@@mirisha1802 Same here. My first character in Inquisition was a female dwarf warrior with long black hair and sure enough, once I got to Skyhold, one of the first npcs I see walking around looks exactly like me - same hairstyle and everything! I thought it was some sort of randomly generated npc easter egg thing but the same character also was there in other playthroughs too.....!
One of my favourite things about the DAO combat is that it isn't balanced. For once you can actually *feel* that mages are powerful. The game isn't just telling you why they're feared; you get to experience it. At the same time the game isn't so difficult that it forces you into min-maxing and choosing the most powerful option every time.
I like to do crazy builds with mages. A two handed mage or something wild like that. I like that you have the capability to build a char any way you want really, you're not locked into weapons because of classes.
@@trustworthydan Agree. In my opinion weapon locking per classes is the most nasty thing ever developed. True, that some specialized weapons or the heavy ones require from you agility, strength and practice, but classic club, mace, hammer or sword? Really D&D?;).
Yeah, but modern world, especially Asian one hate the mages, where in their works, dumb barbarian or uneducated and illiterate knight is far more superior to any mage, wizard, sorcerer or warlock. In some cases, mages in Asian games/works even cast their spells by punching and kicking their enemies;). In western world is the same. I played DDO for a time, but due to a lot of restrictions, nasty saves, facing mechanics and so on, my mage was, well, virtually useless. I grow up on books like Sorcerer from Archipelago, Lord of the Rings, Twilight of Gods and many others, where mages were very rare, but they were wise, versatile, respected and immensely powerful. So, playing DAO, as you say I felt as a true mage. Restricted by rules (and for a very good reason), but still respected, versatile and powerful. In the last 20 or so years, i only played in 2 or 3 games where role-playing as a mage, I truly felt like one, it was Dragon Age Origins, Gothic II and Baldur's Gate II with expansion, and well, partially Knights of the Old Republic II and Spell Force Order of Down with both expansions, but that was a different system and different rules in both cases (one was Star Wars universe, the other was mainly an RTS). So, im very thankful for this game developers for allowing me, to fulfill my childish drem, at lest to a certain degree. Edit: Also, many companies has a very huge problem with elemental portrayal. In many books, movies, games, novels and so on, the true powerful elemental users are always The Fire ones (if Western) followed by Lightning (if Asian) and Wind (if Japan), but in reality, the most nasty and powerful element is... Water/Ice, which Spell Force OoD and forgotten game Eligium shown to us. Yes, its not the best DPS as fire or fast like wind, but its not a problem at all, when enemy can't move and harm you, no?;).
Cassandra's voice actress is so fucking good tho, I always have her in my party just to hear her talk. There's that one quest where she wants you to get the book from Varric, where she's like, "but you're the Inquisitor, you could order him, _make_ him..." and then her face falls and she deadpans "forget you know this about me." Cracks me up every time. She absolutely nails it.
The most serious charackter, that also happens to dislike Varrick for lying to her face, wants a fifty shades of grey like book because she's addicted to it. Whoever wrote that charackter did a fine job, as did the voice actress.
DA:O music was truly amazing. Such a ‘romantic’ game. The romance of the fantasy setting. The music at the camp. The feeling of being survivors of that battle. And on your own trying to sort everything out. It’s SO melancholy. It’s so utterly brilliant!
Now fast forward to Inquisition, hack'n slash pansexual fuckfest, a story of a hero surrounded by quite literally worst companions you could ever dare hope for, fighting a "god" who can't seem to do anything right, the only miracle is that the main villain didn't kill himself in one of his botched plans, set in a bright censored world.
So true!! Agree with both comments. I hated da3 aka the stupidly titled "inquisition" 🙄 which made no sense ... Awful story, weird green hole story... Like wtf why did it become SciFi... And a creepy cult following me.. the "customising" was near non existent, too. Zero music played in the world, and zero day night cycle! No swimming or even jumping off a small ledge was allowedas we respawned. The fitting sucked too. I uploaded the glitches n other problematic things on my own channel, but so many ppl defend this game and I got hate fir pointing out the OBVIOUS!! why?? I was a huge fan until da3. It ruined it all for me . :( .... Ppl just don't see I'm a passionate fan who was trying to help the franchise, but idiots only perpetuate this decline in the quality by defending it.
Also as I said to someone else.. the characters all suck now. I prefered Alistair and Anders. But that went nowhere.. da2 had a great story n set up was cancelled for a terrible third installment that is nothing like the atmosphere or lore of the Actual series by Brent Knowles. None of the original devs or even composer /music had anything to do with it. It was barely a DA game. So cringe now. I'm a woman and gamer but again.. I'm smart and don't play for romance .. but the first romances were done brilliantly, in both games! So even that was lackluster!! Just look at the fan base.. ugggghh. I liked Solas too! He was the only tolerable and self aware one!!! Naturally he was the villian. God forbid anyone else have a brain 😑😑 such a stupid story. And that singing scene was the nail in the coffin ... Terrible game. The story was soooo cringe. Smudboy analyses the entire game story and plot holes perfectly. Look it up. It's soooo good. Hilarious too... The amount of cringe in the game is .. wow. Like leliana and Cassandra not ever stating wtf is going on, lol. No wonder the game starts off poorly. I thought it was just me.. nope.. it's so illogical... 😓😓😓😬🙄🤦♀️
That amazing camp music you mentioned? which I still listen to on repeat to sleep with btw... 😬 Inon zur the composer, he even left the game after not liking it!! That's why his music is NOT IN DRAGON AGE anymore!! That's another factoid I uncovered years ago researching reasons to why I hated this game... So much stuff is out there but no "big" UA-camr ever mentions it , atvl and it annoys me ppl r too lazy to seek the truth. No one else notice this stuff or wonder WHY?? JUST ME, HUH. 😑😓😑😑. Brent Knowles, the creator of the first game and story - also left halfway through da2 after clashing with Laidlaw, who was the guy who ruined da, after Knowles left! Another thing even this video LEAVES OUT. Laidlaw was NOT a good asset but a very bad one who was an EA yes-man and clashed creatively with Brent Knowles on this exact topic about changing da from the story based rpg, to a marketable souless husk. Laidlaw was now the new creative lead in da; "inquisition 🙄" , (Brent Knowles in contrast, was the writer and creative director on da origins!!) That says it all. ... You can read about the falling out after the EA takeover on Brent Knowles own blog, too. It annoys me that I'm stillthe only one to ever broach this subject, and it's sad no one else has bothered to do the basic research or reported on this.... D.A died when Brent Knowles left. And Laidlaw was and is a hack.
@@doxasophosmoros Yeah, I couldn't get in inquisition either, the meaningless mail guy quests and the uselessly big open world was just realy frustrating to play with. Idk why they decided to change the formula but those huge worlds in inquisition were really disorienting and boring to explore. I guess I was just too acostumed with the maps from ME2/ME3 and DAO/DA2, where they are kinda linear but with room to exploration, that when I went to DAI with this mentality I was just overwhelmed by the boringness and stopped playing. Also, idk how but they were able to worsen the graphics in DAI compared to DA2 with those mega ultra glossy hairs and shitty faces, and maybe I'm biased since its been a long while since I played DAI but I remember my mc being voiced like a retarded person.
Just a reminder that, in spite of the gore and murder, Dragon Age Origins is a game where an ancient evil emerges, so you join an ancient order to fight them. You gather an army of elves, dwarves, knights and mages, put the rightful king on his throne, and battle an ancient god of evil. You only manage to survive because you boned the hot goth witch.
Dragon Age 2 is a flawed masterpiece. One of the best fantasy RPGs but obviously unfinished and rushed to release. There are so many cool aspects and touches about that game though, you can play it repeatedly as different characters and have a blast. I think the writing, music and narrative is exceptional; it's an awesome ride.. It should be remade.
@@Matthew075 have you played dragon age origins if u have look at the equipment options for the classes on it and compare it to DA2 and DAI and tell us the difference because I will always say dragon age origins is best dragon age change my mind
@@ferrusmanus4013 Similarly to Divinity Original Sin, i have heard many things about it, but have never played it. Maybe i should have mentioned AAA games (lets be real here, since 2015 Witcher III there hasnt been a new good one). There seem to be alot of good ARPGs however, maybe i should give them a try.
@@PauloGarcia-sp5ws next game may link exclusively to LGBTQ onlyfans accounts, if Andromeda is something to look as a source of insight DA4 will just as DA3 suck ass, an offline MMO hack and slash game, executed poorly, with only connecting thing trough all 3 games being story, a repetitive fetch quest simulator, a chore, especially now when no-one from the original team remains.
The thing is, the dialogue wheel is not a problem. One can just show the exact text when you hover over the option and add more than three segments or deeper nesting. This would allow to port any classical CRPG dialogue, like PS:T, one to one into the wheel without sacrificing anything.
No, I agree, the dialogue wheel is poison. It encourages binary dialogue choices, lazy writing and confused responses. It might be done better, but I've yet to see it happen and I rather RPG's be designed to work on pc over console.
@@obijuanquenobi1911 I feel much the same way. The UI, for example. It is entirely optimised for a console player, infact, I found myself having to fight against it in places, as it just wasn't designed with a mouse and keyboard in mind, all those nested menus. Eew.
Dragon age origins is really one of the greats. I can't even tell you how many times I've replayed it. The fact that I can be a mage that wears heavy armor and wields a two handed sword instead of a staff is huge. Or a dual wielding warrior who wears light armor. Truly amazing really
When I did arcane warrior I was a fucking tank with a bunch of AOE spells constantly going on around me. It was genuinely amazing. I want to replay it so bad
I am glad that Morrigan turned out to be best girl of the series. Romancing her in Origins and later seeing her turn into a great mom and faithful wife gave me warm tingles in my cold dead heart.
While I cannot disagree with you, I do also Love what happens with Lelianna , Going from sing songy happy bard running away from her old life , too accepting that she loves conflict and fighting and being a spy , to becoming a ruthless yet still religious spy master --She is like the opposite of Morrigan and they almost flip as the games go by...I thought that was awesome
@@Dread24 you chase after Morrigan in the Witch Hunt and then in 3 the inq can ask her about her life with the warden. Don't bother with other games just search it on YT.
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot they are together and she mentions he had to leave on a very difficult mission to end the calling for Grey Wardens. She mentions how great of a husband and of a father he is to their kid (who is very special).
@@hennyspiderman9974 Wasnt the kid supposed to be an archdemon and her intentions sinister? Well i suppose it makes sense with how dragon age became so happy go lucky
This video was originally uploaded on 30th May 2020. I have had to take it down and alter it a bit by blurring some of the violent parts in order to prevent the video from being restricted. I’m not sure what was so bad about anything shown in the original but oh well. Hopefully the blurring isn’t too annoying; it’s not often at least.
