Poll of the Day > dragon age origins sucks

(+) Yeah! (+)

it sucks because i have this huge desire to play it again even though i'm trying to beat dead rising 3
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lol dead rising 3
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is very fun
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I remember trying to play it years ago, and being really impressed with how many options you had as far as story and dialog... but absolutely hating the graphics and combat.
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Metalsonic66 posted...

I remember trying to play it years ago, and being really impressed with how many options you had as far as story and dialog... but absolutely hating the graphics and combat.

Meh, its graphics while not impressive are not atrocious. It's not like trying to replay Baldur's Gate 2 or something...
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I loved reading the religious texts, the actual story, eh

Barkspawn FTW! I first played as an Elven mage and later tried to replay a second time as a Dwarven warrior but didn't far past the prologue. For better or worse, some of these RPGs have such great replay value but at the same time I know they take quite a bit of time to finish if you go for all the side quests and whatnot.
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Monopoman posted...

Meh, its graphics while not impressive are not atrocious. It's not like trying to replay Baldur's Gate 2 or something...

Honestly I'd rather play something totally blocky like FFVII or Legend of Dragoon. Like, it wasn't just graphically unimpressive, but the art direction was also really boring outside of the blood-spatters. Plus the characters all moved in awkward ways while speaking, and their chest armor seemed to bend and flex like cloth.
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Metalsonic66 posted...

their chest armor seemed to bend and flex like cloth.

Lets not forget some helmets looking like kitchen ware. I wondered what was the secret behind Sandal or if he was just some joke from Bioware.
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InfestedAdam posted...

Barkspawn

Yas
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I really did not enjoy it and have avoided the series since.
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dragon504 posted...

I really did not enjoy it and have avoided the series since.

did you do console or pc because they're two totally different experiences
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WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU FITE ME IRL YO-
oh

haha see what you did there
nevermind

*blushes and runs*
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helly posted...

dragon504 posted...

I really did not enjoy it and have avoided the series since.

did you do console or pc because they're two totally different experiences

360 and I'd hope it was worse than pc. I had to redo the last boss a bunch of times due to it freezing during the end scene. That was not helpful to my impression of the game.
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I've never got into Dragon Age: Origins and because of that I've never played the other games in the series. I still have the ultimate edition though.
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The sequels are shit anyway, especially 2.
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Metalsonic66 posted...

Honestly I'd rather play something totally blocky like FFVII or Legend of Dragoon.

I find those to be some of the worst graphics ever created by human beings in terms of aging poorly. I'd argue that literally every game made prior or since that point looks better than the deformed mess that was the first attempt at polygonal art.

Even the most primitive of sprite art looks better to me at this point. And almost every game from the late 90s on, no matter how bad it might look now, still looks better to me than either of those two.

Dragon Age: Origins is relatively inoffensive to me in terms of how well it's aged. Until this topic I don't think it would ever have occurred to me to even think of it that way.



VeeVees posted...

The sequels are shit anyway, especially 2.

In a number of ways, DA2 is actually the best of the three. People just whined like children because of the shift from RPG to more action-oriented combat, and the reused maps (which no one ever complained about when Mass Effect did it). There was nothing really wrong with most of the characters (half of them were better than almost anyone in DA:O), and the plot was relatively well-handled.

DA:I is the one where they farted out an aborted cow fetus and slapped the Dragon Age brand name onto it.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I find those to be some of the worst graphics ever created by human beings in terms of aging poorly.

dragoon doesn't look too bad. it's about on par with FF8
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I find those to be some of the worst graphics ever created by human beings in terms of aging poorly. I'd argue that literally every game made prior or since that point looks better than the deformed mess that was the first attempt at polygonal art.

Yeah, that's my point, bro.
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Metalsonic66 posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I find those to be some of the worst graphics ever created by human beings in terms of aging poorly. I'd argue that literally every game made prior or since that point looks better than the deformed mess that was the first attempt at polygonal art.

Yeah, that's my point, bro.

It's not really your point, when you're saying you'd rather play those things over DA, while I am saying that those are the objectively worst graphics ever used in video games, to the point where even the worst elements of DA look like modern art in comparison, and that saying "I would rather see those graphics than the ones in DA" is quite possibly a criteria for clinical insanity.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

In a number of ways, DA2 is actually the best of the three. People just whined like children because of the shift from RPG to more action-oriented combat, and the reused maps (which no one ever complained about when Mass Effect did it). There was nothing really wrong with most of the characters (half of them were better than almost anyone in DA:O), and the plot was relatively well-handled.

riiiiiiiight....
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Being a gameplay guy, DA2 was an immense step back from Origins. I know PO is all story, all the time, so the game was relatively inoffensive for him. For me, I hated what they did, but still, Inquisition is much, much worse than even DA2.

