125 réponses à ce sujet

[Addictress]

 

The flow of time in the series  is a very important aspect for characters like Anders.

This is true also for DAI where given the travels performed by the Inquisitor the defeat of COrypheus happens  i think in at least 2-3 years.

 

Anyway to me is

 

DAII

DAI

DAO

 

the main plot of both DAO and DAI felt to generic and boring with these two Mhuawaaa stupid ancient evils, only one who made the plot of DAO interesting was Loghain whom i redeemed

 

Thank for your support.

 

I wouldn't put Origins over DA2, I'd say they tie for me - but they are apples and oranges. Origins is just such a unique and different experience altogether. The darkness and complexity of the dungeons, as well as the intensity of the introduction to the lore and the environments, make it one of a kind.

[Dukemon]

What I can say on this topic is - I want an Enhanced Version of Dragon Age 2. 

Improved Environments, no loading barriers in Kirkwall between Hightown and Lowtown, a Hawke estate where I can say 'Now I believe you there live four or five people plus Pet' , a GUI like in DAO on Console and PC, and true HD on Console. Maybe more variations of consequences for the Friend/Rivale relationship, where even Carver as Templar helps Hawke on mage sides, when I have Caver on Friendship.

The german version could fix the translations of the game. xD

Rivale means there Foe...

[GoldenGail3]

What I can say on this topic is - I want an Enhanced Version of Dragon Age 2. 
Improved Environments, no loading barriers in Kirkwall between Hightown and Lowtown, a Hawke estate where I can say 'Now I believe you there live four or five people plus Pet' , a GUI like in DAO on Console and PC, and true HD on Console. Maybe more variations of consequences for the Friend/Rivale relationship, where even Carver as Templar helps Hawke on mage sides, when I have Caver on Friendship.
The german version could fix the translations of the game. xD
Rivale means there Foe...

Yeah, that could be awesome....

[Jedi Comedian]

Love rogues, so ME2 and DA2.

[Nimrod Yanai]

The saving grace of this game is without a doubt the NPCs. And I'm not just talking about companions... If anything, there are several non companion NPCs which make this game one of the best personal games I've played, where you actually feel the characters are real.
I truly think Petrice is my favorite character in the game. She was incredible for this game, and her voice acting was superb.

The Arishok of course, not a lot of explanation needed there...
The viscount's son, while he had a tiny role, was a great character I think.

Meridith was awesome, though they shouldn't have made her idol crazy in the end. If anything, Orsino should have taken the idol to explain his sudden "blood magic" shift, while Meridith should have just stayed a true believer.

 

As for companions - I REALLY liked how the companions had their own relationships with one another, where you came to speak with one and the cut scene would start with that character talking to another companion. That was really great. 

 

The problem is the game itself wasn't that good. The plot was full of holes and messy as hell, the protagonist was just bland as hell and terrible at actually protecting his family, which was the most important thing to him the whole time!

I actually liked the time jumps and how this story was a personal story, and not a huge world event. It was just about a guy and his friends. I thought that was very refreshing.

[Inkvisiittori]

Umm, DA2 was well written? 

 

I must politely disagree. The game is full of plot holes, inconsistencies and some very weird narrative choices.

 

- The story was all about blood magic. Kirkwall is full of fanatic Templars who hunt blood mages day and night, yet Hawke can practice blood magic in front of them and no one cares. 

- The Dalish are supposed to be wandering nomads because it would be too dangerous for them to stay in one place for too long. Yet no one cares about Clan Sabrae living near Kirkwall for almost ten years. 

- During the ten year period the game takes place your companions change very little or not at all. They struggle with the exact same problems in act three as they did in act one. There is very little character development for any of them.

- Anders is a pro-mage fanatic, yet he stays with pro-templar Hawke. Fenris is a former slave who hates magic, yet he stays with blood mage Hawke who can become a slave owner in act two. Merrill has sacrificed everything to fix one ancient artifact of her people, yet she stays with Hawke who spits on her cultural heritage and treats elves like ****.

