439 réponses à ce sujet

[Rosey]

Wait, wait, there's more!

 

After you go around saving the towns folk from the Red Templars - who were sold to them to buy food to save the few lives left in the city(Empries Du Lion!), you fight Imshael, a "spirit of choice"! Once Imshael is defeated you walk into a Red Templar that's dying, and they LITERALLY TELL YOU that they were given a CHOICE to eat the red lyrium or not. But that choice, was so completely over the top awful to this one person that they chose to sacrifice themselves to the red lyrium rather then choosing the more awful thing!

 

But, hey, since we personally can't kill children, it's totally not grimdark enough. Shame that folks think "Dark Fantasy" is just "option to be a jerk." and "Holy **** that was scary and gross and I'm going to go throw up now!"

 

WHICH by the way, plenty of that too! I mean, you can WILLINGLY allow the Empress of Orlais to be murdered, then kill her murderer, and then send the coffin on a tour of Thedas as a visual reminder of what happens when you mess with the Inquisition! Throughout the entire game you can push Leliana to kill a boat ton of people, with the chance that she'll become the most ruthless Divine in the history of Thedas! You can punch Solas! You can literally murder nearly every single solitary person that you judge at skyhold! (With exception being maybe Blackwall, but I wouldn't be surprised if you can behead him too!)

 

[frogkisser]

There are some excellent comments around here. DAI does touch upon lots of dark themes, but I've always felt that it's all in the sidelines. There's a lot of /optimism/ in the game. Heck, even one of the most pivotal choices, IE between mages or templars, has consequences that aren't really brought to your attention. Until I played through with the templars, I had no idea Envy even /existed/, let alone was the reason for all shenanigans. You never get to feel bad for all the mages that died because you couldn't get to them to help them out of Alexius' clutches. It's a meager example - but these are pretty damn dark choices, HEAVY choices, and it's barely mentioned in the passing - the focus is on the Inquisition's victory almost always. I may be veering off on a tangent here, since these are story choices, and I believe a LOT of things could have been fixed just by changing the atmosphere with music and light....Speaking of which, the difference between the 3 DA's is starkly evident directly from the start screens :

[Rosey]

See, I love that the opening screen looks like sunshine and bunnies. Because as soon as you press "Play", there's an explosion and everyone DIES.

 

Darn you, lighting! *shakes fist*

[frogkisser]

Well, sure, but the reaction that elicits from me is more along the lines of 'Heh, holy **** / sweet' in the way a dragon flying at you and shooting lighting is kind of awesome. It doesn't make me all distressed and depressed because everyone dies. 

 

The other two are like 'Whelp, this is looking serious. Hope the game ISN'T as dark.'

[Sylvianus]

Why would people feel distressed and depressed with the screen of DA:I when they have no idea what happened if they are new players ? The likely reaction, would be more, " oh, cool, the lightening is awesome, " it doesn't really have anything to do with feeling it should be a serious game in my opinion. 

 

Also, it's kinda sad and funny at the same time that everyone has to die, in the intro when you push start... and not actually in the game after we get to know some of the protagonists.  We funnily begin a story,  where everyone is already dead before playing,  and you have everyone devasted around you, everyone trying to make you understand how this is horrible, how you should feel bad too and you are the only one that doesn't feel concerned by all those folks dead, totally deconnected from the bad event. I was a bit disappointed personally. I thought Bioware wouldn't do  again something like that after the intro of DAII. 

 

It would have been good to begin the story with the conclave actually. For example, if you are a noble, you could have seen your family before the event, the divine, etc. A bit like the intro of DAO actually.

[Rawgrim]

Brief off topic question. If we kill Genetivi in DA:O, and keep the Temple of Sacred Ashes a secret. How come people are having a meeting there in DA:I?

[abisha]

Brief off topic question. If we kill Genetivi in DA:O, and keep the Temple of Sacred Ashes a secret. How come people are having a meeting there in DA:I?

 

magic, same reason they used leliana while you can kill her in DA:O at sacred ash. *really cut of her head*

[papercut_ninja]

Brief off topic question. If we kill Genetivi in DA:O, and keep the Temple of Sacred Ashes a secret. How come people are having a meeting there in DA:I?

