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deathknight1728: I tried playing it a game but its like a chore just staying interested. This was my last choice/attempt for a oldschool baldurs gate type game on a console but i guess I just dont like it. Oh well.

I just got into Dungeons and Dragons Tabletop and imo that is my favorite. I play 1 time a week for like 4 hours and that is just awesome as the amount of class combinations are even higher than Baldurs gate. It is definitely clutch and I hope to get the player's manual soon so I can come up with better characters.
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vsommers12: If you're playing on a console I'm going to guess it's not Origins. But anyway, if you're looking for a more BG experience, or table top experience you are probably going to want to look at computer games. On a console maybe divinity original sin.
Nah, I dont think so. I dont usually like many games/rpgs out there. I am extremely picky. I expect the games to have what i want them to have in a game. If they dont have what i want then i cant play them.

The only game i am looking for to come out now is Baldurs Gate Siege of Dragonspear as i obviously dont like Pillars of eternity and dragon age.

I find that of the games i have played and beaten, there are like 5 series of the 60-70 games i have beaten that i play always. The rest are fun but just not fun enough to warrant a second playthrough.

Dungeons and dragons definitely are one of my fav area/realm of games i like to play. I like the world, there are many games of it, and on top of that, its easier to stay into the game because i have played its games for so long.
Take care with any criticism of Dragon Age. The biodrones can be really sensitive about it.

That being said, I can't say I dislike the Dragon Age series but it is all over the place and often lacking. You can't really critically compare it to BG even though bioware lauded it as a spiritual successor.

I think the whole series is remarkably shallow in terms of gameplay. None of them have anything approaching the depth of combat, spells and rpg mechanics of the Baldur's Gate games.

What the Dragon Age series does have is a remarkable fiction. As sick to death as I am of this recent onslaught of "dark fantasy" we've been suffering through and as much as DA "borrows" just about every dark fantasy trope in existence I really really admire the depth of fiction and world building that has gone into the DA series. In that, they may be rather lousy games but they would have made for excellent novels from the start.

The thing I like most about DA's fiction is the way mages are treated. It's a sort of speculative fiction aspect you hardly ever see in fantasy and I absolutely love it as a source of conflict.

As for each DA game in turn? I think DA:O is a tremendous slog. Hasn't prevented me from completing it multiple times but it really isn't a game that grips me or engages me much. I find the characters to be trite, irritating and utterly uncompelling, and the story is the same tired old "Only YOU can save the world!" ploy which is awful for dark fantasies that often feature the quintessential crapsack world no one in their right minds would have any desire to save.

And this is where I drop a bomb and say that I actually like DA2 better than Origins. An unpopular opinion, to say the least. Yes, it's so shallow that it can barely be considered a game per se but games really aren't what bioware does particularly well. Story is. I like the story and I just can't wrap my head around what people think is so wrong with it. I like Hawk. I admire her motivations and the day-in-the-life structure of the narrative. I like that she's just out to look after her family and make her way in the world instead of trying to save it just because someone told her to. I like the characters far better than Origins - Varric is one of my all time favorites - and I think Kirkwall is a good setting in which to frame the story.

Now Inquisition I absolutely LOVE. Ever since I first played it when I got my playstation I have been in perpetual love with it. I love it as an open world game. Yes it's simple. The combat is simple but enjoyable. Yes it has an overabundance of collection fetch quests that just never seem trite to me. "Cathartic" is the word I use to describe Inquisition. I love the story. I love the characters old and new. And I love the environments. FINALLY Thedas *looks* interesting. Not this dirt brown standard dark age Europe guttertrash whatever passes for an aesthetic its predecessors had. Inquisition *looks* and feels more like a fantasy than DA:O or 2 do. And I absolutely love the way they took the narrative, making audiences and characters question everything they knew about established Thedas and it makes me want to see what revelations come in future installments.

Overall the tone, direction, writing, presentation, mechanics and everything about each installment in the DA series is so distinct the series isn't cohesive enough to compare it to anything else as a whole. Regardless, there is no comparison to Baldur's Gate 1&2. Baldur's Gate is far and again superior.