- Arishok spend several years in Kirkwall and nearly started an rogue invasion because Isabela stole the tome of Cousland from him. Yet if you give her to him, she escapes in less than two days with the said tome. No consequences.

- Even if you side with the mages Orsino will turn into a giant monster, because...?

- Meredith can't just be a tyrannical extremist, no, it has to yet again be some evil ancient magic that turned her mad...

- "Our hero", the games main character, has no relevance what so ever to the story. The qunari invasion, the destruction of the Chantry, the mage templar conflict - everything would have happened regardless of if Hawke happened to be there or not. He's the least important character in his own story!

 

There are many more examples, but I think this is enough for now. There were also some good things in DA2, sure. But overall I think the writing of DA2 is not very good and so far it is the only Bioware game that I have been genuinely disappointed with. 

[Biotic Apostate]

Anders is a pro-mage fanatic, yet he stays with pro-templar Hawke.

Except he doesn't. Whether rivalry romances worked or not is a personal preferance, but Anders does not go along happily with Hawke siding against mages. If you force him to side with the templars, he reluctantly agrees, but he's pretty clear about the fact that he will kill himself afterwards. Your choices are reflected in the romance.

[Arcana scribo]

 

-Kirkwall is also the city in which the Amell family have an estate,so it is their home as much as Lothering was.

 

-Both Bethany and Hawke were trained since their childhood by their father to hide their powers but eventually Bethany was captured by the templars

Hawke was protected by the family status and the new found wealth state of the Amell family as well as the title of champion.

Merrill was able to hide herself from Templars while Anders literally lived in a sewer to evade them.

 

 

-The Dalish don't stay too long in the same place unless there is a problem that surround the clan like in DAO where Zathrian clan was stopped by the curse.

In DAII case the clan remained in the same pace because Marethari had a task to absolve for Flemeth after that it was the influence of the ancient demon in the mountain that drew them to remain there as well as possibly their involvement with the somniary Fenryel and the whole Vaterral thing.

 

 

-I remember several Dalish of their clan that kindly welcomed Hawke with insults 

 

-Templars of Kirkwall had plenty things to take care during the events of DA2,especially watch carefully the infidels of the Qun and their Arishok,i don't blame them if some mage like Hawke,Quentin,Merrill,Anders and several bloodmage escaped from their sight Emile de launcet included since you have to search him with Hawke.

 

 

-Fenris until that moment had no choice because he had no companions to rely upon,that is why he was forced to flee each time the moment he met Hake is the moment he start to fight back Denarius.

 

-Anders epilogue of DAA are momentary rumors,he never died there and even if he went to the circle he may have decided to abandon it in order to go on Kirkwall,you may have never recruited him or Justice but this doesn't mean that their destiny would have not been the same.

To be a Grey warden you need to be an affiliate to the organization of the grey,Anders of DA2 isn't a GW anymore and he do not consider himself as such anymore(like drunk Alistair) since he do not take orders from Warden commanders or from the first warden.

Riordan made this clear in DAO during the Loghain's Recruitment it is not a matter of loyalty because you did the joining 

(since GW will always end up to have the same fate) if you don't work for the GW you are not one of them.

Jory was killed because he was at the precence of a warden commander,neither Alsitair nor Anders were killed if they abandoned the order.

 

 

 

-On Orsino is a fair point (plot hole),but it was already explained , Bioware decided to put an extra boss battle for those who allied with mages that's all.

 

 

 

 

-I don't remember exactly what Petrice wanted,tough if i'm not mistake she wanted more power in the chantry business and was akin to play her games in order to do that with deceit,lies,manipulation ecc.

That stick to me as to be the  classic human behaviour, i saw plenty of these kid of  self absorbed person in the DA universe.

 

-Isabela is a thief with no loyalty and a little sense of caring for others,what she did was perfectly in her character until Hawke changed her in part.

