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Jun 9th, 2017 at 17:33:33 - Dragon Age: Inquisition (PC) |
Finished. Not as long as I thought, as I wound up going pretty much straight through the story. You would be SO overpowered if you actually did all the quests in all the areas. The final boss battle is recommended level 16-19, and I was 16-17 in the last area. And yeah, seriously there are like 5 zones (that I know of) that I didn't even unlock, and another few that I did unlock that I never visited. So. Much. Content.
All in all, Inquisition is highly enjoyable. It's top-quality BioWare role-playing with everything you would expect if you've played Dragon Age or Mass Effect (or The Witcher 3, which it begins as very similar to, but is distinguished from after a while). This is probably the most fleshed out, complex game world ever. BioWare is always heavy on lore, but this exceeds the previous two Dragon Age games in scope. I bet there are a thousand notes and Codex entries scattered around to find. It's like novel-level fantasy with the level of detail. And that's the main reason I am curious to go back in and play through my companions' questlines and knock out the main quests in some other zones, because these stories and characters are so intriguing. I've got 16 days left of my EA Access membership...
There is absolutely collectible bloat. One zone (damn that zone!) even requires that you find all the shimmering shards (usually 10-15 of these per zone) in order to complete its quests. The shards open doors that give you stat boosts. I agree with making you collect shards once for something, but there is so much other crap to collect too, and none of it does much of anything. Take the resource gathering that you are encouraged to participate in. There are herbs and ore all over the damn place. In each zone, you get a series of "requisitions" to turn in stuff; some quests require collecting herbs and things; and you need them to replenish potions, upgrade potions, and to modify weapons. Here's a secret: You will never, ever need to modify or craft weapons, upgrade potions, or complete requisitions. You get the most minor of rewards for requisitions (+1 power), and you'll keep finding better weapons, and by the end of the game (except the occasional really hard [mini]boss), you won't be short of potions. Collecting resources is just a massive time sink.
The difficulty curve does smooth out as the game proceeds and the Inquisition becomes more powerful. Every character at some point gets access to a special skill tree (#4), and the main character gets access to...something else. I'm not sure what it is, maybe yet another skill tree. As a rogue, I get to choose between traps, bombs, and blades, and I started the quests. Anyway, my team began to feel real badass as time went on, rarely dying and never running out of potions.
A notable exception to this was the last boss. Good lord, the archdemon phase was hard. The boss himself was glitching out soooo I had some help from a bug. He'd just stand in place and not do anything as I pummeled him. But then the archdemon came, a huge dragon. I was doing alright, but then he was keeping my mage and DPS warrior dead (you can revive party members by standing next to them and holding A). Every time I'd revive them, they'd die pretty quickly. So my tank was keeping him in check and I'd DPS him a teeny bit at a time. The problem was that every so often he flies away and armors up, so then you have to remove a full health bar's worth of armor from him, and THEN start in on his health again, and then he flies away and armors up, etc. And I was using potions here and there and running low. I finally realized that if I could revive my mage, he'd usually stay alive if he was positioned at range, plus he would cast barrier and save me from running out of potions, plus he did recent damage, so that's what i did. That part of the boss fight alone probably took 15 minutes. VERY satisfying to beat!
Most of my initial thoughts from the last entry still stand. Potions are the only healing (besides some lifesteal equipment); your party will not attack enemies on sight (incredibly annoying as a rogue); party tactics are tragically limited compared to previous games. A couple things I really ended up liking were the war table and Skyhold. Skyhold is a mountain fortress the Inquisition moves into in the middle of the game, and it is hands down the biggest base I've ever had in a game. It's a full castle. There's a jail, a garden, towers and ramparts, weapons, soldiers, merchants, the war room, research laboratories, blacksmith, aviary...the entire Inquisition is there and it feels vibrant. Diplomats and people from all over Thedas come and there is tons of incidental conversation to listen in on. And the war room is cool because it's like a grand strategy element to watching the Inquisition increase in power and influence. You send your military commander, spymaster, and diplomat off to take care of missions, and so many of these are interesting despite you not really doing anything. You read the story, choose an adviser, each of whom deals with each story differently, and wait for them to finish. But some of these open up other quests, or are extensions or even tied into other quests. It's very cool.
The game is so big and I could go on and on, but I did see the credits roll last night, so I think I'm gonna take a break and play something else. I may or may not return to this before my EA access expires and do some more adventuring!
*edit*
I was going to do it. I was REALLY going to do it! To play a game after I beat it. But all the companion quest lines are unavailable after the main quest is complete. I guess I could load an earlier save but...motivation is gone. What's next?
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jun 9th, 2017 at 18:06:56.
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Jun 5th, 2017 at 08:36:06 - Dragon Age: Inquisition (PC) |
Crammed many hours into this over the past few days, and will write initial (20-hour) thoughts.
Whereas DA1 and 2 were pretty similar, Inquisition is different in many respects. Dare I say, it looks more Witcher 3 than Dragon Age sometimes, with its horse (and horse races) for navigating a big new open world, its infinite collectibles for brewing potions and bombs and stuff, and its packs of enemies. It's hard not to make comparisons since I played all the Witcher 3 content in the past year.
