Dragon Age Review

[Kadayi]

For some twisted reason I restarted again, but stuck with the same Origin of female City Elf. This time going through the origin story I noticed that there existed the opportunity to approach some things in a slightly different manner: -

Spoiler:

after you initially wake up in the Arls Castle and Soris & yourself battle the two guards, you find yourself in the Kitchens. If you walk into the main hall straight away 3 guards will attack you after a brief dialogue about being covered in blood and armed. However if you both change your clothes to your normal ware and put your weapons away then when you go into the room, the guards will assume you are elf servants and ask for some more drinks. In the kitchen & pantry you can find some rat poison & Brandy which you can serve to them and kill them easily. I'm pretty sure it netted me a lot more XP than straight up fighting as well.

Sadly unfortunately after that part it seemed every guard was hostile, and you can't sneak & pickpocket in combat it seems...

There are a couple of rooms in the level which are locked and require keys, but so far I haven't been able to figure out how to obtain them. If anyone has figured it out though. I'd be grateful.

[Lucid]

Man, I almost cried when

Spoiler:

Leliana began singing after our camp was ambushed by demons. The way the camera was moving around the camp showing each party member's reaction to what just happened, sort of gives you the idea that the journey is taking its toll on your party. It was beautiful.

[Letters]

http://social.bioware.com/project/469/

This puts a raven in your camp and outside Flemeth's house that gives you potions that refund all your stat and talent points... even works on companions! I was able to salvage my mage and his party with this, thank god. It's awesome just for the fact that it gives you more party options too. I hated being forced to take Wynne the boring-ass old lady all the time, and now I have Leliana (badass) in my party (melee specialized now instead of absolutely useless archery).

Something like this really needed to be in the game from the start. Especially when so many spell descriptions are just outright wrong (and *all* of them are vague). For example, chain lightning says "friendly fire possible" when, in fact, it never hits your own party! Then there's the whole issue of Bioware choosing all this useless shit for your party members for you when they join, which they have actually *defended* on their forums, saying they made it to "fit their backgrounds". Excuse me, but sacrificing gameplay for a little unneeded fluff? Screw you.

[Gargantou]

Originally Posted by Lucid

Man, I almost cried when

Spoiler:

Leliana began singing after our camp was ambushed by demons. The way the camera was moving around the camp showing each party member's reaction to what just happened, sort of gives you the idea that the journey is taking its toll on your party. It was beautiful.

I never got that scene in my playthrough Got a link to a vid of it or something?

Edit: Found it, I was thoroughly wow'ed by its crappiness.

Honestly, it's just a straight-up recording of the main theme, it doesn't at all sounds like Leliana singing and it's extremely poorly 'synced' to her character IMO.

I do agree the song itself is beautiful, but it doesn't fit the character at all, sounds nothing like her.

[Lucid]

Yes, it was poorly synced and sounded nothing like her but I still almost teared up just from the timing of it and the way was played.

Bioware could've done some amazing things had they even bothered with proper facial animations.

[phantomdesign]

Originally Posted by Krynn72

Learn how to read people. I've never lost more than a couple points at once with any character, and my main three dudes are all at 100%. You just gotta know what they want.

Also, that Orzammar boss fight, with the golems... HARDEST ****ING BOSS IVE EVER PLAYED.

That's probably because your character has high charisma persuasion.....

Lol, I can usually read PEOPLE, the retarded dialogue feels like filling out a test question. And sometimes I want to play the game my own damn way. The one part where I lost all those points was when I.....

Spoiler:

Chose to "rescue" the child, meeting the desire demon, so my mage could get blood magic perk. Lost 10 with allister, 8 or so with Sten, and then when I get back to the camp, lost another 25 with Allister. Ended up reloading before camp, waiting until I had higher persuasion & charisma, and only lost another 10 this time instead.

I thought that boss fight was easy....

Spoiler:

Used healing spells on the friendly Golems, freezing spells to kite, and slowly whethered them down.

Now my mages have that crushing cage & shield bubble thing, which makes it that much easier to remove the most powerful enemies from fights.

Edit: On the way to the urn....

Spoiler:

Just fought that massive dragon, that was a hard fight. Ice spells are very useful here.

[organizedcrime]

I kind of wish you could continue to play after the game ends. "Walk the Earth" and what not.

[Krynn72]

Originally Posted by phantomdesign

Spoiler:

Chose to "rescue" the child, meeting the desire demon, so my mage could get blood magic perk. Lost 10 with allister, 8 or so with Sten, and then when I get back to the camp, lost another 25 with Allister. Ended up reloading before camp, waiting until I had higher persuasion & charisma, and only lost another 10 this time instead.

Spoiler:

You mean you went to the circle of magi and got all the mages and lyrium to go into the fade to fight the demon? Or you went and fought the demon right away in the castle, which they specifically told you would kill the kid?

[Neo_Kuja]

Out of interest, what kind of loading times are you guys getting during the game ? I've had quite a few load screens take 5 ~ 10mins to load in some instances, while the same area transitions are taking 30 seconds to a minute on other playthroughs (the mage's tower and other areas in the prologue, for those interested).