I found the combat pretty enjoyable on the higher difficulties. Beat the playthrough on hard on my second playthrough and the combat was 90% paused. I like to think of the pausing as the taking turns in FF Tactics. You pause, setup your abilities based on what you see the enemy doing, unpause and let it playout, pause again and rework your strategy. Might not be for everyone, but I found it highly enjoyable. The story itself is pretty linear...it's basically rescue all the factions in your manner of choosing, then go to the landsmeet, then go and kill the archdemon. FYI, the landsmeet plays out the same in the end no matter what choices you make; it was kind of disappointing. In any case, it's fun game if you like tactics over action.
@OP, I'm curious why someone who disliked NWN, KOTOR and ME (and BioWare's style in general) would have even bothered to buy this game. It should have been patently obvious to you, from even the briefest googling, what kind of game this was and that you would be disappointed.
Clearly there is a crowd of people bred on open world Oblivion type gameplay that have no time or patience for BioWare's style. And that's fine, that's the great thing about our hobby... something for everyone. So perhaps you should save your hard earned dollars in the future and buy the kinds of games that you already know you enjoy, and stay away from the ones you already know you won't.
You forgot the extremly generic story that was ripped right out of lord of the rings, and follows thru it for most of the game (Minus the ring). Not to mention out of all the rpg's I have played no rpg has been as predictable story wise in terms of what will happen next than Dragon Age is. Every prediction I have made as I played the game turned out to be right, which sadly is worth negative points if I was to review the game.
Agreed. Not only that but the characters are incredibly cliche.
It's funny that you mention Lord of The Rings. This was one of my earliest / immediate impressions of the game. The Warden camp reminded me so much of the console-based LoTR games that I actually laughed a bit out loud at the game as I played through it..
Cute fanboy flamming me for not remembering the name of the area. You're so cool, fanboy, whoever you turn out to be.
Anyway, year, I pretty much agree with all of your points. Cliche characters, cliche story, and has been pointed out, absolutely nothing new about the combat.
I personally like the game. I like the way that tactics are a part of the game and not just button mashing. Meh, some people like games that I don't like and vice versa. Not sure why people are amazed that we don't all like the same stuff. Katrar's post is very true.
well, honestly, the idea behind this game is very nice, ok i dont really dislike DAO, but for a game like this
and you were given a Linear World, like, ok.. so this route is the only route we can go if we want to progress is kinda old now, knowing most games now tend to go with a little of sandbox-ish play, especially afer FO3, this looked very very very linear indeed
and then idk, if im the only one here who is against the pause combat system... seriously, it kills it off for me
other than that, i believe the story is great
but oh well, its a nice 10 hours of try, addictive at 1st, yes, i play 8 hours non stop
The only thing i did not like was talking to Lilliana , its llike shut up allready, then i found you could keep hitting the escape key and it would speed along her conversation, besides thaat i loved the game
I don't like it either. I didn't like Mass Effect nor Knights of Old Republic. I do not like Bioware RPG's at all, in my opinion they should be rather called interactive movies with lots of facial expressions and cut-scenes, but with no real interaction apart from the tactical fights. On the other hand, I did like Baldur's Gate 1 and Planescape Torment, altho I'm not sure now whether these weren't made by Black Isle instead.
Bingo. I did enjoy KOTOR because I felt it had the right mix of scenes and gameplay; by far I felt like I spent more time playing than watching the movie unfold. But that ratio shifted in favor of the non-interactive movie with ME and it's even worse with this game. I can't stand a game where I can take my hands off the controls for minutes at a time. Is it even a game at that point?
I'm bewildered as to why, having got it right with KOTOR, they would move steadily away from what was good and towards what is boring. But I guess the numbers don't lie, so people who enjoy buying a movie disguised as a game must outnumber folks like me. Fair enough. Still, it does dash whatever hopes I had for the Star Wars MMO.
I gave it 20 hours and uninstalled it. Tried very hard to give it a chance.
