Well, I'm just about done with my first play through (at the last battle) so here are some thoughts:
1. Story and conversations: I won't reiterate what everyone else already said, but Bioware really did a great job here. I think this is what drove me to keep on playing until the wee hours of the night, getting to know more about Ferelden, its inhabitants and my party members. The difficult choices you are presented with, especially in Orzammar and Landsmeet, were pretty memorable. I'm mostly a MMO players these days, and I usually just "esc" my way through the talking parts, but in Dragon Age, I don't skip any conversations at all because they are very well written and add a lot to the story itself. My only small gripe is the dialogue tree and its odd behavior. It seems that for the most part, if you answer a question directly, most (if not all) of the tangent (or "more information") choices disappear, but that's not always the case.
Anyway, Alister and Oghren have the best conversations (both personal and random ones), hands down. They'd totally have a permanent spot in my party, but I like to explore different combination of characters.
2. Combat and gameplay: Well, this is the more frustrating part of the game. I think overall it is serviceable, but honestly it felt like they've took the idea of D&D (which I claim no expertise at all), simplified it and added their own flavor to it, except that the end result is just...unpolished.
The "classes" are completely unbalanced (as it's already been mentioned, mages and 2-handers are completely OP). Specializations are kind of lame with only 4 talents each (what kind of bard have only 3 songs), I'd rather they are full blown classes with more options. Skills are mostly useless, especially for mages. Crafting is a big joke. Herbalism is okay, but you can buy/steal/loot potions all the time. Poison and trap making is just a complete waste of space. Attributes are badly defined, I especially hate how stamina is tied to willpower. For mages it's really simple and straightforward: magic and willpower all the way. For melee, however, you need to spread them out in 4-5 categories, pretty much everything but magic. It's really bad if your main isn't a rogue since cunning is tied to coercion.
Itemization is horrible (again, especially for mages). While the mobs scale to your level for the most part, regardless the order you decide to explore the areas, the drops do not. I'm still getting tier 2-4 stuff from chests and loot at level 18+. The lack of good accessories (rings, necklaces and belts) and staffs is ridiculous, my Morrigan and Wynne hardly ever changed their stuff and still wear some of the items they came with. I played my main (dwarven rogue) naked the entire game (no armor, just weapon and accessories) and have no problem, the only exception is he usually doesn't survive a grab from dragon.
Not too fond of how restricted the party setup is either (and this is coming from someone who played a lot of FFXI). I think it's mostly due to the fact that you only have 4 spots available, and you almost always need a tank, healer and rogue, with a random dps. Sure you can get away without a proper tank or a healer sometimes, but 2-hander gets raped too quick and I just don't like to have to chug potions every few seconds. As a result, some character combination are just undesirable (such as Zevran/Leliana/Dog and Alister/Shale). To be honest, I took Morrigan out of my party pretty early on (partly to make it more challenging and partly because I like to give all characters equal opportunities), I only put her in big encounters when I really need crowd control or fights that are heavily reliant on magic. Anyway, I think this could be solved very easily if the party size is increased to 5.
With how much combat there is in Dragon Age, it's just disappointing to see how lacking it is.
3. Other stuff: Dragon Age is gorgeous, and while I'm not a big graphic whore, there were some really odd model clipping and visual glitches. For example, as stated before my main don't wear armor, so the weapons kind of just hovered in the thin air several inches away from his back. In some of the later cutscenes, the items often appear clipped through his body. Lots of weird quest bugs. NPC showing the quest symbol even though the quest itself is already marked as complete. I could pick up both versions of searching for the Paragon but one is still showing as in progress after I picked a side. Some quests mysteriously disappear from the journal even though I never finished them (like the drop-off one which I assume I could no longer do when I killed the competition for Antivan Crow).
On romance and virtual sex. My feeling is if you can't do it all the way, why bother showing/having it at all? It felt really pretentious and fake as a result. I've played Japanese visual novels and dating sims (which are just still art) that portray relationships in a far more realistic and meaningful manner, so in the end the consummation is rewarding (and also a lot more erotic). Not so in Dragon Age, which makes me wonder why bother at all?
On replayability. Too bad it's so linear. I think there is only one instance where a different choice would give you a different scenario to play through (
). I don't feel particularly motivated to play again, beyond the different origin stories, especially not the Fade/Deep Roads parts, just to see slightly different dialogues. I wish they had made it so that only certain party members and parts of the world are available depending on what you do. That way, you are still gathering armies to fight the blight, but different allies each time.
Sorry it's so long. Admittedly I'm not much of a WRPG player but I really enjoyed Dragon Age. My play time is over 60 hours (not including countless reloads) if that means anything. I don't think it's as good as most reviews have claimed it to be, especially with so many rough edges, but it is definitely one of the best RPG's I've played in a while. I'd totally be interested in DLC if it adds a good chunk to the lore. Count me in as a new fan of Bioware (sorry, Baldur's Gate and NWN didn't do much for me; KOTOR never interested me and Mass Effect was fun but overrated).