 

It is explained in the epilogue of DA:O, the story of how Arl Eamon was cured spreads and the site is eventually discovered and recovered for pilgrimage.

[Rawgrim]

It is explained in the epilogue of DA:O, the story of how Arl Eamon was cured spreads and the site is eventually discovered and recovered for pilgrimage.

 

Cool. thanks for the reply. Been awhile since I played Origins.

[cronshaw]

Let's see:
Creating an entire army by forcing/tricking Templars to ingest red lyrium
And in the process making them all insane

Templars burning a bunch of mages alive in the hinterlands

Having one of your companions be a mass murdering war criminal

Reading a journal entry describing a rogue Templar's attempt to rape a wounded villager

Murdering the entire help staff in the Winter Palace

I'm sure I can come up with a ton more if none of this is dark enough for you.
The game is plenty dark and mature
The only real difference is the player can't be a mass murdering psychopath and that frustrates certian players

[frogkisser]

Why would people feel distressed and depressed with the screen of DA:I when they have no idea what happened if they are new players ? The likely reaction, would be more, " oh, cool, the lightening is awesome, " it doesn't really have anything to do with feeling it should be a serious game in my opinion. 

 

Also, it's kinda sad and funny at the same time that everyone has to die, in the intro when you push start... and not actually in the game after we get to know some of the protagonists.  We funnily begin a story,  where everyone is already dead before playing,  and you have everyone devasted around you, everyone trying to make you understand how this is horrible, how you should feel bad too and you are the only one that doesn't feel concerned by all those folks dead, totally deconnected from the bad event. I was a bit disappointed personally. I thought Bioware wouldn't do  again something like that after the intro of DAII. 

 

It would have been good to begin the story with the conclave actually. For example, if you are a noble, you could have seen your family before the event, the divine, etc. A bit like the intro of DAO actually.

 Yep, exactly why I'm trying to point it. I had no idea what had happened since I had purposely avoided all videos/ spoilers before release. I literally thought 'Oooh, an animated menu! Sweet.' I had no chance to actually care about the Conclave, or the Divine, or anyone who died. No one the player actually knows died there. There's no emotional attachment. Giving us a chance to participate, as you said, would definitely have improved things, both in making the story darker, more relateable, and more engaging until the very end.

 

That said, what were you disappointed about particularly in the DAII intro? It's been a while since I played, but I seem to recall it did a good job of introducing relevant characters while immediately slapping you in the face with a sibling dying.  You mean as in everyone is already devastated by the Blight but a new player is like 'wait what are we running from?'

[Lebanese Dude]

See, I love that the opening screen looks like sunshine and bunnies. Because as soon as you press "Play", there's an explosion and everyone DIES.
 
Darn you, lighting! *shakes fist*

Not all of them do! 20 minutes into the game you discover that some of them burned alive in agony only to die in horrifying poses.

[Sylvianus]

 Yep, exactly why I'm trying to point it. I had no idea what had happened since I had purposely avoided all videos/ spoilers before release. I literally thought 'Oooh, an animated menu! Sweet.' I had no chance to actually care about the Conclave, or the Divine, or anyone who died. No one the player actually knows died there. There's no emotional attachment. Giving us a chance to participate, as you said, would definitely have improved things, both in making the story darker, more relateable, and more engaging until the very end.

 

That said, what were you disappointed about particularly in the DAII intro? It's been a while since I played, but I seem to recall it did a good job of introducing relevant characters while immediately slapping you in the face with a sibling dying.  You mean as in everyone is already devastated by the Blight but a new player is like 'wait what are we running from?'

