{"id":126,"date":"2009-11-18T09:36:21","date_gmt":"2009-11-18T13:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/45.79.82.122\/blogs\/natterings\/?p=126"},"modified":"2013-10-07T00:19:02","modified_gmt":"2013-10-07T04:19:02","slug":"enchantment-enchantment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/?p=126","title":{"rendered":"Enchantment? Enchantment!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is my obligatory Dragon Age <\/em>post.<\/p>\n

Summary:\u00a0 I like it a lot.\u00a0 I’m playing it on “easy” mode, which I’m so glad even exists, because in RPGs, especially well-written ones like this one, I concentrate on story, not gameplay.\u00a0 And while gameplay here is fun, and fascinating, and I love the ability to take a tactical “time out” and queue actions for my whole party, the story is what keeps me hooked.<\/p>\n

And, big spoilers ahead!\u00a0 Be aware!<\/p>\n

Life in Ferelden just sucks.\u00a0 Up to thirty years ago, the country was subjugated under the rule of neighboring Orlais.\u00a0 Before that, there was a demonic Blight that only the world’s special demon-hunters were able to take on:\u00a0 the Grey Wardens, mythical warriors able to call on allies in time of need.\u00a0 Now, due to a really interesting origin story (there are six possible), a pretty difficult test, and a pretty hairy ritual, you’re one of these mythical warriors.\u00a0 Your mission remains the same as it has always been for Grey Wardens:\u00a0 you rid the world of the Blight, through whatever means you consider palatable.\u00a0 And life just keeps getting suckier.<\/p>\n

A few criticisms.\u00a0 A friend rightly snarked the game as being sort of “deliberately edgy” in its marketing, and boy, that’s true.\u00a0 I saw a few commercials and hardly thought they went with the same game.\u00a0 Don’t get me wrong, DA has a lot of pyrrhic victories and impossible choices you nevertheless have to make.\u00a0 But the game itself doesn’t scream violence! sex! violence! sex!\u00a0 Those are<\/em> huge parts of the game, but not to the obnoxiously “hurrr, look, we have nookie cutscenes” the advertising seems to imply.<\/p>\n

The blood and gore:\u00a0 yeah, there’s a ton of it.\u00a0 I’ve read (and made) a lot of snark about how if a character so much as looks at a bad thing, they’re suddenly drenched head to toe in blood, and then, by the next cutscene, it’s gone.\u00a0 I hear there are ways to tone down the gore (my current character, a human rogue, seems to decapitate people a LOT), but I haven’t investigated them.<\/p>\n

Moving on to what’s fun:\u00a0 okay, my boyfriend keeps saying that after this, he’s going to start buying me dating sims.\u00a0 The opportunities for “romance” in the game are numerous, and my character (and her player) are having an absolute ball trying to curry favor with various members of the party.\u00a0 Yes, even to the extent that I started the game over<\/em> when I realized one of my impossible decisions had blocked the way for a future relationship with one of the party members.\u00a0 Oh Alastair, you befuddled Grey Warden, you.\u00a0 And, props to Bioware for including romantic options that aren’t heterosexual-only.<\/p>\n

I almost never say this in games (except for my beloved Lord of the Rings Online, and well:\u00a0 duhh.), but I absolutely love DA’s lore.\u00a0 It’s rich, it turns my particular crank about how religion is handled in fantasy, and it’s remarkably consistent throughout the game.\u00a0 Since I’m a roleplay nut, my character is – as her status and background would indicate – a dutiful, if not especially pious, worshipper, and she makes decisions and accepts consequences<\/em> based on that trait.\u00a0 And it really does make a difference.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to my last rave about the game.\u00a0 Choices have consequences<\/em>.\u00a0 I made one choice, early on, on the first character I tried.\u00a0 It was the right decision given the situation, her fear, her resources.\u00a0 But as I kept playing and playing, I the player was just so bound up in having made an awful decision that I had a hard time even playing anymore.\u00a0 It totally haunted my character in-game, affected everyone’s feelings toward her, and had undeniable consequence.\u00a0 I ended up dumping that char for the aforementioned reasons, but man.\u00a0 I was in KNOTS about my choices.\u00a0 The storytelling is really absorbing.<\/p>\n

I haven’t tried the downloadable content yet.\u00a0 Not sure I will on this character.\u00a0 But I’m excited to see what the scenario builder-type tools are, and I can’t wait to start the game yet AGAIN as a different gender\/class\/origin mix.\u00a0 Highly recommended, as long as you don’t mind looking like a vat of ketchup has been upended on your character for 90% of the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is my obligatory Dragon Age post. Summary:\u00a0 I like it a lot.\u00a0 I’m playing it on “easy” mode, which I’m so glad even exists, because in RPGs, especially well-written ones like this one, I concentrate on story, not gameplay.\u00a0 And while gameplay here is fun, and fascinating, and I love the ability to take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":231,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions\/231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}