The Friendship/Rival system punishes you because you will lose characters from your party if you weren't "consistent" which puts you at a severe disadvantage when you get to the final battle.
There is plenty of roleplaying in that.
If your character needs their support, lie to them.
If your character is opinionated and sincere, damn them and fight with those that truly trust you.
I completed Nightmare just fine without the majority of my cast, I only had 5 people remain with me to the end.
Fenris sided against me, I respected that because I understood the evils of magic, I had seen them. I only stood with them for my love, Merrill and my sister. I killed him for them.
Anders did something I could not forgive, I could not allow him to continue on, even if I could have my friends would not have forgiven me.
Isabela never even joined my group, I spent my time in the Hanged man with Varric, not making friends.
Roleplaying doesn't mean controlling the whims of every person in the world, nor does it mean writing your own story.
If you have come to a point where so few people stand with you, that you cannot win, you have two options to roleplay it.
-Turn the difficulty down and overcome the impossible with the few you trust.
-Turn you game off and mourn the tragic end to the Champion of Kirkwall and his/her ideals.
I just lost my british composure because I am so pissed off with all the constant 'WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH BIOWARE DIDN'T DO EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED THEM TO DO!!'
I just lost my british composure because I am so pissed off with all the constant 'WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH BIOWARE DIDN'T DO EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED THEM TO DO!!'
You are the exact person who he referenced in his metaphor at the start of the vid. Shitting on people because they have a different opinion from you. WAAAAHHHH I'M SAD BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE ARE REPLYING TO THE OP.
I have never heard of this guy before, and frankly he looks/sounds like a d bag. That said I agree with a lot of his opinions.
"Titanic step backwards"
"Linear"
"Bad 1 liner for every occasion"
- Playing on Nightmare doesn't make it more difficult or better, it just makes the battle last a lot longer and makes you hit bosses with a HP bar from here to China for over an hour to succeed... if you're playing this game on Nightmare you're a masochist.
- Color what? Amongst the repeating textures, the lack of any kind of detail, the lack of NPCs to talk to and some generally immersion-breaking moments around every corner there isn't much there to work with... sure some people can pick up a stone, pretend its a pricess and "roleplay" making love to it but its a lot harder if its an ugly stone
- Origins was flawed and had some of the same flaws that Dragon Age 2 does... but in general it was a good game. They took some of the main aspects of Origins and made most of them worse. I liked the combat in the first because it actually required some tactics and thought on the harder difficulties, 2 plays just like a really bad and imbalanced MMO and I got bored of it rather fast, a game where you can just run through and win with auto-attack and kite most bosses dead is just not very good at what it does... this was what the combat resembled to me for the most part of the game (notice how he doesn't even have to use any skills or change characters on Hard)
*snip*
There's dozens over dozens of H&S games out there that show how "visceral" combat is done well with nice boss encounters...
Graphics in DA:O were bad at times but the entire art direction of DA2 was beyond fucked up and could be described as "repeat everything as many times as you can to save time and make areas look as empty as possible".
I went into more depth into most of this stuff in my Review over here though http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.271648-Dragon-Age-2-A-Review
Perhaps it was my composition, I played without Avaline for the majority of the game, removing that overpowered damage siphoning Battle Synergy+BodyGuard. I used a Dagger Rogue, Fenris tank, Varric, and either Merrill or Anders.
In Nightmare the biggest difference is not health and resistance (That's actually brought about by having to low an attack rating, you need well above 100% to damage bosses effectively and is probably the best dps stat in the game)
The issue is Fortitude and Friendly Fire.
If an attack exceeds your fortitude, you get flinched, this means that crowd control, Positioning, kiting, cross class combos are all vitally important. In an encounter with 4 archers you can no longer control your Rogues nor Mages, the fight suddenly becomes entirely about premeditated strategy because if you don't lock them down before they fire one shot your Warrior won't be able to keep up.
So yes, I'm probably a masochist because I played Nightmare with an extremely BAD party and enjoyed it more than anyone else seems to have.
Color was not referring to the graphics or content, it was referring to how you perceive things. No one in BioWare is going to march down to your house and take your game away for unauthorized use of imagination to invent your own little tangents.