 

 

-Ok so clearly you missed the part in which Meredith policy went too far after ACT 2 because of the idol,or have you forgotten about his sword?

Plus Kirkwall was a mess from the start,full of bandits,refugees,demons,qunari an all of it  was on Meredith shoulders more than it was of the Viscount

 

I i'll stop here since all the others points you made are not lead to identify plot holes but more likely  you'r view of the writing of the game.

Fair points on cameos i didn't like to see so many returning characters from DAO that didn't make sense and were there just for fan service like Alistair.

 

 

About Orsino, it was out of blue, but then if you think about it, he just lost hope, even if with campions help Meredith may be stopped, future is still very shady, running, hiding, what about others, not templars, just simple people, most of the are afraid of magic. And then he saw how all his circle was slaughtered, he used blood magic, but it was blood of his dead people... But why he did that at that exact moment...not facing Meredith. That’s strange, I agree.

 

But I really wanted something more from ending. I mean they gave you no normal epilog… It was like “and they all disappeared”, I understand that Varic wants to hide Hawke, but others…

[Qun00]

What I enjoy about DA2's writing is that it does feel like this IS Hawke's story. The hero isn't just there to move the main questline forward.

Even DAO didn't focus as much on the protagonist at a personal level.

DAI >>> DAO >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> DA2
ME2 >>>>>>>>> ME3 >>>>>> ME1

Thank you. Why does this need to turn into another DAI bashing thread?

But of course, now that DAI is the fandom's favorite punching bag, DA2 has finally been relieved from that role. It is the burden of being the newest game.

[naddaya]

I like all games for different reasons, I don't even know which one is my favorite at this point.

 

DAO felt really polished at the time, I loved the gameplay (some argue it's too slow but I remember having a blast with my arcane warrior, so many spells!) and the storytelling overall.

 

DA2 was a mess. I hated the gameplay and reused environments but it also had many good moments and memorable lines. I loved the cast and their interactions, everyone felt real and lively. The story feels less solid than DAO but the characters make up for it.

 

DAI has too many fetch quests. The environments and cinematics are beautiful, but Cory is one dimensional and I couldn't take him seriously. Calpernia and Alexius were the only ones remotely interesting. Adamant, Halamshiral and the temple of Mythal were great though, and the companions were all very well written. Now, if Trespasser was part of the main game as originally planned I wouldn't complain. My main issue with DAI (other than the fetch quests) is that the ending is abrupt and unsatisfying. Trespasser shifts the focus to Solas (the most complex "villain" of the DA franchise so far in my opinion) and brings all the feels, it would have been perfect as an ending.

[Secret Rare]

It seems to me like Inquisition problems stem from Bioware listening to too much fan feedback for their own good. People, after playing DA2 wanted more stats, more regions, more loot, and just more bog standard rpg elements. Which they got at the detriment of the interactive questing experience from the last 2 games. I may be crucified for saying this but as much as I dislike the companions and the general gameplay of DA2 it had a more cohesive story that progressed naturally through 3 arcs and was just plain superior to DAI in that regard. I'm not even sure which I prefer more, the quest light 100 hour exploration of DAI or the more tightly constrained but well developed story from DA2. And that climax was confusing as hell, I was under the impression Corypheus was assaulting Skyhold, the Inquisitor and co simply run outside from the war room, then BAM instant boss fight. What was Bioware thinking? They had amazing climax battles before: the battle of Denerim, the citadel approach from Ilos, the suicide mission, the assault on London, even the ending missions from both the Qunari arc and the mage v templar arc of DA2 were pretty good climaxes in their own right. This just reeks of cut and/or rushed content. It felt like the temple of Mythal was supposed to be the closing mission of the second arc, but the problem is we never got a 3rd arc to the story, at least thats how I felt once I finished it, 200 hours into the game.

