Dragon Age Series

[Formalhaut]

I think if you retained Anders jokester personality you'd have a cast of clowns. Isabela, Varric and Merrill all fill a comedy element. Even the rest of the companions have their humorous moments, sans maybe Sebastian, who to be honest I found dull as opposed to Anders.

The main issue I'm seeing is that people find a severe disconnect between his character in Awakening and his character in Dragon Age II. I don't really see that. His personality may have changed, but then some time has passed, and he has Justice/Vengeance within him.

Secondly, if we're characterisation in Awakening and II, I am surprised that people found his Awakening portrayal as more interesting. I found him rather forgettable in Awakening, I just didn't see much of a nuance with him.

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

I love the DA world. The novels aren't half bad either!

I have an undying love for Alistair! I actually modded DA:O on my second playthrough so I could gay it up with him.

The sad part of DAII was that its level design suffered like ME1's. IT WAS THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Though I did like the combat in both games.

DA:I is pretty awesome but I was an early adopter and there was some bugs that really ruined it for me. Basically I got Dorian's romance bugged and the custom Hawke bug which switched my character's voice to the default British which didn't suit him like the American voice did. They only fixed that later on which is when I started playing it again!

The MP is pretty fun too! (If anyone ever wants to hit me up on Origin!)

[Formalhaut]

I love the DA world. The novels aren't half bad either!

I have an undying love for Alistair! I actually modded DA:O on my second playthrough so I could gay it up with him.

The sad part of DAII was that its level design suffered like ME1's. IT WAS THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Though I did like the combat in both games.

DA:I is pretty awesome but I was an early adopter and there was some bugs that really ruined it for me. Basically I got Dorian's romance bugged and the custom Hawke bug which switched my character's voice to the default British which didn't suit him like the American voice did. They only fixed that later on which is when I started playing it again!

The MP is pretty fun too! (If anyone ever wants to hit me up on Origin!)

I too romanced Alistair and he is by far my favorite romance, and arguably one of my favorite characters of that game. As for the level design, I agree, they did get lazy. If you ignore that, the combat is rather fun, though it isn't as tactical, I found. DA:I found a middle-ground between the slow paced tactic of Origins and the faster excitement of II. If there was one thing II did was improve mages. I still laugh whenever I see Wynne or Morrigan do the 'pointy stick' attack motion.

I really enjoyed DA:I, but the sidequests are admittedly rather terrible. The companion quests are great, but for the most part, the vast majority of the sidequests are just filler, requiring you to read endless codex entries to fill in what happened. And the environments are cool, but they do sometimes feel empty. The Hissing Wastes is just a poor location all around, I swear we had like three desert locations.

[Mr. Carnelian]

I haven't decided if I want to romance Cullen or Dorian yet. I was set on Cullen but then they introduced the story part with Dorian and the mages this weekend when I was playing and now I really enjoy his character.

Cullen is only interested in women (specifically, human and elf women. Isn't that a bit racist?) and Dorian is only interested in men.

You can't really choose between them: if you're playing a female character, Dorian isn't an option and if you're playing a male character, Cullen isn't an option.

Dorian is AWESOME, by the way. Most believable gay male character I've ever come across in video games. Definitely go with Dorian if you're playing as a man.

Awwwww but it lets me flirt with him a lot

Turns out you can flirt with someone without them finding you sexually attractive. Who knew?

I know some people don't like that you couldn't romance almost anyone as any character like in II, but I actually prefer Inquisition in this regard.

In II, squad characters only ever show evidence of being attracted to the same sex when your character happens to be the same sex as them, which is a bit weird. It's like characters are straight if you're not the same gender as them, but gay if you are. With the exception of Isabela, of course. I'm convinced that she's either bi or pansexual.

In contrast, Inquisition has romanceable characters who are explicitly homosexual - Sera and Dorian. Inquisition also has two bi/pan romanceable characters - Iron Bull and Josephine - and heterosexual romanceable characters - Cullen, Blackwall, Cassandra, Solas.

I do love Bioware for including explicitly non-straight characters in their titles. They even have a trans character - Krem - in Inquisition. Keep at it, Bioware!

[Forsaken Lover]

Isabela is pansexual.
Anders had a gay lover in his first mission.
Merrill is Merrill.
Fenris is...I dunno.

All of them being bi didn't really matter to me.

Also Awakening Anders hated templars as much as DA2 Anders. It's just that Justice gave him a backbone. Instead of running away from his problems, he confronted them.

Not like it matters. The best Awakening party member was Nathaniel.

I loathe Inquisition. That's all I'll say on that subject. Oh sure, I loved Cassandra and Cole and Josephine but the gameplay. Oh god the gameplay hurts. Enemies with hundreds of thousands of health, in a game like this. It's so slow and boring. And that's not even getting into the Power mechanic which demands you spend a ton of time doing sidequests when all you want to do is progress the story.

I'll never play that game again.

P.S.

The Qun is the only way and one reason I love DA2 was its huge focus on the qunari.

P.S.S.

Leliana was my first ever waifu in a WRPG. I love her so much. But Zevran was just irresistible. It sucks Leliana will only do the threesome or foursome if you Harden her. I wasn't going to do that.

P.S.S.S.

The Friendship/Rivalry system was awesome and I wish they'd bring it back. It's like KOTOR II where High/Low Influence got you entirely different insights into your companions. Friendship and Rivalry could result in very different characterization and development in DA2.