The one positive I'll give to DA2 is that Gideon Emery, one of my all time favorite VAs, voices Fenris.

Raganork posted...

Being a gameplay guy, DA2 was an immense step back from Origins. I know PO is all story, all the time, so the game was relatively inoffensive for him.

You definitely get me, boo.

For me, the fact that Varric is quite possibly the best character in the entire franchise (thought DA:I manages to fuck even that up) helps boost DA2 immensely. I'd probably also rate Isabela as one of the better characters they've ever come up with (and keep in mind, I actually LIKE most of the DA:O companions), and Merrill is simultaneously cute and a bit complex in her own way (depending on how you play your character's personality, you can easily wind up hating her in spite of her being one of the sweetest and most "innocent" companions in the franchise - and not just hating her for being so cute in the way someone might loathe Yuffie or Selphie in FF). Fenris and Aveline can come across a bit whiny (as can Carver - oh God, Carver), but none of them are really one-note characters, and you can easily strike a balance with them if you actually try to interact with them and actively engage rather than just dismiss them out of hand. Anders might be the only one I'm down on (partly because of the voice/personality change he suffered from Awakening, partly because of his obsession and actions as a character - but those are interesting in their own right as well), but even he has a place.

Giving Hawke a voice DOES admittedly limit the number of responses you can technically give as a player (which is the same complaint moving from a game like KotOR to Mass Effect), but I feel like it did far more to give Hawke a PERSONALITY in ways that DA:O never did for your Warden (especially if you're the sort of person who plays multiple run-throughs and deliberately uses different dialogue choices rather than being the sort of player who just uses the main character as a self-insert and thus prefer a Skyrim-esque bland cipher of a player character). It also helps that I usually play as femHawke, because I think Jo Wyatt is a fantastic VA, and she does as much to help make the character awesome as Jennifer Hale does for femShep in Mass Effect.

I also liked the fact that instead of an overly simplistic "pet the puppy/shoot the puppy" morality mechanic the dialogue choices were basically "polite/sarcastic/pissed off", and that those choices actually carried over to dialogue outside of your choices. And the rework of the influence system that meant there were actually benefits to pissing off your allies as well as being BFFs, and that you couldn't just cheat the system by giving them gifts until they loved you. Your actions and dialogue choices actually MATTER in ways they didn't in DA:O.

To its credit, DA:I actually tried to take most of those good things and expand on them even more, it just did such a bad job of everything else that it left a bad taste in the mouth (not helped by all of the VAs doing a relatively mediocre job and a lot of aspects feeling a bit half-assed).

The main complaints about DA2 seem to be the shift in game mechanics (which is the same complaint people had going from ME to ME2, and which matters to me just as little as it did then), the constant repetition of maps (which, again, is also a thing with the pre-fab designs in ME, where no one seemed to mind), and the fact that it doesn't have a "happy" ending (in spite of the fact that DA:O didn't have one either). But narratively, I find it to be the best in the series (DA:I might have had it beat, if it didn't make so many missteps and then pad out what story it did have with endless monotonous MMORPG-level sidequest and grinding).


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The one criticism I've heard that might be the only one I feel like has any real weight at all is that, at the end of the game, Hawke hasn't really DONE much of anything. That you're more of a spectator to major events playing out than the cause of them (and you're unable to stop them). That you're not the epic hero who saves the day so everyone can live happily ever after. But that misses the entire point of the game.

The whole game is supposed to be more of a character piece. It's the story of someone who essentially comes from nothing to become one of the most powerful people in the city, but in the end, is still helpless against geopolitical forces. Someone who, for all their newfound wealth, still has to decide in the end precisely what they consider really important, and what they're willing to sacrifice for those things. It's why so much of the game focuses on your own issues and interacting with your companions than having an overarching quest that your companions join you on because you all have the same goal. In DA:O you were building an army to fight a monster, and the people with you were just assets (who, admittedly, might grow into friends). In DA2, your companions are all people who you cross paths with when you have shared goals, with whom you become friends (or at least have weird dysfunctional friendly rival relationships with), and who all have goals and interests of their own outside of what you're doing (but who are still willing to help you with your stuff even as they ask you to help with theirs). And ultimately, you're forced to look at your own morality and decide exactly what you believe in, and what you're willing to do to support those beliefs (ie, you've spent an entire game trying to recover your family name and wealth, are you willing to throw all of that away to help save innocent lives, or are you willing to sacrifice anything and everything to keep what you've built? Or do you stand with the Templars because you literally DO come to believe that magic is evil and brings nothing but pain?).