How's that for an honest opinion? :)
Post edited April 01, 2016 by eVinceW21
I know that I'll be unpopular, but I do like Dragon age 2. It's not a perfect game at all, but the fighting mechanic is very good and still enjoyable when playing on nightmare (hardest difficulty settings and it can be modded to be harder), even after several playthroughs. Dragon Age Origins is the best game of the series hands down, and maybe one of the best rpg ever, but after you learn a few tricks it's far too easy.
In short, Baldur's Gate was D&D on easy mode, and Dragon Age is actually an easier Baldur's Gate.
I've played DA1 and 2.
DA3 is a different kind of game, closer to Kingdoms of Amalur.
I love Origins and Inquisition, but I think Dragon Age 2 is one of the worst games I've played. Yes, the story and characters is good, but the combat is terrible, and when combat is such a big part of a game, it should be good. When playing on nightmare difficulty in Origins and Inquisition, I got deep, tactical battles with planning and clever tactics required to win the battles. In DA2, the game basically drops waves upon waves of enemies from the ceiling. Clear the batch of enemies, and another wave with three times the number of enemies you just killed spawns out of nowhere. It seems the game is just wasting my time. I'll probably finish it someday.. or just watch the cutscenes on YouTube.
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Random_Coffee: I love Origins and Inquisition, but I think Dragon Age 2 is one of the worst games I've played. Yes, the story and characters is good, but the combat is terrible, and when combat is such a big part of a game, it should be good. When playing on nightmare difficulty in Origins and Inquisition, I got deep, tactical battles with planning and clever tactics required to win the battles
I don't agree (but that's ok :P). Origins is a breeze once you learn to min max (go dexterity on warriors, even tanks), Inquisition gives you very few tactical tools as you can't set real tactics on your mates, and AI tanks behave orribly (taunt when out of range). DA2 is still ok on nightmare, mooks can still one-shot you in the endgame (rogues and mages) so you can't really relax, you have to set up very complex tactics to avoid whipes and friendly fire basically destroys you (while you can almost ignore it in Origins).
But I love all DA games, mostly for the lore. The same for the Witcher tbh: I hate the combat system on all three games (3 is the worst imo), but the lore, the story and the characters are too good to me to pass.
Post edited April 02, 2016 by cmspeedwagon
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cmspeedwagon: I don't agree (but that's ok :P). Origins is a breeze once you learn to min max (go dexterity on warriors, even tanks), Inquisition gives you very few tactical tools as you can't set real tactics on your mates, and AI tanks behave orribly (taunt when out of range). DA2 is still ok on nightmare, mooks can still one-shot you in the endgame (rogues and mages) so you can't really relax, you have to set up very complex tactics to avoid whipes and friendly fire basically destroys you (while you can almost ignore it in Origins).
But I love all DA games, mostly for the lore. The same for the Witcher tbh: I hate the combat system on all three games (3 is the worst imo), but the lore, the story and the characters are too good to me to pass.
I think that's the problem, I'm so bad at DA2 :P I get horribly killed in most encounters (I'm playing a two-handed warrior). The endless waves of enemies and friendly fire (Bethany always throwing fireballs in my face) are contributing to me not liking the combat. I agree that the tactics are cut down a bit in Inquisition, but at least it played well with a controller, which was how I played Inquisition. Maybe I'll give DA2 another try if I find a good build, or turn down the difficulty (This is a tough barrier, I usually play everything on the hardest difficulty :P).

I enjoyed the combat a lot in all the Witcher-games, even in the first one (I know of several friends who didn't play it because of the combat :P). I liked the combat in Witcher 2 as well, but Witcher 3 had the best combat in my opinion. For Witcher 3, I used a controller. Never touched the keyboard-controls. For some reason, I seem to always like combat systems other hate though. I even like the combat in Mass Effect 1 :O
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Random_Coffee: Maybe I'll give DA2 another try if I find a good build, or turn down the difficulty (This is a tough barrier, I usually play everything on the hardest difficulty :P).

I enjoyed the combat a lot in all the Witcher-games, even in the first one (I know of several friends who didn't play it because of the combat :P). I liked the combat in Witcher 2 as well, but Witcher 3 had the best combat in my opinion. For Witcher 3, I used a controller. Never touched the keyboard-controls. For some reason, I seem to always like combat systems other hate though. I even like the combat in Mass Effect 1 :O
Bioware forums are very good if you're looking for builds, tactics set-up and how-to.

