hotapplepie wrote...
These are the thoughts I reached during 2 playthroughs of the demo (male warrior, female mage).
- Text size/formatting too small for an SDTV 4:3 ratio. Seriously, It's next to impossible to see, I have to squint. Perhaps a text formatting option can be added to the menus on a future update? This is a HUGE barrier for me as I really cannot see myself reading any codex entries with this tiny text sizing. I suppose I will have to hook the damn 360 up to my 22 inch monitor.
- When playing through the demo w/ a warrior class, having myself, my brother and Aveline fighting at the same time, if we are positioned correctly, quite literraly 3/4 of the screen (4:3 SDTV) is being taken up by wildly flailing super human sized swords and their speed blur lines trailing behind them. I find this to be hugely visually distracting.
- Where is my "auto attack" option I was promised? Though I'm playing on the 360, I prefer to use the pause/choose attack method of combat for each of my characters (read: no setting tactics, I control all combat actions), and in the interim I'd like for my character to auto attack. Again, I ask how realistic is it that in the middle of a battle, when out of stamina to do anything particularly incredible (it specialty moves), who would
just stand there simply waiting to be hit? Continuing to do a basic attack should be AUTOMATIC!
- Mashing A... really? Who thinks this is fun? Continuously pressing the A button while waiting
for cool downs to end is not a particularly compelling game mechanic.
- Where is my auto target next? When I resign myself to mashing A as the game demands of me and suddenly I am faced with a situation where the enemy Hawke is attacking dies, why doesn't Hawke turn around and continue fighting???? Why am I forced to use the thumbstick to cause to happen what should happen naturally to the character in the context of the situation? Don't get me wrong, I don't want the game to play itself for me but if my attention has waned from the monotony of mashing the A button, the game could at least do me the surface of moving towards the next enemy (as the original DAO did). Sure... it was clumsy and stupid how long it took for my DAO character to close the distance... but at least it made sense!
- The game asks a lot of the player as far as "emotionally buying in" goes. When Carver or Bethany dies, I suppose I am supposed to care right? The Melodrama seems pretty forced upon the player as they have literraly JUST picked up the controller. Considering I am not playing MY character but playing "HAWKE" who is bioware's character, perhaps they should have built up to the drama a little more rather than expecting me to care that the "red shirt" dies. So what if they label him as my "brother".
I have no experience of him as my brother. It would have been more dramatic to not experience the death in the game but have a brief but poigniant sense of mourning portrayed through a flash back cut scene later in the game. They should have simply aluded to the recent death of my brother or sister early in the game.
See, because this is not my character I don't have the same level of emotional investment. I honestly cared more about the death of Aveline's husband than of hawke's (ie: "my") brother.
-No Choice. When you first encounter Varic, the scene jumps are both disorienting and allow for no choice whatsoever as to whether you want anything to do with this guy. No dialogue options are presented... I mean, Varic and Isabella are just IMPOSED on you rather than you deciding to allow them to join you. The game suddenly decides FOR YOU that "you" (ie: Hawke) are going to backup a lady you met only hours earlier in a bar brawl in an alley fight the same night???
You just decide to bring along to this alley fight a dude you met only hours earlier whom you do not know and owes you no loyalty? This series of events make NO SENSE and does not even try to explain itself. It's a situation where the devs have decided, we've created these characters and think they are important or cool so YOU WILL PLAY WITH THEM! Role Playing be damned!
I mean, they don't even let you talk to isabella before you play through the "save isabella's ass" quest. Then DURING said quest, you have no dialogue options but to defend this character that bioware has saddled you with. Then, to further progress this series of events over which I have no input, this character I've been saddled with decides "there is no understanding that can be reached" even though I CHOSE a dialogue path wherein I inidicate I want to be diplomatic (ie: try to work things out). She then proceeds to initiate a fight in which I MUST defend her???
With the above in mind, (ie: the careless disregard for the players experience of the game as a ROLE PLAYING GAME) and the paraphrased dialogue wheel system where, I am sorry... but what hawk says is not what I expect
or could be reasonably inferred by the paraphrase it is clear that this is Dragon effect as many had feared... They are attempting to make a compelling playable movie experience (ie: you sit and watch) rather than a role playing game. I do not think (despite the stats and combat system) this can be properly referred to as a role playing game when so many choices as to who you are (ie: your role, your character) are restricted or predetermined.
Verdict: Dragon Effect will likely sell a million copies to movie goers! Expect Dragon Effect 3: Redragonfied in Q1 2012!
I find it ironic that you complain about a lack of emotional investment on the one hand, but attack the cinematic presentation on the other. A voiced protagonist with facial expressions is much more emotionally engaging than a deadpan, mute character, even IF you got to create them.
Also the Warden was just as much "bioware's character" as Hawke is...the only difference is you don't get to choose one of six origins and one of three races. You still get to customize the look, personality and choices of the character...and if you don't consider that role-playing, AND you don't consider the level-up/skills/combat mechanics role-playing, then what IS? O.o
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