Well, I seem to have missed it the first time around so the re-upload was good for me in that it hit my feed. Gives me something to get me through my work day! Thanks for everything you do!
My only issue with the video is that in Inquisition it is very clearly stated, several times, that Corypheus went to see the Maker, saw that the seat was empty and is now attempting to take that seat, becoming God. The restoring Tevinter stuff kind of just goes along with that. I laughed really hard at the doppelganger part.
1:16:47 "Basically this game's Zevran" funny thing to note: Isabela is actually an NPC in Origins, and you can have a 4some with her, Zevran and Leliana. And yourself, of course.
To me one of the most stand-out scenes is in Origins when Stan just growls at your Mabari dog. It's just so bizare, but yet charming. And I don't think I've ever seen something quite like it in any medium, not just game. ^^
I always thought inquisition would have gone from 'alright' to 'pretty good ' if you got to play the the war table missions instead of the giant open areas. the story behind so many of them seemed really interesting
So true! I did every mission in those giant maps, every one of them, because I'm a completionist (so giant open areas like those are a nightmare for me) and so many of the war table missions sound infinitely more interesting. I remember playing with my elf Inquisitor and being so frustrated that the whole future of my clan depended of a war table mission. I was lucky and my clan survived by pure luck but later I learned about how easy was getting all of them killed, and in the story doesn't matter... it's MY CLAN, they fact that they live or die should deserve more than a war table mission, but instead it doesn't matter at all!!!
@@ladyorapma YES! if no other table missions, at least being able to play the ones that had to do with the little ties to character origins would have been nice. I love playing qunari, and always want to be able to meet my mercenary group - I WANT TO HEAR THE BAD POEMS DAMNNIT
i really hope that they keep this feature. I think Jackdaw suggested it could go great as a multiplayer factor because it doesn't distract from the story, and you can explore more of the lore in the land. I still liked the missions because I had more information about Thedas, but so much could be added there to boost the story!
Yes! So many of the war table missions felt like stuff you should actually be doing Instead of running around the forest picking weeds and herding livestock.
For all of Dragon Age 2's flaws, I don't think any videogame I've played has ever hit me quite as hard as when Anders blew up the chantry, after I trusted him and helped him with his mission. I was heartbroken and furious. I felt so betrayed.
it’s even more intense when you’re romancing him. plus I love the dialogue options it opens up with Hawke in Inquisition when you specifically ask him about having to kill his lover
I've always believed DA2 did a better job of drawing emotions out of the player. Lose a sibling at the very beginning right when you're getting into the combat and dialog system. Another big change to a sibling to end the first act. Eventually the mother And by the end of the game you may not have any allies left but the one that's in Inquisition.
DA2 has a fantastic story. I don't think it could ever have gotten a positive response from fans at the time because of how different it was from DAO, but I'm glad that there's more appreciation for it now. We need small-scale stories in fantasy that are more about personal tragedy and less about saving the world.
Your Conclusion section really sums up how utterly the world design and feel has changed in Inquisition. It doesn't even feel like the same world as in Origins.
Totally agree. Turning the elves into barefoot hippies was a lame move. I liked the Medieval-ish armors of DAO. I was not very fond of the "leisure suit armors" of Inquisition. I hated having the same armor look totally different on the PC and his companions. Even the improved Frostbite engine rubbed me the wrong way. The scenery was spectacular, but the PC and all the NPCs struck me as being pretty but lifeless figurines. NPCs seemed much more alive in Origins despite the older game engine. And to top it all off, the romantic interests in Inquisition stunk compared to Origins and even DA2. As a heterosexual male, I have to sadly say that the male love interests available for heterosexual female and gay male NPCs were prettier than the female love interests available for straight male and lesbian PCs! (Thank you Anita Sarkissian! :( )
@@folgore1 anita didnt do anything, the het female love interests are gorgeous, like fr, you get cassandra and josephine! icons! i get not liking vivienne thought shes a bitch. where as gay men have dorian, the annoying elitist piece of shit, and iron bull, the obvious choice. so that complaint is dumb. the other stuff is valid though, plus the fact that most of the companions are boring or annoying when the rest of the games have unique and interesting characters.
58:47 Actually there IS a lore reason why kirkwall looks that way, it has no houses or anything the like because it was never built to be an Urban or even Suburban area, it's a heavily fortified former slave trading out post for tevinter, that was turned fortress, and then turned city. it's been in a lot of wars both civil and other wise, as well as many rebellions. It's been fortified to stop that as a result. All the places in kirkwall that we visit are parts of thous original infrastructures. so spikes to stop invaders and slave rebels. It's also of note that aside from high town and a bit of low town it's mostly built into the cliff side, along near by faults, or inside quarries. and all that's if you concede that a house can be built out of stone and the like. if you get stuck on wooden houses, then it's just not possibal for kirkwall to have houses, cause it's in the free marshes, and marshes aren't really lumber craft friendly places. Maybe there is a forest near by but we aren't shown one, we see the coast and the mountains to my knowledge and kirkwall is depicted as between them on the map. which most likely means the nearest forest is over a mountain or way up river? it's fascinating.
I really respect dragon age 2. To me, it’s a story about someone who is just trying to make it in the world and every time they get their shit together, an outside influence rekts it while the world around them become more and more hostile. Kirkwall was always a powder keg and I would make the argument that the lore surrounding Kirkwall tells a story about how the past echos and how the dead continue to affect the living
Respect is a good way to put it. It was a chore to go through it, but it kept raising interesting questions, albeit in a really clumsy way. Basically the opposite of Origins : one was a pile of clichés executed masterfully, the other offered innovative dilemmas and narratives while falling flat on its face doing it.
@@francisaustere1879 I agree with this assessment. 2 is a lot of fun but feels like an unpolished gem. The time jumps were the most glaring issue for me - it didnt feel like a year later at all, and it really took me out of the game. I wish they had more time.
“There are no happy endings” actually there is, lop off logain’s head, marry alistair, become queen of ferelden. Alistair is happy because he’s getting that sweet Grey Wussy while you lead ferelden since he doesn’t want to.
Honestly your “fanfic” is a better story. The struggle for power between leliana and Cassandra for the seat of the Divine and your status as a tool is dope.
This fooled me. I got bored with the game and stopped playing within 10-15 hours. This alternate plotline had me thinking I should give it another try.
Honestly, I don't think it's a big stretch that some variation of that fanfic will end up in the next DA because the next DA is (allegedly) set on Tevinter. So them thinking that the Inquisition is a ruse, made up of people that want to gain power from what they call a false idol (their Divine is not recognized by the Tevinter) is not something impossible to believe.
I don't really see a power grab as something in Cassandra's personality. Leliana definitely, especially if she feels it's for the 'greater good'. I dislike that Inquisition basically throws away any character growth Liliana had in Origins. You have to re-soften or re-harden her, but I guess it makes sense since she's been having to sacrifice so much in order to protect and work for Divine Justinia.
@@sebastianvelcro Well, I came from playing Morrowind, baldurs gate, etc. Which are both VERY good games, but when I played Dragon Age. I don't think I've been so immersed in a game. I genuinely got attached to my warden, shaping who they are as a person. Understanding their conquest to stop the Blight. Which would not have been able to be done without the amazing old Bioware studio. It wasn't a perfect game by any means. But, I'd be lying if I said I didn't replay the game over 30+ times. Every character, quest, had meaning, comedy, life and growth. Not to mention most of your choices mattered immensely to how your ending would turn out. I love it a lot!
I agree a lot with the criticism of dialogue in DA:II, but I do feel the need to argue for the one dialogue option you used as an example. Although telling Isabella she isn’t a lying snake or whatever giving you rivalry points it’s definitely counterintuitive, I actually feel like that’s in character in a kind of interesting way. Isabela’s character is very cynical, renegade, and hedonistic, so to me it makes sense that the stereotypical rpg good guy “no you’re a good person!” response would be dismissed. To Isabela at least, it comes across as disingenuous and naive, whereas valuing friendship over morality is in character for her. Being misled by that to me feels like a genuine type of misunderstanding that would happen in a real relationship. At the very least I know people who if you try and give them a straightforward “no you’re wrong” answer when it comes to their self hating/deprecating tendencies have the same kind of response. Not saying it’s healthy, but I do think it’s realistic, and even compelling. Not trying to defend the overall dialogue system, and I see why it could still be unclear. But I thought that there was some more interesting nuance to that decision than portrayed.
It has been a long time since I played it, but I would guess that the consequence of the option is inconsistent. This companion system usually gives you points for sucking up to the companion. I would wager that your interpretation, although possible reasonable, is not evaluated consistently in other situations.
I think I finished Dragon Age: Origins about 10 times? This is probably the game that made me fall in love with RPGs. I would love to go back in time and experience this again
you beat me i did it 6 or 7 times . . . i would like a remaster (in graphics and gameplay like inquisition) but with the same story , build and mechanic
@@bobbeatboxthere are some mod attempts at remasters, not perfect but they fix the atmosphere and textures a lot, really elevates it without changing it
10:20 , I'd say Tranquility is more like a magical lobotomy, in my opinion. Also, to me, that makes it incredibly more terrifying a prospect of punishment
@@BintanginTayaExcept that literial demons exist in that world and can possess and dickhead shooting sparks from his fingers resulting in a living bomb killing 20 people. Is the freedom of one person worth the safety of the collective? It requires some thought at least.
@@BintanginTaya Is letting people liable to set fire to an entire village by accident, without some oversight, and a less than ideal method of preventing the unstable ones wrong? The DA:O mage friend did turn out to be a blood mage, he did it because he thought it would make him a better mage, despite the fact that it was that very tendency that put him on the chopping block.
Dragon Age: Origins can be forgiven for it’s combat (which I thoroughly enjoyed anyways because each play through gave me more knowledge of its intricacies) because it wasn’t going for anything ground breaking. It was, and still is, an amazing story that is the video game equivalent of writing a book, but using a game to tell the story as opposed to ink, paper, and a flashy looking cover.
Mediocre combat is forgivable when the overarching story and characters are interesting and cohesive, another grand example is the Witcher III. Today games have become so action focused with fast paced, flashy combat that any backstory becomes blurred and secondary.
"Even the person who doesn't play Dragon Age, or even care about the series, I appreciate you watching the video." That was nice of you, to acknowledge that even John Epier can be watching your video.
One of my favorite things about this series is actually the romances, as cheesy as they are. Origin felt like a interactive book, where the story was so good and you got so attached to the characters it just made sense that feelings would evolve after months together in dangerous situations. Allister is cheesy and sweet at the same time, Anders romance is so tragic if you're with him till the end, and Solas' romance could be so deep if you're an elf, especially with the next game being centered with him.
