relationship was corrected in the second game. It also ran better with an a rival or friend rather than approval.

The choices are not always clearly stated for the tone that they are delivered. So you could make a choice that you thought would be serious and they make it a joke or the other way around. Which is totally not what you were wanting. This is improved in the second game, but at the cost of not knowing what you're going to say. So you can pick something and not have any clue if it is really want you wanted to say, you just know the intent it is being delivered.

All solutions in the game are ended by the death of someone. There are no other solutions but the one sided killing, no middle ground no reconciling your differences. Just death. Which I find to be shallow and the easy way out. For a developer that is touted for crafting complex stories they could not find another solution to the end of a main story arc than killing. There is never any room to even try to convince them otherwise.

You can't defend your own choices. Your party members disagree with your choice and it just ends there. You can't explain yourself to them trying to convince them that this is actually a good decision.

There are a ton a visual errors in the games. I've never seen so many animation bugs in a single game until I played DA1. I actually stopped playing the game started finding bugs, it is the only game to have been able to do that to me.

DA2 is heavily recycled. You play in a single city and the surrounding lands and underground. It is all very clear how they made several large dungeons and then sectioned them off to use for specific quests. You will see the same dungeons a lot even though you're in different areas.

DA2 made party customization nearly non-existent. You had no control over their equipment, only their skills/abilities and point allocation. So you could not tweak their armor. I think you still controlled their weapons, but that was it.

DA2 none of the romance options for characters were interesting. DA1 actually had some appealing characters to pursue.

If you want to be good in DA2, less so in DA1, you have to micro manage your party members quite a lot. The game would have been better as a turn based affair since you could not trust your AI to actually play well enough to survive. The amount of pausing I had to do for an "action game" was just not right.

DA2 definitely went more towards the flash rather than practical. Everything looks when it is being done in DA2, so they succeeded there, but it is all a fairly empty feeling. It doesn't have the right action RPG feel to be an action RPG, it fits better as a slower turned based affair with what it is trying to work with rather than being an action RPG.

It might be just me, but I honestly don't see an issue here. Yes, you do go through same path and you do reach the exact same point, but the journey itself is bit different for every player due to those decisions. I played this game at the same time my friend did, we had completely different experience, even the ending was different.

May they be an illusion those decisions still count for something and they do have impact to world of Origin, perhaps not to main story as much as we would like, but how many games do give you an option to kill or spare a measly NPC, or even your own recruit, a decision that may backfire on you later on depending on what you chose. The part with elf's and werewolf's for instance can be solved in several different ways and every path has it's own weight... even the small decisions have their own impact, refuse to save the blacksmiths daughter and you can find out later on that he hanged himself due to guilt and grief. Besides, I have yet to see an RPG game where your decisions truly affect and change your entire journey, they usually slap a different ending based on your actions but that's about it. Perhaps Witcher 2, but I have yet to play the game.

As for relationships, I agree with everything you said. I personally haven't noticed any bug's or glitches, then again I did play Origins one year after it's release with who knows how many patches in there.

As for Dragon Age II, everything both of us said can be summed in two simple words - It ****ing sucks! What angered me about this game the most is not the game itself, but the reviews. I still don't quite understand how sloppy and unfinished game such as Dragon Age II can get such high score, then again it might be the same case as with Final Fantasy X-2 and some other mega titles, as Angry Joe said it's all about the name.