[Obadiah]

I'd have to disagree with the title. Certainly, some parts of the story in DA2 are well written (almost everything about snarky Hawke, and Bran), but some fairly key parts fail badly. I don't know if the writing is just better in DAO, but in DAO the story was conveyed in such a manner that it unfolded mostly logically based on player choices, if not always predictably. DA2 feels very haphazard in some really key parts for no reason whatsoever (fate of sibling in ACT 1, fate of Merril's clan, climax of Act 3, etc...). I like forcing DA2 to make sense, but it really should not take this much work.

[straykat]

I'd have to disagree with the title. Certainly, some parts of the story in DA2 are well written, but some fairly key parts fail badly. I don't know if the writing is just better in DAO, but in DAO the story was conveyed in such a manner that it unfolded mostly logically based on player choices, if not always predictably. DA2 feels very haphazard in some really key parts for no reason whatsoever (fate of sibling in ACT 1, fate of Merril's clan, climax of Act 3, etc...). I like forcing DA2 to make sense, but it really should not take this much work.

 

I know what you mean by forcing things to make sense at least. I fill in the blanks a bit and after being acquainted the game for some time, I think there's some quest orders that are just better than others.

 

In a way, this is an issue with things just being very open. If it was up to me, I'd make some events more linear. Like I'm more comfortable recruiting Merrill first (right after I pick up Aveline's quest to attack the raiders). This way Merrill is available later so I can recruit Anders and attempt the rescue on Karl. It's a little strange with Aveline there.

 

It's also just weird to have Isabela's quest pop up right after you recruit Anders... when both of their quests take place in the Chantry. In one night, the whole place becomes a slaughterhouse. lol

[GoldenGail3]

I know what you mean by forcing things to make sense at least. I fill in the blanks a bit and after being acquainted the game for some time, I think there's some quest orders that are just better than others.
 
In a way, this is an issue with things just being very open. If it was up to me, I'd make some events more linear. Like I'm more comfortable recruiting Merrill first (right after I pick up Aveline's quest to attack the raiders). This way Merrill is available later so I can recruit Anders and attempt the rescue on Karl. It's a little strange with Aveline there.
 
It's also just weird to have Isabela's quest pop up right after you recruit Anders... when both of their quests take place in the Chantry. In one night, the whole place becomes a slaughterhouse. lol

Yeah I know, but my Snarky Hawke was fine dat - he's not really one to believe in the Maker so....

[Andreas Amell]

I love the story of DA2 because it's more focused on the progress of its characters and Hawke's relation to them. Being the first Dragon Age game where the lead character has a voice made bigger impact in narrative after Origins. You were based in your own home and slowly climbed up the ladder. That created more stablity in choosing your adventures. Origins and Inquisition dealt with war and settling different regional conflicts. In their settings you can't ideally choose who you want to recruit to win. War makes strange bedfellows. While DA2 works on the lore of Origins they decided to rewrite the entire Thedan history and culture in Inquisition. That took a lot of adjusting to.

[straykat]

I love the story of DA2 because it's more focused on the progress of its characters and Hawke's relation to them. Being the first Dragon Age game where the lead character has a voice made bigger impact in narrative after Origins. You were based in your own home and slowly climbed up the ladder. That created more stablity in choosing your adventures. Origins and Inquisition dealt with war and settling different regional conflicts. In their settings you can't ideally choose who you want to recruit to win. War makes strange bedfellows. While DA2 works on the lore of Origins they decided to rewrite the entire Thedan history and culture in Inquisition. That took a lot of adjusting to.

 

It's not really war from an experiential point of view though. It still feels like the same small group adventure game they always do. In DA2, this fit perfectly. I wish there had been more to the huge conflicts in DAI though. I don't mind the idea of a war (in fact, I like it), but it's not really all that. And it's especially weak with Corypheus. I suppose that they could write a war story with that kind of plot, but even Corypheus sucks. He doesn't feel like a clear and present danger.