I'm playing a Mage that hates magic users and sides with Templars because she's fully aware of the temptation for evil. The voice actor tends to think I'm not allowed to be a hypocrite but that doesn't change my story. If the voice acting is wrong I know what MY character really said.
After my mother died my mage soloed some fights because she wanted time alone, after she'd worked that out of her system she went to Sebastian, the two of them spent time alone for a good quest or two before she spoke with Avaline about it and things got closer to normal for her.
I don't think repetitive maps counts as an art direction, that's just a side effect of all the whining people did over DA:O's very respectable graphics causing them to overkill the detail and losing time and resources for diversity.
I've repeatedly acknowledged it is full of issues, a great many, but that doesn't make it bad. It makes it not perfect.
Maybe DA:O was better, I think so, that's as subjective an argument as it is objective.
But Dragon Age 2 was good. it was an 80 where Origins was a 90, anything above 50 is a good game. Even then 30's can have merit.
I read about this situation many times when people bitched about it, and I'm still baffled why. When I faced the problem, instead of telling him to fuck off, I went for the milder flirt option. There was a little implication about relationship in Hawke's response, but nothing big - sort of 'we'll talk about it in the future' response (obviously that never happened, go Isabela), some friendship points, and no gay sex. I think that most people are blowing this is situation out of proportions.
OT: He made a few fair points (linear maps), and greatly overreacted on some others (calling the game on naming the hero 'Hawke'? Seriously?), but overall it was entertaining, I may sub his channel for the same reason I watch ZP every Wednesday.
About DA II itself - I liked it more than Origins. Then again, I'm one of those 3 people remaining on the planet, who actually thought that DA:O was a huge disappointment. I planned to completely ignore DA II, but all this bitching about "they changed everything, it's ruined now" actually got me interested again. And I had quite a fun with DA II... Until the third chapter came, which was such a bullshit plot wise, my opinion of the game dropped to the 'decent' from a 'very good' level.
I actually want DA III to go the route from DA II, but with more polish, more locations, conversation with companions wherever AND whenever I want... And a story that won't either be generic, dull and predictable (Origins), or completely effed up in the end. I counted 4 different ways to deal with mages-templars conflict (choose templars, choose mages, choose chantry, choose 'templars-mages coalition against Meredith'), but BioWare decided to take away two of those for no good reason at all (especially frustrating with the coalition, when as a mage who dissed Meredith on every possible occasion, I was attacked every single time because supposedly 'I work with Meredith'. What?).
The Friendship/Rival system punishes you because you will lose characters from your party if you weren't "consistent" which puts you at a severe disadvantage when you get to the final battle.
And that's still much, MUCH better than approve/disapprove system from DA:O, which pretty much locked you up with two party archetypes (Leliana/Alistair/Wynne for good Wardens and Sten/Zevran/Morrigan for jerk Wardens), unless you constantly bombarded them with tons of presents that were taking away your precious inventory space.
Actually he did. He has a review of DA:O and calls it the best RPG he's played this decade. True he could have lied but according to that logic everyone on the entire internet could be lying. Yahtzee's favorite game could be Halo and Moviebob could just be watching the previews and reading other reviews to do his reviews. I take things at face value over the internet due to not being constantly paranoid that I'm being lying to. Although I will admit that I've been proven wrong many times over....sorry for the speech.(Just going to get on topic now so no need to read if you don't feel like it)
I didn't actually mean that I thought he didn't play Origins. It's just his comparisons seemed to suggest that it was not Dragon Age:Origins that he had played and was in-fact totally different game.
I just watched the video and I here's my play-by-play:
Why the stupid black and white filter, I mean really it hurts my eyes, also "Sleeper hit" sorry to burst your bubble but Bioware is well known, their games get lots of coverage. Also "Mass effect + Swords = OVERUSED ANALOGY!" I mean really, also the environments in Origins were linear as well, making that complaint is kind of like going "I like linear environments, but this is TOO linear QQ!!!!" about a level in Super Mario Brothers! Also despite it's flaws I didn't mind FFXIII was it wasn't great, but NOWHERE near as bad as he likes to make it out to be. Also he's making the comparison as though it's not obvious, that's like saying Megaman is Super Mario Brothers....WITH GUNS! Also he seems to have seen this coming from a mile away and yet he still walks RIGHT into the supposed trap, that's like seeing a sign that says "DANGER, MINEFIELD" going "Well I wouldn't want to go there" to yourself, and running in like a jackass anyway!