Bioware rpg's tend to bore me to death, though I've only played this and tried the baulder's gate games. Personally I found the story unoriginal and boring; might as well call it lord of the rings with alternate names. I tend to go for more unique storylines in my rpg selection. The d'n'd dungeon-crawler scenarios with little purpose bored me to tears. But I guess that is not for everyone. Dragon age quests feel like MMO quests to me, which is a bad thing. There are some absolutely pointless sidequests which you could partake in which reap little reward with mediocre story elements. I will say the voice acting in the cutscenes was pretty good compared to other games. Thankfully the scenes can be skipped. No one likes hearing long-winded merchants go to cut scene's for pointless 2-liners before you can try and buy an item.
The combat I found rehashed and boring as well; pause, attack two seconds, pause....rinse and repeat. Even when carefully coordinating your allies to do exactly what you want, they tend not to listen. Still various bugs in the game. Every battle I was in there was situations where my melee characters would swing once, then stand there like an idiot. Or the enemy moves an inch, and the character must be re-told what to do. 'auto' battle tactics cure some issues, but not all. They should also put a sticker on the box stating how mages are night and day compared to melee pc's. There is no balance.
Don't really understand the love on this game, as it seems every reviewer has the same taste. I find that hard to believe.
I gave it 20 hours and uninstalled it. Tried very hard to give it a chance. Bioware rpg's tend to bore me to death, though I've only played this and tried the baulder's gate games. Personally I found the story unoriginal and boring; might as well call it lord of the rings with alternate names. I tend to go for more unique storylines in my rpg selection. The d'n'd dungeon-crawler scenarios with little purpose bored me to tears. But I guess that is not for everyone. Dragon age quests feel like MMO quests to me, which is a bad thing. There are some absolutely pointless sidequests which you could partake in which reap little reward with mediocre story elements. I will say the voice acting in the cutscenes was pretty good compared to other games. Thankfully the scenes can be skipped. No one likes hearing long-winded merchants go to cut scene's for pointless 2-liners before you can try and buy an item. The combat I found rehashed and boring as well; pause, attack two seconds, pause....rinse and repeat. Even when carefully coordinating your allies to do exactly what you want, they tend not to listen. Still various bugs in the game. Every battle I was in there was situations where my melee characters would swing once, then stand there like an idiot. Or the enemy moves an inch, and the character must be re-told what to do. 'auto' battle tactics cure some issues, but not all. They should also put a sticker on the box stating how mages are night and day compared to melee pc's. There is no balance. Don't really understand the love on this game, as it seems every reviewer has the same taste. I find that hard to believe.
play mass effect and your opinion on bioware games will drastically change.
I gave it 20 hours and uninstalled it. Tried very hard to give it a chance. Bioware rpg's tend to bore me to death, though I've only played this and tried the baulder's gate games. Personally I found the story unoriginal and boring; might as well call it lord of the rings with alternate names. I tend to go for more unique storylines in my rpg selection. The d'n'd dungeon-crawler scenarios with little purpose bored me to tears. But I guess that is not for everyone. Dragon age quests feel like MMO quests to me, which is a bad thing. There are some absolutely pointless sidequests which you could partake in which reap little reward with mediocre story elements. I will say the voice acting in the cutscenes was pretty good compared to other games. Thankfully the scenes can be skipped. No one likes hearing long-winded merchants go to cut scene's for pointless 2-liners before you can try and buy an item. The combat I found rehashed and boring as well; pause, attack two seconds, pause....rinse and repeat. Even when carefully coordinating your allies to do exactly what you want, they tend not to listen. Still various bugs in the game. Every battle I was in there was situations where my melee characters would swing once, then stand there like an idiot. Or the enemy moves an inch, and the character must be re-told what to do. 'auto' battle tactics cure some issues, but not all. They should also put a sticker on the box stating how mages are night and day compared to melee pc's. There is no balance. Don't really understand the love on this game, as it seems every reviewer has the same taste. I find that hard to believe.
play mass effect and your opinion on bioware games will drastically change.
yep the only game i've played more in the last three years is Oblivion. Mass Effect is a freaking epic game!
I agree somehow agree with the OP. I was hoping for something a lot better than that... I mean c'mon... They made Mass Effect and it rocked. Graphics were good, the story was good, the world was huge, etc. What have they done with DAO? The graphics were also... terribad. And the game had EA sign on the box.
^ PS3 version
ahhh ps3 version
you know what? get a xbox 360 or the pc version and throw that garbage away =P
There is something wrong here.