That seems far more interesting to me than the standard "fight the monster, be the hero" Hero's Journey formletter that most RPG plots turn out to be.

And honestly, the idea that your character has to be the epic hero who does all the important things and saves the world is probably detrimental to the franchise anyway. It was the mentality that led to a lot of the worst plot problems of Inquisition, and it leads to most of the worst aspects in the Elder Scrolls chronology (ie, each game has to skip ahead 200 years and render nearly every choice you made meaningless solely to set the stage for the next hero).

The worst part is, Dragon Age suffers from a problem that the Elder Scrolls doesn't - namely, the Elder Scrolls CAN skip ahead hundreds of years every game, but Dragon Age is a franchise literally named after the period of time it takes place in (ie, the Dragon Age), which is a hundred year span (of which about half is already past). Meaning they have to keep the games relatively close in time, to avoid skipping ahead too far and running out of time IN the Dragon Age (meaning they'll eventually have to change the name of the franchise to _____ Age or just keep the title as a meaningless legacy title). But doing that means that all of these stories are happening relatively close in time, meaning that, in Thedas, there is apparently a catastrophic world-shaking crisis every few years. Which starts to get ridiculous after your fourth of fifth near-apocalypse in the span of a decade.

Since DA's whole plan was to tell different (albeit still somewhat related) stories within the setting (as opposed to just being one long string of adventures for your original Warden character, a la Mass Effect), the goal was to occasionally have lower-impact stories that focus more on the setting or specific characters than being yet another epic crisis. But that's ruined now.


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It's the only good game in the series.
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Raganork posted...

Being a gameplay guy, DA2 was an immense step back from Origins. I know PO is all story, all the time, so the game was relatively inoffensive for him. For me, I hated what they did, but still, Inquisition is much, much worse than even DA2.

The one positive I'll give to DA2 is that Gideon Emery, one of my all time favorite VAs, voices Fenris.

da1 to da2 is the same as me1 to me2, gameplaywise

that being said, ive never played da2
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Since DA's whole plan was to tell different (albeit still somewhat related) stories within the setting (as opposed to just being one long string of adventures for your original Warden character, a la Mass Effect), the goal was to occasionally have lower-impact stories that focus more on the setting or specific characters than being yet another epic crisis. But that's ruined now.

idk. they could choose to go back in time with a new installment.

someone elses quest could take place during the events of the first game, even.
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i loved the awkward gay elf sex
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CarefreeDude posted...

i loved the awkward gay elf sex

Not as awkward as the potentially gay sex in Saints Row IV...
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I'm so pissed that BioWare continuously makes dumber mistakes as the years go. When they're gone, good riddance!

helIy posted...

Raganork posted...

Being a gameplay guy, DA2 was an immense step back from Origins. I know PO is all story, all the time, so the game was relatively inoffensive for him. For me, I hated what they did, but still, Inquisition is much, much worse than even DA2.

The one positive I'll give to DA2 is that Gideon Emery, one of my all time favorite VAs, voices Fenris.

da1 to da2 is the same as me1 to me2, gameplaywise

that being said, ive never played da2

Don't, the moronization is even worse than me2.
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ME2 was good tho.
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I always hear good things about that game; I want to hurry up and get another 360 so I can get/play it.
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or you could get an xbox one
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Nade Duck posted...

ME2 was good tho.

storywise
too bad da2 was pretty trash in that area too
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X1 would be much more expensive, and probably not compatible with all my 360 games.
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i love the different dialogue depending on who you take. like ogren talking about alistair polishing his sword.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's not really your point, when you're saying you'd rather play those things over DA, while I am saying that those are the objectively worst graphics ever used in video games, to the point where even the worst elements of DA look like modern art in comparison, and that saying "I would rather see those graphics than the ones in DA" is quite possibly a criteria for clinical insanity.

Congratulations on your amazing deductive skills.
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