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Some Wrap-up Thoughts on DA:I
We finished last night. Almost 100 hours, wuff. I think I'm going to keep this save around for wrapping up non-plot sidequests, because I never want to do the whole epic scale thing again. Just companion quests and enough extra levels and power points to wrap up the plot, thanks.
My general impression is that it was a little too long, a little too open world, a little overwhelming with all the sidequests and gigantic open areas. I did appreciate that many of the sidequests bore relationships to the main plotline, but it would have been nice to see the connections drawn more strongly, and more often have actual consequences reflected in the main plot. The main storyline, whenever we got around to getting on with it, was interesting enough, and a reasonable follow-on to what came before. Exactly what I would have done, with these characters and this world? Probably not, but I appreciate both what they were trying to do and the various ways in which they pulled it off.
My thoughts on the characters are similar to my feelings about ME2: too many characters, and the pacing in conversations, personal quests, and character development seemed off. In part, this is probably the fault of how T and I played the game -- because he doesn't have the patience to go through long dialogue trees with them repeatedly, we end up missing some conversations and consequently doing things out of order. Dorian's personal quest never fired, despite our having quite high approval with him; I gather this is a bug, and a disappointing one. Our LI was Blackwall, which had its high and low points (more behind the); I liked it well enough, but T found it underwritten, and I can't say I completely disagree with him.
Here
be
spoilers!
After discovering the truth about Blackwall -- which I saw coming, but only right before it happened, and was fairly irritated with myself for not noticing before; he just said too many things that didn't quite add up to him being a true Grey Warden -- Malika did free and forgive him. I can't decide if that was an IC decision or the lady with the controller wanting to see the romance through. I think T would have been just as happy to give it up and have no romance at all, but I couldn't quite see doing that my first time playing.
Speaking of characters with secrets... Neither of us really trusted Solas, and T was quite vocal about it almost from the beginning, so to learn his secret identity wasn't a surprise exactly, but we sure didn't guess that he was actually the Dread Wolf. (Whether he's a literal incarnation of Fen'Haral or in a situation more like Flemeth's with Mythal remains to be seen, I suppose. Speaking of which, Flemeth. :-\ I haven't decided how I feel about this reveal that Flemeth has been carrying around the spirit of an ancient elven god all this time, but I do know that I'm not happy to see her apparently dead. I mean, it's Flemeth; if anyone has a way out of this, it's her. But it sure didn't look promising there.) I had half expected that Solas's endgame was to get control of the Orb and use it to erase the Veil, and that he would be the true big bad in the end. That may still happen, it's just the next game.
In some ways, I really wonder where Bioware goes from here. It seems like the world can be left in a lot of wildly divergent states, much more so than DA2 or even DA:O. How do they write a game that works in a universe where Celine rules Orlais while a full-scale elven rebellion is waged (our world state) and in a universe where Briala is in charge? (Just to pick one example.) We aren't talking about easy substitutions in and out, as with who rules Ferelden. I'm curious to see how they work it-- or if they even try.
My general impression is that it was a little too long, a little too open world, a little overwhelming with all the sidequests and gigantic open areas. I did appreciate that many of the sidequests bore relationships to the main plotline, but it would have been nice to see the connections drawn more strongly, and more often have actual consequences reflected in the main plot. The main storyline, whenever we got around to getting on with it, was interesting enough, and a reasonable follow-on to what came before. Exactly what I would have done, with these characters and this world? Probably not, but I appreciate both what they were trying to do and the various ways in which they pulled it off.
My thoughts on the characters are similar to my feelings about ME2: too many characters, and the pacing in conversations, personal quests, and character development seemed off. In part, this is probably the fault of how T and I played the game -- because he doesn't have the patience to go through long dialogue trees with them repeatedly, we end up missing some conversations and consequently doing things out of order. Dorian's personal quest never fired, despite our having quite high approval with him; I gather this is a bug, and a disappointing one. Our LI was Blackwall, which had its high and low points (more behind the); I liked it well enough, but T found it underwritten, and I can't say I completely disagree with him.
Here
be
spoilers!
After discovering the truth about Blackwall -- which I saw coming, but only right before it happened, and was fairly irritated with myself for not noticing before; he just said too many things that didn't quite add up to him being a true Grey Warden -- Malika did free and forgive him. I can't decide if that was an IC decision or the lady with the controller wanting to see the romance through. I think T would have been just as happy to give it up and have no romance at all, but I couldn't quite see doing that my first time playing.
Speaking of characters with secrets... Neither of us really trusted Solas, and T was quite vocal about it almost from the beginning, so to learn his secret identity wasn't a surprise exactly, but we sure didn't guess that he was actually the Dread Wolf. (Whether he's a literal incarnation of Fen'Haral or in a situation more like Flemeth's with Mythal remains to be seen, I suppose. Speaking of which, Flemeth. :-\ I haven't decided how I feel about this reveal that Flemeth has been carrying around the spirit of an ancient elven god all this time, but I do know that I'm not happy to see her apparently dead. I mean, it's Flemeth; if anyone has a way out of this, it's her. But it sure didn't look promising there.) I had half expected that Solas's endgame was to get control of the Orb and use it to erase the Veil, and that he would be the true big bad in the end. That may still happen, it's just the next game.
In some ways, I really wonder where Bioware goes from here. It seems like the world can be left in a lot of wildly divergent states, much more so than DA2 or even DA:O. How do they write a game that works in a universe where Celine rules Orlais while a full-scale elven rebellion is waged (our world state) and in a universe where Briala is in charge? (Just to pick one example.) We aren't talking about easy substitutions in and out, as with who rules Ferelden. I'm curious to see how they work it-- or if they even try.
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Yeah I had the same ambiguity. In the end I went back and dumped him for Josephine.
And yes I am also very curious to see how they incorporate all these different world states. Past experience implies there will be a lot of fudging :/
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Oh yes, I can see how it could work for a different character. And I thought it did work for Marijn. But as the game progressed, and after I finished it, it just didn't feel quite right for her. It was less the fact he was responsible for those deaths, and more the betrayal of his men, and all the time he lied to everyone about being a Grey Warden when it was vitally important that we have accurate information on them. I can see why he did it, but Marijn is a very intense, earnest sort of person and she just couldn't bring herself to trust him again. She was in the carta too, but I see her as more of a middle management/clerk type person. She certainly wasn't very good at combat, haha (finally a game where I can roleplay the PC as being as bad at conbat as I play them. Of course I still have to roleplay her as being good at decision making...)
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So in agreement with all of these points. :/ It's an *exhausting* game.
no subject
Regarding the length/open-endedness, I think it was a conscious decision on their part to make it as friendy to multiple playthroughs as possible. I'm on my third playthrough and I appreciate the size and scope of it more now - I can skip whole areas if I want without my characters or story suffering for it.
I'm sorry you ran into the Dorian bug! I loved his character development - And highly recommend romancing him. He's such a great character. Was not expecting to like him as much as I do.
And I sorta agree with you regarding Flemeth, Solas, and the ending. I dunno, I'm not crazy about the elves to begin with, but more than that I hated seeing Flemeth so vulnerable. Even in DAO if you fight her, she's still so much in control. At the end of DA3, she seemed to be completely stripped of agency. But am looking forward to seeing where BioWare takes her/Mythal's story.
no subject
I'm sure it was; I'm just not sure that such an open-ended world is for me. I do like games that support multiple playthroughs, and I imagine I'll play the game at least twice more (once for each Hawke), but I think they could have made it open world while still tying the sidequests more strongly in to the main plot. Like, maybe if you destroy enough red lyrium, it weakens the red templars, or if you capture Samson it makes Corypheus easier to beat in some way. (Of course, we won the final battle the first time through without changing the difficulty, which we've never done before, so maybe it was already too easy.) I don't think those things are incompatible with open world.
Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. I do hope that her story isn't done, that they find a way of bringing her back that makes sense.