The open world is nice, but these environments are so damn hilly. I'm probably not even halfway through with the Hinterlands (the first zone), and I have done maybe 1/3 of the (something) Coast. The Hinterlands is humongous. There are quests everywhere, and I hate to say that most of them are really dumb, of the MMO variety: Kill 5 wolves; bring 5 apostate mage caches; search these three areas for some books; etc. There is NO shortage of things to do.
In addition to a bajillion quests, which I am doing my best not to become lost in completing, there are oodles of collectibles in the form of shimmering shards, codex entries, picture pieces, and more. There are little observatory things where you play a connect-the-dots mini-game. Do that for all the observatory things in a zone and it points you to a treasure. Hidden caves and secrets are everywhere. I easily see why this game is so long. I wonder how long the main quest is, as I already seem to be at the high end of the recommended level range for main quests even though I have skipped like half the content so far.
Combat is much more action-oriented, and suspecting this, I made a dual-wielding rogue. But I did not suspect that lockpicking would be gone! What use is my cunning if I can't use it to pick locks? Oh well. At least I'll be able to micro-manage my party. Wait what? That's been neutered! You can go into "tactical mode" and assign individual actions to party members during combat, but honestly it's tedious. And the tactics settings are gone. All you can do is tell party members when and how many potions to drink, and to attack enemies being attacked by x character or to defend x character. That sucks. And you can't prioritize abilities with the same detail that you could in the other Dragon Age games. Why?! Well, I'm glad I picked a melee character so I can have more hands-on combat.
There also seems to be no healing magic (unless I haven't read the trees well or unlocked a particular character), so you ONLY heal with potions, which can be upgraded for greater effect. To do that, you have to harvest LOTS of plants. Like SO many plants. To do that, you need to use the "search" function, which means I run from place to place clicking left stick, which was really annoying at first and is now less so, but I'm beginning to dislike spending so much time collecting plants. I'm supposed to be saving the world, and I'm head of the Inquisition. Can't I make other people do it for me?
There is way less party banter in Inquisition, and less party member character development so far. This is probably partly because the game is open world now and therefore more spread out, so their banter doesn't seem as condensed. But party interactions were some of my favorite parts of previous DA games, and that they're so much fewer or less frequent here makes me shed a tear. Also when you're riding the horse, the party doesn't talk, and you can't collect herbs! And I'm not sure how much faster you actually go because you wind up having to jump up cliffs and things. Is the mount kind of useless? Maybe...
Oh also, last random thought goes back to combat, your allies will not automatically attack enemies in range! As a rogue, I go into stealth, my party doesn't even "appear" sometimes until I initiate combat, and that means attacking someone. Well, I'm a damn rogue. I don't want to be alone with 5 enemies because I'll die. Other times, my three party members just stand and watch. I've taken to sort of pulling enemies toward them. Maybe I just switch to a tank to initiate combat encounters. It's annoying.
Stealth works great for interrupting fade rifts though.
Ok, all for now. Looking forward to continuing and getting through more of the main story while selectively ignoring side quests and collectibles.
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Jun 3rd, 2017 at 13:04:32 - Dragon Age II (PC) |
Finished in about a week! DA2 is the lowest rated of the three, but I really enjoyed it. Bioware did a nontraditional thing by limiting the game to one city in three different years, instead of giving you an entire world or country or continent to explore. I liked that approach for the narrative it could tell, showing what happens to all these different characters over time, how Hawke (your main character) rises in renown in Kirkwall, shifting political tensions, etc. Extremely cool. BUT, the downside is that there are limited locations throughout the game. The landscape doesn't change in its three chapters. Every time, you're in Kirkwall, and Kirkwall has the same districts and the same sewers and the same homes, and outside Kirkwall the Dalish camp is the same and the Bone Pit is the same, etc., etc. The scenery became repetitive, like driving through the Midwest and seeing cornfields for miles, falling asleep and waking up and seeing more cornfields for miles. Each environment would reset every chapter, with new enemies and perhaps a new little cave, and new quests. There were a few surprises, like when I went to clear the Bone Pit in chapter 3 (the mine I co-owned with a merchant in town). In chapter 1, I helped him rid it of spiders and took part ownership; in chapter 2, I motivated the workers to get back to work; in chapter 3, a wounded horse raced into town with a cartload of massacred men and when I went to investigate there was a High Dragon, which was THE hardest fight I did in the whole game, which was crazy because this was just a side quest. But it was a huge reward for following the Bone Pit storyline across the game, a super fun intense boss battle, and a unique reward from an herbalist for giving him high dragon's blood. SO, there were a few great surprises like this, but 95% of the time nothing too exciting.