Dragon Age on the PS3 has better graphics than the 360 version.
It is not just an "opinion" you can check many comparisons in the internet.
When we talk about graphics and Dragon Age from the best to the worst version - PC-PS3-360.
As I said, you can find a lot of comparisons, textures are far better in the PS3 than in the 360 in this game.
About the topic, it is a good game but overhyped as almost all recent Bioware games.
The combat system is too spammy. Most fights are trivial since some abilities like fireball and cone of cold you can chain CC and deal damage. Other fights are ridiculously hard if not impossible unless you spam the cheap spells like fireball and CoC. There's little tactical thought other than spamming your most powerful spells as much and as fast as possible, with no consequence.
There also felt like there was very little in the ways of equipment upgrades as I played. I got tons of drops, but most of them were crap for my characters, or they already had much better.
The character advancement system was bland. You could get away with pumping pretty much all of your stat points into a single stat, and the spell branch idea didn't sit well with me either. The character specializations seemed rather underwhelming as well.
I havent played dragon age. i just dont like micro managing a bunch of other characters in combat. I didnt like it in kotor and i wouldnt like it in dragon age. I always auto leveled my companions in kotor, and never ever gave them any commands. I like the story aspect they bring to the game, but thats about it. besides you fight Malak solo anyway, so whats the point?
had dragon age been just you, the lone hero and i might have tried it. or maybe i wouldnt. I saw some dialogues on youtube and they all sounded too cheesy and fake. from all the videos and features ive seen, it looks like a medieval kotor with crappier voice acting and gratuitous sex scenes.
"The only way to save yourself is to fuck me so I can have your child. Oh and theres a cutscene *wink wink*" Seriously? cmon.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
I really don't get why people don't like the game. I have now beat it 4 times and have completed all achievements. It was worth replaying just to switch up my party and listen to them bicker and mess with each other. It is not perfect but still a cut above most games I've played lately.
I , for one, am perplexed by the hype/reviews of this game. I mean, I get why it's so hyped on this site as mmorpg.com has increasingly lost credence in the journalistic department and seem to be more shills for the highest advertiser than anything at this point...but In my own opinion this game is just...well, not good. Far be it from me to just post nonsense like that without giving you my reasons though: I am currently rather enjoying the game. I think it has very high production values in my opinion......but I can also see its flaws and can easily understand why some people might not like it. 1) Load screens.Lots of them. Yes this is true. However its not a problem for me personally. I can survive waiting roughly 5 seconds each time I make a transition to an area such as a building or a zone. I would have a problem if the loading times stretched out to several minutes but a few seconds is hardly worth worrying about. If it means I get great eye candy and atmospheric sound effects then I'm quite happy with it. Loading times dont bother me in mmos either. 2) Ok, the story is KIND OF interesting. Doesn't mean I wanna take 3 steps watch a 5 minute cut scene, fight one mob, watch a 5 minute cut scene...etc Kind of interesting? So far I think its the most interesting story in a game I have come across for ages. Ok sure its kind of cliched but then most fantasy stories are. The way it is conveyed through the characters and there dialogue is pretty impressive in my opinion. Those cut scenes are why the story is good. I prefer watching them than reading blocks of text which is what mmos do. Yeah I agree though that the game does have LOTS of cutscenes. I include the conversation in the "custscene department" too. People of a more impulsive nature who lack patience and are generally trigger happy will undoubtedly have an issue with this. I however am finding it to be a refreshing change. They are extremely well done and they are keeping me entertained......which afterall is the point of a game. I can of course see why someone might argue that this isnt what a game should be but then what should the game be offering instead? More hack n slash gameplay? Arent there enough games that offer that already? 