I only got to playthrough once, but my romance partner was Morrigan. I went into the last battle distracted by her disappearance. I had bought into her and my character living happily ever after. Instead he got baby daddied lol
@@bwestacado9643 that's how I felt after I did a playthrough with her as a romance option. Did you play the Witch Hunt expansion? It really adds to her story and you can join her and your son to live together through the Eluvian. That made me feel a bit better about the pair lol.
Alistair is unironically one of my favorite characters of all time. I related so much with his lack of confidence and uplifted my bro in every step of the journey. Im not gonna lie, the actor voicing the mage in baldurs gate 3 is enough reason for me to pick that game, that is how much I adore him.
@@zzxp1 The fact that Origins managed to have the exact opposite effect on me (ended up killing or banishing Alistair in all of my playthrough but one) speaks volume to how good the game is
I don't think Cassandra and Leliana needed purely cynical motives in order to make the Inquisition morally grey. Cassandra is a hothead who's idealistic but quick to violence, Leliana is a cynical utilitarian who increasingly sees people as pawns, and both are utterly convinced of their own righteousness. Either of them could pretty easily go off the deep end and do something morally dubious without Bioware radically changing their beliefs and personality. Having the Inquisition start out reasonable and get more radical over time seems like it would fit the series themes pretty well. Edit: Also, I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like I interpreted those John Elper tweets way differently than everyone else. The PC's companions are kind of like their family and that element was central to Dragon Age from the beginning. You can say that he's focusing too much on one part of the series, but I don't think it's a totally indefensible interpretation of the games' values.
Feel like the point of Corypheus was entirely missed, he wasn't an evil dude who just loves evil, he has this whole speech where he talks about how he tried to break into the throne room of God only to find the throne was empty (this was the event that created the Darkspawn). He is now obsessed with trying to return to that throne room because he thinks that the universe needs a God and that he could be it. The Chantry thinks he had a delusion given to him by demons during his first attempt, it is classic Dragon Age ambiguity. Yes everything revolves around Corypheus in the game because like... he is an insane super being trying to literally become God and only you, an absolute nobody who happened to stumble upon the rift mark can stop him.
Yeah, I quite like him myself. Raw lines and interesting story ideas. I just haaaaate his boss fight; the events around it feel so rushed and contrived and unearned. I think he would be more memorable and more favorably perceived if his fight was given better buildup and if he was made to be a bigger threat. Like this video says, a "Haven 2.0."
@@breendart134 He is built up if you played the DA2 DLC though, and he is proceeded by his reputation, as being one of those fabled magisters who entered heaven according to the chantry in origins. Either way I don't think you're supposed to focus so much on him, and more on the mystery and what's going on with everything. If you play the game hack and slashing and aren't intrigued by the mystery, then sure, it's like watching a sherlock holmes movie with no interest in murder mysteries. The whole game is setting up this big question you don't understand, and then at the end it's revealed with the whole dreadwolf twist.
@@7PlayingWithFire7 In my opinion, a post-credit reveal does not excuse an underwhelming boss fight. And I do not buy that I'm not supposed to focus on the character who is presented for most of the game as the main villain. I love Corypheus' build up in the Legacy DLC of 2, and he is a very challenging fight in that game, but the fight in DAI feels rushed (he just shows up without any sort of real finale sequence to get to him) and the combat against him is way too easy (as someone who plays on higher difficulties). I think there's a lot to like about Corypheus - but that doesn't mean that he and the game's narrative structure are by any means above my criticism.
As a matter of fact, Anders personality changes during the 3 acts. Its seen in the party banter conversation, between him and mainly Varrric. While in act 1 they joke around how they are going to murder People like Meredith and with what methode, in Act 3 he doesnt joke anymore. Varric calls him out ofr it and says that he has changed. While they could have made it more appearent in the ialouge with HAwk directly, they have actually made the journey from Awakening to Da2, but very subtle.
To me it wasn't subtle at all. I finished awakening and got right into DA:2 Cause it had just gotten out. I was SO happy. Then I met Anders and...he was just so different. Making a couple jokes doesn't make up for the absolute dramatic character shift he had. It was so jarring to me that I still remember it now
@@EvaLoVerde That wasn't what I was talking about. In the video, he complained about Anders not changing during the entire second game and just being a one-note character. I disagreed with him and said there is very well character development of Anders in DA2, but it isn't very obvious if you don't look for it. That Awakening Anders and DA2 Anders are completely different people is obvious and kind of easy to explain away with the fact that he has become an abomination and is slightly politicized. But that's not what I was talking about.
I believe the theme for DA2 is more abstract than what we saw in DAO and DAOA, DA2 is a story about fortune. The vicissitudes of fortune to be precise. This is not the fortune that favors the bold, the greco-roman fortune, it's the medieval Fortuna, which pushes you around like a ragdoll and you can't do anything about it. It exemplifies how something always goes wrong no matter how hard you try, it's a story about impotence, or alternatively, accepting fortune and trying to make do with circumstances that are out of your control. It's the opposite of a power fantasy in the midst of a genre that sometimes feels like a huge power trip. It reminds me a lot of Disco Elysium, in that sense... We could say that DA2 did that first but not so much in an open and obvious way. No matter how hard you try to sympathise with or understand the qunari and their religion, if Isabela ends up betraying you, there's nothing you can do but make do with a terrible situation that you couldn't have realistically changed. Same goes for act 3 and the lyrium sword (that plot point reminded me the most about Disco Elysium, how in the end sometimes ocurrences are totally senseless no matter how much theorising you put into your previous deductions)... From humble beginnings to whatever you wish, Hawke's story is about dealing with fortune in its most brutal and merciless form. I believe that if we saw the story in this light we would appreciate it more, even though the gameplay leaves much to be desired and the writing pales in comparison to DAO. The world of DA2 is a world that has its own interests, it's not just a canvas to be shaped by the actions of the player. And somehow that makes it feel more genuine, as if just like in reality, things do resist to your desires, and the bigger they are, the more resistance they encounter.
You've summed up my feelings perfectly on the story of this game. The game is centred around the repercussions of the world that's out of your control. You're not some chosen one (i.e Grey Warden or Inquisitor) ready to save the world. You're just an immigrant running away from conflict with your family and building yourself up in a city that's rife with conflict and struggle. It's not black and white, everyone had their reasons for doing the things they thought was right and you're stuck in the middle of it, exactly the same as immigrants in real life. Enjoyment from this game's narrative and characters comes from realising the fact that you're the underdog, you don't always win. It's not what most CRPG fans are used to, but it's the reality of our world. I've never played a AAA game that so accurately portrays the feeling of being powerless in a world surrounded by conflict. Even though the game had shitty design gameplay wise, I really empathised with its narrative and characters!
I agree with this and it’s one of the things I like about the game. Hawke affects the world they inhabit but they don’t control the world. There are other people in Hawke’s universe and they have their own problems which boil over and become mass movements that Hawke gets caught up in. It was pretty brave of the developers to make a fantasy rpg where no matter what you do, you can’t prevent bad things from happening to characters you like and you don’t get to be king of the world. Hawke’s story is a tragedy and we know this from the framing device so instead of being invested in a specific set of outcomes, we’re invested in Hawke’s journey. At least I was.
Hold on, Corepheus told you what he wanted in your first meeting in a fairly cliche villain monologue. He tells you that he was one of the Tevinter Mages that broke into the Golden City and found that the "throne of the Maker" was empty. His plot is to break in once again and take that seat for himself and become a God. Am I the only one who finds that fascinating because it means all of the myths that the Chantry preaches is actually true and he is the proof - or it could be that he is just some mad Dark Spawn like the Architect.
Given that Corphy was the high priest to Dumat who was the first of the Old Gods, I think he - is - actually one of the remaining original Magisters Sidereal who entered the fade and started the blight. Game lore says he was Sethius Amladaris before he went by Corphy. DA:I dlc basically sets up the pre-human war between the Elves and Dwarves which arguably led to the Blight being created (theory time: from Andruil experimenting on long dead titans) and the veil was created to contain its spread between both the fade and physical parts of the games world. The only reason why the Golden City wouldve been Black upon visiting it for the first post-veil would be from centuries of exposure to the Blight, which is confirmed through DAI
@@leftlucid isn’t the Black City just the part of Arlathan that was in the fade? And the blight was the other elven gods attempt at killing Solas iirc?
@@3adgamd3r yes the Golden/Black city is thought to be the Fade part of Arlathan, but im saying if it was already Black/Blighted by the time Corphy broke through then the blight had been doing damage for awhile. Andruil went mad because she found the “corruption” or Blight which means the Elven gods nd Solas were trying to contain it
@@leftlucid yeah, it does seem like the blight is a form of a virus, that was contained, and when the magisters entered the black city, they got tainted, and then returned back to the world, and then infected others.
It's a very brave perspective from bioware actually. Most of the developers probably just try to giv us some "very serious scientific explanation" to explain everything in this fantasy world.
To this day Origins is the best game I ever played. I remember waiting for the second Mass Effect and, later, for Dragon Age 2 as Bioware games were amazing. Hell, I learned English because of these games. And to this day I curse EA...
Dragon Age Origins has the best dialogue choices I've ever experienced. It's the only game where I've felt the player character became a fully realised person entirely through playing them, not by writing a backstory in advance. Also, mechanically I love this era of Bioware when they focused on powerful abilities and interesting builds and didn't give a damn about balance (at least in the player's favour), which really doesn't matter in a single player RPG. What matters is the feelings of threat, progress and power, and this delivers in spades. In terms of character builds, Dragon Age Awakening is my favourite fantasy game (beating even BG2 and Dark Souls 2). Btw, the strongest builds in the game are actually dual-wield warriors/rogues and archer rogues, both using their basic attacks (if built correctly).
Mages on harder difficulties are pretty much controllers / Healers , Duel Warriors or Dagger Rogues backstabbing benefiting from haste are by far the best damage dealers
@@Christhegreatbro an Arcane/Blood mage PC can mostly solo nightmare difficulty with 4 active spells Forcefield/inferno or blizzard/Blood Wound/blood sacrifice. I finished it with my companion as blood packs (Full constitution stats and health regen gears also they don't fight lol) . It's fun playthrough and its easy when you get the blood mage specialization.
Dragon Age 2, story wise, was a hit for me, because the message I read in Hawke's story was "Sometimes you lose through no fault of your own. You can do everything right, and still fail. You're one person, you can't inflict your will on the world against the tide of thousands of other wills. But you can, for a while, enjoy what you have and cherish the people and things around you, and take comfort in each other."
@@thatdodo8263 Probably has to do with the fact that I can rarely let more than 2 second pass in combat without pausing. And that I spend way too much time trying to determine the optimal equipment for each of my party members. And that I'm an insane completionist (although even I stopped caring about the notice board quests after a while).
