7 réponses à ce sujet

[Kaylord]

I already did a "first five hours" review somewhere in the forum. There I had overall a good impression, but wouldn´t rank the game into my top five. Having now finished the game, I am partly very impressed, partly annoyed because of some basic inconsistencies.

First of, congratulations Bioware, this story has almost all the good elements which where missing in the first installment. No more hunting for preselected plot points (fetching armies), the story feels individual, well paced and also with some surprises. The final conflict was well foreshadowed without revealing too much about how it would finally play out. The Anders-climax was one hell of a surprise and represented Biowares concept of "dark fantasy" in a fantastic way. I also liked the very personalized center of the story around Hawke; with family and struggles of daily survival and daily morale always haunting. The rival system has much more flow and fleshes the characters out very nicely without resorting to too much stereotyping.

Second of, all the more because the basic concept is a gripping one, the inconsistencies disturb all the more. Here the biggest one; how can any mage in your party roam about so freely in Kirkwall? In BG2, when you did magic, you had the magic police coming and trying to arrest you. That was consistent, that was great. Here, everybody seems just to ignore that you or some of your comrades wield a magic staff and fires off magic attacks! Because of that, I cannot even tink about playing a Mage Hawk in this game. Bioware you essentially removed my favourite class from the game! Also quite some smaller gipes are there, one of the smalles may be that we have special skill trees like spirit healer, with no logical explanation anymore how you could ever learn these skills.

The gamemechanics are a mixed bag. The combat system has a good flow, but also some inconsistencies which feel like cheating. For example, the first big dragon in the bone pit, you can "tank" him by running in circles. How stupid is that, can a dragon not run much faster than a human? Also, the hit mechanics are so unremarkable that you hardly realize when someone gets hit; I keep staring intently at the health bars in order to see if somebody got hit. The flow has improved but I don´t like having to press pause every second. The tacics system still needs more options in order to prevent that, especially in huge group fights and of course, boss fights.

In the end, some things allowing personal taste have been entirely removed, which is sad. No races anymore. No choosing armor for your comrades. The inventory system; Bioware, oh Bioware, you never get it right, it is so sad that it is funny. Next time why not using Excel directly? The implementation of the first game´s background could have been a lot better. Maybe just a portrait of the hero of Ferelden could have done already a lot, and a cameo would have been fantastic!

As last remark, I return to some selected moments of the story. It is epic and it is emotionsl, even more so because Hawk is moreless an innocent bystander drawn into it, trying to do his/her best. My most moving scene - besides of the fantastiv dark helplessness in the final Anders-scene: The murder of Hawkes mother, I had to stop playing for an hour because I was so emotionally shocked. Well done, Bioware! Sadly, after recapitulating the story, I am annoyed about the forced ineviable moments. In DAO, my character was a mage, and as a boon, she requested the mage circle to be free of templar dictate. Nothing of this was mentioned or acknowledged. Also, an earlier opportunity to remove Meredith would probably have totally changed the ending; maybe the mages would have been less opressed, just to turn even faster to demon magic. Apparently the whole Kirkwall circle was infected by blood magic practice. That at least would explain why every attempt of the templars got so desparate in the end.

You see, the story makes me think about "what if", and that is a good sign, which tells me the story was good. So thank you Bioware for a good game, and I just wish you had polished it a little more to avoid said inconsistencies.
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[tanerb123]

How about recycled caves, dungeons etc..? I think this combined with the act 3 rushed storyline is the biggest problem rather than inventory system, gay comrades or race limitations.

[Kaylord]

The recycled caves were not so important to me. I cared more about what happens in those caves. :)What you mean by a rushed storyline, I meant with the aforementioned inconsistencies.

[Nukenin]

If a mage Hawke were not allowed to roam so freely in Kirkwall, then the mage Hawke players would have risen up in revolt. I mean, think about it—the bulk of their game would be spent on the run from templars, doing menial tasks in the Circle, or mindlessly minding (!) a shop in the Gallows. It'd be quite the whinge-fest on these forums, more so than what we have now.

[Arppis]

Nukenin wrote...

If a mage Hawke were not allowed to roam so freely in Kirkwall, then the mage Hawke players would have risen up in revolt. I mean, think about it—the bulk of their game would be spent on the run from templars, doing menial tasks in the Circle, or mindlessly minding (!) a shop in the Gallows. It'd be quite the whinge-fest on these forums, more so than what we have now.

Yeah, would have been hilarious to fight the templars all the time.

[Kaylord]

The easiest way would have been the BG2-solution; templar encounters after every fight which included magic in Kirkwall. And another ending option, of course. Like this, mage-Hawks are just inconsistent, sadly.

[Arppis]

Kaylord wrote...

The easiest way would have been the BG2-solution; templar encounters after every fight which included magic in Kirkwall. And another ending option, of course. Like this, mage-Hawks are just inconsistent, sadly.

Mages can't cast spells, eliminates point of mages. XD

[Nukenin]

Yeah, we already have enough whinging about mages being "underpowered" in DA2. No need to add more fuel to that fire.

The BG2 solution is a silly solution, since in BG2 you just tossed some coin to a shady government official and then—as if by magic!—the Cowled Wizards suddenly could care less about your wanton spell-flinging.

Having templar encounters "after every fight" would be the "bulk of their game would be spent on the run from templars" I mentioned above. You don't think the templars would just send one batch and be done until the next "public disturbance", do you?

Heck, "after every fight" would lead to a non-stop sprawling street brawl until every templar or Hawke and his companions were all dead or surrendered. You think the templars will call off the next batch of templars because Hawke and his companions managed to kill the most recent batch of templars with nary a spell cast?

Now if BioWare had taken a more realistic tack and delivered consequences for any street warfare in Kirkwall much less magic-abetted warfare, as well as an escape mechanic so one needn't genocide templars just because of one miscast spirit bolt, not to mention more discrete alternate mage weapons/focuses than bulky staves, and more flexible mage clothing options to the signature robes, then maybe there could've been some merit to having mage Hawke or Hawke's mage companions keep their finger-wagglin' on the down low when on the streets of Kirkwall.

But they'd still gripe that non-mage parties have it easier.