Blood Magic and Hawke's attitude.
My biggest irritation throughout the entire game was Hawke's apparent attitude toward blood mages/blood magic. This is coming from a Mage Hawke who is, herself, a blood mage. Most of my 'investigate' options when dealing with apostates or blood mages have Hawke behaving as though she believes blood magic to be a bad thing in itself, not just the ends to which people put it to. Most of my options to admonish people who are doing bad things with magic come down to 'blood magic is bad, 'kay?' instead of actually addressing the issue of what they did.
I also didn't run across a single dialogue option where Hawke directly supports the use of blood magic, even being one herself. If the character is meant to see blood magic as inherently wrong, why are we given the option to choose blood magic as a specialization? Either she should have the option to take a more neutral stance, seeing it as nothing more than a dangerous tool, or she shouldn't have the option to be a blood mage.
Idunna was one of the the earliest real signs of this. My only choices were kill her or turn her over to the templars, and no matter what, my dialogue seemed to contain some 'evil blood magic' connotations. Story-wise, I see no reason Hawke couldn't have let her go and have her vanish forever, maybe getting a letter from her later.
Carver and Bethany.
The next thing is, I recall reading somewhere that one of the writers was quoted as saying that it wouldn't make sense to have two Hawke mages. I, however, never encountered a moment throughout the game where it would have seemed strange to the story to have had Bethany survive instead of Carver.
The other way around, I do see the problem - if Hawke isn't a mage, then she really needs a mage sister in order to keep certain tensions and plots present in Act I. But Carver never seems particularly relevant - there was that rivalry thing going on between Mage Hawke and Carver, but it really seemed to peter out to nothing in the end. I didn't take Carver with me to the Deep Roads, so he became a Templar, and then I didn't hear from him again 'til the end of the game, where he interjected in like four dialogues.
This is really a minor gripe, but I feel like it would have been interesting to have some interaction between Hawke and Bethany when they're both mages, because there doesn't seem to be any reason not to. Maybe long-term in the overall story something will come up and prove me wrong, where there is good reason not to, but so far I don't see it. Especially since it is possible for your sibling to die in the Deep Roads.
Magic in public.
I have to admit, I was fully expecting something along the lines of Baldur's Gate II's 'no magic on the streets' setup, given that in Acts 1 and 2, Mage Hawke is an apostate that has to keep it hidden, and Warrior/Rogue Hawke is probably traveling with one or more apostates. The fact that we could go around lighting up the streets with magic at will and get no reaction was very jarring. Most fights don't take place during the day with lots of witnesses anyway, but the ones that do are particularly jarring because of that.
This also ties into Mage Hawke's chosen form of dress and armament. The outfit you start out with is nice, it's not a set of robes that screams I am an apostate mage, come arrest me, Templars! After that, it goes entirely in the other direction. Most upgrades are very obvious mage robes. You go around carrying an obvious mage staff. It would have been a lot more logical for Mage Hawke, having grown up as an apostate, to have some passing skill in swordsmanship and tend toward at least wearing leather, or normal looking clothes, not mage robes. Having swords or daggers with mage abilities on them would have served Hawke much better and fit into the setting a lot better than having Obvious Mage Hawke.
I feel like it would have been far better to give Hawke some baseline melee/archery combat skills, and allow her to pretend she's a warrior or rogue as far as interaction goes. Combine that with making it so that using magic in broad daylight on the streets of Kirkwall either brings templars out or is disallowed entirely, and the entire setting would have felt so much more right.
Hawke's personality 'system'.
There's nothing bad I have to say about this, it may be my highest point of praise for the game. I had my doubts about a voiced main character in this game for a long time, and even so I feel like voiced main characters have some unavoidable downsides, but this made it worthwhile, I think. The fact that Hawke's personality seems to remain consistent even when I don't directly pick lines, the fact that she'll spontaneously crack jokes if I've been using the humorous personality a lot, the fact that her lines are all tinted with the personality she's developed. She actually feels 'awkward' when I use choices other than the usual type, as though she's not used to trying to deal with things in that manner...I don't know if that's just my imagination or if it's real, but it's certainly a perception that the game has created in me, whether directly or through secondary influence.
I don't think I've ever played a game where the character's personality feels as robust, while also being my own choice, without having to imagine lots of things that aren't there. In Mass Effect, to contrast, Shepard has felt more like she has a personality already defined, and less the one that I choose for her.
Varying outcomes.