@@benl2140 i hope you didnt miss that one Blackstone quest when you have to get a guy in Lothering before it gets destroyed by darkspawn i always forget about him
@Ellana Wolf with all the dlcs playing at nightmare and with a lot of pauses it can be easily done but after finish the game several times you will be finishing way before that
1:09:40 I'm gonna have to play devil's advocate and defend this interaction. You are not considering Isabella's personality and history: she *is* a lying thieving snake. She is a pirate by caree, so why would she want someone to say some meaningless bullshit about being a good person? Hawk accepting her nature, and valuing her despite it is far more meaningful.
Wow. You aren’t bitter, are you? ☺️. I suppose I am the same towards a) My mother-plowing “family” that stabbed me in the back during the Noble Dwarf origin, and b) that manipulative twat Anders.
Because DA2’s companion influence system isn’t “Best Buddy” vs “Hated Enemy”. It’s a lot more akin to “Kindly supportive” and “Bullshit caller”. The four romanceable companions can be romanced at full Rivalry, characters are more loyal to a full Rival Hawke than they are to someone in the middle ground. In that dialog’s case? It’s not about “Nice” versus “Mean”. It’s about “Sure, I’ll let you hide back into those lies you surround yourself about being selfish and ready to run at any time” versus “...dudette, that’s bullshit, you did the right thing for selfless reasons, stop thinking the worst about yourself”. All of the romanceable companions have personality issues. Isabella has massive commitment issues and self-loathing. Merrill is delusional about the level of control she has over her Blood Magic. Fenris is consumed by a desire for vengeance and his hatred of mages, all mages, everywhere (except Bethany). Anders is obsessed over Mage Freedom at any cost (literally any cost...) and delusional about how much being possessed by Justice is changing him. The “Friendship” path is comforting them, making them feel safe and welcome, maybe trying to help them with it softly. Rivalry is not letting that stuff lie, while still their friend (most of the time). It wasn’t pulled off perfectly, but like a lot of DA2, it was trying something interesting.
@@Bollibompa you again ? lol DA2 is consistant (rewatch the video) same location , same enemy , same encounter . . . everything is consistant (if thats not clear that im actually sarcastic then i need to point it out) btw i got it right when i said it was bioware and EA (did just not have a dam clue EA purchsed Bioware as i clearly pointed out i dont care about the companies)
The only thing I miss is the companion AI, it was amazing to give them the ability to heal themselves and protect the healer if she was attacked and so on.
I found the Fade cool on the first go through cause I liked the challenge of figuring out how to get through, but I don't think it has much replay value. I use the Skip the Fade mod on subsequent playthroughs.
The fade wasn't that bad. I breezed through it in 30 minutes tops on my first go. Though I am a fast learner so there's that. The deep roads on the other hand. Hahahahahahahahahahahahhahah. Worst. Section. Ever!!! The Battle of Haven in Inquisition (One of my least favorite sections in it) at least didn't overstay it's welcome.
The Deep Roads are supposed to be massive AND filled with monsters. Doing otherwise is spitting over the Dwarves (which won't be surprising, nobody likes the Dwarves even though they're much more interesting than the tolkienesque elves which has been done to death).
If you take Solas everywhere he usually have one opinion that he'll change over time even apologise. That trait means he's able to change and i hope that in DA IV we get to interact with him a lot and maybe change the outcome of his goal.
DAO for me is like a big, dark, and well-written 1000 pages fantasy novel with an amazing story and characters. It was not afraid to be scary, to be dark. DAO sets the tone right at the main character's prologue where you can be betrayed by your own brother or your cousin might be kidnapped be raped by the son of the arl or your entire family will be killed betrayed someone they considered a friend. And it will hold this tone right until the end, I remember how the Deep Roads quest with Broodmother scared the young me so much back then I was afraid to continue to play this game lol. I don't replay it often, it's a big game and I'm not a fan of the battles tbh, I prefer something more fast-paced, but it wouldn't fit in DAO overall style. DA2 is like a novel that everyone hates, but it's my guilty pleasure. There are weak moments in the game of course, like repetitive locations, unnecessary time jumps, etc, but I love it anyway. I love the story, it's dark too, but not in the way DAO was dark. It's about a character who tries hard to have a better life, but each time it comes with a cost. Each time they succeed, they lose something dear. They get to Kirkwall but lose their sibling. They get a mansion, a title, and riches, but another sibling leaves them (or even dies too), they become Champion, but their mother dies in a horrible way. And I love the scene near the end of act 3, where Bodhan says that he and Sandal are planning to leave, and there was such a feeling of loneliness there. Hawke tried so hard to give their family a good life, but in the end, they're all gone. And there's no way to get a good and happy ending for in DA2, you either leave or stay and become a Viscount of a broken city, and Hawke will lose it anyway in DAI. This game is not everyone's cup of tea, many people hate it for a variety of reasons, but I replay DA2 often with all the dlc, and each time I love it a bit more. I really wish Bioware had more time to work on DA2, not some 18 months, but like two or three years of development. But oh well, we got what we got I guess. DAI is weird. I can't say it's a bad game, but I just can't love it the way I love DAO or DA2. I just feel detached from everything that happens in the game, and the main story itself is kinda short if you think of it. Corypheus was great in DA2, his boss battle in Legacy was one of the hardest for me in DA2, but in DAI he's kinda meh. The game looks beautiful, but kinda empty and the Inquisitor has a personality of a cardboard box. DAI is probably my least favorite game in the series. I did want to love it, but I just couldn't.
I agree with you completely. For some reason, I love DA2, and I have played it through several times. I love it, despite the weaknesses you mentioned. And of course Origins was the first one I got and it was such an amazing quest-type game that I could spend hours and hours playing. It felt really magical to me and I was hooked from the first day. Inquisition just feels…I don’t know, bulky? Too much stuff in it that feels irrelevant to the story. I have still played it a lot, but not my fave.
Inquisition is the only one i've played and boy, that game is tiring, it's so close to being great but it just never reaches it's apex, i finished all the side quests before focusing on the main story after a short break, and it was just meh, the most interesting stories were told on the war table
This comment perfectly captures my sentiments as well. Objectively, I should be able to say that Inquistion was better than DA2 and yet if I were to replay either of them.. I'd much prefer DA2. For all it's faults it's still a charming and enjoyable experience while Inquistion just has this clunky, janky, vaguely mmo style pointless feel to it
Omg, “Alistair but ugly, Alistair on meth, Alistair with an extra chromosome” I cackled laughing at that, really took me by surprise lol. This video is great :) I love all 3 games but it does highlight the issues with the two later ones. Hopefully those at Bioware will take critiques like this into consideration for the next instalment!
In Dragon Age 4 Solas will destroy the world by standing in the sun. Its rays shall reflect from his head and bathe the world in a shining radiance that will burn it away in an intense searing flash.
The mosaic pieces and bottles of wine are put into a sort of basement treasury area in skyhold. It’s pretty cool to fill the empty rooms up with ur collectibles
Dude, your amazing analysis and clear passion for RPGs has had me sat watching hours and hours of reviews for game series I’ve never even played. Stellar work
Like so many on here, came back to watch again after the release of DA4 - a good reminder of what it was supposed to be. Look forward to your analysis after the fact.
Considering Anders and his Chantry Annihilation: Mage towers had been annulled ~17 times in up to this point in DA history, sometimes for no real reasons. He probably considered the game score 17-1 at this point.
I think one of the best parts of DA lore is that it does not just list history/facts but tells you the history through the perspective of a variety of authors. It means that the player has the choice to take a lot of info at face value or interrogate sources for motives/ideology and question the status quo within the world. This is why I think despite all its flaws the plot for DA2 does such a good job of forcing the player to confront the uncomfortable divide between the mages and templars and how this divide is bigger than just the events and choices of Hawke. You play a main character, yes, but they are not the be all end all of the universe
Appreciate the work you put in for these videos, I'm sure they're time consuming, but I have a bone to pick with the way you describe DA2's story, especially with your understanding of Anders/Justice character and the Qunari Arc. First of all the Qunari were not immigrants, they were more like a foreign reprsesentative/diplomatic force on a mission to reclaim an item of significant religious and cultural importance to them. The Fereldans were the Refuges/immigrants. The Fereldans tried to integrate themselves in Kirkwall society (looking for jobs, getting political power, invested in the city's well-being etc.), the Qunari did not. They simply were there in order to to complete their mission and then fuck off back to Par Voleen. Kind of weird to imply that these to groups were similar. More than that, the Qunari didn't take every possible step to undermine the city's rules, leaders or societal norms. They were content to live in the area of town that was provided to them by the city's authorities untill their mission was complete. The Arishok didn't just decide to massacre the city because he got a '' little angry'', he put up with a lot throughout the almost a decade of stay in the city. It was the unjustified hatred towards his people that ''forced'' his hand. We literally play through a mission where we see hyper nationalistic fanatics rounding up random Qunari and executing them. We can definitely assume that the Qunari were looked upon with extreme disdain by a part of Kirkwall's citizens. But even after hate crimes and needless racism and descrimination, what tipped the Arishok over the edge was when the leader of that hyper nationalistic/religious ideology/organization murdered the Viscount's son, who was a friend of the Qunari, in an attempt to blame the murder on the Qunari and force the city's leaders to take arms against them. That's when the Arishok almost verbatum say's to Hawke '' Yea well you know what, we literally have done nothing to these people, we haven't harmed them or meddled in their affairs but now they pushed it too far and we''ll cleanse the city in the name of the Qun''. The massacre they inflicted on the city was undoubtably horrific and morally wrong, but to just boil it down to ''they were cunts and when they got a little angry the just massacred innocents for almost no reason'' is not only a reductive, but a juvenile way of understanding the story that was told throughout a small part of Act 1 and the entirety of Act 2.
Glad I’m not alone! While watching the video I felt like I was going crazy. I was just like, did I seriously misinterpret the entirety of the Qunari and their purpose in Kirkwall?? No, no I did not.
I feel like in this video DA2's and DAI's plot were presented in a dumbed down way to make DAO look better, like you could say that DAO was about a cliche hero chosen by fate, fighting the big bad to save the day with their quirky companions. Also in the DAO part he voiced his opinion about Alistair and Morrigan being good characters to later in the Inquisition part make an argument that whether a character is good or not is subjective...
I loved the break down of one of my favorite games. The only thing I was bothered with was your explaining of Corypheous. In game he claims to be one of the group of magisters that tried to break into the Golden City and corrupted it making him one of the very first darkspawn and abominations. His self proclaimed goal is to use the magic in your hand to open a portal to the fade and make himself God.
1:13:19 You CAN permanently clear out those enemies- there’s even a side quest for it. A member of the friends of red jenny pays you for completing each group.
"I hate the way it's going and lament what it abandoned and think it's vastly inferior, but I'm going to buy it anyway." This is one major reason why things get worse and worse and move further away from what made them great in the first place.
