I tried, twice. I really did. I don't really care much for medieval fantasy but I thought since it was Bioware I'd give it a try. No dice.
On my first attempt I got 10 hours in, never really enjoying it. 2nd attempt I finished the origin story then just turned it off. I found the pacing was slow, the combat boring and the characters were only interested after you got them to like you, which kind of works at cross purposes because usually you'd want them to like you because they are interesting to talk to.
About the only character I found I felt anything for was the King, who I really, really wanted to die. Luckily, he did. Apart from that the rest of the characters, story and world just seemed so flat and uninteresting.
I think I'll stick to Mass Effect for Bioware (unless I pick up a DS in which case I'll try Sonic Chronicles).
It's a shame that I couldn't like this game, it really is.
I really wanted to like this game because they said "Spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate".
It is nothing like Baldur's Gate excepting the tolkien/D&D inspired setting. The story is far less competently written, the combat is the same excepting that weapon and armour choice are meaningless and spell use is dumbed down meaningless rotation.
It feels like Bioware developed a set story structure and characters in KOTOR and now they use them in every game. Dragon Age really does feel like KOTOR: Medieval Fantasy edition,... with extra long dungeons.
AT least KOTOR didn't test my patience until the last chapter and then you were pretty well invested. After my 28th room of rage demons I was pretty ready to pack it in. And then I tried the deep roads..... Sigh.
Hehe, I understand the dilema. Both are great games really. You SHOULD be able to get DA:O + all DLC + DA:A (The expansion) for $20-$25 in retail, so maybe that won't take too much out of your budget. Maybe add $10 to that as that was the PC price, but that's how I got my copy. If you can spare the money, buy both, otherwise, read below.
It seems like a damn good game, but I dunno... Will I have the free time to enjoy the game?
I will tell you one thing here and now: It is a damn long game. If you want to do everything, it will take you an age and a half to get through. My first playthrough, in which I did every side quest and such, took me 120 hours to complete. A lot of that is somewhat repetitive - usually in two of the main story locations: The Mage Tower, and the Dwarven town's underground roads. Both of them dragged on for one reason for me really: You got so close to the end, then were torn from it. Spoilers below:
Mage Tower:
You fight your way through the demons in the bottom three levels of the mage tower, one level or so to go until you get to the boss fight, a sloth demon puts you to sleep and traps you in the fade in one of your dreams. You have to do some lateral and interdimensional thinking to get out alive, and it can get REALLY disheartening on your first run through, where everywhere you go you run into an insurmountable obstacle. You eventually make it out, but it takes longer to do than the rest of the mage tower. Gives some nice insight to the characters you take with you through their own dreams, but man does it drag on that first time.[/quote]
Dwarves:
You need to choose a High King and support his campaign to help him win so that the Dwarves will have a leader and you an army. You're a Grey Warden, and the Dwarves basically love Grey Wardens, so your word carries a lot of weight. Before I get further into it, there kinda is a right and wrong choice, and it comes down to tradition v innovation. One is nice, the other is largely just uses everyone. The 'good' choice for the dwarves may or may not be who you expect.
Anyways, if you thought getting a Dwarf King elected was easy, you are very wrong.
First you must do a small job for one of them. The king that is honourable and nice asks you to get his warriors who pulled out of an honour duel unexpectedly to go back in, or to go in yourself. The 'uses you' king asks you to tell some lords that the other king is handing out their money, which may or may not be true (I don't think you ever find out, though the notes of admitting to this are forged). If you've got the quest from the other one, I think he also asks you to fight in the arena for the other one, but declare him your king at the end. I may have missed one quest, I'm not sure, but that's stage one.
Stage 2: Clear out a criminal cartel from the slums of the city. Not too hard, you've just got to talk to some people to find the way in, get in then clear it out. Pretty simple.
Now, this will have taken some time. Not a ton, maybe an hour. You're barely even started.
Stage 3: Go into the labyrinthine Deep Roads that connect the ruins of the old Dwarven Empire to find a Paragon (The most respected people in Dwarven society, thanks to the innovations they made to Dwarven society. They get an entire noble house and small town in the deep roads dedicated to them that's how important they are, or they did until the Darkspawn took over) as one is needed to vote for a king and make him a crown or something. You fight through literal hordes of Darkspawn through samey passage after samey passage, fight through some impressive caverns and ruins, head back to town a bajillion times as your inventory is full with all the loot, and eventually make it to an ancient Dwarven fortress. Fight your way through that, and you find the Paragon. Its not over. She wants to go further, and get to a special place in the Deep Roads, and she won't stop until she's there and her quest is complete. After that she'll agree to help you. I won't spoil the rest, and there isn't really a ton after that, but that part takes ages.
Other than that the game stays about the same pace, except the opening and closing parts, which keep up a faster pace and have a lot of atmosphere. Spoiler video below, but this scene just makes me feel awesome, and its just before the final battle. Will set the scene of what's happened up till that point, and show you a general look at what you're up against, but its just an awesome moment in the game IMO. Also has minor plot spoilers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Tnc-5_6kE
The bit up until Alistair starts talking is the best part IMO, but don't look at gameplay at the end for anything cool. Normally enemies aren't running away from you, that guy just had no aggro at all somehow.
