My Dragon Age mini-rewiew

[TheHarlequin]

Story:

 

I feel the world is interesting (though some aspects don't suit my taste but thats more preference then a ill against the writers) and clearly a lot of love went into the Dragon Age setting on the writting side of things. A lot of background was thought out in the end. However, In some cases too well thought out as seems forced to make it differenct for the sake of breaking fantasy tradition for just that fact. As a whole I commend the writting team and they deserve kudos.

 

I find all the mini-origin stories quite interesting and well thought out even if predictible. On a related note, I know David Gadier loves his foreshadowing in his writting but he really needs to use another writting hook to tell his stories. He had the same issue with BG2 in fact. But these are minor quips, again as awhole a well written CRPG. Certainly writting and background wise this will be the CRPG others going forward will be measured over the next few years.

 

I also will admit I am tossing my pride under the buss here. When I first heard of DA I thought it was going to be a fluff, candy coated story and setting and stated so in forums. I certainly stand corrected and eat my words on that level.

 

Score: 8/10

 

Sound:

 

The music is top notch, reminds me of a mix of Battlestar Galactica (reimaged series) and LotR series of movies, which isn't a bad goal to have at all.

 

The sound FX about the same level of quality as well as the voice acting. All very well done and directed, all those involved deserve a pat on the back.

 

Score: 9/10

 

Grahpics/FX:

 

The graphics is a mixed bag. On the one hand the avatar models and textures are top quality and animations are very, very smooth. The faces look almost photo realisic on max settings. The options to customize your PC's face are Sims 3 quality of tools. Very robust and offer many options and choices. You can make your PC look pretty much how ever you'd like.

 

But then you get the the enviroment, even on max setting many of the textures of rocks, fences, grass and other parts of the envoriment look pixilated, blurry and low res. Or as if the texture was streched over a object far to large for it to handle. This really distracts from the other gorgeous aspects of the game. The FX effects and charactor models for example.

 

Sadly the enviromental textures really hurts the overall score. If this was a score if just the PC/NPC models it would be much higher. But as a whole it simply looks like a Divinci statue on display in a back alleyway somewhere. As the texture problem simply sticks out like a sore thumb everytime one shows up.

 

Score 6.5/10

 

Combat:

 

Out of all the things I thought I would gripe about the most this wasn't it. Frankly I am shocked to be honest. Playing on normal the battles start to get silly the deeper you get into the game. 2:1 and 3:1 odds seem to be the way the devs decided to handle the difficulty. Who needs smart AI when every other battle is just a small army to fight though. And to stay alive it a fustrating exersize in micro managing you party. The devs said they wanted a 'tactical' aspect to combat and thats fine. I don't mind that, but the amount you have to pause and issue ordered they should have just made thus turn based, as most folks will have to pause it about that frequently anyways, every combat turn.

 

All party members AI has limited slots of what to do which you can edit. For example, If situation x happens then do action y. Starting out most characters only have 3 or 4 to start. You get more by either burning skill points into tactics or get some by default as you get to certain levels. But after you tell a NPC to drink a health pot, and use its 2 special abilities on the nearest enemy NPC you have really no slots to so anything really interesting. The NPCs unless you program it don't seem to use their special abilities without beingprogrammed to do so by you. So in effect if you run out of slots and have more special abilities you in effect have to keep jumping from character to character and micro managing everyone in the tough battles (which are about 50% of them). While on paper it sounds good they seem to take this concept way to far. I agree I don't want just a point and click fight but neither did I sign up for a nearly turned based style of play forced in real time either. If you are going down that road then use a Fallout2 type of action points in combat. At least then I can manage everyone, in turn, comfortably.

 

Its as if the combat system does not know what it wants to be, either a turn based system or a real time system. They seemed however to shoe horn both in and they do not play well together in my view. Either let me play real time where I dont have to micro manage every 4 party member 20 times each per battle or make it real turn based.