The various outcomes that can happen at different points in the game are interesting. I've seen only a handful of possibilities since I've only done one full playthrough, but I've imagined a few and heard of a few more. It's nice to see the story can stay on track even while following the logical conclusions of my various decisions. The various possible fates of your sibling, certain companions' continued quests, and so on. The fact that everything seems to be continuously relevant - or at least slightly relevant - in future acts is very nice. Several sidequests having continued effects - this feels much better than the disconnectedness of many previous BioWare titles which seemed to contain their quests within their area of origin, rarely having effects on the rest of the game.
Characters have lives.
For the first time, I think, it really felt as though the various characters have lives of their own beyond standing around waiting for the protagonist to call on them. That may be a function of the setting where they're not on a Grand Quest together, but I also think it has a lot to do with the fact that everyone has a home of their own, and especially with a lot of the banters and comments the characters make. They talk about their lives, they show me that things are going on, that life continues, that there are other things in the world.
I'm not saving the world!
As I mentioned at the top, the fact that I'm not saving the world, the protagonist is just part of events and things are happening around her that are not part of a Grand Quest or Nefarious Scheme or anything so 'important' is one of my favorite things about this game. Many of the other things I liked, I don't think would have been the same if there had been a save the world quest or any other kind of overarching plot going on. While many games have grand plots about the normal person becoming extraordinary because of the grand threat, the fact that Hawke became extraordinary without a grand threat, simply while endeavoring to live her life, really drew me in. The things that happened to her felt like life, they didn't feel forced or centered around her. Even as the Champion, the world wasn't revolving around her.
We don't see many good mages.
While the argument that not all mages are like that is a strong and valid one, the fact is the game really doesn't show us very many good mages that aren't also leashed to Chantry propaganda. Merrill seems to be the only good blood mage in the game other than Hawke herself. The majority of mages we run into are crazy bastards. Off-hand I remember the girl Anders almost killed, and the ****** Orlesian kid in the tavern, as well as Alain. Grace goes crazy **** on me even when I'm on her side (maybe there are options that don't cause this?) and pretty much every other mage I meet is either bat**** insane or just wants to murder me without ever talking. I'd like to see more scenes with good mages. Anders being involved in the 'mage underground' would have been a nice source of a few more good mage scenes, where you could help him escort some of them out of Kirkwall or just see and maybe talk to a few of them when you talk to Anders.
The final stages of Act 3 were terrible with this, too. Not only Orsino, but half the mages I was trying to protect turn on me and start summoning demons and turning into abominations to the point where even as a mage myself I felt like I should have been siding with Meredith because all these mages are bat**** insane!
Specific quests and such.
On to specific quests and the like. There were a lot of great quests and a few that made me scratch my head a bit and go 'buh?'.
Let's start with Merrill. Timeline issues to start with. Did I miss something, or does Merrill's whole quest not match up with the timeline of these games? Going through things the way I understand them:
- Weeks or months before the battle at Ostagar, the eluvian is discovered by Tamlen and the potential Dalish Elf Warden.
- The potential warden either dies or becomes the Hero of Ferelden, while Tamlen becomes a ghoul.
- By the time the Warden reaches Lothering, the clan has left (the Dalish Elf Warden will comment on this during the dialogue with Alistair and Morrigan at the Lothering entrance).
- One year passes, during which time the Warden defeats the Blight, and Hawke travels to Kirkwall and works off her debt for getting into the city.
- Hawke meets Merrill, who has supposedly taken the eluvian and begun attempting to reconstruct it, hence causing her exile from the clan.
- One to three years later, after the events of Awakening around Amaranthine, the Warden, while searching for Morrigan, finds the eluvian along with Ariane and Finn, and uses it to track down Morrigan.
The other part of Merrill's quest that makes no sense to me is when Keeper Marethari decides to turn herself into an abomination on purpose. Her reasoning seems to be, if Merrill completes the mirror then the pride demon will come through, so I might as well just let it come through right now, into me!
Isabela and the Relic - I liked the foreshadowing on this one, but I would have also liked the opportunity to confront her about it once I figured it out. After the Arishok explained they were there to recover something, all the pieces fully fell into place and it was clear how both their ships had sunk, what he was there to recover, and what Isabela's missing 'relic' was, but I couldn't really talk to her about it. I look forward to doing it again and seeing what other options are available - I really hope one exists where you can just kill all the Qunari and not give them the relic at all.
Aveline's quest series. This one I just had to say was cute and sweet and I really liked it. I also feel like seeing Aveline's life develop was one of the parts that really made companions seem like they have lives of their own.
Well, I know there's a bunch more things but none of them are coming to mind right now and I feel like this is enough. Really just for my own benefit as I felt like talking about some of the things I liked and disliked. Feel free to comment, or share your own thoughts if you want to, or just ignore this entirely.
Modifié par Koyasha, 29 mars 2011 - 01:54 .
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