I was running through Crestwood with Varric, Iron Bull, and Solas. And Varric said something in party banter (yeah I know VERY rare). I forgot what but it made me stop and think, "Damn I wish Garrus was here".
Don't get me wrong, I like the DAI companions but frankly, they aren't nearly as engaging as the ME companions.
I can remember, in ME2 running the suicide mission, when I lost Tali to the swam. I had to stop the game and just sit back. Or in ME3, when I thought I lost Grunt - that brought tears to my eyes.. Or when Samara killed herself, or Miranda died. And Mordin.
DAI characters - well for one, they don't die. They are never in any danger. Nor do they seem to have any emotion. Even the love scenes are bland. I'm like, "gee pop a pill and at least pretend you want to be here".
I only really give a **** about 3 of them.. and 2 of those are temporary companions (Hawke and Alistair - the Iron Bull being the other). The most emotional moments in the game for me: was when i had to tell Varric Hawke was dead (or is he?); and Solas leaving - what he said to me, was a close second.
Their quests are ok, but seem like they are there because it's expected in a DAI game. I use them more like tools then companions. And I never even really think about them.
Maybe I'm just too much a drama queen. Cause I wanted drama in this game. And It's nowhere.
Kulyok, DaemionMoadrin, tehturian et 7 autres aiment ceci
Cullen basically *is* Garrus though! They even acknowledge this by giving him a bit of banter about calibrations at the war table. Seriously, the character is very similar to your favourite Turian.
Muddle, panamakira, juliet_capulet et 1 autre aiment ceci
Sera and Solas are very emotional about what you do. I asked him to tell me about himself and he said " Why? So you can send your templars after me?"or something like that on my Templar playthrough, then I found some of his ancient elven fifa trophys and he got over his problems but anyways, companions do have emotions and I actually think that they are more emotional in this game than in the ones past its the inquisitor that can seem abit... distant at times imo.
You had 2-3 games to form bonds with the ME characters so it's natural to feel closer to them.
That being said... the ME characters had more depth (for the most part).
And now I want to play ME again... thanks for that!
I don't like most companions, I can't relate to them. Varric is suddendly so serious and it's only after the card game with everyone that he's more like his old self from DA2. Solas is interesting because he clearly knows way more than he should but I don't care about him.
If there was a mission that required me to sacrifice a companion to proceed, I wouldn't have a problem with that at all. I could throw 3 or 4 of them away without feeling anything.
I got into the Cassandra romance just to see what it would be like. I had to mute the game for the poetry part (can't stand this) and afterwards nothing changed. There is no banter, no teasing, no new dialogue... yes, I can ask her if she wants to spend time with me but that's my entire relationship? Really?
I can't speak for Garrus or ME characters. I didn't like ME, I found it boring and never got past the initial 'go out into space on missions' part of it. Not to mention, my Shepard bore more than a passing resemblance to her namesake and I couldn't live with the 'too ugly to live' PC.
I can speak for the previous DA companions and frankly there were some I didn't like at all. Inquisition is a welcome change from that since I like all of them (to varying degrees).
If they weren't your cup of tea, sorry, but I found them very likeable and well written.
I think the Inquisition crew are my favourite bunch of BioWare characters ever - and as someone who's been around since Baldur's Gate, that's saying something. I don't think I've ever ended up loving EVERYONE before.
Not that Garrus isn't great, but I don't miss him too much when I've got Bull and Dorian and Vivienne and Josephine and, uh, yeah, let's stop before I just list everyone.
AllThatJazz, sylvanaerie, Wolf et 3 autres aiment ceci
You had 2-3 games to form bonds with the ME characters so it's natural to feel closer to them.
That being said... the ME characters had more depth (for the most part).
And now I want to play ME again... thanks for that!
The ME crew was family and Garrus most of all since he was in all three. I don't think Varric changed all that much, but if he did, it's the situation they're in. Not as drastic as Anders from Awakening to DA2. That shocked me because I was looking forward to him and didnt really like him.
I love Garrus, romanced him in the whole story, but these characters have their own unique quirks and appeal. I can respect that I guess
Cullen basically *is* Garrus though! They even acknowledge this by giving him a bit of banter about calibrations at the war table. Seriously, the character is very similar to your favourite Turian.
OMG! What a rude thing to say to fans of both characters! They are nothing alike except that bad taste eastern egg (that says more about writer's lack of creativity, like that cheese everywhere). The closest archetype to Garrus is Varric - in a sense of "bro companion".
Meh.... Garrus & Tali were both annoying characters who shouldn't have reappeared constantly in the team after ME1. I prefer the DA:I companions to both of them, especially since im not forced to be BFF's with any of them
Garrus is busy calibrating the sequel, maybe HE is up to the task to redeem the ME-Series?
Seriously though, for each Garrus you have totally uninteresting chars as well, like Jacob, that Latino-guy I forgot his name, Ice-Queen Miranda who's most interesting character-asset is her ...a$$ ? Or Samara *yawn* ...
Indeed Garrus is one of the more interesting chars in the series. But I also just love Cassandra, Dorian, Sera (yeah! she is so weird and irritating, I love it!) and the other lot. I accept a lot of valid criticism about DAI and Bioware, but their companions are always top-notch and make their games simply a lot more believable than any "dark" plot, PC-controls or tactical combat could ever achieve (for me^^)
DAI characters are shallow and uninspiring. They even murdered the best character a game ever created and made of her a model mother. Character development its called!!
