The annoying noob strikes back!

[Boeroer]

DA:O's skill system is not very deep, but the game itself is nice.

[FluxWing]

I have played and enjoyed both DA and PoE greatly. They are different story driven games for sure. PoE just doesn't have pure "voice over" quest presentation and NPCs on auto-pilot.

Obsidian can make those games too, look at the Kotor sequel, The Sith Lords. With all the "completion"-mods added it is really solid just like the first Kotor game by Bioware.

 

DA:O's quest system is what I remember the most. The way you could finish different quests in very different ways, even the ending. The demon corruption, elves and the werewolves, the golem forge and the dwarven kings, the last warrior recruit, Morrigan's late night proposal etc.

DA2, Gameplay-wise it was a weird fight waves on enemies with shallow skill-trees and flashy combo-chain auto-attacking. I have played Ninja Turtles games with my nephews with more depth and enjoyable skill-system than that. And the "mother" quest line is just so wrong.

DAI, it is a single-player MMORPG, or similar to Skyrim like somebody mentioned. The quests are laid out in the same fashion, to make you roam from area to area. And the maps are simply too large. I remember spending hours just exploring some maps while mounted, not really finding anything interesting. And you pick a lot of flowers...I kid you not, you will go around picking just tons of flowers, thinking you need them to craft potions and magic enhancements.

Story-wise DAI seemed like a big meh, main antatagonist comes from a DLC from DA2 and was never really part of the plot at all....which is although a huge step up after the traumatizingly bad ending of Mass Effect 3.

 

But PoE has some issues as well. I mean sometimes the high deflection of the spirit enemies in Act 1, along with the focus-fire drain spell from the Shades on your squishiest character is really aggravating. You have so few options to deal with this in the low levels. The regional vendors should really be given cold resist food and some drugs that increase your accuracy against spirits.

Or the hordes of the Laguafaeth Sidewinders backed up by the "Cleansing Flame"-cannons, or up-scaled Adragan deciding to cast Returning Storm, then follows up with Dominate and Petrify over and over.

I think these sort of encounters can chase of new players for sure, and it is annoying on Normal as well as PotD.

 

The Caed Nua side-quests have some interesting writing. The only disappointing part was not being able to manually resolve all those quests, but that would be enough material for at least an expansion I think.

 

 

I recently stumbled upon the Shadowrun games(SR: Returns, Dragonfall and Hong Kong), which was a nice surprise to me since I haven't heard of that series before. A small warning though, the vendors you meet sometimes have backstorys that rival the size of the main plot in terms of text. Less emphasis on the game-play and more on the story, even though there are quite a lot of options for character builds. And there is zero voice-acting.

 

I never got a chance to play through Neverwinter Nights, other than the first main quest. Anybody found the expansion and the sequel enjoyable?

[Climhazzard]

I never got a chance to play through Neverwinter Nights, other than the first main quest. Anybody found the expansion and the sequel enjoyable?

 

I remember playing and enjoying pretty much everything Neverwinter Nights (all sequels and expansions), but no part of the story in any of them was memorable enough for me to remember any details now despite having played them multiple times....   Same with Kotor.  I do remember parts of the Mass Effect storyline though.

 

Unlike say... BG2, who's antagonist will forever remain in my memory.  Even when I'm old and senile I'll still remember that SoB.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Climhazzard

[Raven Darkholme]

 

I never got a chance to play through Neverwinter Nights, other than the first main quest. Anybody found the expansion and the sequel enjoyable?

 

I remember playing and enjoying pretty much everything Neverwinter Nights (all sequels and expansions), but no part of the story in any of them was memorable enough for me to remember any details now despite having played them multiple times....   Same with Kotor.  I do remember parts of the Mass Effect storyline though.

 

Unlike say... BG2, who's antagonist will forever remain in my memory.  Even when I'm old and senile I'll still remember that SoB.

 

Yea Irenicus was just beyond any antagonist in any game I ever played.

Excellent voice over and character.