Getting the year off right by forgetting to post this on Sunday, but better nate than lever. Anyway I watched the Fallout show so I am inspired to play Fallout 4 on survival difficulty. It's been slow going so far as I've died numerous times, often losing ~30 mins of progess. Hope everyone's new year has gotten off to a strong start.
I got further into Dragon Age: Inquisition after posting my mini-rant/review of Dragon Age 2. I've gotten over the movement feeling like a slog after a couple more hours. It's so far significantly more compelling because of one of the things I commented, which is that I love games where you put together a ragtag band of bozos like Mass Effect 2 and have to muster up support and resources for some sort of cause. I haven't met too many of the companions yet, but they're also more interesting than most of the Dragon Age 2 cast after even just a short amount of time.
The decision to make you travel to individual locations between missions to talk to each party member in 2 was SO bad because it meant having to sit through 5 loading screens to check in on each member. Having an excuse for them all to be at a campfire or in this case at our castle is way better because it means talking to them more often is not a chore. Which probably contributes to my feeling like they're better written and caring more about them sooner because I actually get to interact with them regularly.
It's pretty clear some abilities are more OP than others. Like the healing poison on rogues, since your health doesn't naturally regenerate and you have to rely on potions and resupplies at camps. Instead I can just hit stuff and keep myself topped off forever. I'd say I'm having fun so far.
How does the series develop as it goes along? I battled through half of Origins a couple of years ago, found it borderline unplayable on console so restarted after a few hours on PC, but eventually fell off. I just couldn’t enjoy the combat or the controls, in either style. Does that sort of stuff get better in the later games?
2 is pretty similar to Origins but maybe a bit faster, Inquisition is more streamlined for better and for worse (there are some optional "don't stand in the red circle" fights where the companion AI doesn't recognize what a red circle is). I'd say if the gameplay in Origins was a dealbreaker that you probably won't enjoy the other games in the franchise, except maybe Veilguard which I haven't played.
Each game is pretty different so far in what they do well and what they do poorly. Like the combat in 2 isn't 'great' as far as video games go, but I do think it was better than 1 because of the faster pace, smoother animations, more fluid character movement. It's the encounters that are worse though, which in my other thread, I mention is mainly just the game throwing dozens of enemies at you.
Inquisition feels more like a very slow MMO because it's an open world game with large maps full of Ubisoft collectibles. The combat is simplified even further in that it's balanced around only controlling a single character instead of micromanaging your entire party like in 1 and sometimes in 2. Which you can still do, but isn't really necessary, at least in the early game where I'm at.
If you didn't like the first one, I think I'd agree that you wouldn't like the later entries either. I also haven't played Veilguard though, so if it that has more modern action combat like someone else described as being something like the new God of War games, it might be a better time.
It’s not like I don’t enjoy CRPG or tactical combat, I just thought it wasn’t done very well in DA:O. It felt like it was in a weird spot, where it was halfway between a modern version of that type of game and a retro version. Like I can go back and play Fallout 1 which is much clunkier, but you kind of expect that. I really wanna enjoy Dragon Age because I want to see how the story plays out and how your decisions carry over, like in Mass Effect.
I think that's kind of consistent throughout is that the gameplay never really comes together to feel 'good', just 'okay'. It's definitely clunky all the way through, at least up to Inquisition.
Inquisition ties directly into Veilguard, but Veilguard only lets you import like 4 big decisions from Inquisition. Inquisition has dozens of flags for what you did in Origins and 2. So worst case is maybe Veilguard plays way better and you can watch some lore videos on YouTube to at least get an idea of what was happening. You'll definitely miss the small references to past decisions, but I think there's relatively fewer of them than in Mass Effect outside of the big decisions.