But...if I just pay for the pre-order so I can get the day 1 DLC and immediately get the season pass that costs the same amount as the base game then maybe theyll retroactively redo the entire game to no longer be offensively inoffensive, brain-dead streamlined musou gameplay, and re-hire those who have long left after yet another developer became poisoned by corporate bs! She's dead Jim. You have to let it go.
This is the reason I refuse to buy Inquisition. It's such a polished single player mmo turd without any depth or charm it's not even funny anymore. I LOVED DA2 despite its many, many gameplay shortcomings but Inquisition isn't worth the gigs it takes on my hard drive, much less $60.
@@Anna-md5nc I feel there is some charm....if you watch it through dragon age T.V on youtube where they manage to make a somewhat good thing to watch, despite how silly bows look for the main character.
duncan didn't kill a companion -just- for having doubts. the companion was killed because he was backing out and the grey wardens HAD to keep the details of the joining secret so potential recruits wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. nothing spoils a secret quicker then someone terrified by it.
Which makes them a messed up cult. They lure new and naive candidates with promises of glory but hide all risks. And once you learn about the risks it's already way too late.
Dragon Age 2 was actually my first Dragon Age game (bc i was young and new to the series and i was gifted it by someone who thought i might like it) and tbh i know ppl hate it but it’s still my favorite of the games i know there are flaws and i know ppl don’t like it, but i still have a huge soft spot for it
I remember watching my uncle playing origins when I was about 9 and the world and it’s characters was unlike anything I’d ever played before. The characters, the setting and the lore were all just fantastic and the fact that the choices you made from one game carried over to the next games was mind blowing. I eventually bought my own copy of the game and loved it. Heck if it wasn’t for Origins, I never would have been introduced to things like Lord of The rings and the High fantasy genre in general.
@@del5582 Nah. My meds don't dull/pacify me, they make it possible for me to live cause I'm not constantly wading through symptoms. Tranquility seems far more like an analogy for a lobotomy to me.
@@Becca-bm8rt Antipsychotic meds are a literal chemical lobotomy. Studies on monkeys show they physically deteriorate the brain. But I'm sure your psychiatrist prescribes them off-label because you had a tummy ache.
21:31 Both the Codex and characters actually make note of the fact that The Fade is a representation of the real world, composed by beings that lack creativity of their own and as such, resort to copying human realities. (But yes, I also think it was a strange choice to maintain the brownish colors at all times)
Dragon Age Origins remains a game I will show to my non-gamer friends and get them into RPG gaming. The story and characters and dialog are gripping. But it never seems to fail that if they then eagerly grab DA2... they experience what I did... disappointment. These friends are also usually not willing to give Inquisition a try, and if they do, they are meh about it. On the other hand, I have met many new fans of the series who started with Inquisition and love it, and don't understand why those of us who came at it from the start of the series often don't agree.
I feel like dao had a focus on the narrative and inquisiton on the game aspect. Theres so much filler "video game" content in dai it gets very boring very fast, especially because of how infrequent party banters are. I wouldve done all the misc quest in origins where i find myself avoiding it in inquisition and the origins also feel very left field when inquisition gives you the race specific dialogue trees. Da2 just feels like its own game or an inbetween between the two games. I can see why people disliked it, but if you play it as the story of "hawke," i find it more enjoyable and you feel like an actual found family with your companions
@@megasocky Yeah, I think you captured the pros and cons of both games. I love all the games but I can tell why someone might not like the first, second, the three and the games in between the main 3.
weird she is a playable compagnion (i know in origins you can "refuse" the to join you or just not save them like Sten in his jail) but i did not know you could miss her and dont meet her at all . . . she was my favorite in the series
I met her, but the game bugged during her mission, so I haven't be able to recruit her. When I found that the "solution" was to reload the save and wait before picking up the quest item, I was too ahead with the story and didn't want to go back and replay it. Meh.
I played dragon age 2 first, I was young and late to the series. I absolutely loved it's take on fantasy and the first chance I got to get origins I got it. Keep in mind I was of the generation that didn't like prequels, the new stuff should always be better, the mindset of my group. But I still loved it, because not only was the game THAT good, the series was, the lore was THAT good. I then bounced around and played both games every now and then, they'd always be a go-to for me if I was ever bored. I can remember when inquisition came out, I pre-ordered it. I loved it too, it was a mix of origins style and dragon age style, the developers learned what was wrong and they improved on it. I especially am fond of it because this game came well before monetization became seriously mainstream. Yes its in it BUT only online and I never had an issue with that. Dragon age always has a place in my heart.
I played Origins on release and had crazy high hopes for it, it being a Bioware game. Bioware were the best in the world at the kind of game I liked playing. Origins blew me away. It was excellent in every way. It felt cinematic and epic and it lived up to the hype and also the reputation of Bioware. Luv and Peace.
As a whole, with everything released so far. I have always thought that the overall tone for Dragon Age was... History and how it’s shaped. Origins was the foundation. It set the tone, shapes the world and created the lore. It built the world, it was dark, gritty, and at times... glitchy and clunky. But with all of this, it gave us a foundation to jump off from. DA2 embodied and emboldened this theme of History and perception of history. What better way to move this theme along, than having a story told literally in the third person by Varric. I always assumed, that DA2 was told like one of Varric’s badly written novels. Since he is literally shaping Cassandra’s perception of reality and history throughout the whole game. Maybe the generic maps and repeated enemies were a design choice and we all just missed the greater point to the game. If the game as looked at through this Lense, it’s secretly brilliant... just not very fun or entertaining. Finally, Inquisition flipped the scrip. It took pre-established lore and told us, everything we knew was wrong. Because “History is written by the victor.” Who was the victor in this story, The Chantery. They have shaped all of our knowledge since Origins. After the M/T conflict and war, and the Chantery lost most of it’s influence and power. A third, unbiased force, the inquisition, set out to make the world right. As such, it discovered real lore and things thought lost, dead or buried. Even so much as our perception of Magic, the Fade, Elven Gods, Old Gods, Tevinter, shit everything. I may be totally wrong in this assessment, but this is what I took from the series. Side Note to my opinion personal opinion. Great work on the retrospective. Much praise.
Being real the generic maps and repeated enemies in DA2 is just because the game was very rushed and they gave them no time to do anything better, but one of my favourites headcanons that I seen in this fandom is basically what you mentioned, that they are like that because Varric is telling the story and he's just bad describing things, or that he's not even describing places, he just says "a mansion" and Cassandra imagines the same generic one each time. I don't think that was the plan or that it was a design choice, but thinking like that makes it more fun.
Hearing the last 10 mins makes one really sad how they threw away what they set up before. But i guess "the message" is way more important than bringing the story to a conclusion.
I loved all of them for the story two almost ruined it for me with the repetitive areas but I did love how much faster fighting was for all characters. Inquisition only thing I didn’t like was the side quests that had no meaning to the quests or main story itself just kind of thrown in but really loved all of them they were each unique and awesome in their own way. Like mass effect each different but each brought something. Awesome at least in my opinion
@@joshuaandersen1075 won’t lie origins I loved as it offer more of a backstory to your character and I liked how you got to play it out a bit even two had it but inquisition just sort of gave you a brief look at your backstory instead I miss when you could play that first hour or two and get a feel for your character then get thrown into chaos although DA2 was chaos from the beginning lol
@@xanatricebass2741 yeah I replayed DA2 a lot even if it was super repetitive. I mean, despite that, I've never felt so emotional playing a game like I did when Hawkes mother died. And ofc the romances were good as always, it was incredibly unique. DAO has my heart tho lol
I think the main problems of the series in terms of creative, visual and narrative differences and why each game feels so different and unsatisfying to the players that started playing it with Origins can be boiled down to a simple fact: Dragon Age Origins, at its core, is a horror genre RPG and its storyline and worldbuilding are centered around it. While it may not be so obvious at a first glance, each area featured some sort of monster, like the darkspawn in Ostagar, walking dead in Redcliffe, werewolves and a haunted forest in the Brecilian forest, demons, spirits and possessed mages at the Mage Tower, broodmothers, giant spiders, darkspawn and that one demon who had a neat side quest that required you to collect its body parts for the Deep Roads section. While the execution of the horror elements in Dragon Age Origins didn't feel overwhelmingly scary, it made the player uncomfortable and disturbed, and paired with morally ambigous choices in the game, it gets a very grimdark, "dirty LOTR world" kind of feeling. Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition still belong into the same world and while some things feel the same, the horror elements in the last two installments is almost nonexistent and too far in between to feel like the first installment, which is a shame, especially for Inquisition which had some great areas suitable for that. That's also the issue I also have with darkspawn and the way that they evolved backwards in their design. Now they seem so much less scary and even more bland when you encounter them. Even Corypheus looks a bit goofy next to the Architect. Demons are the only ones that I've seen improvement on based purely on design, but what's interesting to note is what they gained in terms of design they lost with the lack of player interaction outside of combat, which made the demons scary in the first place. Also, while that's not entirely the case (I'm looking at you, Knight-Enchanters), the magic system feels underpowered and generic, and worse, as it has been said, has became pick-the-way-you-sparkle thing, instead of utilizing the already established base for magic in the first games, which are the schools of magic presented to us in the first game and even referenced in the codex in the same game and also making sense why do others feel threatened by mages besides the demonic possession, it's because they are basically gods when it comes to utility. While I agree that some spells in the first one needed a serious overhaul and even trimming some spells that produce the same effect with the stronger one being an evolved, better version of the other one (spells like Disorient and Weakness or Walking Bomb and Virulent Walking Bomb(the stronger one usually having an additional effect as opposed to its weaker counterpart)), the first system had an indentity and could have been a better core of the magic system than in the other two games, allowing for more strategy and less hurling every available spell at the enemy, the spell trees just needed some tweaking! To add more onto that, spell combos in the first game were a really fun addition to the system and I'm sad that they removed it, because it encouraged players to experiment and find which spell combinations did what, and it added more flavour to already a flavourful and solid magic system. That being said, I feel like warriors and rogues are good in Origins, but great in the other installments. The combat, while certainly being more flashy and less realistic, it feels more engaging and fun, and the party combos and synergy is more thrilling than in the first game. Despite this series having a lot of flaws and being frustrating to figure out to all the lore enthusiasts like myself, each game is good in its own right. I loved Origins for its journey, DA2 for its interesting story structure and its strangely fitting Hawke-centric storyline and Inquisition for its interesting and stunning enviroment that made the world feel more alive along with better character scenes than the rest of the games.
The main reason i dont care about the otehr 2 as much is mainly because Origins hasnt recieved a sequal yet. Both 2 and Inquisitions arent real sequals....