 

Yes, basically. they did indeed a good job of introducing relevant characters, I'm more talking about how we are running from nowhere, immediately thrown like that into the story, with enemies around. We begin from nowhere , lost in the countryside => and we are in Kirkwall, and the story truly begins. I remember how I struggled to see the connection with DAO.   ( DAII was supposed to be a sequel ) 

[Lebanese Dude]

Yep, exactly why I'm trying to point it. I had no idea what had happened since I had purposely avoided all videos/ spoilers before release. I literally thought 'Oooh, an animated menu! Sweet.' I had no chance to actually care about the Conclave, or the Divine, or anyone who died. No one the player actually knows died there. There's no emotional attachment. Giving us a chance to participate, as you said, would definitely have improved things, both in making the story darker, more relateable, and more engaging until the very end.

That said, what were you disappointed about particularly in the DAII intro? It's been a while since I played, but I seem to recall it did a good job of introducing relevant characters while immediately slapping you in the face with a sibling dying. You mean as in everyone is already devastated by the Blight but a new player is like 'wait what are we running from?'

I seem to recall that the majority of players said that they didn't have enough time to care about the other sibling to have a reaction.

So what is it? What is a significant amount of time to start to care?

Would it really have made a different impact? Would you sacrifice the entire mystery behind what caused the explosion to reenact an irrelevant storyline plot?

The elven inquisitor comes alone to spy. Would a little scavenger hunt before the explosion make you care?

What about DAis focus on the various forms of faith. What about people thinking you are the Herald. The character can have memory loss but you won't,

These are all Questions you are ignoring in favor of adding additional content that would ironically end up lessening the impact of half the storyline.

So no, I disagree. The current method allows a greater freedom for roleplaying your characters origins while plunging you deep into an ice cold lake of wtf is going on. Perfect.

[Darkly Tranquil]

I think the real problem is that there is never a real palpable sense of impending doom and as a result, the stakes never feel all that big. For all his bluster, you never really feel like Corypheus is actually likely to fulfil his plans and that the fate of the world is on the line. In Origins, there was a pretty consonant feeling that disaster and despair were everywhere and that everything was falling apart around you. I didn't get that same sense of crisis and desperation from DA; most of the problems felt like inconveniences rather true existential threats. Whereas Origins had you snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, and DA2 had to scrambling to salvage something from the wreckage, DAI feels too neat and clean and the victory too clear and without cost. As a result, the tone feels much lighter, and thus lacks the grit of its predecessors.

[frogkisser]

I seem to recall that the majority of players said that they didn't have enough time to care about the other sibling to have a reaction.

So what is it? What is a significant amount of time to start to care?

Would it really have made a different impact? Would you sacrifice the entire mystery behind what caused the explosion to reenact an irrelevant storyline plot?

The elven inquisitor comes alone to spy. Would a little scavenger hunt before the explosion make you care?

What about DAis focus on the various forms of faith. What about people thinking you are the Herald. The character can have memory loss but you won't,

These are all Questions you are ignoring in favor of adding additional content that would ironically end up lessening the impact of half the storyline.

So no, I disagree. The current method allows a greater freedom for roleplaying your characters origins while plunging you deep into an ice cold lake of wtf is going on. Perfect.

 

There definitely is a greater freedom in roleplaying the character's origins, yes.  Then again, the few references to my elf being a spy struck me as weird as I had no emotional attachment neither to my clan, whom I was apparently spying for, and it made no sense in my headcanon. 

 

I'm not saying we need a whole big reveal - but some sort of connection would make the carastrophe of the Breach much more real. The character having memory loss is a bit bewildering when the player doesn't know what's happened. You start off as a prisoner, which is somewhat interesting as a basis (I'm looking at you, BG2) but in Baldur's Gate the player has some sort of memory of being free / a life before (of course, if you've played BG1.) The imprisonment in DAI doesn't feel so serious because you're released so quickly, and you don't remember being imprisoned.  The memories you recall in Adamant are an interesting touch - that was one of my favorite quests - but it doesn't mean the character can't remember other bits of the Conclave.  If you remembered parts of it - even just the Temple before destruction, or seeing the Divine in the distance, or a guard not letting you in for some reason or other - and then didn't remember the most important part, the urgency to find out what happens triples. 

