Dragon Age II: EA boogaloo

[Rodan56]

I'll just momentarily say right now that I actually didn't hate MEA. It is not at all perfect and suffers many problems, but I do not hate it nearly as much as others. Gameplay wise, it's got some good things going for it. I bought it later, so the graphics issue wasn't as big a problem for me because there were a bunch of updates implemented to fix them. Also... I actually didn't hate the characters.

In fact, I liked at least most of them. Even Peebee who has become a very self-evident "You love or hate her" type of character. And she's my romance so... yeah. I'd explain more but it's off topic.

To tie it in with DA2, what kept me playing that game despite all the flaws I could so readily see, especially storywise, was because I cared enough about at least a few people in the game that I wanted to see things to the end. When my sister gets stuck in the Circle, I basically roleplayed from then on as a brother trying to find a way to bust my sib out. I'd get enough power or money or prestide to engineer her escape. That's how I justified things and made them matter to me, but outside of saving Bethany somehow I had no other goal. And, to be honest, the game never gave me the option to head out an accomplish the goal my character wanted to complete. Merrill became the only other reason I kept going along with things. I wanted to help her and keep her from going down a bad path that would get her into trouble. And I liked her as the good girl with a dark secret sort of thing. She's a lot like Tali, but with her flaws way WAY more pronounced. Unlike Tali, her people are kinda dicks to her for no good reason.

In an RPG, if you can make me care about the people in a story I otherwise don't like, I consider it a success. Character over narrative, although I obviously would prefer both to be off similar quality.

[Valikdu]

> Hawke is lured by Felicia Day to participate in a heist

...does anyone even remember who Felicia Day is, at this point?

[Rodan56]

Yeah, she's currently playing Forester's daughter on the new MST3k on Netflix.

[AlucardNoir]

> Hawke is lured by Felicia Day to participate in a heist

...does anyone even remember who Felicia Day is, at this point?

Did anyone ever know? She's no Kim Kardashian but she's been overhyped to hell and back. She's a C or B list actress(depending on who you ask) that somehow caught the imagination of the geek community. Hell, the DLC for Dragon Age 2 probably suffered a lot because it's marketing revolved more around her then what it was actually about.

[Asvarduil]

> Hawke is lured by Felicia Day to participate in a heist

...does anyone even remember who Felicia Day is, at this point?

...That redheaded girl who got a creepy proposition from Jesse Cox on a podcast?

[PaladinWolf]

I have played SWTOR but not knights of the fallen empire, which classes are the ones he considers the square peg for the expansion?

[Winter]

Kinda disappointed that Chuck had Isabella betray him as I do like her character but what you gonna do.

And on a unrelated note I do like how Inquisition managed to maintain the illusion of the Inquisitor being important, sure s/he doesn't have a choice in joining the Inquisition but you are important. You have a goal in throughout all three acts of the game. Act one is trying to clear your name, act to is being made a leader of the Inquisition and its up to you to stop the villain who is the reason you were framed for the crime you didn't commit. And act three, aka Trespasser, is either you trying to hold onto all the power you have gained or you ready to give up all that power while also looking for a way to save your own life as the mark begin to kill you.

Even when Solas is reviled to be the one who started it all he makes a point that he was not the focus of the story as all he did was give Corypheus his orb, kept the mark from killing you and lead you to Skyhold. The game makes it clear that you are the hero of this story, you are the one who did all these amazing things, you judge the fate of people on a throne, send tropes into battle and world leaders look upon you as a equal. So the Illusion, for me at least, was never broken whereas DA2 and Mass Effect: Andromeda broke the illusion and in the latter's case seemed to revile in doing so at times.

In MEA you have no motive to do anything throughout the whole game and are just a vehicle for other characters who often take advantage of you and force you into situations you want nothing to do with. At least in DA2 act's one and three gave you a motive to do things and had descent characters and Varric. MEA just feels like a joke that no one finds funny which is not helped by the rather forced humor. Seriously name one scene where the characters are not joking around, I can only think of one papa Ryder sacrificing himself to save his son/daughter and its arguably the best scene in the game but aside from that ever other scene has a joke or attempts at be serious it feels like a bad joke.

I have hope for Anthem and if they are able to avoid this issue and has a good story to boot I think it could be the game that fully redeems BioWare. I haven't lost faith in them because one poorly made game does not a damnation make. Honestly I'm more worried that Anthem will have the more restraining Dialogue Wheel of ME3 and MEA. I want to really shape my character the way I want and the DW of the last two Mass Effect games just doesn't allow for that.

[GandALF]

I have played SWTOR but not knights of the fallen empire, which classes are the ones he considers the square peg for the expansion?

I would think it would basically be all the non-Force users, there's a lot of Force visions and talk of destiny which really doesn't fit the classes like the smuggler.

The player also ends up leading an alliance of people from both factions, so if you're like me and your main character is a trooper then you basically have Sith lords taking orders from the sort of person that they would normally be Force choking for the lulz

The justification for this alliance being harmonious unlike on Yavin also involves a butchering of how the Force works.

[Draco Dracul]

If I were guessing the Jedi Knight is the character that is the best fit as they are the only one to face the emperor before and had that air of destiny thing about them to begin with.

[SuccubusYuri]

I have played SWTOR but not knights of the fallen empire, which classes are the ones he considers the square peg for the expansion?

I think specifically the Consular and Inq, as they best approximate the LS/DS story split over the course of the campaign, based on their stories so far if you've picked Light/Dark respectively (the Consular as champion of life, the Inq as dominatrix of the galaxy). Or perhaps the Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior, as they have the only long-standing grudge with the Emperor and thus have something to base the sassy back and forth with the Emperor on...? Or a mix-match of those options (it makes the most sense for the Warrior and Inq, for example, to be buddy cop with Darth Marr in chapter 1, as Wrath and Darth Nox/Imperius). I'm sure he'll elucidate down the road, it really all depends on how he sees the motivation/agency dynamic there.

I, personally, think it's pretty obvious they split one expansion into two, threw in a lot of unrelated, bullshit filler, which took away from the agency they told us we'd enjoy, as well as weakening the narrative throughline, and in the end pleased nobody.

Speaking to the summation of Act 2 more generally, I have to assume there were absolutely no blueprints for DA3 at this point, even an outline, otherwise the easy solution would have been make Hawke care more about the Circle in Kirkwall. What with having a sister inside...with Templar...who are assholes...Like I know it's coming, but they have had NOTHING to do, it feels like Hawke has a unique position to the conflict, though, rather than this background noise. A powerful mage family, a sister taken to the Circle, also noble, and thus with interests in maintaining status quo...that all feels lost thus far in the game.

Even standalone, though, this chapter did not really feel like, you know, fallout from the whole darkspawn war. Nothing of consequence that happens seems to have been driven by that, either, the whole 'stealing a book' story could be any fantasy game, and it's the dominant looming factor of the act. I feel like with daddy-Hawke being an apostate means the family was kind of used to drifting, almost like Romani just up and quitting towns at a moment's notice, having Hawke find a place to settle down, and landed no less, would be an easy motivator to get across.