Then they put in a "psychopath" and people believe it will have character development via dlc or whatever as if psychopatchs can have development!
If the characters have anything it is the recommended social accepted media off the day bla bla shoved down your throat.
Never seen so much social steered acceptence crammed in one game to be truthfull, awfull really.
A big problem for me is that the companions don't really interact with each other (outside banter which is bugged for many people). There are some personal quests which involve another companion like Cole's and Cassandra's but for the most part they stay in their own areas minding their own business. Companions interacting with each other (and with quests) was one of the things DA2 did well. In DA:I they also don't really interact with quests like they did in DA2 and sometimes in DA:O (example Fenris squeezing people's hearts to get information, Varric spinning lies about things like you being a first enchanter or Feynriel being the viscount's illegitimate son). I miss those touches.
I agree with OP's sentiment, but there is an outside factor.
I was just answering some questions on someone interesting in DAI regarding the companions and I actually compared it to ME2, where companions were the most fleshed out. In both games, there's basically a dozen companions/advisors. In ME2, 6 of them completely blew me away. In DAI, I liked everyone, but only 1 actually surprised me.
However, there's a huge bias if I were to be honest with myself: ME2 was virtually ALL companion-based missions, giving those characters an advantage. IMHO, the game was based around it, the mission was to gather these companions, earn their loyalty, THEN do basically 1 big story mission at the end. That Suicide Mission was the goal, but the companions were the focus.
It wasn't the case with DAI. To compare, the personal loyalty missions for Iron Bull, Sera, Vivienne and even Solas were basically a single mob fight. I particularly felt deflated by Iron Bull's quest, which was supposed to be this carefully prepared covert operation, which turned out to be...1 mob fight, then the cutscene. I was like, "That's it?" I fought more mobs fighting to Redcliffe.
I don't mean to be critical of DAI, let me share an alternate approach to Iron Bull's mission I came up with now, in this spoiler:
Spoiler
Let's treat Iron Bull's mission like a lite, mini-version of ME2's Suicide Mission.
It doesn't have to be a big thing, but imagine you show your leadership with a few simple tactical choices.
IRON BULL: "Krem de la Krem, you and Grim are my toughest fighters, take the hill!"
INQUISITOR: "Alright, Cassandra, support them please." (Because she's a Warrior.)
IRON BULL: "Dalish, Rocky, I want you to take out the mages in the valley from range."
INQUISITOR: "Sera, I want you to join them." (Because she's invested in Archery.)
IRON BULL: "Stitches, Skinner, prepare to reinforce."
INQUISITOR: "Vivienne, stay with me/go with them." (Let's say you can choose to get help or give help.)
Then you do a fight, maybe it's still 1 mob fight, but then you inspect the objectives. Maybe the 1st group took the hill and wave at you, the 2nd group took the valley and wave at you, the 3rd group may be forced to retreat and you see Tevinter mages where they would have been.
Very simple, just putting their models on locations, no dialogue needed but a slight nod from your companions, just based on some simple game mechanic like looking at the companion's classes for each task, or their allocated Skill Points if you're being fancy. A little bit more advanced, but it feels so much more complete, like experiencing how the Chargers function.
Instead, after Iron Bull introduced me to each of his Chargers, Krem, Grim, Dalish, Rocky, Stitches, Skinner, all their special roles, we just had them run up a hill to either a.) die or b.) cause the mission to fail. And 1 of them was voice even by Femshep. I'm afraid I still haven't gotten over that.
Just a hypothetical example, a little more effort needed, but how much richer the result. And Bioware's done this before.
Ultimately, if I had to classify DAI, it's much more focused on exploration, on Places not People. Thus I agree with the OP sentiment, but am willing to accept it's simply a different direction. Just as I compared a lot to ME2, I must admit ME1 is very much like DAI, and had less character development. It is a trade-off, but perhaps DA4 will be more companion-centric.
I think the Inquisition crew are my favourite bunch of BioWare characters ever - and as someone who's been around since Baldur's Gate, that's saying something. I don't think I've ever ended up loving EaVERYONE before.
Not that Garrus isn't great, but I don't miss him too much when I've got Bull and Dorian and Vivienne and Josephine and, uh, yeah, let's stop before I just list everyone.
Blasphemer!
Boo, the miniature giant space hamster, is the best Bioware written character eva!!!!!!!!
Inquisition seemed more set to tell stories of a universe than of specific companions, while ME was kind of vice versa. But yea, missing those days where Garrus would yell "SCOPED AND DROPPED!"
He would install a huge thorax cannon on the main tower of Skyhold, than calibrate it to close the breach. He's no wannabe god he's the Archangel coming to save us all!
Honestly, I didnt really care that much about the ME1 crew prior to ME2's suicide mission. But as some said, we had 3 games 7 years and imo the best final mission; the suicide mission to get to know them and appreciate them.
DAI missed the opportunity to make the companions great by making a lackluster ending... If Skyhold was under siege and companions could die, I am sure I would appreciate them more but as it is... well... they feel more like Bioware's characters than my companion.
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