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(BTW spoilers and such follow, etc)
So I just finished playing Dragon Age. Wow. What a freaking incredible game. I don't think I've ever played an RPG game before where I *actually* really cared about the characters. I could actually get into the story; actually care about the fate of this imaginary world and its denizens. That's never happened for me before, lol. Awesome game.
Zomg. I just finished up like 20 minutes ago and I'm still glowing from the finale. I remember starting the game and seeing that there was an option for romance and laughing at the idea. For the pre-teen boys who want to have their character bang Morrigan I'd assume. A silly selling point. I was here to play another diablo-ish game where I leveled up, got gear, crunched numbers, and asploded bad guys with magic and swords and such. How wrong I was.
Only a few hours into the game, and Alistair's adorably cute and awkward goofy self had me charmed. Pretty soon I was running all over Ferelden looking for an artifact of Duncan's so I could give it to Alistair in hopes that he'd like me more. I have NEVER actually gotten attached to a video game character before! I felt so ridiculous, but there I was squee-ing when he first asked my character to "share a tent" for the night, ^.^;
...
DON'T JUDGE ME! SHUTUP I HATE YOU!!!!!
And the other characters! How I actually hated some of them! I was all too happy to let Alistair decapitate Loghaine for his crimes, regardless of the queen's pleading. And I was so tempted to tell Morrigan off for being such an evil shit of a person, but I had a feeling that keeping her around would prove necessary at the end.
Maybe I'm just a sucker for sappy fantasy stories, but I adored this game. While I initially thought I would want to play through it again to see different plot lines, now I'm not so sure. I've grown attached to the characters in a lot of ways. Starting over and having things be different would be... wrong. It would feel so weird if I did things differently enough to drastically change the ending. I don't think I'd like that. Obviously it would have been nice if I'd just picked a damned human character so I could have been Alistair's queen, but w/e, we'll be happy rebuilding the Wardens and all that jazz. Yay.
-.-;;; .... shut up. don't judge me! *hides*
Anyway, the game is far from perfect as a strategy/action game goes. Even on hard mode it's still a bit easy towards the end once Alistair gets some decent gear. Sure friendly fire is a major PITA as a mage, but honestly you can drop as many AoE spells right on top of him and he'll be fine. A lot of the fights were pretty similar. Set up everyone in position -> put a trap at a doorway -> blizzard the door -> tempest the door -> inferno the door -> fireball the door -> clean up anything that somehow survived.
Anyway, not the best game for action/adventure, but an amazing storyline and a wonderful world. Like I said, I've never really gotten into the story of a game like that before ever. The last act was just plain epic! ^.^
Just had to gush, don't mind me o.o;
  
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
Are you playing this on PC or console? Babo and i found it to be ridiculously hard on PC and constantly got wiped...
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I have a couple friends that are playing this game like crazy right now too. I'm guessing from your post that you would recommend it?
About how long would you say it took you to finish the game? Just curious because I have finals soon...
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Yeah this game is pretty damn awesome and Alistair probably is the most amiable character in the game. Although, most of the other characters are memorable in their own ways. I can see how people won't really get into this game though. Like my bro hated KOTOR because of the combat, but I loved that game, so I can see how he would dislike Dragon Age as well.
Oh and to titus, it took me about 30 hours just doing the main quest and a few sidequests here and there. I'm starting over again to do the rest of the sidequests, which could take a considerable longer amount of time.
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I just got this and am about to install it. Should I be excited? I most likely will, seeing how you described your experience with the game. Thanks a lot! I am looking forward to having a lot of fun.  I usually don't play much RPG's, but I hope Dragon Age won't disappoint me.
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51287 Posts
you'll waste a lot of your time on it thats for sure
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On November 16 2009 16:04 djcube wrote:
Yeah this game is pretty damn awesome and Alistair probably is the most amiable character in the game. Although, most of the other characters are memorable in their own ways. I can see how people won't really get into this game though. Like my bro hated KOTOR because of the combat, but I loved that game, so I can see how he would dislike Dragon Age as well.