 

Anyways, that's veering a bit off topic from the original, but I do feel that making more of the horrors of DAI /personal/ would do wonders for the atmosphere and the overall effect. How is it that the scenes with Zathrian and the Lady in DAO gave me goosebumps, while in Inquisition the most epic moment felt like the avalanche? 

[Sylvianus]

I seem to recall that the majority of players said that they didn't have enough time to care about the other sibling to have a reaction.

So what is it? What is a significant amount of time to start to care?

Would it really have made a different impact? Would you sacrifice the entire mystery behind what caused the explosion to reenact an irrelevant storyline plot?

The elven inquisitor comes alone to spy. Would a little scavenger hunt before the explosion make you care?

What about DAis focus on the various forms of faith. What about people thinking you are the Herald. The character can have memory loss but you won't,

These are all Questions you are ignoring in favor of adding additional content that would ironically end up lessening the impact of half the storyline.

So no, I disagree. The current method allows a greater freedom for roleplaying your characters origins while plunging you deep into an ice cold lake of wtf is going on. Perfect.

 

You don't necessarily have to care, but it would have made sense and it would have been appreciable to participate to the conclave, to know the protagonists, to see some faces, and it would have more an impact over absolutely nothing and after the event seeing everyone crying and saying over and over how it is horrible, how the divine was awesome, blah blah blah. 

 

Yes, it could have had an impact, like it had an impact on me with DAO origins. The game felt totally complete from the beginning to the end. All the origins made me feel something before leaving for the grey warden. The current method you are talking about in DA:I didn't really show me that it was more working and better. The story hasn't been better than the previous episodes, and I actually feel that the beginning of the story with my PC in the fade isn't clear at all. I wasn't satisfied at all with the recovered memories revealed and was pretty much meh. Some big holes unexplained to be honest. 

 

Like why the PC is the only one close to the Divine ? Why he was there ? like " hello, is there someone there ? why are you crying ? " How Corypheus acted to blow up the conclave ? Why he needed Justinia exactly , because she's kinda there, like a prisoner, but it is not explained. Why Cassandra and Leliana, right hand and left hand weren't at her side and where were they ? How my PC fell into the fade,  and why only with Justinia, but not the grey warden and Cory who were in the same piece ? Where have they gone ?  

 

When you have to imagine so many things about the beginning of the core story, I'm not sure it can be considered as the best thing for me. 

 

The only thing you know for sure, is you are in a dark chamber, you see the bad guy, and you cry, " hello there, what's up " , you succeed to flee from the fade and that's it, with some questions which remain. 

 

I didn't feel that the intro of DA was that great. 

[Mirth]

*cracks knuckles*

 

Alright. You want your grimdark darkness?

 

 

1. Calpernia is a former slave being manipulated by Corypheus. Who's going out of her way to free as many slaves as she can because she believes that through her connection to Corypheus she can HELP. Turns out? He's using her too. Even imprisoned her old master, not out of revenge for how she was treated, but because he needed him for INFORMATION on how to continue manipulating her.
2. Sampson is a fallen templar who wanted so very badly to help that he drank the red-lyrium kool-aid. He was a man broken by the system he pledged himself to, so profoundly, so deeply, that his solution to the problem, to trying to give others in his order who'd lost their way A REASON TO KEEP FIGHTING, was to force feed them blighted lyrium. He even went so far as to push his best friend, a TRANQUIL MAGE, into killing himself rather then being captured by the Inquisition.
3. Corypheus manipulates a broken man, a broken FATHER, who's wife was killed and his son is blighted, with promises of saving said son from emanate death. Does he make good on that promise? No, instead of curing his son from the blight, he just effectively makes him a ghoul. All for the sake of power.
4. The seekers of truth - the original inquisition - had the cure for Tranquility for almost a thousand years, and TOLD NO ONE. Not even the Divine. Instead they kept that secret, allowing generations of mages to be made tranquil, taking away their emotions and the very thing that makes them mages, mind raping thousands of people "for the greater good." And when someone found out? They started a WAR to keep their secret hidden, and fed the seekers to demons and cultists.
5. And if all of that, all the war and devastation and lack of care for life, the starving townsfolk we're asked to help find supplies for, the DEMONS raging through the countryside, All of the Chantry hierarchy being brutally murdered in an explosion so big it caused a hole in the sky, the ongoing war in orlais, the WHOLE CITY of people sold off to the red templars in order to save the rest, the skeletons rising up from the waters in a swamp that was once a small town that died from a plague, the manipulation of the wardens via the false calling that sent them into a panic so fierce that they willingly sacrificed hundreds of their own and bound hundreds more, our own companion who's father tried to use blood magic to alter him because, gay. If all of that, and more is not grimdark enough for you?
6. Corypheus? Sure, he's the "big bad" we're trying to stop. But, he's not actually the antagonist. Solas is. That's right. Your best friend, fade guide, perhaps even lover! Solas is the REASON all the badness is happening. He straight up is a parallel to Judas. He betrays you before anything has even happened, and he leaves you once you've 'fixed' his mess. And when I say fixed? I mean broke his toy that he gave TO ONE OF THE BLIGHTED MAGISTERS THAT NEARLY KILLED THE WHOLE WORLD SEVERAL DIFFERENT TIMES. Which? All of Thedas' issues with Demons and darkness? All caused by SOMETHING Solas did during the time of Arlathan.