Personally, that is the second best scene in the game, after this one, the battle of Ostagar. Moderate early story spoilers, but other than that... Oh, also, there is a pause partway through it. This is where gameplay takes over, but rather than show half an hour of playing the game, most people just skip to the next part of the cinematic sequence of the battle for videos.
And considering I will have to play it on the 360, is it even doable on its hardest difficult without being the equivalent of Dark Souls on a roid rage?
Hehe, its not as rage inducing as Dark Souls. It is hard on the hardest difficulty though, and I'd definitely recommend a normal difficulty first playthrough to get the hang of the game before you try that. The thing you'd normally have problems with is the controls, but the controls on the consoles - whilst apparently clunky - will compensate for the wasted time. You have a radial menu, instead of the bar down the bottom of your screen on the PC, and when you open it, combat pauses. It allows you to search through everything, find everything you want, get the right abilities and such, then go and watch it happen. I think there's also another button you can push to pause combat, which is more useful if you want to get an overview of the battle, change tactics a bit, and see what's going on without risking your party dying whilst your not paying a lot of attention to their health meters.
One of the reasons its not as hard as Dark Souls is that it isn't skill you need. You don't need to time clicks and such well, to react quickly to attacks, or anything of the likes. Its old style RPG combat - and that uses tactics. As such, if you have good tactics, and know how to assign your attributes, the game won't be too hard on the final difficulty. Some skill is required - you need to be able to move your characters well enough into the right positions and such, especially on harder difficulty, and be able to pay attention to the whole battle rather than just your guy, but pausing the combat makes this a lot easier.
Now, just because I said this don't expect it to be easy, but its not impossible either. Hell, absolute worst case you can look up a walkthrough, make sure you assign your stats right, and do exactly what they show you in the video - and be pretty much guaranteed it will work.
The game relies on tactical thinking, and real time tactical combat. For combat style, think KotOR, or games like that. It can drag on if you don't like the style and would prefer first person gunning down stuff with your own skill or something, but if you get into it enough the combat can feel very hectic. Especially when you're fighting something in larger battles, trying to keep the agro off your healer from enemies near the back, whilst your tank is up front, and if you don't do something quick the healer will die, and your tank will be left without healing - not a good thing for the tank.
It is far slower paced than most games these days, but does have epic moments. I would think that the comment of 'I played it, stopped, came back later and enjoyed it' would apply to most people. You'll play the intro, have fun with it and get immersed, then things slow down a fair bit. There is still the push to get things done, but once you reach a certain point in each part of the main story areas, it just grinds to a halt for a while. Then you come back later, play through that slow part to get yourself back into the swing of things, then hit an epic part, and learn it isn't that bad once you finally get there. Personally, I've always loved tactical RPGs and didn't have that much of a problem with the game's pacing, but I can understand why some would.
If your a tactical D&D in real time sort of guy, I'd definitely get this. If your looking for something faster paced, get Witcher 2 first, then grab this when you have a spare $30.
IMO the Mage Tower and Deep Roads were the worst parts of the game. If they were shorter, it would have been fine. My problem was that you felt so close to getting something done, and then they gave you something that took double (Mage Tower) or five times (Deep Roads) The amount of time you'd already put into the quest chain to go any further. I mean seriously. 1 or two rooms off the final boss, and I now have to fight through not one, not two, but the equivalent of at least 7 more levels. Deep Roads... I'm not going to say anything. That just dragged on and on and on. And On. And On. I honestly had a beard by the end of it.
IMO the Mage Tower and Deep Roads were the worst parts of the game. If they were shorter, it would have been fine. My problem was that you felt so close to getting something done, and then they gave you something that took double (Mage Tower) or five times (Deep Roads) The amount of time you'd already put into the quest chain to go any further. I mean seriously. 1 or two rooms off the final boss, and I now have to fight through not one, not two, but the equivalent of at least 7 more levels. Deep Roads... I'm not going to say anything. That just dragged on and on and on. And On. And On. I honestly had a beard by the end of it.
What I don't get is why they couldn't throw in a sadness demon or a joy demon, a hate demon, a fury demon, a lust demon. One for each room. A different challenge for each room that did different things, required different tactics.
It felt like they cut and pasted the same room fifty times in a row and at they end had a bad guy with 100 times the amount of health and then another bad guy with 1000 times the health.
Dragon Age has a certain break point to it (it's the worst with a dex-tank build as defense < 100 doesn't do ANYTHING) where before that point, your character, and party in general, is worthless and the game fucking sucks (from a combat standpoint). As with any RPG, after you gain a few levels and invest in some talents, it picks up and you start kicking ass. If you want a character that starts off powerful never stops (i.e., minimize time before the "fun" breakpoint), be a mage. They are very powerful from the getgo in this game.
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