3) very , very , very linear. There is no "world". There is a series of linear, very restricted zones. You port from one to the next. "Exploring" consist of bouncing back and forth like a ping pong ball between walls, both invisible and not down the corridor that is the "story" Stuff the "big open world". Its over-rated. MMOs keep trying to present these supposedly wonderful big open worlds and they're boring as hell because you cant do anything in them. In Dragon Age I can look around me and see mountains in the distance, the sunlit sea stretching out to the horizon, dark misty forest covered hills and so on. It all looks great. Yeah sure I know its just graphics. I know I cant walk up to those mountains and try and climb them......but what would I gain from being able to? Jack shit thats what. Dragon Age is indeed a rather linear ride......but its an enjoyable one so I dont mind in the slightest. I can interact with the things that are relevant to the story and thats good enough for me. To be honest I actually get more of a sense of being in a world in Dragon Age than I do in any mmo. Maybe thats because the game doesnt make me run around a weird 3d landscape like a tireless lunatic while severely short-sighted monsters stand a few meters apart from each other doing nothing while they wait for me to kill them. I dunno but that never really struck me as a world. 4) combat. Sigh. Revolutionary? Breathtaking? My god. Swing my sword, hit pause, cue attacks, unpause, watch action for 3 seconds, pause again. yeah...takes my breath right away. Guys..."exhilarating combat" generally doesn't involve the pause button. I agree with this actually. I find all the pausing and unpausing very disruptive and is a real immersion breaker. Then again as you're controlling a group of people there isnt a particularly great way around it. I see that Bioware tried to solve this issue with tactic slots which allows you to customise each characters AI but I find this to be really clunky and unreliable. I guess I'm just a control freak but I simply dont always want the other characters picking their own targets and running off whenever they feel like it. Maybe I just dont know how to use them effectively. Then again even when I issue commands to my party members they dont always act on them straight away and sometimes if an opponent moves away the character will sometimes just stop attacking and stand still which is irritating. Oh and its also annoying that blocking tactics dont seem to work very well. I can position my fighters in front of my archers or mages but if the monsters want to go for my weaker targets then there isnt much I can do to stop them. They just run around my characters and my characters just stand there and watch them or run after them benny hill style. I think the combat in the Baldurs Gate series was done much better to be honest......but even then those games still required you to pause the game quite a lot. Its just the way these games work. 5)DLC ON LAUNCH DAY!!!!!!! LOLOLOL Yeah I thought that was rather odd too. 6) partyy system. Meh, this one is personal preference, but I dont want to have to control a party. Game would have been better , imo if it was just me and my hound. When I think of a classic rpg, i think of me. My chararacter.Singular.Micromanaging sucks. But then it would simply be a different game. Why did you buy the game knowing that you control a party of adventurers if its something you dont like? There is something I dislike about this system though. I hate the fact that I am limited to 4 party members. It doesnt make any sense at all. I meet a new character and they choose to join me and help me with my battle against the darkspawn. Great! But now I've got to ditch someone to make space for them. Why should I have to do this? If I have 6 characters in my group then I should be able to adventure with all of them. Simple as that. Where do they go anyway? A magic limbo space in my backpack? Also while they are in my limbo pocket they are missing out on exp which is annoying. Iv'e got more, but will stop there. Not really designed to be a bash of boware or their game, I just don't like it. Obviously a ton of people do. It just surprises me is all. I am an older guy so perhaps what i think of as a "good game" is just different from the current generations. Seems "playable movies" are the new thing I do totally understand your viewpoint. It is very much like an interactive movie. However I would choose an interactive movie with great visuals, atmosphere and character acting over the mind numbingly boring text files and repetitive gameplay which passes for entertainment in mmos any day.
I installed it and uninstalled about 10mins later. Just not my kinda game. If it was MMO that would be different. I just cant play single player rpg anymore since mmorpg is so much better.
It seems like if you look hard enough you can find something wrong with anything.
The game plays just like KOTOR 1 and 2, both of which were games of the year... so yeah...
There is a good reason its being well received, its a good quality game made in the image of previous Successful Bioware games. Imagine that.
Its ok, not everyone was old enough to play KOTOR 1 and 2 I guess you were one of them...
Pity, they were great games, pushed the console RPG genre forward.
Edit: Person above me who says Single player games bore you compared to MMO's. Wow you are a rarity, almost everyone else on this site says the reverse. With good reason.