 

While when its 1:1 and I can macro manage, not micro due to the crippled AI, its a very fun game. But the 2:1 and 3:1 groups you encounter frequently simply take the fun out of for me. Note I do not mind some level of micro managing but the levels you have to do with this game is simply a time waster and seemly designed to up your playtime vs. real content.

 

Score: 5/10

 

My thoughts, feedback welcome.

[kirottu]

I want to start my own Dragon Age thread too. All the cool kids are doing it.

[Slowtrain]

I want to start my own Dragon Age thread too. All the cool kids are doing it.

 

 

I'm not. But then again I'm not cool either.

 

 

I also don't have the game.

 

 

I'm enjoying reading all the threads though.

[Purkake]

You're not hardcore enough.

 

 

You kids have gone soft with all the recent games. Your old BG2 playing self would shake his head over your incompetence.

Edited November 7, 2009 by Purkake

[TheHarlequin]

Now the children had their... 'say'.. any adults care to engage in a fruitful disucssion?

[Monte Carlo]

^ Although I couldn't disagree with you more regarding combat in this game, I take your point. The new patch makes it a smidge easier on normal, much easier on easy.

 

Think about it - in so many games over the past 10 years grinding and speed-bump combat encounters have been screensavers. You could go and make a cup of tea, chat with the postman, answer the phone. Come back and your party is standing there surrounded by corpses.

 

Now those same encounters in DA are difficult and the learning curve for atrophied combatants (i.e. most of us) is steep. DA combat hinges on (1) having a melee meatshield, with stacks of armour, to draw the majority of the bad guys (hell there are even skills that allow you to play duty target for the rest of your party), (2) another melee dude to dish out more punishment, a spellcaster for riot control / healing and either (a) another tank or (b) another healer or © just the dog for chrissakes, he's excellent dump all his stats in STR and watch him charge people.

 

Tactics also involves a fair bit of kiting and, yes, running away.

 

And it does take a while to get back into it, personally kudos to Bio for risking it. Given you like so much else about DA why not just turn the game difficulty down to Casual for the grinding / speedbump encounters and then whack it back up when you start finding it too easy. It's your game, why not?

 

Look at it from my POV: I love the combat to bits but find the dialogue and cutscenes really, really painful. You've done better out of this game than me

 

Cheers

MC

[Purkake]

Now the children had their... 'say'.. any adults care to engage in a fruitful disucssion?

 

Have you tried the "easy" option? If you really care that much you could just use a trainer or level up with the developer console.

 

I'm not really seeing the problem here. Is it really harder than BG2, think about that for a moment.

 

Making an easy game harder is MUCH more difficult than making a hard game easier.

Edited November 7, 2009 by Purkake

[Volourn]

I just don't get gamers. Okay, i do. They lvoe to complain. For years, people complained that BIO games were 'too easy'; now the complaint is it's 'too hard'.

 

DA combat knows exactly what it wants to be. It's real time with pause. Exactly like NWN and BG. The only real difference that is instead of a round being 6 seconds, it goes more by cooldowns and the like.

 

DA combat can be challenging at times, but that's a GOOD thing.

 

I kinda agree about the graphics, though. They're alright, but nothing special. JE, and ME both absolutely crush it.

 

 

 

 

" I know David Gadier loves his foreshadowing in his writting but he really needs to use another writting hook to tell his stories. He had the same issue with BG2 in fact. "

 

Are you sure Gaider was the lead writer of BG2? Or any other BIO game. People seem to blame him for all of BIO's writing.

 

 

""Is it really harder than BG2, think about that for a moment. "

 

In some ways, yes. I really wish I could play the PC version of DA as I bet it's easier than the console version thanks to the iso view.

 

I REALLY WANT ISO VIEW.

Edited November 7, 2009 by Volourn

[Aristes]

There really is a DA thread creation mania, not that I really care. Just an observation.

 

I actually like the graphics. On the other hand, I would generally not give out a score for graphics. As long as they reach a certain standard, I don't think about them much. Only really terrible or really great graphics warrant a lot of attention. Most of the time I don't think of the graphics in DA, which I take as a good sign. They're pretty enough overall that I'm happy.