@@marcelluspreston8392 Yes, i know, but never a direct sequal, and if not that, at least a game which stays true to it, combat and settings wise. Dragon age origins is the only game in the franchise you can actually call Dark Dantasy, the other 2 have completely different settings and tones.
Sometimes I've got the feeling that I am one of the few people in the DA fandom, who actually liked and enjoyed Inquisition... I loved all three games, and I played them all repeatedly when they first came out, but I cannot possibly play DA:O and DA II any more. Despite its brilliance, DA:O has unfortunately not aged well (at least for me), and DA II, while not a bad game, was the weakest of the Trilogy, mainly because it was rushed. Inquisition, on the other hand I still play to this day...and I still enjoy it! I don't get why people bash it all the time..
Yea the story goes into more interesting areas in the sequel and if returned to Origins you see how sequals really step it up in gameplay or story beats for the matter. I put it up to a nostalgia that dosent allow people to get past the image of something that would always be remembered better than it actually was.
I feel like one of the few myself sometimes as well, in how I just adore all three. Each has a thing here or there that isn't my favorite, but it's not big enough to really be impactful. I'm also easily entertained and story is my top priority though so... lol.
I really liked DAI. I’d have preferred side quests to an open world checklist but exploring, completing tasks, and getting into battles on a bunch of big maps is cool as well. All the dragon age games have some duds for companions but inquisition has three awesome ones: Cassandra, Varric, and Solas which is more than the other games imo. Plus the friendship/romances were better in inquisition than in the previous games. Pretty much the only thing that irks me is the way the war room worked which could’ve been rectified with one option: carrier pigeon. Just make a menu tab where you could look at the missions and select them.
24:18 honestly the same thing happens In Mass Effect 1 and in ME2 every single one of your potential squadmates dies if you don't recruit them. Anders in DAII gets way more hate than he deserves. Yes his actions are awful, but not unreasonable at all. Treat people like garbage and they will do the worst to everyone responsible for their plight. It just so happens that unlike most mages, Anders also has the power to do something about this more than others. His whole arc shows that even good people with the best intentions in mind are capable of doing horrible things when pushed long enough. This is something i actually really like about Dragon Age 2 - it explores completely different subjects than most games. Anders wasn't evil and tried his damnest to show that mages can be helpful to society and don't need to be held captive like animals, but it didn't matter because in the eyes of templars every mage is a potential threat. He also tried to convince Elthina over and over again to step in and do something about Templars and Mages, but she refused to get involved, even though she had the power to make a difference. He blows up the chantry when he sees no alternative because he feels like if he won't act on behalf of mages, no one will. You actually weren't wrong about pro terrorist feel - i would even go as far to say that it's idealistic (if you can call it that) showcase of what terrorism is about - making a point. However, unlike real world terrorist attacks, which are usually tied to religion, this one is relatable and can even be agreed with, because the player can see what exactly led to this point. Everytime someone does something horrible i think about what i would do in their place. That made it difficult for me to brand Anders as a villain, because in his place i can't say if i wouldn't do what he did (propably wouldn't be my first choice but still) and in the end i asked him to help me save the mages instead of killing him. Sebastian even left the party which made it even better.
every freedom fighter is a terrorist. i see no issue with using violence to achieve a good goal (in theory), but the way DA2 presented both sides really hurt the story, they were both cartoonishly evil. the templars were frothing at the mouth to kill people even before the red lyrium, but the mages were also always half a step from just boning a desire demon and letting whatever fade born monstrosity take their body. not to mention anders had a better characterization in the dlc he appeared in originally, he embodied the fool arcana, just an apostate out to have fun and go about his way. that is a far more interesting character than another tortured rebel.
@@comyuse9103 Most Templars are just doing their job even if they don't agree with it and most mages don't want to have anything to do with demons unless they are pushed to the corner. Both groups have fanatics, but they are not representative of them as a whole. Aside from Karras and Alrik on Templar side or the Tarohne and Quentin on Mages side who else is cartoonishly evil? As for Anders there are glimpses of his Awakening personality at some points like meeting with Nathaniel or talking with Martin, but they feel more like leftovers of the original concept of who Anders was meant to be, but due to very short development he was just trimmed down to who he was meant to become. I wouldn't say i like Awakening Anders better, but it's sure as hell not very satisfying to skip how he became much darker character. As for him being a rebel? He was always one, but Circle in Ferelden was very nice compared to the one in Kirkwall. He escaped from tower multiple times and they just dragged him back there, but in Kirkwall it would mean tranquility or death. That's another reason why he's not "Be happy, go lucky" anymore.
I’m the guy he mentioned at the end that has never played a single Dragon Age game, yet watched the whole thing. Love your content man! Keep up the good work!
Kirkwall was basically a prison town where the citizens of hightown got their rocks off watching imprisoned mages and elves get tortured or executed. Its supposed to look congested and imposing.
Found your ending incredibly sad. "There's no better time for Bioware to prove everyone wrong." It's a nice sentiment, unfortunately Bioware is just a name EA retains for marketing, they have no one left that is invested enough in their IPs to care, beyond profit. Bioware aren't able to prove anything, aside from just how little promise their name holds anymore.
My brother in christ, you can’t talk about the part where people walk in the snow and not expand on how much of a banger “The Dawn Will Come” is. Shit gave me goosebumps.
Origins just nails the horror / fantasy genre superbly. Really really creepy and disturbing storylines, great choices, mostly well written characters (i'm looking at you Zayne) and i personally, don't mind the turn based combat wheel.
Phenomenal video. It sums up my frustration with the Dragon Age series. I played DA2 and DA:I on the basis of how good Origins was. Origins is one of my favourite games of all time and seeing what has happened to the series (and the lore) means i won't be playing any further DA games. I think the fourth installment was released last week, but i can't even be bothered to watch a trailer.
On Dragon Age 2's night enemyies. If you clear them all in an area one will drop a note with their warehouse so you can finish the job. They will stop spawning for an act, some loot also. But you need to do it for every single area of a city 3 times.
Your Inquisitor and Stroud pointing swords at each other is the Spider-Man meme come to life in a Dragon Age game.
I had this moment too, I looked exactly like couple of npcs in emerald graves, had an identity crisis after that
@@mirisha1802 Same here. My first character in Inquisition was a female dwarf warrior with long black hair and sure enough, once I got to Skyhold, one of the first npcs I see walking around looks exactly like me - same hairstyle and everything! I thought it was some sort of randomly generated npc easter egg thing but the same character also was there in other playthroughs too.....!
@@mirisha1802 lmfao that was funny shit
20:35
One of my favourite things about the DAO combat is that it isn't balanced. For once you can actually *feel* that mages are powerful. The game isn't just telling you why they're feared; you get to experience it. At the same time the game isn't so difficult that it forces you into min-maxing and choosing the most powerful option every time.
I like to do crazy builds with mages. A two handed mage or something wild like that. I like that you have the capability to build a char any way you want really, you're not locked into weapons because of classes.
@@trustworthydan Agree. In my opinion weapon locking per classes is the most nasty thing ever developed. True, that some specialized weapons or the heavy ones require from you agility, strength and practice, but classic club, mace, hammer or sword? Really D&D?;).
Yeah, but modern world, especially Asian one hate the mages, where in their works, dumb barbarian or uneducated and illiterate knight is far more superior to any mage, wizard, sorcerer or warlock. In some cases, mages in Asian games/works even cast their spells by punching and kicking their enemies;).
In western world is the same. I played DDO for a time, but due to a lot of restrictions, nasty saves, facing mechanics and so on, my mage was, well, virtually useless.
I grow up on books like Sorcerer from Archipelago, Lord of the Rings, Twilight of Gods and many others, where mages were very rare, but they were wise, versatile, respected and immensely powerful. So, playing DAO, as you say I felt as a true mage. Restricted by rules (and for a very good reason), but still respected, versatile and powerful.
In the last 20 or so years, i only played in 2 or 3 games where role-playing as a mage, I truly felt like one, it was Dragon Age Origins, Gothic II and Baldur's Gate II with expansion, and well, partially Knights of the Old Republic II and Spell Force Order of Down with both expansions, but that was a different system and different rules in both cases (one was Star Wars universe, the other was mainly an RTS). So, im very thankful for this game developers for allowing me, to fulfill my childish drem, at lest to a certain degree.
Edit: Also, many companies has a very huge problem with elemental portrayal. In many books, movies, games, novels and so on, the true powerful elemental users are always The Fire ones (if Western) followed by Lightning (if Asian) and Wind (if Japan), but in reality, the most nasty and powerful element is... Water/Ice, which Spell Force OoD and forgotten game Eligium shown to us. Yes, its not the best DPS as fire or fast like wind, but its not a problem at all, when enemy can't move and harm you, no?;).
Cassandra's voice actress is so fucking good tho, I always have her in my party just to hear her talk. There's that one quest where she wants you to get the book from Varric, where she's like, "but you're the Inquisitor, you could order him, _make_ him..." and then her face falls and she deadpans "forget you know this about me." Cracks me up every time. She absolutely nails it.
cringe
The most serious charackter, that also happens to dislike Varrick for lying to her face, wants a fifty shades of grey like book because she's addicted to it.
Whoever wrote that charackter did a fine job, as did the voice actress.
@@ingydegmar2060 pls say sike
Urgh...
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot us
DA:O music was truly amazing. Such a ‘romantic’ game. The romance of the fantasy setting. The music at the camp. The feeling of being survivors of that battle. And on your own trying to sort everything out. It’s SO melancholy. It’s so utterly brilliant!
Now fast forward to Inquisition, hack'n slash pansexual fuckfest, a story of a hero surrounded by quite literally worst companions you could ever dare hope for, fighting a "god" who can't seem to do anything right, the only miracle is that the main villain didn't kill himself in one of his botched plans, set in a bright censored world.
So true!! Agree with both comments. I hated da3 aka the stupidly titled "inquisition" 🙄 which made no sense ... Awful story, weird green hole story... Like wtf why did it become SciFi... And a creepy cult following me.. the "customising" was near non existent, too. Zero music played in the world, and zero day night cycle! No swimming or even jumping off a small ledge was allowedas we respawned. The fitting sucked too. I uploaded the glitches n other problematic things on my own channel, but so many ppl defend this game and I got hate fir pointing out the OBVIOUS!! why??
I was a huge fan until da3. It ruined it all for me . :( .... Ppl just don't see I'm a passionate fan who was trying to help the franchise, but idiots only perpetuate this decline in the quality by defending it.
Also as I said to someone else.. the characters all suck now. I prefered Alistair and Anders. But that went nowhere.. da2 had a great story n set up was cancelled for a terrible third installment that is nothing like the atmosphere or lore of the Actual series by Brent Knowles. None of the original devs or even composer /music had anything to do with it. It was barely a DA game. So cringe now. I'm a woman and gamer but again.. I'm smart and don't play for romance .. but the first romances were done brilliantly, in both games! So even that was lackluster!!