I installed it and uninstalled about 10mins later. Just not my kinda game. If it was MMO that would be different. I just cant play single player rpg anymore since mmorpg is so much better.
really?
ok, well, I respect your tastes but I can't say the same for my take. single player games have more going for them than killing x of y and watching people dance in the streets.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Comments
story is great i hear but the combat system is LAME i rather have it like ff13s going to be or like the old school rpgs
I found the combat pretty enjoyable on the higher difficulties. Beat the playthrough on hard on my second playthrough and the combat was 90% paused. I like to think of the pausing as the taking turns in FF Tactics. You pause, setup your abilities based on what you see the enemy doing, unpause and let it playout, pause again and rework your strategy. Might not be for everyone, but I found it highly enjoyable. The story itself is pretty linear...it's basically rescue all the factions in your manner of choosing, then go to the landsmeet, then go and kill the archdemon. FYI, the landsmeet plays out the same in the end no matter what choices you make; it was kind of disappointing. In any case, it's fun game if you like tactics over action.
@OP, I'm curious why someone who disliked NWN, KOTOR and ME (and BioWare's style in general) would have even bothered to buy this game. It should have been patently obvious to you, from even the briefest googling, what kind of game this was and that you would be disappointed.
Clearly there is a crowd of people bred on open world Oblivion type gameplay that have no time or patience for BioWare's style. And that's fine, that's the great thing about our hobby... something for everyone. So perhaps you should save your hard earned dollars in the future and buy the kinds of games that you already know you enjoy, and stay away from the ones you already know you won't.
Agreed. Not only that but the characters are incredibly cliche.
It's funny that you mention Lord of The Rings. This was one of my earliest / immediate impressions of the game. The Warden camp reminded me so much of the console-based LoTR games that I actually laughed a bit out loud at the game as I played through it..
Cute fanboy flamming me for not remembering the name of the area. You're so cool, fanboy, whoever you turn out to be.
Anyway, year, I pretty much agree with all of your points. Cliche characters, cliche story, and has been pointed out, absolutely nothing new about the combat.
Dragon Age = NWN2 mod.
I personally like the game. I like the way that tactics are a part of the game and not just button mashing. Meh, some people like games that I don't like and vice versa. Not sure why people are amazed that we don't all like the same stuff. Katrar's post is very true.
ill join the club
well, honestly, the idea behind this game is very nice, ok i dont really dislike DAO, but for a game like this
and you were given a Linear World, like, ok.. so this route is the only route we can go if we want to progress is kinda old now, knowing most games now tend to go with a little of sandbox-ish play, especially afer FO3, this looked very very very linear indeed
and then idk, if im the only one here who is against the pause combat system... seriously, it kills it off for me
other than that, i believe the story is great
but oh well, its a nice 10 hours of try, addictive at 1st, yes, i play 8 hours non stop
then all of a sudden, it just bore me to death
So What Now?
It can be done in real time. There's macro programs for multi-boxing in MMOs...its just another design hurdle that developers have avoided for years.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
The only thing i did not like was talking to Lilliana , its llike shut up allready, then i found you could keep hitting the escape key and it would speed along her conversation, besides thaat i loved the game
not my favorite game but it derserves its props, im a bigger fan of kotor itself.
Bingo. I did enjoy KOTOR because I felt it had the right mix of scenes and gameplay; by far I felt like I spent more time playing than watching the movie unfold. But that ratio shifted in favor of the non-interactive movie with ME and it's even worse with this game. I can't stand a game where I can take my hands off the controls for minutes at a time. Is it even a game at that point?
I'm bewildered as to why, having got it right with KOTOR, they would move steadily away from what was good and towards what is boring. But I guess the numbers don't lie, so people who enjoy buying a movie disguised as a game must outnumber folks like me. Fair enough. Still, it does dash whatever hopes I had for the Star Wars MMO.
I gave it 20 hours and uninstalled it. Tried very hard to give it a chance.
Bioware rpg's tend to bore me to death, though I've only played this and tried the baulder's gate games. Personally I found the story unoriginal and boring; might as well call it lord of the rings with alternate names. I tend to go for more unique storylines in my rpg selection. The d'n'd dungeon-crawler scenarios with little purpose bored me to tears. But I guess that is not for everyone. Dragon age quests feel like MMO quests to me, which is a bad thing. There are some absolutely pointless sidequests which you could partake in which reap little reward with mediocre story elements. I will say the voice acting in the cutscenes was pretty good compared to other games. Thankfully the scenes can be skipped. No one likes hearing long-winded merchants go to cut scene's for pointless 2-liners before you can try and buy an item.
