Prime Junta
Guest
Some interesting, and fair, opinions above, but let's cut to the chase.
Non-ironic respect. It takes some gonads to actually like a game around here, especially a BioWare game. Nevertheless, here are my counterpoints -- why I think DA:O is more of a disappointment than a gem.
Dragon Age: Origins........is fucking brilliant. No two ways about it. It's fucking awesome. Flawed brilliance for sure, but it gives SO much more than most CRPG's have done in the past 15 years.
This is more of a commentary on the generally sad state of cRPGs over the past years than DA:O, and even so I disagree. I won't list games I think succeed better here because that would likely result in a typical "which is better and why" derail.
The "annoying" thing doesn't stack up for me. Don't want to hear much from your characters? Take Dog, Sten & Wynn who's like your mum/nan along.
If the best companions are the silent ones, that alone says quite a lot about the companion writing. Also I'll give you Dog and Wynn is fairly harmless, but Sten is really bloody irritating, an unimaginative take on your ruthless, silent, totally-not-Moorish warrior fanatic.
Part of the fun for me was said "annoyance". These people can be idiots, but you can duly put them in their place. Alistair & Morrigan are fucking superb reflections of modern male fags & modern clueless women who have power, but are still green as the emerald isles. Both have a satisfying redemption ark which sees both their personalities balance somewhat, and if anything their transition reflects how modern SJW's need to fall back in line with "normal".
OK, fair, if you actually like annoyance, then I suppose you'll like the companions. You do you, I don't kink-shame.
The C&C is stunning,
This is indeed one area in which DA:O excels. They did go above and beyond with C&C and should rightly be commended for it.
the companion banter brilliant,
I disagree. I barely remember any of it. Hell, even Pillars of Eternity did it better with "Does it bite? – Yes. – Can I pet it? – It's your hand. – How's your hand? – Turning purple, might have to cut it off."
the companions interesting (again they may be annoying, but they've plenty of character),
Strong disagree here. In my view the companions are one-dimensional and entirely predictable. You know everything there is to know after the first five minutes. Leliana is an idealistic waifu. Alistair is a smartass with self-esteem issues. Sten is stoic. Wynne is kind. Morrigan is a ruthless bitch. Zevran is a perv. Oghren is a drunk. Sure each of them has a character arc with a predictable bit of character development, but that's all 100% paint by the numbers. It's near the bottom tier of BioWare's companion writing – there's nothing like the Tuchanka arc from Mass Effect, or Cassandra's or Blackwall's arcs from DA:I.
the story serviceable,
Yes, serviceable is the word for it.
the combat I personally thought was mint on harder levels (and with the right class - either DW Rogue or Mage, Warrior is dull as fuck),
Another strong disagree. The combat is rote, repetitive, and the difficulty is based on MMOesque aggro management, with a few designed-in exploits that trivialise just about everything. It's in a really uncomfortable place, like it can't make up its mind if it wants to be an aRPG or a tactical RPG or a single-player MMO or what. The character system is also extremely unbalanced and opaque: the only way to make informed character-building choices is to read spoilers, because they refuse to actually say what the abilities, passives, and what have you do: they do say that something affects something, but they don't tell you by how much, for how long, what your success percentage is, and what that hangs on. Again, you do you but I do not find it fun to pick abilities blindly when building a character, I want to know what I'm doing.
This is in huge contrast to the D&D games it's emulating: there you could look up exactly what any little thing did, which made character- and party-building that much more fun.
Oh, and tiered loot. With stat requirements. Joy.
and the game's pacing is absolutely fucking spot on.
Again, strong disagree. The Deep Roads for example are a giant slog. The endgame in Denerim is almost as bad. What is good though is that you get to control the pacing, by choosing which order to do the hubs in.
In these days of 100+ hours games I usually tend to get fed up around 60 hours, but DA:O kept me thriving well past the 100+ mark, and 5 full playthroughs.
Good on you, man.
Even the romances are done well, and add depth to the actual story.
Okay now I'm pretty sure you're shitposting.
I do have to say that Morrigan's proposition was a really good twist. Whoever thought of that one deserves an extra point. But the actual romances, ew. (Or OK maybe there are some soul-rendingly beautiful moments in gay Alistair romance or something but I didn't try those; truth told is I only ever explored the Leliana and Morrigan ones, and they were cringe AF.)
Finally: lest this come off as too negative, I don't hate the game. I've finished it twice and played about 2/3 through several times; I've probably sunk a good 100 hours into it too. It has many redeeming qualities, not least a thoroughly fleshed-out setting, great C&C, lots of unique and pretty interesting locations to explore, and as you said, a perfectly serviceable story. And the origins really are cool, although somewhat disappointingly supported in the actual game, with people just commenting on things a bit. But the meat and potatoes of the genre – character-building mechanics and combat – are downright bad, and companion writing falls a good deal short of BioWare's usually high standards.
And once more, I respect your opinion and your courage for stating it. It takes balls to like a RPG here.