Well, I'll try to take the standout moments from my first playthrough as a mage (pictured in my avatar) in the order they occurred; this is not necesarily from best to worst.
Actually the Fade was a standout moment for me, so that was a nice way to start off the game. I was immediately entranced with it and wanted to see more of it. Little did I know I'd get that desire fulfilled in spades later.
The standout moment of betraying Jowan and feeling like a dirty rat for it... then finding out he's a blood mage after all and feeling like HE was a dirty rat for it.
Duncan killing Jory during the Joining was a sock in the gut. I was suddenly thinking... Duncan's not a nice man. I don't like him any more. And after seeing what happened to both him and Daveth (and the expression of fear on my mage's face) I was actually apprehensive as she took the drink. I knew she'd make it through or the game would be really short, but I still felt the tension of the moment. The Joining was really the first time the game hit me with a right cross and said "This is not Lord of the Rings, chump".
Then we have the entire Battle of Ostagar, I think one of the crowning moments in all of the game, from the starting cutscene to the ogre boss fight to the ending cutscene. I've taken various characters to various points in the game and sometimes I will skip a cutscene or dialogue tree here and there, but the Battle of Ostagar cutscenes I watch from start to finish every time I go through them. They're so well done, really they're big-budget movie release quality, and they really set the tone for the rest of the game. The king and Duncan both buying it was shocking too... I expected both to have major character roles in the rest of the game. As for the ogre at the top of the Tower of Ishal, well, this was my first introduction to the fairly brutal learning curve that Dragon Age combat presents, He wiped my party three or four times before I was able to take him out, and finally it was Alistair jumping on it and doing the whole sword through the neck slow motion thing, which was totally awesome.
Next standout moment: "I... CAN cook... yes..." "Oh good, then you can substitute for Alistair!" "Right, my cooking will kill us, that's all she meant."
Then there was the scene of the green fog boiling out of the haunted castle in Redcliffe (that cutscene really sticks with me for some reason), followed by the first large-scale batle that you participate in. After wasting the trickle of zombies that made its way through the fire, I figured it was going to be easy. Little did I know. The assault on the dockside was relentless and I got my ass kicked roundly several times. Even after successfully pulling it off, most of the town militia died. Not exactly a resounding victory.
Then came the Fade. Oh boy did it deliver on the sneak peek from the mage origin. I would love a game centered around the Fade... pounding my way through doors and smashing demons as a giant golem was awesome. I know lots of people hate the Fade section but the parts having to do with the Fade are among my favorite parts of the game.
Most of the companions are the big standout moments of the game, but Alistair and Leliana gave me the best ones the first time through. Leliana's stories, her warmth as a character, her bad-girl, thrill-hunter past, her gushing about hair and shoes, even her romance, which she blindsided me with (and which I almost accepted). And Alistair's "lamppost in winter", him giving the Lothering flower and really the entire romance. He was funny and endearing and one of the best characters BioWare's created. He was enough to beat out Leliana as a target for my affections which is saying a lot.
Leliana's giggle and her accent when calling Sten a "Sof-tee!" for petting a kitten. Oh my GOSH that was so cute. That alone made me regret not accepting her offer to go to the tent, girl-on-girl or no.
The first real "Oh crap!" moment I came across in the game: confronting Flemeth and having her turn into a FREAKING DRAGON. And of course proceeding to lay the smackdown with authority. She was very difficult, actually more difficult than the High Dragon I would come across later.
Then we get to Orzammar, which was almost one continuous standout moment from beginning to end. From walking in to see one dwarf butcher another with an axe to the chest, to the political intrigue and maneuvering, to really debating which was the right course to take (though at first Harrowmont seemed the right choice and I ultimately went with it, I'm still never entirely sure who the best choice is and Bhelen DOES seem to do better for the dwarves even though he's a conniving tyrant). I never cared for dwarves in anything that includes them, but the dwarves of Dragon Age have converted me into fans. Bioware created the best dwarves I've ever seen.
Then the Deep Roads with the Broodmother. Yes, the Archdemon appearing in the canyon was a standout moment, but really the Dead Trenches is the most powerful section of horror in the game and it is so effective it overshadows everything else. This section has been praised over and over and deservedly so. The presentation with the echoing voice in the corridors, the horror technique of tell, don't show, which is the one time where show-don't-tell does not apply in fiction, the big reveal... everything about it is perfectly presented for maximum impact.
Seeing the apparition of Jowan in the Gauntlet... I opened the door and my heart sank to see him standing there. I knew what he was going to say, he was going to accuse me of being a faithless backstabber and I knew I couldn't refute him. What I'd been forced to do had sat like a rock in my gut at the time and that feeling came back full force. I stood in the door literally for two minutes just steeling up the courage to step through, and then when I did and he forgave me and said he understood, it was so far opposite of what I expected that it nearly made me break down. I haven't reached that part for any other origin yet, but from what I hear it is just as powerful if not moreso.
Finally the Landsmeet and everything that takes place in it. The way relationships with your companions resolve (or crumble) in ways you didn't forsee... agonizing over how best to set up Ferelden's rulership and trying to make everything work out for everyone and realizing it would never happen. Convincing Alistair that he needs to become king... and then my Warden surprising me by choosing to convince him to marry Anora as well, for the good of the country... then the heartbreak of him rejecting our romance. The creepiness of Morrigan's request, but agonizing over that one too and ultimately turning her down. Then Anora betraying us before the entire Landsmeet, and the entire place erupting in armed combat... then Loghain's execution, though I'd have made him a Grey Warden instead (and have him take the final blow, as a proper punishment in my mind) if Alistair had not objected so vehemently and made me choose between them. The Landsmeet really is the crowning achievement of the whole game, where all your decisions have their consequences come down on you like a ton of bricks. Even fighting the Archdemon afterwards feels slightly superfluous.
And the final standout moment was taking the blow on the Archdemon and seeing Alistair presiding over my Warden's funeral, putting on a brave face but with that one sentence spoken under his breath with his voice breaking. The ending of the game from the Landsmeet to the epilogue just wrung me out emotionally; I've not had any game that forced me to agonize over the decisions so intensely. I nearly cried multiple times in Dragon Age, which is the only time that a game has ever done that to me outside the ending of Planescape:Torment.
Other standout moments are in the origin stories, notably the human Noble origin and the City Elf origin, which are both gut-punches (in fact I played through the city elf origin once and it affected me so much I can't go through it again... I can't reread books or re-watch movies or now, replay a game, that deals with rape), but I found my favorite origin stories are the dwarf noble and commoner, because Bioware has finally made dwarves awesome.
I think there are four main parts of the game which really set it apart from other fantasy and which should be used as guideposts for further development of the Dragon Age universe. The first is the Battle of Ostagar, so superbly done, which really sets the tone for the entire game. The second is the Fade, a wonderfully unique take on magic and the spiritual. The third is of course Orzammar and the Deep Roads, the best section of the entire game. The fourth is the Landsmeet, and the coiled mass of emotions and decisions and political chicanery involved. Both Orzammar and the Landsmeet present you with choices that have no clear good or bad, and in many cases only a choice between bad options. The strongest parts of the game is not the conflicts themselves but the maneuverings and setup that goes on behind the conflicts. Expand and concentrate on the atmosphere and playstyle of those four sections and Dragon Age will continue to be a unique and riveting universe. Seeing places like Antiva and Orlais and the Free Marches and the Anderfels and all of that would be very cool, but they need to keep the feeling of those sections of Origins within them in order to maintain the standards of excellence that the first game set.
Modifié par Sable Phoenix, 03 avril 2010 - 09:34 .
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