The writing is the high point. I liked getting to know all my companions, and their individual quest lines were all interesting. Aveline becomes captain of the Kirkwall guard and you can help her pursue romance with a guardsman, Merrill tries to piece together an ancient, dangerous elven mirror, Isabela's story weaves with the Qunari story, which is the focus of chapter 2, and so on. You even get to follow your various family members and see how their fortunes change over time in Kirkwall--your mother, brother, uncle, and another that I won't give away. And of course there are romances. The Hawke character can, as far as I was aware, become romantic with about all of the companions. You can be straight, gay, or bi, but this isn't Mass Effect, so no intergalactic species romance. I slept with three and wound up with Anders, one of several characters to return from Dragon Age 1. Oh, and your companions' banter is wonderful throughout the game, the way they pick on each other and tell stories and how their relationships change. There must be soooo many branches in the narrative and in character relationships in this game. I really loved the attention to story and character interactions.
Combat is nothing to write home about. I played a mage focused on healing allies and debilitating enemies, more of a control character. I feel like I played a similar character (maybe a fire mage) in Dragon Age 1, so I should do something different for Inquisition. I'd just kind of sit back, curse enemies, heal when needed, and run around collecting loot while my allies killed stuff. This was definitely a good character choice for the more difficult battles because I don't see the AI, even with my tactical commands, micro-managing healing and cursing like I did. If I choose a melee character in Inquisition though, I'll just hope the AI is good at healing! Or I guess I can always pause and micromanage allies (unless Inquisition did away with that...?).
Well, that's it really. Solid game. Moving on to Inquisition, which I've heard many great things about.
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May 26th, 2017 at 11:54:50 - Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves (PC) |
Clever tower defense game--and it's now free! If you've played games like Orcs Must Die and Sanctum, you'll feel familiar enough with Sang-Froid. Sang-Froid though is more story-based, and benefits from it. The game takes place in 19th century Canadian frontier wilderness. You play as one of two brothers living at the edge of a small village. Werewolves begin appearing and terrorizing the village. Your sister is a prophetess and there's this whole religious story going on (a Catholic priest, a nun, and the Devil are all characters). The French/Canadians (rough on my history here!) have some tenuous relationship with local native people, and their animism plays a role in the story too. All the variety of werewolf, maikan, windigos, will o' wisps, etc. are there for a reason related to the story.
Cool setting aside, the game takes place in phases. After some story bit, you'll be shown a map depicting how many of which kind of enemies will attack which buildings. By the end of the game, there are five buildings to defend. Enemies attack in waves, and you can filter this on the map to figure out the order in which you'll have to deal with enemies. Click on an enemy and it'll show the path they will take to their target building. You have a nice variety of traps at your disposal, and you place these on the map. Then, you can go to town and buy supplies like better axes or healing potions, upgrade your stats, and finally begin the night.
You start at your house and run around the map a la Orcs Must Die. At this point, the game is pretty much hack 'n slash as you run around overseeing your traps, triggering the ones you need to, and killing enemies. The variety absolutely keeps it interesting, and it's too complex to give a detailed example in text. So, simply, let's imagine there are two wolves heading to your house and three wolves heading to the lumber mill. I think I can take two by myself, but it would be nice to do a little damage to them first, so I set out a wolf trap. Wolf traps instantly kill wolves or grand wolves. After dealing with one, I can kill the other. But the other three wolves are going to destroy the lumber mill if I ignore them (a game over condition), and I need to slow them down while I kill the other two, so I lay a couple pieces of bait along their route. At the last piece of bait, I also string a rock net trap in the trees. When the wolves are eating that piece of bait, I run over and shoot the trap and they take damage from falling rocks. That's not going to kill them though, so I set a spike trap by the lumber mill with a piece of bait on it. They proceed there, eat the bait, and trigger the trap with their weight. They die and I win!
So like that, but by the end there are 5-6 waves per level with a lot of enemies. You'll need to build watch towers and ziplines to move faster around the map, build fire walls to reroute enemies, set up mortars for massive AoE damage, poison windigos with poisoned bait so they aren't at full health when you have to face them, set up wayside crosses and holy trees to help handle large numbers of will o' wisps and werewolves, create silver and holy bullets to snipe from watchtowers, etc., etc.
My favorite thing about the game is that you have to plan ahead and kind of know what's coming in the next waves. Your traps disappear once triggered, but will stay on the map indefinitely until they are. So you've got to make sure that enemies in early waves don't trigger traps laid for enemies in later waves. It makes it tricky to plan for like 40 enemies running all over the damn place when you want specific things to happen to specific enemies. You have to be aware of where the traps are, where you are, where the enemies are, where the next wave is coming...and also of your "shout" radius (you can shout to attract enemies to you, useful for getting them off buildings), and also of the wind! Enemies will smell you downwind, so you've got to keep track of your scent so that you don't accidentally pull enemies away from where you want them. It's a lot of fun, and never felt overwhelming in a bad way. I beat most levels first try, several took two tries, and one in particular took me four. So the game isn't that hard, but I wonder if it's my experience with tower defense.
Anyway, it's worth checking out if you like the genre! The story is interesting, setting is very cool. Combat and presentation are rough around the edges, but I can live with that.
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