I used a controller for Witcher 3 (and Inquisition) and I must admit it helps a lot (but I don't like to slow time to use glyphs). I don't like all that dodging around :P. I
low rated
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deathknight1728: I loved both BGs and have played pretty much every cRPG that has been released since.

DA:O has fun gameplay, interesting and engaging characters some interesting side-missions and an awful, cliché story.
DA 2 has dumbed-down gameplay (compared to one) awful level-design and reuse of maps, boring side-missions and a very interesting story that is overshadowing by a very otherwise lackluster game.
DA:I has dumbed down gameplay, a big open and uninhabited world with nothing interesting to do in it. It has a pretty by-the-numbers story and you need the expansion(s) to get a proper ending, too. Feels mostly like an MMO-turned-single-player.

I would recommend DA:O and for you to steer clear of the sequels.
Very well said.
Baldur's Gate was the first CRPG I got to play (EDIT: actually that is a lie, forgot about Wizardry 6: Bane of the Cosmic Forge) and it is a classic. Dragon Age: Origins however has gone on to become my, probably, favourite game. Dragon Age 2 is also very good, ignore the naysayers. DA2 is actually better in some ways, particularly combat and dialogue, but is focused on one city and it's surroundings. When it came out some people pitched a fit about them reusing assets, this is true, you will see the same cave system or building interior reused time and gain with different areas and paths blocked off. But it is not much worse in that regard than many other big budget games that have been released before and since, and the blame is with the publishers demanding a sequel be released in far too short a time, the developers at least put what time and resources they had into the characters, dialogue and story and it is great. Have not played Inquisition yet but considering you can regularly find DA:O for €5 it is absolutely money well spent. If you have ever played the two Knights of the Old Republic or first three Mass Effect games you will have a good idea of what style of game to expect structurally.
Post edited October 04, 2020 by Fiachra
I can't think of a reason anyone might have not to get a copy of DA:O and play it. It's cheap. A lot of people (like me) think it's pretty great. It is certainly worth a try.
The only Dragon Age I ever tried was DA:O and it was honestly very bland.

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There are three classes.

Thieves can go ranged or melee.

Warriors can go tank or twohanded.

In both cases you got a group of skilltrees that you would collect over time, until you had everything of it. In the end it always resulted in the same character.

Thats it.

The only class that actually got variance was Mage, where you could get different spell trees and have a lot of possible variance. I didnt liked though that I had to pick spells I didnt want to get spells I wanted.

You also got four subclasses per class. But you would pick two of the four subclasses. And these subclasses just would give you a couple more skills. Boring. Whats worse in the expansion, which I didnt get, I heard you would get ALL subclasses for each class. Even more boring.

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The characters in the game havent been very good either. I hardly remember any of them at all. One was a somewhat stupid but nice Paladin-like type, he was the best of them. Oh and some ... bard ? Who was hunted by her former friend.

I literally dont remember the story. Something about demons taking over the world, or something ?

I already really didnt liked that EA had just taken over Bioware and they made a "free DLC" and to download it you had to give them your identity so they could spam you with advertisements. Yeah, right. So I never got that "free DLC".

I'm not sure but IIRC they also stripped multiplayer from the game as well ?

Anyway it was my last Bioware game, ever. With EA taking over, Bioware as I knew and loved it was no more.

It was very fitting that their next game was clearly just a money grab.
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deathknight1728: I tried Dragon Age on Ps3 and found it to be not even a game compared to kotor 1 and 2, jade empire and baldurs gate series. I found it to be unplayable because I cant explore around town, you cant do anything other than advance the plot, you get little to no choice in character variation for your class, the combat is basically just hack and slash with real time combat-none of the tactics and strategies work or apply.

Thats just what I can gather after playing 1 hour of the game. Can someone tell me its actually playable for 3 hours or is it really just the end of bioware as we know it. I found mass effect was playable (for about 8 or 9 hours) then that game ran dry.

I just cant find an honest opinion on any of these games but if thats the case that bioware threw in the towel then fine I will only play western rpgs on pc.
I Want to know too .
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Geromino: ...
I hereby nominate you for the office of necro-president.
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Geromino: ...
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alcaray: I hereby nominate you for the office of necro-president.
Does that mean I can get impeached now ?