[Volourn]

It's a new game. A new game that many Obsidian forumites were looking forward to - to praise or bash - so not surprisnjg tons of threads about it. I plan to make one eventually to that will inbclude TONS OF SPOILERS because I'me vil that way. But, I'm also GOOD so I'll warn people first. L0L

[Slowtrain]

Now the children had their... 'say'.. any adults care to engage in a fruitful disucssion?

 

 

I just want to clarify that I wasn't in any way meaning to demean your post and thread. rather it was just the opposite: to say that I enjoyed reading it. But I recognize that the clarity of my post was probably lacking.

 

Thank you for posting your DA mini review. I hope more people post their own as well.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I really, really can't wait until Lord of Flies' review.

[Tigranes]

For years, people complained that BIO games were 'too easy'; now the complaint is it's 'too hard'.

 

Maybe because it was too easy, and now it is too hard? Because the people complaining 'too easy' and 'too hard' are different? I know, it shatters the mind to think.

 

I'm immensely enjoying the combat on Hard and have had a few party wipes, but that is not frustrating at all because the difference you can make by adjusting your tactics or being more careful is very palpable. It teaches you to be a bit more careful and take each battle seriously, which means the content is fun rather than pointless filler. Similar tactics tend to work for similar types of enemies but the terrain and elite/boss units are thrown in to keep it a bit different, and you never have to go through more than 3 or 4 'mobs' before you get to a different place, story point or whatever.

 

I did have to tone down to Normal for the final portion of the Redcliffe defence, but I suspect that was because I went there before anywhere else.

[alanschu]

but that is not frustrating at all because the difference you can make by adjusting your tactics or being more careful is very palpable.

 

But I have been assured by some that the game plays itself

[TheHarlequin]

> Think about it - in so many games over the past 10 years grinding and speed-bump combat encounters have been screensavers. You could go and make a cup of tea, chat with the postman, answer the phone. Come back and your party is standing there surrounded by corpses.

 

My issue is I simply want the NPCs to use their abilities without me telling them to. The limited number of tactic slots make it pretty much required to hand touch every party mamber a dozen times each per fight. Thats just a artifical time sink IMO. I want to control my main guy and be jump a FEW times to the othesr to do something. But this isn't 'tactical' its hand holding and its just annoying. Again if this is what they wanted then make it turn based. I see no reason to make it real time if they designed it where on normal difficulty or harder you need to pause about that much anyways as a turned based game like FO 1&2.

 

> Now those same encounters in DA are difficult and the learning curve for atrophied combatants (i.e. most of us) is steep. DA combat hinges on (1) having a melee meatshield, with stacks of armour, to draw the majority of the bad guys (hell there are even skills that allow you to play duty target for the rest of your party), (2) another melee dude to dish out more punishment, a spellcaster for riot control / healing and either (a) another tank or (b) another healer or

[alanschu]

The limited number of tactic slots make it pretty much required to hand touch every party mamber a dozen times each per fight.

 

I don't think it was a very good decision to have it be this way, but toss skill points into combat tactics for the NPCs. I'd argue it's more valuable than most of the other skills, and you'll still have enough left over that you can still invest in other trees.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

I agree that the combat's "tactical" aspect is overrated. It seems deep at first glance, until you realize the downright silly approaches that can be extremely effective.

 

First of all, once I surmounted the difficulty curve, most battles became a screen saver (on normal) anyway despite the annoying enemy level scaling. It wasn't a matter of me changing how I played, I just got powerful items and abilities to combat large numbers of enemies. Those battles that weren't auto-won were generally solved by adding item buffs and being more careful to heal anybody who was low. I was using three front-liners and a support mage most of the time, so it's not like my party was all that balanced.

 

Second, having a tank sustain damage while everybody else attacks and the mage auto-heals isn't all that involved a process. Microing a character pretty much amounts to spamming offensive abilities until you run out of stamina or need defensive abilities.

 

In most cases, simply luring part of an enemy force would allow pretty much any party to succeed. Any battle that I lost rushing in was usually solved in this amazingly unrealistic manner.

 

There are also people who have supposedly dominated the game with a party of mages in a way a balanced party couldn't hope to achieve.

 

There's relatively little significance of terrain or environment, with the AI magically slipping past you if you attempt to block a chokepoint and most battlefields amounting to large open areas anyway. Enemy traps are seldom your doom, and most pre-battle preparation is impossible in the toughest fights, which tend to be foisted upon you via cutscene.

 

Combat movement is goofy. Aside from the aforementioned inability to block, it's also impossible for melee characters (friend or foe) to catch up to a running enemy, and unlikely that they will stop them in their tracks. In most cases, I could just run up to an enemy caster and kill him, which was necessary since they're usually the most dangerous enemies by far. In the endgame, entire squads of enemies just ran past my tanks and I had to chase them until they reached their scripted destination. Could be circumvented with ranged stun abilties, but that would be to limit annoyance rather than gain a combat advantage. Characters are also sometimes indecisive about actually attacking.

 

Basically, repeating certain simple tactics rote is usually more effective than being balanced and adaptable, which in my book fails the definition of a good tactical combat experience. IMO, the view that the game provides a deep tactical challenge can only really come from three things:

 

1) A fairly modest expectation of tactical depth in RPGs.

 

2) The discovery of one of various simple exploits that make the combat easy and repetitive, recycled in most battles and followed by forum assertions of "you have to use good tactics" to surmount the difficulty.

 

3) Coming up with sophisticated tactics that don't fall under 2 yet still make the combat manageable. These people are in essence creating their own challenge, which is fine for them but it doesn't make the game deep. Just because elaborate plans can work doesn't mean they are necessary or the best solution.

[alanschu]

First of all, once I surmounted the difficulty curve, most battles became a screen saver (on normal) anyway despite the annoying enemy level scaling. It wasn't a matter of me changing how I played, I just got powerful items and abilities to combat large numbers of enemies. Those battles that weren't auto-won were generally solved by adding item buffs and being more careful to heal anybody who was low. I was using three front-liners and a support mage most of the time, so it's not like my party was all that balanced.

 

As I thought about it, I realized you pretty much described Jagged Alliance 2, XCOM, and a lot of other "tactical combat games." Scaling enemy levels and all.

 

Though, given the non-linear nature of how you can proceed through open world plots, would you rather the enemies not be scaled to your level? Essentially, this would mean that all but one open world area (the first one you go to) would become even easier given that your character would continue to rise in level. Unless you would have preferred a more linear approach to the story like in Baldur's Gate. Though your description of the combat most definitely reminds me of Baldur's Gate, which could be why a lot of the people seem to like it.

 

 

 

Not surprisingly, you found a way to game the system. Despite it taking the fun away from the game for you, you continued to do it, so I would guess you're probably a min/maxer that did it to continue along with the story. However, did you not find ways to game the system in Baldur's Gate? What games out there actually give you combat that you enjoy, for reference sake?

[Monte Carlo]

Sure, every game has unintended tactics that = win button.

 

BG1 - archery, cloudkill cheeze, backstab

 

BG2 - sequencers, horrid wilting cheeze

 

And so on.

 

FWIW, I'm pleasantly surprised by the combat, I'm just not sure that the skill trees are particularly intuitive. This game would have rocked if on day one the design team had envisaged a game without classes and let me make a warrior with a bit of stealth and a couple of spells.

[Volourn]

"like to story as a whole... the Klingons... er.. 'dwarves' is a bit annoying and so transparent what they based them on *cough*todaysagooddaytodie*cough* but as a whole I like most of the world they designed. Sorry to hear you don't like the voice acting/story. "

 

L0LZ If anything, klingons are the rip off.

 

As for people complaining about the 'AI tatics'. *shrug* This game is supposed to be like BG2 suppsoedly so why use them at all? Just shut off the IA, and control all 4 npcs as it should be.

 

 

DA combat , and character is deeper, more tatical, and more complex than BG series could ever hope to be.

[Niten_Ryu]

I don't really care about money or loot in Dragon Age but on certain places inventory do fill up rather fast. If you dont' happen to have PC version and want to keep your items, Bioware included store items option on Wardens Keep DLC. You know that same one that NPC tries to push on your normal camp. Too many items? Pay up sucker

 

My NPCs just have to learn to live without gifts

[Monte Carlo]

Yeah the inventory is a pain if you're a bit of a packrat.

 

The only way to deal with it is to be brutal, I sell everything at the moment, and TBH it's not like you can make lots of money (and I'm level , all my cash goes on healing poultices and injury kits. I can only gaze longingly at all the Gucci armour and kit I'll never be able to afford ::sniff::

 

*** SOLDIER'S PEAK TEENSY SPOILER ***

 

After my, ahem, issues with a certain creature in the werewolf ruins I thought I'd go to Soldier's Peak to toughen up a bit and see if there was any lewt to be had. It's rather good, I'm getting a Where Eagles Dare vibe with nazis replaced by undead and a pinch of Durlag's Tower. It's worth the four quid I paid for it.

 

Cheers

MC

[TheHarlequin]

"like to story as a whole... the Klingons... er.. 'dwarves' is a bit annoying and so transparent what they based them on *cough*todaysagooddaytodie*cough* but as a whole I like most of the world they designed. Sorry to hear you don't like the voice acting/story. "

 

L0LZ If anything, klingons are the rip off.

 

As for people complaining about the 'AI tatics'. *shrug* This game is supposed to be like BG2 suppsoedly so why use them at all? Just shut off the IA, and control all 4 npcs as it should be.

 

 

DA combat , and character is deeper, more tatical, and more complex than BG series could ever hope to be.

 

> L0LZ If anything, klingons are the rip off.

 

You really should know your facts before you go into your default 'bioware can do no wrong' mode. You really sound totally ignorant when you say something like this.

Call me timeline challenged but... I am pretty sure when Ron Moore wrote in depth how the klingon society works for ST:TNG in the early 90s that predates DA by almost 20 years. Just saying. Read the ST lore of klingons then read the DA dwarfs... pretty much a carbon copy minus the race hight and starships.

 

You are missing the point (as usuall with your self imposed tunnel vision of ones comments). Some of us either want MORE tactic slots so you DON'T have to micromanage every 5 sec every PC or make the NPC AI worth a damn and at least use their special abilities on their own. Bioware in effect, by design, FORCES players to micromanage. Thats the issue and point of contention. Some of us use want to macro manage the party, not micro.

[Oner]

The last 1 hour of combat (AI) was so pathetic, I'm left speechless.

[Volourn]

"You really should know your facts before you go into your default 'bioware can do no wrong' mode. You really sound totally ignorant when you say something like this.

Call me timeline challenged but... I am pretty sure when Ron Moore wrote in depth how the klingon society works for ST:TNG in the early 90s that predates DA by almost 20 years. Just saying. Read the ST lore of klingons then read the DA dwarfs... pretty much a carbon copy minus the race hight and starships."

 

And, DA's dwarves (and klingons) ar e'rip offs of other races includingversions of fantasy dwarves. there is NOTHJING original about klingons 9I still love them, thoguh). to claim that DA dwarves are ripped off from klingons is nonsense. If anything DA dwarves are basically your typical fantasy dwarf with harsh politics. Not original, and not based off klingons.

 

And, the one with tunnel vision here is you since your way is the 'right' way.

 

 

"Bioware in effect, by design, FORCES players to micromanage. Thats the issue and point of contention. Some of us use want to macro manage the party, not micro. "

 

Tough. DA is supposed to be 'spirtual successor' to BG2 which was all about micromanaging your party. And, just like DA, it gave a limited way of aiding the AI but ultimiately micromanaging is always the better option. And, it always will be.

Edited November 8, 2009 by Volourn