Dragon Age III: Inquisition
Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2012 12:38 pm
We've known it was somewhere in the pipe for a while, but BioWare has now officially announced that DA3 will be coming out, called Dragon Age III: Inquisition.
I'm a bit nervous about this.
Dragon Age: Origins is, in my mind, the best computer RPG ever made, as well as one of the best games ever, of any type. It has depth, development, flavor, replayability, and choice. The endings, without spoiling anything, can range from you being dead to you being king, and most places in between, entirely dependant on your personal choices and actions. It begins to feel like it's you, the player, who are actually in the game, and despite nearly 500 hours played in single player, starting from every possible combination of backgrounds, there are still things I haven't done and dialogues I haven't pursued, because I can't bring myself to be that evil/rude/uncaring/immoral, despite it just being a game. You have precise control over your group at every moment, and combat follows logical progressions based on strategy and tactics. I love that.
Dragon Age II is a horrifyingly bad experience, that goes backwards in every conceivable way. It's not just that it didn't live up to expectations - it's that they completely ignored everything that their fan base liked in the first game, and then stomped on the players' faces just for good measure. It's repetitive, makes no sense, combat is a pointless farce, tactics are meaningless, you have almost no control over your party, and you're railroaded through so-called plot-points without so much as a how-do-you-do. It isn't a matter of not improving - that would be fine. I love DA:O's system and would have been delighted if DA2 was pretty much just the same thing in a different place. It's a matter of actively (and in some cases intentionally) going backwards on nearly everything. It's one of the least enjoyable RPGs I've ever played.
Dragon Age III... it could be amazing, it could be terrible, most likely it'll be somewhere in between. I have some hope that they've been listening to their fans, and will actually put the "role" back in role playing game, instead of treating it like a console-based fighter. Their presentation at PAX East certainly honed in on the major problems with 2 - hopefully they continue to focus on those, and are able to keep their dirtbag publisher from forcing another half-baked trash release. I've been on boycott against anything EA has had a hand in ever since the DA2 debacle, and will continue until the player reviews come in on DA3. If things are better, I'll end it and give it a try. I hope it's a good one!
I'm a bit nervous about this.
Dragon Age: Origins is, in my mind, the best computer RPG ever made, as well as one of the best games ever, of any type. It has depth, development, flavor, replayability, and choice. The endings, without spoiling anything, can range from you being dead to you being king, and most places in between, entirely dependant on your personal choices and actions. It begins to feel like it's you, the player, who are actually in the game, and despite nearly 500 hours played in single player, starting from every possible combination of backgrounds, there are still things I haven't done and dialogues I haven't pursued, because I can't bring myself to be that evil/rude/uncaring/immoral, despite it just being a game. You have precise control over your group at every moment, and combat follows logical progressions based on strategy and tactics. I love that.
Dragon Age II is a horrifyingly bad experience, that goes backwards in every conceivable way. It's not just that it didn't live up to expectations - it's that they completely ignored everything that their fan base liked in the first game, and then stomped on the players' faces just for good measure. It's repetitive, makes no sense, combat is a pointless farce, tactics are meaningless, you have almost no control over your party, and you're railroaded through so-called plot-points without so much as a how-do-you-do. It isn't a matter of not improving - that would be fine. I love DA:O's system and would have been delighted if DA2 was pretty much just the same thing in a different place. It's a matter of actively (and in some cases intentionally) going backwards on nearly everything. It's one of the least enjoyable RPGs I've ever played.
Dragon Age III... it could be amazing, it could be terrible, most likely it'll be somewhere in between. I have some hope that they've been listening to their fans, and will actually put the "role" back in role playing game, instead of treating it like a console-based fighter. Their presentation at PAX East certainly honed in on the major problems with 2 - hopefully they continue to focus on those, and are able to keep their dirtbag publisher from forcing another half-baked trash release. I've been on boycott against anything EA has had a hand in ever since the DA2 debacle, and will continue until the player reviews come in on DA3. If things are better, I'll end it and give it a try. I hope it's a good one!