Just look at the fan base.. ugggghh.
I liked Solas too! He was the only tolerable and self aware one!!!
Naturally he was the villian. God forbid anyone else have a brain 😑😑 such a stupid story. And that singing scene was the nail in the coffin ... Terrible game. The story was soooo cringe.
Smudboy analyses the entire game story and plot holes perfectly. Look it up. It's soooo good. Hilarious too... The amount of cringe in the game is .. wow. Like leliana and Cassandra not ever stating wtf is going on, lol. No wonder the game starts off poorly. I thought it was just me.. nope.. it's so illogical... 😓😓😓😬🙄🤦♀️
That amazing camp music you mentioned? which I still listen to on repeat to sleep with btw... 😬 Inon zur the composer, he even left the game after not liking it!! That's why his music is NOT IN DRAGON AGE anymore!! That's another factoid I uncovered years ago researching reasons to why I hated this game... So much stuff is out there but no "big" UA-camr ever mentions it , atvl and it annoys me ppl r too lazy to seek the truth. No one else notice this stuff or wonder WHY?? JUST ME, HUH. 😑😓😑😑. Brent Knowles, the creator of the first game and story - also left halfway through da2 after clashing with Laidlaw, who was the guy who ruined da, after Knowles left! Another thing even this video LEAVES OUT. Laidlaw was NOT a good asset but a very bad one who was an EA yes-man and clashed creatively with Brent Knowles on this exact topic about changing da from the story based rpg, to a marketable souless husk. Laidlaw was now the new creative lead in da; "inquisition 🙄" , (Brent Knowles in contrast, was the writer and creative director on da origins!!)
That says it all.
... You can read about the falling out after the EA takeover on Brent Knowles own blog, too.
It annoys me that I'm stillthe only one to ever broach this subject, and it's sad no one else has bothered to do the basic research or reported on this.... D.A died when Brent Knowles left.
And Laidlaw was and is a hack.
@@doxasophosmoros Yeah, I couldn't get in inquisition either, the meaningless mail guy quests and the uselessly big open world was just realy frustrating to play with. Idk why they decided to change the formula but those huge worlds in inquisition were really disorienting and boring to explore. I guess I was just too acostumed with the maps from ME2/ME3 and DAO/DA2, where they are kinda linear but with room to exploration, that when I went to DAI with this mentality I was just overwhelmed by the boringness and stopped playing.
Also, idk how but they were able to worsen the graphics in DAI compared to DA2 with those mega ultra glossy hairs and shitty faces, and maybe I'm biased since its been a long while since I played DAI but I remember my mc being voiced like a retarded person.
Just a reminder that, in spite of the gore and murder, Dragon Age Origins is a game where an ancient evil emerges, so you join an ancient order to fight them. You gather an army of elves, dwarves, knights and mages, put the rightful king on his throne, and battle an ancient god of evil. You only manage to survive because you boned the hot goth witch.
Sadly not Cannon.
@@desotodesun3449 it can be
He means Bioware canon, which is the default world where the Warden was a female Dalish elf that dies killing the Archdemon.
It's my canon
Or convince Alistair that being a virgin is, like, not cool bro
BioWare had to cut so many corners in Dragon Age 2 it has become a sphere.
So, Dragon Age 2 takes place on Solas's head? xD
@Maccer from the north lol
Dragon Age 2 is a flawed masterpiece. One of the best fantasy RPGs but obviously unfinished and rushed to release. There are so many cool aspects and touches about that game though, you can play it repeatedly as different characters and have a blast. I think the writing, music and narrative is exceptional; it's an awesome ride.. It should be remade.
As far as 'Dragon Age' generally goes, I have one thing to say. 'Enchantment!'
@@Matthew075 have you played dragon age origins if u have look at the equipment options for the classes on it and compare it to DA2 and DAI and tell us the difference because I will always say dragon age origins is best dragon age change my mind
Dragon Age: Origins is so good its not even fair. It changed the way I viiew gaming
Agreed, some choices I had to leave, take a moment and evaluate my situation.
Whenever a new Western RPG comes out, i compare it automatically to the features in Dragon Age origins, so far, none could hold up to it.
@@astralaris8712 what about pillars of eternity?
Amen brother 🙏
@@ferrusmanus4013 Similarly to Divinity Original Sin, i have heard many things about it, but have never played it. Maybe i should have mentioned AAA games (lets be real here, since 2015 Witcher III there hasnt been a new good one).
There seem to be alot of good ARPGs however, maybe i should give them a try.
God, watching this *after* Veilguard released is one hell of an experience.
Am I going to use this as an excuse to rewatch this masterpiece from start to finish again a few times? *_Oh hell yes_*
I'm on board :3
Same here!
I have 700 hours in and I still believe I didn’t finish the game
@@heyjoji1954 ha, those are rookie numbers, kid
How can you not
"Which brings me to Solas... Solas looks like an egg." 10/10
Would you scramble or boil him in the next game?
@@obijuanquenobi1911 Fried all the way
@@obijuanquenobi1911 Depends on if that next game is another attempt at a live service.
I wasn’t ready
@@PauloGarcia-sp5ws next game may link exclusively to LGBTQ onlyfans accounts, if Andromeda is something to look as a source of insight DA4 will just as DA3 suck ass, an offline MMO hack and slash game, executed poorly, with only connecting thing trough all 3 games being story, a repetitive fetch quest simulator, a chore, especially now when no-one from the original team remains.
ah yes, my old nemesis. the dialog wheel.
Hissssss!
The thing is, the dialogue wheel is not a problem. One can just show the exact text when you hover over the option and add more than three segments or deeper nesting.
This would allow to port any classical CRPG dialogue, like PS:T, one to one into the wheel without sacrificing anything.
No, I agree, the dialogue wheel is poison. It encourages binary dialogue choices, lazy writing and confused responses.
It might be done better, but I've yet to see it happen and I rather RPG's be designed to work on pc over console.
@@toffeecrisp2146 I like Inquisition and all but i’m a PC player, felt so much like a console game to me.
@@obijuanquenobi1911 I feel much the same way.
The UI, for example. It is entirely optimised for a console player, infact, I found myself having to fight against it in places, as it just wasn't designed with a mouse and keyboard in mind, all those nested menus. Eew.
Dragon age origins is really one of the greats. I can't even tell you how many times I've replayed it. The fact that I can be a mage that wears heavy armor and wields a two handed sword instead of a staff is huge. Or a dual wielding warrior who wears light armor. Truly amazing really
Loved the arcane warrior as well, but i also really liked the knight enchanter specialization in inquisition, but it also is way too op maybe
I love games that don't tie equipment usage to classes.
Divinity original sin 2 is another good one that scratches that itch.
When I did arcane warrior I was a fucking tank with a bunch of AOE spells constantly going on around me. It was genuinely amazing. I want to replay it so bad
I am glad that Morrigan turned out to be best girl of the series. Romancing her in Origins and later seeing her turn into a great mom and faithful wife gave me warm tingles in my cold dead heart.
While I cannot disagree with you, I do also Love what happens with Lelianna , Going from sing songy happy bard running away from her old life , too accepting that she loves conflict and fighting and being a spy , to becoming a ruthless yet still religious spy master --She is like the opposite of Morrigan and they almost flip as the games go by...I thought that was awesome
When does this happen? I never finished Dragon Age 2 or even started 3.
@@Dread24 you chase after Morrigan in the Witch Hunt and then in 3 the inq can ask her about her life with the warden. Don't bother with other games just search it on YT.
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot they are together and she mentions he had to leave on a very difficult mission to end the calling for Grey Wardens. She mentions how great of a husband and of a father he is to their kid (who is very special).
@@hennyspiderman9974 Wasnt the kid supposed to be an archdemon and her intentions sinister? Well i suppose it makes sense with how dragon age became so happy go lucky
This video was originally uploaded on 30th May 2020. I have had to take it down and alter it a bit by blurring some of the violent parts in order to prevent the video from being restricted.
I’m not sure what was so bad about anything shown in the original but oh well. Hopefully the blurring isn’t too annoying; it’s not often at least.
youtube shenanigans
Well alright then, I'll listen to it again.
When will this month video be released? I CANNOT wait anymore...
Well, I seem to have missed it the first time around so the re-upload was good for me in that it hit my feed. Gives me something to get me through my work day! Thanks for everything you do!
I'm not even mad at youtube nowadays... just incredibly disappointed...
My only issue with the video is that in Inquisition it is very clearly stated, several times, that Corypheus went to see the Maker, saw that the seat was empty and is now attempting to take that seat, becoming God. The restoring Tevinter stuff kind of just goes along with that.
I laughed really hard at the doppelganger part.
“Beg that I succeed. For I have seen the throne of God, and it was empty.”
So just a generic boring "i want to be a god" villian.
@@Quirrel I wouldn't call him boring or generic for that goal alone, he had great potential for a villain but got shafted by writers.
@@cameronsmith1229 so he is still overall underdeveloped boring and generic character with an underdeveloped boring and generic motivation.
@@ginogatash4030 I think he's a very interested character with a fantastic story that got mishandled horribly and not developed well at all.
Update: Solas still looks like an egg
And in dragon age 4 we will smash that egg,
@@thatundeadlegacy2985 they could not have picked a character I care less about to base a whole game on but ill still play it lol
@@LeggyLegends Yeah Solas is a mega Twat.
In before the Solas fan girls (and boys) flood in.
Delicious Egg.
1:16:47 "Basically this game's Zevran" funny thing to note: Isabela is actually an NPC in Origins, and you can have a 4some with her, Zevran and Leliana. And yourself, of course.
*dwarvedunkard.exe has stopped working*
To me one of the most stand-out scenes is in Origins when Stan just growls at your Mabari dog. It's just so bizare, but yet charming. And I don't think I've ever seen something quite like it in any medium, not just game. ^^
The romances were part of the whole experience. Needing that emotional support in the context of being alone as a small group saving the world!
I always thought inquisition would have gone from 'alright' to 'pretty good ' if you got to play the the war table missions instead of the giant open areas. the story behind so many of them seemed really interesting
So true! I did every mission in those giant maps, every one of them, because I'm a completionist (so giant open areas like those are a nightmare for me) and so many of the war table missions sound infinitely more interesting.
I remember playing with my elf Inquisitor and being so frustrated that the whole future of my clan depended of a war table mission. I was lucky and my clan survived by pure luck but later I learned about how easy was getting all of them killed, and in the story doesn't matter... it's MY CLAN, they fact that they live or die should deserve more than a war table mission, but instead it doesn't matter at all!!!
@@ladyorapma YES! if no other table missions, at least being able to play the ones that had to do with the little ties to character origins would have been nice.