Oh and to titus, it took me about 30 hours just doing the main quest and a few sidequests here and there. I'm starting over again to do the rest of the sidequests, which could take a considerable longer amount of time.
I hated KOTOR because of the combat but loved the story so I played through the whole thing.
Which is a fairly typical experience I have playing through games like this.
I didn't have any problems with the combat in Mass Effect for some reason though and I've played that more recently than KOTOR so go figure.
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United States47024 Posts
On November 16 2009 15:30 Haemonculus wrote:
So I just finished playing Dragon Age. Wow. What a freaking incredible game. I don't think I've ever played an RPG game before where I *actually* really cared about the characters. I could actually get into the story; actually care about the fate of this imaginary world and its denizens. That's never happened for me before, lol. Awesome game.
Boblion and I could probably gush about a bunch of RPGs deeper in this regard. But that's another discussion for someone else's blog. 
On November 16 2009 15:30 Haemonculus wrote:
Anyway, not the best game for action/adventure, but an amazing storyline and a wonderful world. Like I said, I've never really gotten into the story of a game like that before ever. The last act was just plain epic! ^.^
Just had to gush, don't mind me o.o;
Dragon Age is an odd thing. As I was discussing with someone somewhere else, it's very easy to find flaws with Dragon Age. The story is generic. The characters have a few moments of cringe-worthy dialogue. The combat system is flawed in a few parts and difficulty is inconsistent. The game gives you too many potions and not enough gold. There always feels like there's choices and consequences when combat looks like it's going dry and an amazing combat encounter just when the story and fetch-quests start to feel bland. On paper, it sounds like it should be a mediocre game, but the way the whole comes together is much more than the sum of its parts.
Waiting for someone to start making some epic modules for this thing.
On November 16 2009 15:45 Kennigit wrote:
Are you playing this on PC or console? Babo and i found it to be ridiculously hard on PC and constantly got wiped...
From some inspection, difficulty seems to vary greatly with regard to your character, party, and the order you do the main locations. As I linked to in the Dragon Age thread, the game sets the minimum levels of areas such that it expects you to do things in the order Mages->Redcliffe->Elves->Dwarves->Denerim. Having played around with an old save, I found things SIGNIFICANTLY easier in this order than the order I did it in my original playthrough.
On November 16 2009 16:13 LuckyFool wrote:
I didn't have any problems with the combat in Mass Effect for some reason though and I've played that more recently than KOTOR so go figure.
Mass Effect's combat IMO was more or less appealing depending on your play-style. Despite the RPG norms of "magical powers", biotics in Mass Effect are woefully underdeveloped as an idea, which meant that players with less of a penchant for the shooter-style combat could be disappointed very quickly.
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Yeah I finished it 2 days ago, I thought it was very good, like really up there with the really good RPG's on how much I enjoyed it.
I also found the difficulty variable, also because I probably went to the areas in the "incorrect" order =P. Still, was fun, even though on normal the last boss was piss easy compared to me being underleveled on a lot of the other encounters in the game.
I do think I'll play through it again though, like now I need to play the rest of the origin stories & then probably decide on what char to make next time. (this will probably be a mage anyway since mages are like, good.)
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Kind of the same feelings.
I found the people's reactions in the world quite implausible. I mean, with the blight coming and all, you'd think people understood the importance of fighting together, but no, each side (humans, dwarves, elves, gee how original btw) has their petty bullshit that makes me basically go through a standard 3 level dungeon/temple/ruins and massacre everything inside, get the w/e quest item, go back to the main guy of the race, give him the itam, slap his face around just so he can send me ZOMG 50 WHOLE TROOPS to fight the final battle. What a bunch of dicks.
The blight, as a main quest is actually far more terrible than anything else you'll encounter in the game, except maybe for the quests where you have to bring 15 items X (rat tails? don't remember/care). HOLY SHIT DUDE THE FUCKING BLIGHT IS COMING AND YOU WANT FUCKING RAT TAILS/MANA POTIONS/UNDEAD TESTICLES? By the way, this isn't the first blight and it isn't the last. This makes it even more generic and mundane. I mean, for dragon age 2, we will probably have to fight THE NEXT BLIGHT.