 

What I really wanted to see though was Thedas itself as the enemy.. a world in conflict, where you're dealing with many little Loghains and Arishoks.. They had the right setup for it, with mages/templars and Briala/Celene/Gaspard.. but it's too segregated and not extensive enough.

[Ghost Gal]

Except he doesn't. Whether rivalry romances worked or not is a personal preferance, but Anders does not go along happily with Hawke siding against mages. If you force him to side with the templars, he reluctantly agrees, but he's pretty clear about the fact that he will kill himself afterwards. Your choices are reflected in the romance.

 

Yes he does. He doesn't do so happily, but he still goes along with Hawke. He still stays. At no point does he reach a breaking point and try to attack or leave; not even romantically. He is fanatically pro-mage and loathes Templars, but even if Hawke consistently sides with Templars he just grumbles as he continues to help out and even f*ck you if you're "romancing" him.

 

That's what Invissiittori finds unrealistic and so do I. You can consistently, continuously do things your companions find morally disgusting, but they never try to leave or stop you. (Except maybe Fenris siding with mages in the final battle, but even then you can easily talk him out of it.) Side with Templars and sell out mages in front of Anders? Practice blood magic and take a slave in front of Fenris? Constantly spit on Merrill's culture and treat every mage and elf you come across like sh*t? No problem, they'll still keep serving you and f*cking you, they'll just grumble about it instead of reaching a point where they say, "You are a HORRIBLE person!" and leave.

[Biotic Apostate]

Yes he does. He doesn't do so happily, but he still goes along with Hawke. He still stays. At no point does he reach a breaking point and try to attack or leave; not even romantically. He is fanatically pro-mage and loathes Templars, but even if Hawke consistently sides with Templars he just grumbles as he continues to help out and even f*ck you if you're "romancing" him.

You pretty much bolded everything, but the important part. If you spend the game telling Anders how horrible his decision to merge with Justice was, he'll plant the bomb during one of his blackouts, feel guilty about it, believe Hawke that mages should be contained, and help him. But he outright states that he will commit suicide afterwards. The people you romance in 2 doubt themselves very often, and rivalmances were about undermining the beliefs they held. They wanted to do something different than "reach minus something points and they will leave." Companions stay with you, but they doubt everything they held dear. You can't say Anders' rivalry has no impact, when again, Anders kills himself as a result.

[Cyberstrike nTo]

DA:I > DA:O > DA2.

[Addictress]

You say choosing between two radical sides is simplistic in morality.

There is no third side. That's the point. You're supposed to feel angry. You are supposed to want to run away. But the game forces you to see that in Thedas, everything boils down to two sides that, due to circumstances, must become polar, black and white opposites over time, and there is no room for a grey.

To be honest, feeling forced to choose there was the most powerful choice I ever made in a game. It worked. 100%. It wasn't a failure to provide options. It was a natural and telling result of the narrative and the world itself.

[Seraphim24]

DA2 and ME2 are the least original to me, by like a huge margin. However, they seem to fit well with nouveau-Bioware's ethos, hence reccomending them as models at times.

[Big I]

Never have I felt so railroaded in an RPG. Some questions I asked myself through the story:

 

-Why the hell are we staying in Kirkwall, aka templar central when one of the Hawkes is an apostate? Why not go back to Ferelden or go literally anywhere else?

-Why can't I kill Petrice in Act 1? (if you threaten her she says "I won't let you." WTF? Why does she get a say in whether or not I attack her?)

-Why can't I kill Meredith in Act 2? (a qunari invasion sounds like the perfect cover to assassinate her)

-What do the companions do to support themselves? The game takes place over seven years, yet we never find out what Isabella, Merril and Anders do to earn money. All we get for Fenris is one line that says "sometimes he's a mercenary."

-Why does no one react to Hawke being a blood mage?

-Why does Fenris stay your friend if you own an elven slave?

-Why does Anders think I'm anti-mage just because I keep calling him crazy for being an abomination? I love mages, I always free them.