1. Story and conversations: I won't reiterate what everyone else already said, but Bioware really did a great job here. I think this is what drove me to keep on playing until the wee hours of the night, getting to know more about Ferelden, its inhabitants and my party members. The difficult choices you are presented with, especially in Orzammar and Landsmeet, were pretty memorable. I'm mostly a MMO players these days, and I usually just "esc" my way through the talking parts, but in Dragon Age, I don't skip any conversations at all because they are very well written and add a lot to the story itself. My only small gripe is the dialogue tree and its odd behavior. It seems that for the most part, if you answer a question directly, most (if not all) of the tangent (or "more information") choices disappear, but that's not always the case.
Anyway, Alister and Oghren have the best conversations (both personal and random ones), hands down. They'd totally have a permanent spot in my party, but I like to explore different combination of characters.
2. Combat and gameplay: Well, this is the more frustrating part of the game. I think overall it is serviceable, but honestly it felt like they've took the idea of D&D (which I claim no expertise at all), simplified it and added their own flavor to it, except that the end result is just...unpolished.
The "classes" are completely unbalanced (as it's already been mentioned, mages and 2-handers are completely OP). Specializations are kind of lame with only 4 talents each (what kind of bard have only 3 songs), I'd rather they are full blown classes with more options. Skills are mostly useless, especially for mages. Crafting is a big joke. Herbalism is okay, but you can buy/steal/loot potions all the time. Poison and trap making is just a complete waste of space. Attributes are badly defined, I especially hate how stamina is tied to willpower. For mages it's really simple and straightforward: magic and willpower all the way. For melee, however, you need to spread them out in 4-5 categories, pretty much everything but magic. It's really bad if your main isn't a rogue since cunning is tied to coercion.
Itemization is horrible (again, especially for mages). While the mobs scale to your level for the most part, regardless the order you decide to explore the areas, the drops do not. I'm still getting tier 2-4 stuff from chests and loot at level 18+. The lack of good accessories (rings, necklaces and belts) and staffs is ridiculous, my Morrigan and Wynne hardly ever changed their stuff and still wear some of the items they came with. I played my main (dwarven rogue) naked the entire game (no armor, just weapon and accessories) and have no problem, the only exception is he usually doesn't survive a grab from dragon.
Not too fond of how restricted the party setup is either (and this is coming from someone who played a lot of FFXI). I think it's mostly due to the fact that you only have 4 spots available, and you almost always need a tank, healer and rogue, with a random dps. Sure you can get away without a proper tank or a healer sometimes, but 2-hander gets raped too quick and I just don't like to have to chug potions every few seconds. As a result, some character combination are just undesirable (such as Zevran/Leliana/Dog and Alister/Shale). To be honest, I took Morrigan out of my party pretty early on (partly to make it more challenging and partly because I like to give all characters equal opportunities), I only put her in big encounters when I really need crowd control or fights that are heavily reliant on magic. Anyway, I think this could be solved very easily if the party size is increased to 5.
With how much combat there is in Dragon Age, it's just disappointing to see how lacking it is.
3. Other stuff: Dragon Age is gorgeous, and while I'm not a big graphic whore, there were some really odd model clipping and visual glitches. For example, as stated before my main don't wear armor, so the weapons kind of just hovered in the thin air several inches away from his back. In some of the later cutscenes, the items often appear clipped through his body. Lots of weird quest bugs. NPC showing the quest symbol even though the quest itself is already marked as complete. I could pick up both versions of searching for the Paragon but one is still showing as in progress after I picked a side. Some quests mysteriously disappear from the journal even though I never finished them (like the drop-off one which I assume I could no longer do when I killed the competition for Antivan Crow).
On romance and virtual sex. My feeling is if you can't do it all the way, why bother showing/having it at all? It felt really pretentious and fake as a result. I've played Japanese visual novels and dating sims (which are just still art) that portray relationships in a far more realistic and meaningful manner, so in the end the consummation is rewarding (and also a lot more erotic). Not so in Dragon Age, which makes me wonder why bother at all?
On replayability. Too bad it's so linear. I think there is only one instance where a different choice would give you a different scenario to play through (
if you decide to stand down and get captured when you tried to rescue the queen. I haven't checked it out completely, so it may just be a really small part rather than a whole blown story
Sorry it's so long. Admittedly I'm not much of a WRPG player but I really enjoyed Dragon Age. My play time is over 60 hours (not including countless reloads) if that means anything. I don't think it's as good as most reviews have claimed it to be, especially with so many rough edges, but it is definitely one of the best RPG's I've played in a while. I'd totally be interested in DLC if it adds a good chunk to the lore. Count me in as a new fan of Bioware (sorry, Baldur's Gate and NWN didn't do much for me; KOTOR never interested me and Mass Effect was fun but overrated).