Also the complaint about single wielding as a rouge and not being able to equip your party with new armor....Really that's the most insightful complaints you could manage.....wow! Also the complaint about the graphics, anything would have improved on Origins poor graphics which was the games biggest flaw IMO, that AND I like the new style so your complaints fall on deaf ears. Also the complaints about Hawke being an archetype are also pointless considering Morganna looked and acted like....well Morticia from the Addams Family! Also complaints about the button pressing when all Origins boiled down to was "Click enemy, watch them die", I mean really I LIKE the changes, combat is more involved this way, also complaints about hot keys when the original had hot-keys(Refer to my comment on the Linearity)? Also if you want more character development RUN THE GODDAMN SIDEQUESTS!!! Also the first game did not need a sequel, this game follows a different cast and the sequel will conclude this plot (Hopefully), you don't know how sequels work do you(Yes the ending was a bit weak, but only because it made the plot seem like it was "indisposed" the whole time). Also just because the Number is higher than a 5/10 doesn't mean that the reviewer had no complaints, learn to read the damn reviews!
In summary, WHY THE FUCK DID I WATCH THAT? if I paid money for that I'd be beating his head against a wall right now, I mean really how does this arse get a fan-base, I mean really this guys is just another pile of slime spewed forth from bowels of Youtube, I'll stuck to the Escapist and Blistered Thumbs for my reviews thank you very much.
If anyone really wants to know why they won't let us change our companion's armor I've figured it out...
The only reason they pulled that bullshit is so that they can sell us "alternate costume packs" later.
I'm fucking calling it right now.
Once again, the Escapist responds to anything they don't like by dismissing it. I didn't like his style, but I sat through to the end and found he made some good points.
Yes he did, but so did the reviewers who are actually payed to review things honestly for a living.
He supplemented his points with swear words and moronity, we all know the "Press A to attack" and a few other things wernt great. But honestly his review was horrible, i chuckled a few times but he's honestly not that good.
If you don't like it, then okay. I don't like tuna. Everyone has their personal taste.
but saying this guy didn't make points, then defending Yahtzee as if he did is silly fanboy wankery. Yahtzee touched on the fact that this game is a cash-in, then mentioned that the story is weak, then ended his video.
On quick count this guy mentions:
-Bad graphics
-Dull combat
-Bad dialogue
-Boring characters
-Linearity
-Bad cutscenes
I'm leaving stuff out I'm sure, but you get my point.
Once again, the Escapist responds to anything they don't like by dismissing it. I didn't like his style, but I sat through to the end and found he made some good points.
If anyone really wants to know why they won't let us change our companion's armor I've figured it out...
The only reason they pulled that bullshit is so that they can sell us "alternate costume packs" later.
I'm fucking calling it right now.
I think in truth part of it is having the characters keep their individuality, a good example is ME1 and DAO, sure you can customize their armor but half the time its just "What armor give the better buff" and sometimes it just looked stupid, i remember my sten being dressed in so many colors it was scary, where as DA2 simply keeps armor that matches a character and you can upgrade it as you go
Once again, the Escapist responds to anything they don't like by dismissing it. I didn't like his style, but I sat through to the end and found he made some good points.
Theres a difference between pointless yelling and screaming of swears and yahtzees reviews, the only similarity between the two is that they point out the bad more, but unlike this idiot yahtzee isnt afraid to eat humble pie and admit what parts were good.
If anyone really wants to know why they won't let us change our companion's armor I've figured it out...
The only reason they pulled that bullshit is so that they can sell us "alternate costume packs" later.
I'm fucking calling it right now.
I think in truth part of it is having the characters keep their individuality, a good example is ME1 and DAO, sure you can customize their armor but half the time its just "What armor give the better buff" and sometimes it just looked stupid, i remember my sten being dressed in so many colors it was scary, where as DA2 simply keeps armor that matches a character and you can upgrade it as you go
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