-WTF Anders. How did you even do that with basic gunpowder ingredients?

-Orsino becoming a Harvester. Nuff said.

-Meredith becoming a glowing red statue. Nuff said.

 

To be clear, it's not like I was really looking to play a game that would let me move back to Ferelden, or whatever. But everytime I reached a point in the story where I was forced into a certain outcome, the explanation for why that was happening often left me wondering what the hell was going on.

[Macha'Anu]

DAI disappointed me mainly 'cause I expected it to be about the Mage-templar war and the consecuences of Hawke and Anders' actions in Kirkwall, meaning, sort of a sequel to DA2. But in the game we saw very little of this.

 

Personally im glad DA-I went a different route.( I loved DA-I btw. Im one of those odd ones where it was my first Dragon age game and it pushed me to try the others. I know I know but I was kinda addicted to WoW for a while)

It was high time thedas see that both mages and templars were completely out of control and that there was a bigger evil in the works. While those two groups worked on destroying their lands in their own battles a massive evil came to light. Even with all the things people say about the chant of light and all that, which i was never a big support of when i rp those parts. Somehow almost everything they chant about is coming to light. (no pun intended) They may twist it to their narrative by by god they wasn't completely making it up. Coryephyus proves that much. Thing is they aren't telling the whole story. And thats where Solas comes in. and Flemeth/Mythal IMHO. It goes beyond cory btw. I was pro-mage I was always promage but then i decided " no you know what. NOTHING justifies spilling innocent blood to rebel. Its not coool IRL and its not cool in game heh. Thats why a lot of people irl are against wars.

Yes wars will exists. Its inevitable but its the innocents who suffer truly, not the just the poor mages or the templars. how many mage supporters where in that chantry? How many children who didnt even care about mage or templar? Elderly? I mean we're going further deep into story than need be but my point is at some point mages became tyrants to fight the tyrants. And I always chose to spare Anders except my last playthrough. As I seen it from Fenris's eyes He wasnt wrong when he said " Mages are no more different than the templars. They don't care who gets hurt so long as they make a point"(im adlibbing but thats pretty much Fenris in a nutshell). And I ALWAYS play a mage, as I prefer it, but even I could see in DA2 that the mages were getting out of control. even in DAO it wasnt the templars who killed all those mages nd templars. It was the mages who turned to evil and blood magic unleashing abominations that killed all those mages. Now im not one for opressing mages or anulling all mages because a dozen or so go full nutty and start bleeding everywhere to get moar power at all but even I am sane enough to see something has got to give with those people. Orsino... Hello... Even he proves the point Heh. sorry. There just has to be a better way. Even Alistair as King sees the wrongs done to mages and wants to help them. Let him help. Ya know.

 

And I quite rather enjoyed DA2. It was weird but nice to see the entire game evolved around one area. to see all the extreme changes take place as my hawke progressed. I was disappointed in the companion progressions but then Im also disappointed in a lot of the companion progressions in all the games. Im picky but I still enjoyed it. I also rather like the prefrecne specfic romances as it is like IRL. there are many different people IRL in regards to romance and what they prefer. I never understood the silly arguments that DAO and DAI should be like DA2 in regards to romances. IRL you cannot mod or force a straight prefrence to switch their preference or vice versa its just..... Not cool. So then i found the romances to be meh in DA2. Because it was not as passionate. It sounded and Felt flat to me. Except the whole consoling about the mom bit. there was passion in those scenes.. Well most of them. it was like the VA wasnt really placing any passion at all in them but then ive only ever seen 2 in my pt lol so maybe im wrong. But again thats the only real thing i didnt like.

[straykat]

It's interesting hearing your perspective, since you started with DAI. I don't like the game, but to each their own. You still reached many conclusions I did though.

[Angry Chocobo]

I agree that DA2 has a more complex and interesting concept for a story than Inquisition. The main problem with DA2's story is the pacing though.