The game had a ridiculous amount of unnecessary fights that got tedious to the extreme. There is auto leveling, which makes item management and pimping out characters a waste of your time and effort. Especially considering the last fight can be won almost without your participation.
Most of the player characters are actually pretty predictable in what they say, but the writing is decent, so it's tolerable.
All in all, rants aside, the game doesn't come close to the Baldur's Gate series, and it really doesn't feel like "spiritual successor" of anything to me. Didn't really feel like my choices affected anything in the game, except for the type of soldiers I got during the final battle. Gee, thanks. I guess.
The one thing I liked though, was the Fade world in the mage's tower. That had a BG-ish feel to it. Was probably the only original/fresh idea in the entire goddamn game.
Won't be replaying the game.
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Didn't read the whole OP cause you mentioned spoilers, but just enough to see you gave it rave reviews. I've been looking forward to playing this so much, I'm so glad it's good! Thanks!
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Survived the harrowing and escorted Duncan to his quarters, then I got bored.
???
Maybe RPG just isn't my thing.
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On November 16 2009 15:45 Kennigit wrote:
Are you playing this on PC or console? Babo and i found it to be ridiculously hard on PC and constantly got wiped...
no wonder. i'm only playing normal mode but i'm still dying a lot more than I should be for normal mode.
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
yeah i get raped on the pc version. took me 43 hours or so to finish the game. you know what's bullshit? morrigan was absolutely in love with me (100 approval) and just fucking leaves at the end, no matter what dialogue tree you take. what the FUCK?!?! do you know how much i spent on buying gifts for that bitch? leleina on the other hand is a nice girl who knows how to reciprocate, what a sweetie
if you play as a girl, do you 100% die (or lose alastair) killing the archdemon? morrigan wouldn't be able to offer you her dark, dark ritual... basically i was an overall moral arcane warrior mage but there's no way i'm going to die after going through all this shit for the country
overall kinda fun, but gets really repetitive. need some sort of town portal or rollerblades and skateboards to get around faster around the dungeons
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United States47024 Posts
On November 16 2009 18:56 intrigue wrote:
if you play as a girl, do you 100% die (or lose alastair) killing the archdemon? morrigan wouldn't be able to offer you her dark, dark ritual... basically i was an overall moral arcane warrior mage but there's no way i'm going to die after going through all this shit for the country
+ Show Spoiler +She offers her "ritual" to Alistair, while you watch. Pretty awkward, IMO.
On November 16 2009 18:56 intrigue wrote:
overall kinda fun, but gets really repetitive. need some sort of town portal or rollerblades and skateboards to get around faster around the dungeons
Get Wynne to learn Haste (since she starts with 2-3 spells in the track anyway). Set the AI to activate it outside of combat, and deactivate on enemy sighted. Problem solved.
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
i had haste, i would refuse to ever turn it off even in battles because i am terribly add after playing starcraft. it's just not enough, for example in the ashes quest you still have to walk through three entirely separate load maps to get back to town at one point
oh and ps cone of cold is the #1 spell in the galaxy, it was responsible for 100% of boss faces trounced
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I found the game reasonably challenging but never cheap, and the monsters seem to scale with you in this game.
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Damn i really need to play this one to either rant or praise :D
Back in January !
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On November 16 2009 15:45 Kennigit wrote:
Are you playing this on PC or console? Babo and i found it to be ridiculously hard on PC and constantly got wiped...
I don't know. I'm getting destroyed trying to run a solo rogue. Everything hits me on Nightmare difficulty! :"(
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Yah I was playing on PC. My computer can't *really* handle it perfectly, but oh wells.
Hahaha, yes the story is a bit generic, but I still loved it regardless. Looking over it now my OP seems kinda silly. But I had just finished the game last night and was still kinda glowy from it and needed to gush, lol.
Anyway, I highly recommend it, but yes there are areas that will get frustrating! Honestly I started playing on hard mode and about halfway through switched to normal because I was really playing for the characters/story at that point. o.O
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