I dunno, guys. It's a pretty dark setting. Just because the lighting is bright, not everything is colored varying shades of brown, our companions are funny and generally light-hearted, and there's not gratuitous amounts of shock-value scary, doesn't mean Thedas isn't a fucked up place to live in. It also does not mean DAI isn't still 100% low fantasy, game of thrones grimdark.

 

Yes those themes are 'dark' but your involvement amounts to a glorified janitorial crew.  Heck, you learn most of the 'background' by picking up scraps of paper, so there is no emotional connection to those events.

 

I skipped a lot of codex reading, because I'm used to Bioware weaving me a story with interaction, and consequences.  With cut-scenes and dialog.

 

They didn't tell me I was supposed to READ the story, I was expecting to...??  I don't know....?  Play it?

[Lebanese Dude]

I just believe that origins for the Inquisitor would not be the ideal solution.

 

It worked in DAO because it was the first installment and different origins provided different perspectives. Each character comes from a different origin and the game chronicles a ragtag bunch of misfits independently rallying Fereldan to battle the Blight.

 

DAI revolves more around the "murder mystery" at Haven for almost half the game as well as your character who is ALWAYS at the Conclave. 

The only link to your origin is potentially a bunch of characters who you will promptly lose a couple of minutes later. There is no connection to establish to begin with.

 

Could you have had flashbacks? Sure, but the impact is debatable. Once you're safe ... you're safe. Remembering that a guard didn't let you in isn't any more "shocking" than bumping into the Divine in the Fade.

 

I agree that DAI could have used a more thorough "memory flashback" in the Fade. Perhaps showing the Inquisitor doing a couple of things depending on their origin before hearing some screams and barging into Corypheus's ritual. Even better, perhaps they can allow you to play it instead. It would have been more hands-on than what ended up happening.

That wouldn't really affect the introduction though.

[ThreeF]

I agree that DAI could have used a more thorough "memory flashback" in the Fade. Perhaps showing the Inquisitor doing a couple of things depending on their origin before hearing some screams and barging into Corypheus's ritual. Even better, perhaps they can allow you to play it instead. It would have been more hands-on than what ended up happening.

 

That actually would be great. Having to hear for the third time the "what's going on" dialogue was not ideal.

[frogkisser]

I just believe that origins for the Inquisitor would not be the ideal solution.

 

It worked in DAO because it was the first installment and different origins provided different perspectives. Each character comes from a different origin and the game chronicles a ragtag bunch of misfits independently rallying Fereldan to battle the Blight.

 

DAI revolves more around the "murder mystery" at Haven for almost half the game as well as your character who is ALWAYS at the Conclave. 

The only link to your origin is potentially a bunch of characters who you will promptly lose a couple of minutes later. There is no connection to establish to begin with.

 

Could you have had flashbacks? Sure, but the impact is debatable. Once you're safe ... you're safe. Remembering that a guard didn't let you in isn't any more "shocking" than bumping into the Divine in the Fade.

 

If anything, DAI could have used a more thorough "memory flashback" in the Fade. Perhaps showing the Inquisitor doing a couple of things depending on their origin before hearing some screams and barging into Corypheus's ritual. Even better, perhaps they can allow you to play it instead. It would have been more hands-on than what ended up happening.

That wouldn't really affect the introduction though.

 

That's a compromise I could definitely agree on. If the memory reveal had been more than just a few pieces of dialogue, and then that same dialogue just reconstructed into a cutscene (one of which you technically see just after character creation), it would have been more interesting, at the very least. Certainly more emphasis could have been placed upon what you don't remember and why --> if you're playing the amnesia card, play it well. Up until Adamant I was rather under the impression that I didn't remember because hey, it was the Fade, realm of dreams, who remembers more than 10% of their dreams?

 

I wanted to feel guilty about not managing to save the Divine. I really did. But I didn't. Perhaps playing through the scenes, even for 5 minutes, even just one corridor of the Temple to show how you could have wandered off to the presumably secluded ritual chamber, or even setting it up such that the Grey Warden presence there was a BIT more surprising would have done wonders.  

 

I suppose the problem with the "murder mystery" lacking punch is, again, Corypheus' early reveal and rehash from DAII. 

[kukumburr]

*cracks knuckles*

 

Alright. You want your grimdark darkness?

 

 

1. Calpernia is a former slave being manipulated by Corypheus. Who's going out of her way to free as many slaves as she can because she believes that through her connection to Corypheus she can HELP. Turns out? He's using her too. Even imprisoned her old master, not out of revenge for how she was treated, but because he needed him for INFORMATION on how to continue manipulating her.
2. Sampson is a fallen templar who wanted so very badly to help that he drank the red-lyrium kool-aid. He was a man broken by the system he pledged himself to, so profoundly, so deeply, that his solution to the problem, to trying to give others in his order who'd lost their way A REASON TO KEEP FIGHTING, was to force feed them blighted lyrium. He even went so far as to push his best friend, a TRANQUIL MAGE, into killing himself rather then being captured by the Inquisition.
3. Corypheus manipulates a broken man, a broken FATHER, who's wife was killed and his son is blighted, with promises of saving said son from emanate death. Does he make good on that promise? No, instead of curing his son from the blight, he just effectively makes him a ghoul. All for the sake of power.
4. The seekers of truth - the original inquisition - had the cure for Tranquility for almost a thousand years, and TOLD NO ONE. Not even the Divine. Instead they kept that secret, allowing generations of mages to be made tranquil, taking away their emotions and the very thing that makes them mages, mind raping thousands of people "for the greater good." And when someone found out? They started a WAR to keep their secret hidden, and fed the seekers to demons and cultists.
5. And if all of that, all the war and devastation and lack of care for life, the starving townsfolk we're asked to help find supplies for, the DEMONS raging through the countryside, All of the Chantry hierarchy being brutally murdered in an explosion so big it caused a hole in the sky, the ongoing war in orlais, the WHOLE CITY of people sold off to the red templars in order to save the rest, the skeletons rising up from the waters in a swamp that was once a small town that died from a plague, the manipulation of the wardens via the false calling that sent them into a panic so fierce that they willingly sacrificed hundreds of their own and bound hundreds more, our own companion who's father tried to use blood magic to alter him because, gay. If all of that, and more is not grimdark enough for you?
6. Corypheus? Sure, he's the "big bad" we're trying to stop. But, he's not actually the antagonist. Solas is. That's right. Your best friend, fade guide, perhaps even lover! Solas is the REASON all the badness is happening. He straight up is a parallel to Judas. He betrays you before anything has even happened, and he leaves you once you've 'fixed' his mess. And when I say fixed? I mean broke his toy that he gave TO ONE OF THE BLIGHTED MAGISTERS THAT NEARLY KILLED THE WHOLE WORLD SEVERAL DIFFERENT TIMES. Which? All of Thedas' issues with Demons and darkness? All caused by SOMETHING Solas did during the time of Arlathan.

I dunno, guys. It's a pretty dark setting. Just because the lighting is bright, not everything is colored varying shades of brown, our companions are funny and generally light-hearted, and there's not gratuitous amounts of shock-value scary, doesn't mean Thedas isn't a fucked up place to live in. It also does not mean DAI isn't still 100% low fantasy, game of thrones grimdark.

 

I agree there is "dark" stuff talked about and read about in the codex (which I enjoy), but I think my problem is there is very little lead up to things that are supposed to have an emotional impact. To start with, the conclave blowing up. The only bit of this we see is at the start menu. All of a sudden we just see an explosion and the copy-paste mages and templars getting blown up. Then we just get some people telling us about how horrible it is that a bunch of characters we don't know died. We do get to see some of the aftermath (although it's days after the fact), but again, there's no reason to care about the dead people. We know nothing about them. It would have been much more impactful if we had got to be at the conclave and talked to some people. And personally I think it would have been more emotional had we not lost our memories. Knowing that our character touching the orb is essentially what set off the explosion (even though Corypheus would have done it anyways) would have made me feel a lot worse early on. As it is, finding out as late in the game as we did, it doesn't matter much because Corypheus is already established as the big bad who we can blame everything on.

 

Another thing that I felt didn't have much build up was the Grey Wardens doing the whole blood sacrifice thing. Particularly, my problem was the part in the Western Approach. You just walk up and find them doing the ritual. Prior to this all you really find out is that Wardens are being mysterious and quiet. There's no build up. It just jumps straight to the meeting with Snidely Whiplash who's twirling his mustache and cackling while he pats himself on the back for being such an evil dude for tricking these stupid wardens. I think it would have been more grim and meaningful if there was maybe a bit of a dungeon crawl, where you slowly get hints about what they're doing and why and then at the end is the reveal. I did enjoy the part at Adamant for the most part, though.

 

Some areas like the Temple of Dirthamen and Chateau D'Onterre were places I enjoyed for the mood they set. Where they fell flat to me was at the end of them. There payoff was a fight with some stock demon mob and then you get to open the loot door. They had a pretty nice buildup with the codex entries and everything, and then it's just "kill this mob and get some sweet loot!!". There are no real answers or interactions. So while the overall feeling of the place is quite dark, it's ruined by not having a meaningful ending. Imagine if the Deep Roads didn't have Hespith or Caridin. Part of the reason the Broodmother was so impressively dark was because of your interactions with Hespith and how you slowly learned more from her about what happened as you went. Or what if Caridin was just a boss mob you didn't get a chance to talk to? You just get to the end, kill the mob, and get the Anvil. That's what a lot of the stuff in Inquisition feels like to me. There's potential for it to have darker moments but it just doesn't end up feeling that way because of how the narrative is told.

 

One of my favorite parts of Inquisition is actually right after Haven is destroyed and you have to slowly trudge through the snow. There's no real purpose to this part other than to set the mood and evoke a feeling. I felt cold and lonely and like it would never end, and I loved it. It was a buildup to the payoff of finding the camp. It made finding the camp more meaningful. I wish there had been more of this. I feel like too much of the story in Inquisition is just thrown at you and what buildup there is is done in vague codex entries, which isn't enough. I like codex entries but they have to connect to something you can actually interact with. And I think this is a large part of why I lose the feeling of the game being dark and grim. Descriptively, yes, the game has dark moments. But it failed at making me actually feel it.

 

And you mention Solas, and he's certainly one of the most interesting parts of the game, but there is no real payoff related to him within the game itself. All of the questions about him sort of supersedes the emotional impact he made, at least for me (people who romanced him might disagree, I guess).

[frogkisser]

I agree there is "dark" stuff talked about and read about in the codex (which I enjoy), but I think my problem is there is very little lead up to things that are supposed to have an emotional impact. To start with, the conclave blowing up. The only bit of this we see is at the start menu. All of a sudden we just see an explosion and the copy-paste mages and templars getting blown up. Then we just get some people telling us about how horrible it is that a bunch of characters we don't know died. We do get to see some of the aftermath (although it's days after the fact), but again, there's no reason to care about the dead people. We know nothing about them. It would have been much more impactful if we had got to be at the conclave and talked to some people. And personally I think it would have been more emotional had we not lost our memories. Knowing that our character touching the orb is essentially what set off the explosion (even though Corypheus would have done it anyways) would have made me feel a lot worse early on. As it is, finding out as late in the game as we did, it doesn't matter much because Corypheus is already established as the big bad who we can blame everything on.

 

Another thing that I felt didn't have much build up was the Grey Wardens doing the whole blood sacrifice thing. Particularly, my problem was the part in the Western Approach. You just walk up and find them doing the ritual. Prior to this all you really find out is that Wardens are being mysterious and quiet. There's no build up. It just jumps straight to the meeting with Snidely Whiplash who's twirling his mustache and cackling while he pats himself on the back for being such an evil dude for tricking these stupid wardens. I think it would have been more grim and meaningful if there was maybe a bit of a dungeon crawl, where you slowly get hints about what they're doing and why and then at the end is the reveal. I did enjoy the part at Adamant for the most part, though.

 

Some areas like the Temple of Dirthamen and Chateau D'Onterre were places I enjoyed for the mood they set. Where they fell flat to me was at the end of them. There payoff was a fight with some stock demon mob and then you get to open the loot door. They had a pretty nice buildup with the codex entries and everything, and then it's just "kill this mob and get some sweet loot!!". There are no real answers or interactions. So while the overall feeling of the place is quite dark, it's ruined by not having a meaningful ending. Imagine if the Deep Roads didn't have Hespith or Caridin. Part of the reason the Broodmother was so impressively dark was because of your interactions with Hespith and how you slowly learned more from her about what happened as you went. Or what if Caridin was just a boss mob you didn't get a chance to talk to? You just get to the end, kill the mob, and get the Anvil. That's what a lot of the stuff in Inquisition feels like to me. There's potential for it to have darker moments but it just doesn't end up feeling that way because of how the narrative is told.

 

One of my favorite parts of Inquisition is actually right after Haven is destroyed and you have to slowly trudge through the snow. There's no real purpose to this part other than to set the mood and evoke a feeling. I felt cold and lonely and like it would never end, and I loved it. It was a buildup to the payoff of finding the camp. It made finding the camp more meaningful. I wish there had been more of this. I feel like too much of the story in Inquisition is just thrown at you and what buildup there is is done in vague codex entries, which isn't enough. I like codex entries but they have to connect to something you can actually interact with. And I think this is a large part of why I lose the feeling of the game being dark and grim. Descriptively, yes, the game has dark moments. But it failed at making me actually feel it.

 

And you mention Solas, and he's certainly one of the most interesting parts of the game, but there is no real payoff related to him within the game itself. All of the questions about him sort of supersedes the emotional impact he made, at least for me (people who romanced him might disagree, I guess).

You're spot on about the Wardens and Haven both. For the first, you never get to feel that they really ARE heroes, and they just come off as absolutely reckless idiots. You never get to see the tragedy of how far they've fallen, or taste their desperation. You see some generic recruit say 'nooo this is wrang' because duh, those demons standing around you look pretty scary, but not because 'this is worse than the Blight, srsly what are we doing?'. I also really did like the bit after Haven - it was the first and only point where you're thrown out of your comfort zone for a good while with no idea what's happened, no immediate report or menu description. Then of course it's one-upped by the all too convenient Skyhold reveal...

[hong]

Bioware could do the same thing for the next DA game. They don't have to change anything content-related, just make everything 50 shades of brown. I'll bet money that would clear up three-quarters of the complaints.

[mikeymoonshine]

i don't think the content is necessarily the problem, I think it's more the feel of it. It feels so bright and cheery for some reason, now that's fine even for a dark kinda game if it's not too constant but I feel like it is. I don't think it's a massive deal but I did like some of the more creepy parts of the past two games, while there are creepy parts in this game they don't feel like they have the same impact.