Shadowbanner, mind if I take a crack at some of those objective flaws you state? For simplicity's sake, I'll only refer to the ones I don't agree with. So anything I don't mention, you can assume I agree with you completely about.
[quote]Shadowbanner wrote...
3. Pre-rendered cut scenes already lay out teams starting position negating -again- player manual tactical positioning. Poor design.
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Could you elaborate what this means? I don't remember this being any different than Origins.
[quote]
4. Side-quests are menial, repetitive and souless almost like running mindless errands. "I believe this leg I found in some dump pile is yours" "Oh my, thank you Serah, I just don't know what I would have done without it". Stupid, stupid, stupid fed ex (fetch-type) quests that are mind-numbing. I mean really, what in God's name was the point of that. Well this type of quests abund in all three acts. They feel like tedious repetitive chores. Did I mention they were stupid? Lame and lazy.[/quote]
Hmm, well that's certainly one way to look at it. However, when I looked at those quests I thought that if they had done what Origins did for those quests and simply have a cutscene bookending them, most people wouldn't complain about them. After-all, that's about the only difference between the fed-ex quests here and in DA:O - the cutscenes and additional dialogue.
[quote]6. You over spend 50 hours collecting armor that is mostly useless, as neither you nor your companions can use it. In the case of the player, because he lacks the required specific player-class that enables its use (mage, warriror, rogue). Your companions are ruled out because that was the intended game design. So, unless you want to collect useless trash and stash it in your home, you might as well sell it; it's the only logical thing you can really do. Lame.[/quote]
I only disagree because of the game's skewed economy. If the economy was more fair, I wouldn't mind this at all. Just more loot to sell.[/quote]
[quote]7. Game is riddled with glitches and bugs. QA wo bist du?[/quote]
True, but most games that come out these days - especially RPGs for some reason - ship with bugs and glitches. Origins did too. You're mostly right about this.
[quote]8. Story is disjointed and lacks purpose, drive. Poor plot.[/quote]
You were doing quite well with your objective list until this one. This is 100% purely subjective. Unless you're ready to list exactly what established criteria makes that statement objectively true, you can't in good conscience say this is objective.
I agree with you that, especially in the 3rd Act, there are is a lot of inconstancy and it's very disjointed, but not on the whole. Find me a story that doesn't have plot holes. As for lack of purpose - that's really subjective, and you know this.
[quote]9. The antagonist is introduced far too late into the game to really care about him/her. Poor plot.[/quote]
Not only is this subjective, not objective, it's not true. If you're talking about Meredith, you see her in the start of the 1st Act, and people are talking ominously about her as early as the prologue. You only actually communicate with her the 1st time in the end of the 2nd Act, and when you do.... personally I thought it was all the more epic because up until then she was just a spectre - a rumour - a shadow. Orsino is the one you never really even hear about until very late in the game.
[quote]11. Lack of environments, lack of exploring. You do not journey anywhere. In RPG's you are always exploring, not stuck -for ten years, no less- in one venue!!! Remember when you are killed a pop-up says "Your journey ends...". That's because you are meant to be travelling the land, not stuck as a lab rat in the same hellhole for over 50 hours. Poor design.[/quote]
Wow... this couldn't be more subjective. You're saying that an RPG needs you to be exploring different lands or it's not an RPG. This is patently untrue. What I will agree with you though is that the places you do explore in Kirkwall don't look different from each other. This is more about the use of recycled areas, which I agree is a big huge faux pas.
[quote]12. Companions are shallow and one-faceted as opposed to -ehem- other games. X hates Templars. Y hates Mages. There is no inuendo, no subtleties, no nuances. Or it's black or its white, period. People tend to be far more complex than that. Poor script.[/quote]
Once again, subjective. It seems the more you go on the more you stray from your original intent in order to bash the game for what you didn't like. Which is fair! Just don't call it "objective". It's untrue. I didn't think the Companions were shallow and one-faceted at all, and I thought for the most part they were at the same level or better than the Origins Companions.
[quote]13. Dialogues are not very well written out imo. Poor script.[/quote]
See, this is where I think you start trolling us. You state out to make an objective list of faults - which means factual faults, and then you write "in my opinion" here. It's like a rick-roll or something. =D. Obviously I disagree, but that's cuz it's subjective so that's cool.
[quote]14. Soundtrack is uncompelling. Yes I know Mr Inon Zur is behind it and I respect his prior work. Rushed?[/quote]
Again, subjective.
[quote]15. And the game ends. Wot? Just like that? After playing for over 50 hours? That's it? Are you sure? WTF?[/quote]
This is mostly subjective, but I know a lot of people would have preferred there be some sort of epilogue card or something at the end. I didn't mind, but I did feel the ending cut too short as well, so we mostly agree.
[quote]16. And finally, my biggest gripe is that this game is mis-sold as an RPG. Meaning choices matter. Well my friend, they don't matter one iota because you can save and reload and the vast majority of times the same outcome happens regardless of your dialogue choices. Big deal. For me, this is a game-breaker in an RPG. Moreover, take away the "RP" from RPG more like, and leave it at G.[/quote]
I only quoted this because - even though I agree with you about how the majority of choices came eventually to the same result - a lot didn't, and I found enough to definitely have a role-playing aspect to it. So though this is mostly an objective criticism, we come to different conclusions for it.
[quote]18. And finally, in line with the above, it feels more like an "Action-RPG" than say a traditional RPG. Umm, the button-mashing thingy you know...so much for the "Think like a general and play like a Spartan". This line is so cool and catchy, but WTF does it mean? Anyone? It's just a click fest. Have you actually tried to play-and-pause it. The game is NOT suited for that type of gameplay and rewards playing it on real time.[/quote]
Well... auto-attack was fixed for the consoles, so there's no button-mashing thingy anymore. As for "think like a General", I agree that was a dumb catchphrase, especially since that would apply more to Strategy RPGs than cRPGs. It's a click-fest like Origins was. I never had to play-and-pause Origins on the consoles, just on the PC (at the same difficulty, mind), and that was purely because of the interface, not because it was complex.
[quote]19. And finally it feels all-round rushed and that too many corners were cut. Kirkwall feels dead. It never changes and nothing ever happens. NPC's are all brain dead. Bustling activity in a city is missing a la Assasins Creed.[/quote]
Wait, didn't you already have a "finally"? Like, twice? Never-mind. I agree about this, which is my eternal sadness with Dragon Age II is that it wasn't complete. At the same time though, asking for a city as busy and big as Rome in Assassins Creed for a game like Dragon Age might be a bit much to ask for.
The rest of what you said is your opinion, so I'm not gonna comment on it.
Well, that's that. I think the lesson is that it's fine to criticize the game - but if you're gonna cloak your criticism in the veneer of "truth" and "indisputable facts"... which is what "objective" means, you should have the facts to back it up. =)
Place nice![/quote]
Modifié par Rockpopple, 25 avril 2011 - 05:27 .
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