Merrill Friendmance Master Race.

Possibly. I went into DA:O expecting Mass Effect with swords instead of space lasers, so when I got the slow paced battles, I wasn't terribly impressed. Another thing that may have affected my general enjoyment is that I was playing on PS3 - I was speaking to my friend last night and she said that she can't imagine the combat "working" on anything but PC. So there's possibly that too.

Eh, to each their own.

I started with DAO and DA2 and went into ME thinking it would be like them but in space. Everyone told me biotics were space magic so I played an Adept to be a healer.

Yeah...that didn't work out so well.

[Mr. Carnelian]

Isabela is pansexual.
Anders had a gay lover in his first mission.
Merrill is Merrill.
Fenris is...I dunno.

All of them being bi didn't really matter

I would have absolutely no problem with all of the characters being bi. The problem is that the game doesn't present them that way. Anders only has a past gay lover if you play as a male character: if you play as a female character, he never mentions it, and seemingly never had one. The sexuality of the squad members in two seems to change to suit the gender of your character, which I find quite strange.

[Vyk]

Retcon for player compatibility. I mean, people are modding the first one to have gay relations with Alistair, forcing a change in character sexuality. So they just figured why not let players have them as whatever sexuality they want. They probably don't act bi, because fans are fickle and would probably have flipped their crap if they accidentally caused everyone to start acting gay when the player is a huge conservative or something. So best not to push any kind of homosexuality until purposely activated. Or something. I think I just countered my own example, but I know what I'm trying to say in my head so hopefully it makes some kind of sense

[Madame Adequate]

I had the Game of the Year Edition with all of the DLC, which included items you could give to characters as gifts to instantly max out their like (which I used on everyone but Alistair) or hate (Here you go Alistair) of you. To summarise, my fat ugly ginger Dwarf banged Morrigan, Leliana and Zevran. Because he could.

This guy knows how to play the game.

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

I loathe Inquisition. That's all I'll say on that subject. Oh sure, I loved Cassandra and Cole and Josephine but the gameplay. Oh god the gameplay hurts. Enemies with hundreds of thousands of health, in a game like this. It's so slow and boring. And that's not even getting into the Power mechanic which demands you spend a ton of time doing sidequests when all you want to do is progress the story.

I'll never play that game again.

I have never experienced enemies with hundreds of thousands of HP. I have been playing the game since day before they patched everything too. Most mobs you run into take maybe a minute at most to destroy, unless you are severely under leveled for the region.

Power doesn't take any time to get either. I have over 100 extra power and I am almost at the end of the plot and haven't even put more than 40 hours in the single player campaign? I mean there was an exploit before it got patched that made it super easy to get power (it involved buying & selling items used for influence) but even taking that out I am standing on way too much power.

I am not saying you have to love the games, just that I am confused as heck what you are talking about. I mean before the patches, it was pretty buggy and it turned me off the game for months but I never experienced either situation.

[Spuuky]

Yeah my second playthrough (which I'm halfway through-ish), I specifically just am doing the main story, and it's taken me like an hour in total to gather all the "extra" Power I need to advance it so far beyond what you're forced to get.

[Formalhaut]

I wish you could cash in your power for other goodies, because I had WAY too much power by the end.

[Forsaken Lover]

I loathe Inquisition. That's all I'll say on that subject. Oh sure, I loved Cassandra and Cole and Josephine but the gameplay. Oh god the gameplay hurts. Enemies with hundreds of thousands of health, in a game like this. It's so slow and boring. And that's not even getting into the Power mechanic which demands you spend a ton of time doing sidequests when all you want to do is progress the story.

I'll never play that game again.

I have never experienced enemies with hundreds of thousands of HP. I have been playing the game since day before they patched everything too. Most mobs you run into take maybe a minute at most to destroy, unless you are severely under leveled for the region.

Power doesn't take any time to get either. I have over 100 extra power and I am almost at the end of the plot and haven't even put more than 40 hours in the single player campaign? I mean there was an exploit before it got patched that made it super easy to get power (it involved buying & selling items used for influence) but even taking that out I am standing on way too much power.

I am not saying you have to love the games, just that I am confused as heck what you are talking about. I mean before the patches, it was pretty buggy and it turned me off the game for months but I never experienced either situation.

The Dragons and final boss bot have over 100K HP.

I had to do several areas to gather the Power I needed for Champions of the Just as well as Here Lies the Abyss and Wicked Eyes, Wicked Hearts.

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

The bugs stopped me from getting to the end and when I have picked it up again, it is only to do side stuff for fun.

I got just pasted Wicked Eyes and Wicked Heart before I quit due to the initial bugs and really found gaining Power easy. Then again, I enjoyed the combat enough to do side quests and explore most of the Hinterlands enough that I rarely had to farm Power.

[Ayen]

I wish you could cash in your power for other goodies, because I had WAY too much power by the end.

You can never have too much power.

-steamrolls everything-

[Pumpkin]

Can I revive this thread? Imma revive this thread

So I started Dragon Age Origins and I am enjoying it. I did the Mages Circle and the Elves quests and I loved the ending for the Elf one. Highlight of the game for me so far. I have also recruited Leliana, Sten, some assassin dude, Wynn, and the three that join you early on. I love Leliana, she is my favourite!

I'm still getting the hang of the system though, it's not my typical style of game, so it is a bit of a learning curve