I posted this in the Ausgaf thread but then soon realised it could be more interesting here. It's my 'not very far into the game' impressions.
My wife bought me Dragonage last week to help keep my mind on something other than real life (it's been a bad month). I've put a fair amount of time into it so far, probably about 35 hours worth.
I can't decide if I like it though. It's certainly hard to put down. But many aspects of it annoy me, even to the point of frustration. Sometimes I wish it would just stop trying to be a hardcore RPG and actually be a hardcore RPG. It really does seem to pretend to be something it isn't, and straddle the line between casual action game and real RPG. Sometimes I think it would be better if it just went all Fable instead of hinting at what the game could be and annoying me when I can't play it that way.
This is the 360 version. Perhaps the PC version is less annoying.
The combat can be a real mess sometimes. There's so much shit flying about that it's almost impossible to control your party in any real useful way. Many fights could be so much easier if it was turn based for instance, and if you could select your party members and their abilities faster (again, that is probably addressed in the PC version). Customising party members tactics can help a little, but there are still many more times where I just want a couple of dudes to do certain things at certain times and the only way to do that is to have full control over them all. You don't have that in this game, at least not when it depends on them happening very quickly.
The leveling up and stat customisation confuses the hell out of me. There have been instances where I level up a character yet there are no abilities I want to put points in. However, I can't just leave that point there and use it next time. I have to choose something in order to level up. So, do I choose an ability I'll never use, spend a point on something useless to me, or let my character flash away at me saying "level up" until I earn enough XP to level up again? Does that even work? Even so, I have to play for a fair amount of time to level up again and that's a bunch of extra stats I'm missing out on all so I don't waste an ability point on something I don't want.
Does this seem retarded to anyone else or is it just me? It annoys the bejesus out of me.
Then there are specialisations that you unlock. Why do I have to unlock them? Why can't I, in the interest of making a character I like, just select a specialisation and enjoy how I want to play? Instead you have instances like I did yesterday, where I became frustrated enough by the fact there was a locked specialisation (reaver) that I couldn't access and had no idea how to, that I looked it up on the internets. There I found out my one chance to unlock it had passed long ago in a quest line that hinged on one dialogue choice that I almost chose back then anyway. I was way ahead of that area now (about 6 hours worth of game time), and looking at my previous saves I noticed that the only one that was still there before this choice was made was more than 10 hours ago.
Now, I can be pretty stubborn. When I saw that I had missed the chance to make the character I wanted all that time ago, I knew I'd either quit and never play the game again in disgust, continue to play the game but remain bitter throughout and not enjoy the experience, or go back that 10 hours and play it all over again. So I played it all over again...
I now have the specialisation after much anger and rewatching of drawn out cut scenes and, being the stubborn person I am, remembering what dialogue choices I had used before hand because I wanted the same experience besides the one relating to my goal. But it is now done, and I'm on my way again.
But yes, this game annoys me and is frustrating as it straddles the casual to hardcore line in a way that seems to benefit neither play styles. Yet at the same time the game is addictive as hell and I can't stop playing it.