The combat I found rehashed and boring as well; pause, attack two seconds, pause....rinse and repeat. Even when carefully coordinating your allies to do exactly what you want, they tend not to listen. Still various bugs in the game. Every battle I was in there was situations where my melee characters would swing once, then stand there like an idiot. Or the enemy moves an inch, and the character must be re-told what to do. 'auto' battle tactics cure some issues, but not all. They should also put a sticker on the box stating how mages are night and day compared to melee pc's. There is no balance.
Don't really understand the love on this game, as it seems every reviewer has the same taste. I find that hard to believe.
Yes.
play mass effect and your opinion on bioware games will drastically change.
play mass effect and your opinion on bioware games will drastically change.
yep the only game i've played more in the last three years is Oblivion. Mass Effect is a freaking epic game!
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
ahhh ps3 version
you know what? get a xbox 360 or the pc version and throw that garbage away =P
There is something wrong here.
Dragon Age on the PS3 has better graphics than the 360 version.
It is not just an "opinion" you can check many comparisons in the internet.
When we talk about graphics and Dragon Age from the best to the worst version - PC-PS3-360.
As I said, you can find a lot of comparisons, textures are far better in the PS3 than in the 360 in this game.
About the topic, it is a good game but overhyped as almost all recent Bioware games.
...
Another x360 fanboi misleading the general public. Hope you enjoy your x360 as much before you get the RRoD.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
"Your pride, good sir, far exceeds your worth." -x3r0h
Oldest mmorpg.com member with the least amount of post counts. That counts for something, right?
I'm a Call of Duty boy. Dragon Age is pure crap, kind of WoW with poor cinematic cuts. Blegh.
It is a question of fangs.
The combat system is too spammy. Most fights are trivial since some abilities like fireball and cone of cold you can chain CC and deal damage. Other fights are ridiculously hard if not impossible unless you spam the cheap spells like fireball and CoC. There's little tactical thought other than spamming your most powerful spells as much and as fast as possible, with no consequence.
There also felt like there was very little in the ways of equipment upgrades as I played. I got tons of drops, but most of them were crap for my characters, or they already had much better.
The character advancement system was bland. You could get away with pumping pretty much all of your stat points into a single stat, and the spell branch idea didn't sit well with me either. The character specializations seemed rather underwhelming as well.
I havent played dragon age. i just dont like micro managing a bunch of other characters in combat. I didnt like it in kotor and i wouldnt like it in dragon age. I always auto leveled my companions in kotor, and never ever gave them any commands. I like the story aspect they bring to the game, but thats about it. besides you fight Malak solo anyway, so whats the point?
had dragon age been just you, the lone hero and i might have tried it. or maybe i wouldnt. I saw some dialogues on youtube and they all sounded too cheesy and fake. from all the videos and features ive seen, it looks like a medieval kotor with crappier voice acting and gratuitous sex scenes.
"The only way to save yourself is to fuck me so I can have your child. Oh and theres a cutscene *wink wink*" Seriously? cmon.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
.
I really don't get why people don't like the game. I have now beat it 4 times and have completed all achievements. It was worth replaying just to switch up my party and listen to them bicker and mess with each other. It is not perfect but still a cut above most games I've played lately.
I installed it and uninstalled about 10mins later. Just not my kinda game. If it was MMO that would be different. I just cant play single player rpg anymore since mmorpg is so much better.
It seems like if you look hard enough you can find something wrong with anything.
The game plays just like KOTOR 1 and 2, both of which were games of the year... so yeah...
There is a good reason its being well received, its a good quality game made in the image of previous Successful Bioware games. Imagine that.
Its ok, not everyone was old enough to play KOTOR 1 and 2 I guess you were one of them...
Pity, they were great games, pushed the console RPG genre forward.
Edit: Person above me who says Single player games bore you compared to MMO's. Wow you are a rarity, almost everyone else on this site says the reverse. With good reason.
really?
ok, well, I respect your tastes but I can't say the same for my take. single player games have more going for them than killing x of y and watching people dance in the streets.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo