113 réponses à ce sujet

[Shahadem]

I actually find the core mechanics may be the most lacking thing of all. I played both previous games many times each, and even if they aren't perfect (too slow/ too many random burglars parachuting in), they both required some degree of strategy, and had a lot of variability in abilities and how you could approach encounters depending on your class (I usually prefer mages, but really enjoyed DW rogue in DA2 as well). I played through DAI with two supposedly very different mages and they felt almost identical. There are very few real crowd control abilities, very few buffs or debuffs, and I felt like the role-playing aspect of combat was replaced with button mashing. It felt like SWTOR basically (which is fine for an MMO but incredibly meh for a single player game).

 

Like button mashing the auto attack button.

[Shahadem]

I consider it a DA game but, as other have said they forgot the old adage "You can't please all of the people all of the time." and tried to do just that.

 

Jimmy wants oranges

Sarah wants apples

The other 28 kids want bananas - give them 30 bananas.

 

But you can please all the people some of the time.

 

Everyone wants better maintained roads but nobody wants to pay for them. Everybody would be happy if the roads were magically repaired overnight.

[Big I]

No game is perfect. Some of my favorite ones, ones I go back to and play through years later, have huge flaws. Planescape: Torment has bad combat; Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines lets you build a pacifist PC, and then gives you almost nothing BUT combat for the second half of the game. KOTOR 2 shipped without a proper ending, and ME3 has an ending I'm unhappy with to this day. I enjoy them all regardless.

 

DA:I was a game I enjoyed a lot, and sank literally hundreds of hours into. It deserved every award it got. It was by no means perfect, but nothing is.

[Balek-Vriege]

"True Dragon Age Game"

 

Like there's been a consistency between the three which governs what is Dragon Agey.

 

Dragon Age: Origins had the advantage of Mass Effect 1 had, that it was the first installment of the series/setting and didn't have to deal with import saves, past decisions or player expectations about plot etc.  It was a new setting with fresh graphics and hybrid, old-school mechanics and features.  A major upgrade for CRPG fans from the NWNs and Kotors of the world.  At the time critics (game reviewers and players alike) were complaining about the game's linearity, the lack of a VO for the protagonist and the clunky feeling combat (too many skills, to large of a skillbar, slow animations).  Many people wanted it to be a true leap to next gen without forgetting old-school RPG mechanics (whatever that means). 

 

Dragon Age 2 suffered from high expectations and time constraints.  They addressed the combat by making it more Action-RPG (which I liked since I never liked DnD-like real time combat in CRPGs.  Just give me turn based in that case), but there were clear imbalance, design issues and many fans still to this day prefer NWN/Kotor/BG combat. They settled on a preset human character with a voice that a lot of people were unhappy with, because they liked playing different races and it removed origin stories.  The story was good and the city sandbox was a nice idea, but the execution was faulty and the entire game felt rushed.  Like ME games (that were really the only ones with save imports and Bioware games still are), the decisions of DA:O and cameos were naturally and severely limited due to the vast range of decisions you could make.  What really killed this game critically was the reused areas over and over.  To the point the whole city sandbox felt completely linear, boring and repetitive like a giant DA:O Deep Roads. If it wasn't for that the game would have been seen in a much better light.  There was no excuse really for having 4-5 preset areas that only changed a blocked door here or there.  Suffice to say I only finished my first playthrough of DA2, which started on DA2 launch, a week before Inquisition came out.

 

Dragon Age Inquisition is my favourite so far especially if the hours and playthroughs are anything to go by. For the most part the large regional/zoned sandboxes of DA:I are ideal and gorgeous.  Reminded me of trouncing around BG1 zones.  I like it a lot more than the one large ES sandboxes that make the world, its cities and the whole setting feel super miniature thus breaking immersion.  Or linear like DA:O paths that get repetitive running back and forth along designated lines.  The story was on par or better than DAO with a lot of lore revelations and even more lore questions popping up where I'm really interested in what happens next.  I really liked the idea of keeps, camps, spreading influence, the war table and an important protagonist that's actually recognized for who they are (DA:O and DA2 did this pretty well too).  The open world features such as quests and keeps could have been more fleshed out, but were far better and enjoyable for me than the main/side quests in games like Skyrim.  I missed the common use of cutscene dialogue that we had become accustomed to in MEs and DA2.

 

My biggest issue with DA:I is probably the pacing during the last 1/2-2/3 of the game.  It feels as though we needed one more main quest or two in the game to either slow down the urgency of the story or speed it up after Wicked Hearts/Abyss.  Right now to get the best pace I complete all zones up to Western Approach/Crestwood, then do Here Lies the Abyss, then feel the need to complete every other zone before Wicked Hearts or else the story feels stagnant and strange.  Basically my Quizzy saves the world from rifts and restores almost all order while "waiting" for Celene's party because it feels best immersively.  This could have been partially solved if Wicked Hearts and What Pride has Wrought were connected to zones more like Abyss was.

 

My point is that all the Dragon Age games have had different pros, cons and features that I don't know what a "true" Dragon Age game is.  Since many DA:O features would be too dated for mainstream RPGs and DA:I has been so successful and acclaimed, I have a feeling DA:I is what will be considered a "true" Dragon Age from now on instead of using the other two as templates.  It's also entirely possible DA4 will feel completely different again because of the nature of the protagonists, the regions, the plot etc.  A "true" Dragon Age game may never exist.

[Hal-Jordan]

Yeah, I remember back in the day when Bioware was a good developer: KOTOR, Baldurs Gate, Mass Effect 1, Origins.

 

Now? Pfft.

[Rizilliant]

While Thedas, and lore, etc remain.. The actual gameplay seems off.. With no Auto Attack, reliable tactical camera, behaviour modifiers, It plays, and feels mroe like an action game.. Less thought, or tactics to play.. Theres no way to fail.. Even in dialog.. give me 3 options, all of which are the same answer, with a different tone.. 

 

Skills, attribute points, and ability decisions, are basically xchosen.. With so few options (and many that dont work anyway) each mage feels the samge.. There only feels like 2 different warriors, and 2 different rogues.. Bow/dagger, or 2H/s&s... The "Specializations" dont feel very special.. Atleast in previous games, each specialization felt different from one another.. Shapeshifting, Blood Magic, Arcane Warrior, or Spirit Healer.. No 2 alike.. Now, you have 4 offensive options.. Even the CC feels weak... The Rogue specials do atleast feel varying.. But Warrior is kindve meh.. I dont even bother using Blackwalls.. Templar is nice for magic/demon fights..Often youre already pretty powerful against those already.. 

 

Difficulty.. Apart from the obvious higher hp/dmg from your enemies, and throwing more of them, there really is no difficulty..The AI is so bad, that you fight the exact same way on easy, as you do on nightmare.. Only for longer.. Because its longer, and they hit harder, it just exhausts resources, as opposed to actually causing you to have to implore tactics, and strategy! The exceptions being Dragons.. Man woul dthey be so much fun if Tactical mode works a bit better.. Hell, if even the view was better, this would be the best part of combat.. Even the final encounter felt no different from a bear on the woods, or a demon commander from any rift! And i dont use Focus (i win) abilities..

 

So how did it feel different? You can easily get away with controlling only your PC in combat throughout the entire game.. You had to play your whole party previously on higher difficulties...The main, and companion missions were a tiny fraction of the content available.. Far overshadowed by the  mmountain of (what many feel) empty, meaningless, unrewarding filler quests.. Yes this was always here, but in unison with the main content.. It coincided with the good, which made it fun, rather than chore.. Much of the game was walking, herbing, mining, and not talking, questing, reading meaningful lore, codex entries, puzzles, etc.. DA:I idea of a puzzle, is how to navigate the atrocious jumping mechanic up a rocky mound? Seriously? You may like action, fast-paced combat, but DA:O was created with tactical, slow paced, combat.. Thats why we expected this style.. Other games we have for action combat, and theyre in abundance! And they do it FAR better! This was too unresponsive, clunky, and slow animations to be action oriented.. So it fails to be either tactical, or action.. Wait out 4 long staff animations, and try to avoid an aoe.. try to run away after melee with your daggers, holding WASD, only to erealize you hit it to soon, and hes just standing there while your holding the key(not a problem with controller).. The User interface doesnt fit.. Trying to scroll down the ability tree, is  a chore all its own.. Scrolling down the inventory is a chore.. Having to go all the way into the ability tree, to swap abilities, is a chore(an unnecessary one! 8 abilities, wth?!?) Multiplayer, and microtransactions..Tons, and tons of meaningless loot.. "Legendary" armors.. Armor sets..What happened to those? They cannot equip what they want, or have 2 weapon sets.. I liked being able to have my rogues half archer, have rogue if i so chose.. I understood how rewarding complex gameplay, and putting thought into my builds, were! The weapon types no longer matter. A mace is no different than a sword.. Meaning they arent more useful vs heavy armor, and slower, whereas a sword is faster.. Daggers, arent for piercing.. The stats themselves, do different things.. Cunning, spellpower, attack%, will power, etc.. They dont even have the same meaning.. EVERYTHING has been simplified.. It feels like any, everyday, average button mashing console game for everyone.. It used to be a difficult game, that required thought, and time to play..  

 

I enjoyed the companions, and main story.. Sadly, they only made up about 10-15hrs of my 187hr initial playthrough.. I actually didnt want to play, mroe than i did.. I had to force myself to play each and every time..

[Personette]

If you're calling back to DA:O--it will never be that good again. Not because Bioware can't make a game that is as good, or choices that are as interesting, but because you can't recapture that initial experience of surprise. You only get to experience something for the first time once. 

 

As for trying to tally up the number of important choices in Inquisition versus Origins--eh. Numbers don't change how you feel about the game; though they might help you analyze how you feel, or try to pinpoint the origin of those feelings.

 

And there was definitely something about Inquisition that made me feel limited. Lots to love, but a clear sense that every fork in the road would eventually lead me to the same destination.

 

Edited to add: I wonder if the fact that the Inquisition 'destination' was figurative (peace & a new divine) while in Origins the destination was literal (Denerim, the landsmeet) allowed for Origins to change up the 'feel' of the endings more? 

[BackdoorPaco]

Yeah, I remember back in the day when Bioware was a good developer: KOTOR, Baldurs Gate, Mass Effect 1, Origins.

 

Now? Pfft.

The cycle continues.

[Teddie Sage]

Excuse my language but whoever wrote that article can go f-bomb themselves.

[Balek-Vriege]

The cycle continues.

 

That just about sums it up.

 

Honestly, I never thought DA2 would become included in "comparison to better titles" as a better title to DA:I even if this latest installment somehow turned out to be a failure (which it is not obviously).  But here we are years later and it seems DA2 has gained a lot of popularity (nostalgia) among those complaining about DA:I and it's now on par with other Bioware games as a "good" title.  It doesn't even matter that it seems DA developers have been bending over backwards since DA:O to give fans what they "want" (especially after the mess up that was DA2 implementation) by listening to BSN heavily for guidance on sequel/content features.  Like I mentioned before, a lot of the negative/bad features that were in DA2, even though they were rushed due to artificial time constraints and implementation could have been much better, were direct results of loud complaints about DA:O on BSN (Again, map linearity, no PC VO, combat etc.).  The same goes for many of the changes from DA2 to DA:I.   The latest patch notes show that they're listening/reactionary to BSN by adding in a wishlist of BSN wishlists.

 

However, by doing so they will always have a good amount of people upset, because those who want DA:O 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 etc will never be happy and the features changed sequel to sequel will upset those who liked said features and wanted them carried over into the next installment.  So everyone begins to glorify the previous installment and the nostalgia goggles keep getting larger and larger for the "originals" (In this case DA:O, ME1, KOTOR and the holy grail being BG1), because all we remember is that "new" feel they had that sequels don't.
 

[theluc76]

DAI is a DA game, just a bad one.

[Heimdall]

That just about sums it up.

 

Honestly, I never thought DA2 would become included in "comparison to better titles" as a better title to DA:I even if this latest installment somehow turned out to be a failure (which it is not obviously).  But here we are years later and it seems DA2 has gained a lot of popularity (nostalgia) among those complaining about DA:I and it's now on par with other Bioware games as a "good" title.  It doesn't even matter that it seems DA developers have been bending over backwards since DA:O to give fans what they "want" (especially after the mess up that was DA2 implementation) by listening to BSN heavily for guidance on sequel/content features.  Like I mentioned before, a lot of the negative/bad features that were in DA2, even though they were rushed due to artificial time constraints and implementation could have been much better, were direct results of loud complaints about DA:O on BSN (Again, map linearity, no PC VO, combat etc.).  The same goes for many of the changes from DA2 to DA:I.   The latest patch notes show that they're listening/reactionary to BSN by adding in a wishlist of BSN wishlists.

 

However, by doing so they will always have a good amount of people upset, because those who want DA:O 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 etc will never be happy and the features changed sequel to sequel will upset those who liked said features and wanted them carried over into the next installment.  So everyone begins to glorify the previous installment and the nostalgia goggles keep getting larger and larger for the "originals" (In this case DA:O, ME1, KOTOR and the holy grail being BG1), because all we remember is that "new" feel they had that sequels don't.
 

I saw the exact same thing happen when ME3 came out, suddenly all the complaints about ME2 seemed to melt away and now quite a few people claim it as the best of the trilogy.

[AlanC9]

Just imagine how much better ME3 will be the moment ME4 ships.