I love playing qunari, and always want to be able to meet my mercenary group - I WANT TO HEAR THE BAD POEMS DAMNNIT
i really hope that they keep this feature. I think Jackdaw suggested it could go great as a multiplayer factor because it doesn't distract from the story, and you can explore more of the lore in the land. I still liked the missions because I had more information about Thedas, but so much could be added there to boost the story!
What you don't like elf root ?
Yes! So many of the war table missions felt like stuff you should actually be doing Instead of running around the forest picking weeds and herding livestock.
For all of Dragon Age 2's flaws, I don't think any videogame I've played has ever hit me quite as hard as when Anders blew up the chantry, after I trusted him and helped him with his mission. I was heartbroken and furious. I felt so betrayed.
it’s even more intense when you’re romancing him. plus I love the dialogue options it opens up with Hawke in Inquisition when you specifically ask him about having to kill his lover
I've always believed DA2 did a better job of drawing emotions out of the player.
Lose a sibling at the very beginning right when you're getting into the combat and dialog system.
Another big change to a sibling to end the first act.
Eventually the mother
And by the end of the game you may not have any allies left but the one that's in Inquisition.
funny cause i felt the exact opposite, that was the moment I actually loved him
DA2 has a fantastic story. I don't think it could ever have gotten a positive response from fans at the time because of how different it was from DAO, but I'm glad that there's more appreciation for it now. We need small-scale stories in fantasy that are more about personal tragedy and less about saving the world.
@@vanyadolly your comment feels like it's dismissing all the other problems the game had
Your Conclusion section really sums up how utterly the world design and feel has changed in Inquisition. It doesn't even feel like the same world as in Origins.
Totally agree. Turning the elves into barefoot hippies was a lame move. I liked the Medieval-ish armors of DAO. I was not very fond of the "leisure suit armors" of Inquisition. I hated having the same armor look totally different on the PC and his companions. Even the improved Frostbite engine rubbed me the wrong way. The scenery was spectacular, but the PC and all the NPCs struck me as being pretty but lifeless figurines. NPCs seemed much more alive in Origins despite the older game engine. And to top it all off, the romantic interests in Inquisition stunk compared to Origins and even DA2. As a heterosexual male, I have to sadly say that the male love interests available for heterosexual female and gay male NPCs were prettier than the female love interests available for straight male and lesbian PCs! (Thank you Anita Sarkissian! :( )
@@folgore1 anita didnt do anything, the het female love interests are gorgeous, like fr, you get cassandra and josephine! icons! i get not liking vivienne thought shes a bitch. where as gay men have dorian, the annoying elitist piece of shit, and iron bull, the obvious choice. so that complaint is dumb. the other stuff is valid though, plus the fact that most of the companions are boring or annoying when the rest of the games have unique and interesting characters.
Im playing thru now just so I can get it over with and.. I'm just depressed playing the game. It isn't what I loved in the first game.
@@folgore1 Everyone looks fine, even like the one everyone says is ugly.
@@S_047 Which game? DA2 or Inquisition?
I know Dragon Age 2 has massive flaws, but I still can’t help but love it. Like a... it’s trash, but it’s my trash. Y’know.
This is my emotional support trash game, thanks
Despite its flaws I still loved it.
It has a great concept for its stories IMO, better than Inquisition.
But the gameplay is sOoOooO boring...
I have to agree, it was my second pc game i ever played and i still love it. Manly because it is so short
58:47 Actually there IS a lore reason why kirkwall looks that way, it has no houses or anything the like because it was never built to be an Urban or even Suburban area, it's a heavily fortified former slave trading out post for tevinter, that was turned fortress, and then turned city. it's been in a lot of wars both civil and other wise, as well as many rebellions. It's been fortified to stop that as a result. All the places in kirkwall that we visit are parts of thous original infrastructures. so spikes to stop invaders and slave rebels.
It's also of note that aside from high town and a bit of low town it's mostly built into the cliff side, along near by faults, or inside quarries. and all that's if you concede that a house can be built out of stone and the like. if you get stuck on wooden houses, then it's just not possibal for kirkwall to have houses, cause it's in the free marshes, and marshes aren't really lumber craft friendly places. Maybe there is a forest near by but we aren't shown one, we see the coast and the mountains to my knowledge and kirkwall is depicted as between them on the map. which most likely means the nearest forest is over a mountain or way up river? it's fascinating.
Good post but Kirkwall is in the Free Marches, not marshes. A march is just a frontier region.
@@Jacob-df5hr AH, hmm... ya know I've never really noticed that. It IS march not mash... still, we dont see any forest. Or any other wooded area.
@@GaleGrim man I know, Sundermount barely even has any trees on it lmao
@@Jacob-df5hr Thank for correcting me on masher V marches. It's embarrassing that I miss heard it as that for so long, but I'm glad to know it now.
@@GaleGrim it's nbd I enjoyed your comment, I hadn't even thought about how the geography would've affected what the city looked like
I really respect dragon age 2. To me, it’s a story about someone who is just trying to make it in the world and every time they get their shit together, an outside influence rekts it while the world around them become more and more hostile. Kirkwall was always a powder keg and I would make the argument that the lore surrounding Kirkwall tells a story about how the past echos and how the dead continue to affect the living
Dragon age 2 gets a lot of hate, but it is really underrated. Love that game.
Respect is a good way to put it. It was a chore to go through it, but it kept raising interesting questions, albeit in a really clumsy way.
Basically the opposite of Origins : one was a pile of clichés executed masterfully, the other offered innovative dilemmas and narratives while falling flat on its face doing it.
@@francisaustere1879 I agree with this assessment. 2 is a lot of fun but feels like an unpolished gem. The time jumps were the most glaring issue for me - it didnt feel like a year later at all, and it really took me out of the game. I wish they had more time.
The horrible product that was inquisition softened my heart on da2. Da2 is actually a pretty fun game
@@metaouroboros6324 The word "underrated" is literally the most overrated thing in human history.
"Bald head and sharp ears are the most interesting thing about Solas"
Later in the video: "Solas is a compelling character with a strong personality"
He could have used another pass on the script.
He is a good character much like Dorian everyone else deserve DAO murder knife.
9/10 Has a little something for everyone
The first line is a reference to Base game Solas. The second line is after the last dlc...
He was an insufferable egg in the base game
“There are no happy endings” actually there is, lop off logain’s head, marry alistair, become queen of ferelden. Alistair is happy because he’s getting that sweet Grey Wussy while you lead ferelden since he doesn’t want to.
No way you said grey wussy 😭👏🏼
😩
Honestly your “fanfic” is a better story. The struggle for power between leliana and Cassandra for the seat of the Divine and your status as a tool is dope.
1:59:00 for anyone who's interested.
This fooled me. I got bored with the game and stopped playing within 10-15 hours. This alternate plotline had me thinking I should give it another try.
Honestly, I don't think it's a big stretch that some variation of that fanfic will end up in the next DA because the next DA is (allegedly) set on Tevinter. So them thinking that the Inquisition is a ruse, made up of people that want to gain power from what they call a false idol (their Divine is not recognized by the Tevinter) is not something impossible to believe.
It would have been so good! If they were still going for the nuance of DA:O, this would probably have been the actual story. if only...
I don't really see a power grab as something in Cassandra's personality. Leliana definitely, especially if she feels it's for the 'greater good'. I dislike that Inquisition basically throws away any character growth Liliana had in Origins. You have to re-soften or re-harden her, but I guess it makes sense since she's been having to sacrifice so much in order to protect and work for Divine Justinia.
Dragon age origins, changed my perspective of RPGs in general. My favorite game of all time to this day.
How so and why? If you don’t mind my asking.
@@sebastianvelcro Well, I came from playing Morrowind, baldurs gate, etc. Which are both VERY good games, but when I played Dragon Age. I don't think I've been so immersed in a game. I genuinely got attached to my warden, shaping who they are as a person. Understanding their conquest to stop the Blight. Which would not have been able to be done without the amazing old Bioware studio. It wasn't a perfect game by any means. But, I'd be lying if I said I didn't replay the game over 30+ times. Every character, quest, had meaning, comedy, life and growth. Not to mention most of your choices mattered immensely to how your ending would turn out. I love it a lot!
@@-t96 love dragon age, One of the best games ever
@I want to suplex Joe Cecot
Comparing Dragon Age Origins to Skyrim is disingenuous. Compare it to Baldur's Gate 2 instead.
it made me play crpgs which I used to dislike
I agree a lot with the criticism of dialogue in DA:II, but I do feel the need to argue for the one dialogue option you used as an example. Although telling Isabella she isn’t a lying snake or whatever giving you rivalry points it’s definitely counterintuitive, I actually feel like that’s in character in a kind of interesting way.
Isabela’s character is very cynical, renegade, and hedonistic, so to me it makes sense that the stereotypical rpg good guy “no you’re a good person!” response would be dismissed. To Isabela at least, it comes across as disingenuous and naive, whereas valuing friendship over morality is in character for her. Being misled by that to me feels like a genuine type of misunderstanding that would happen in a real relationship. At the very least I know people who if you try and give them a straightforward “no you’re wrong” answer when it comes to their self hating/deprecating tendencies have the same kind of response. Not saying it’s healthy, but I do think it’s realistic, and even compelling.
Not trying to defend the overall dialogue system, and I see why it could still be unclear. But I thought that there was some more interesting nuance to that decision than portrayed.
It has been a long time since I played it, but I would guess that the consequence of the option is inconsistent. This companion system usually gives you points for sucking up to the companion. I would wager that your interpretation, although possible reasonable, is not evaluated consistently in other situations.
I think I finished Dragon Age: Origins about 10 times? This is probably the game that made me fall in love with RPGs. I would love to go back in time and experience this again
you beat me i did it 6 or 7 times . . . i would like a remaster (in graphics and gameplay like inquisition) but with the same story , build and mechanic
Origins was my first game of its kind, grew even more attached to it and finished it 4-5 times
i love da origins. i finished it once.
@@bobbeatboxthere are some mod attempts at remasters, not perfect but they fix the atmosphere and textures a lot, really elevates it without changing it
10:20 , I'd say Tranquility is more like a magical lobotomy, in my opinion. Also, to me, that makes it incredibly more terrifying a prospect of punishment
The situation wasn't even morally gray. It's black and white. Rite of Tranquility is very obviously morally wrong
@@BintanginTayaExcept that literial demons exist in that world and can possess and dickhead shooting sparks from his fingers resulting in a living bomb killing 20 people. Is the freedom of one person worth the safety of the collective? It requires some thought at least.
@@keyanklupacs6333 Is the subjugation of an entire group of people morally right?
@@BintanginTaya Is letting people liable to set fire to an entire village by accident, without some oversight, and a less than ideal method of preventing the unstable ones wrong?
The DA:O mage friend did turn out to be a blood mage, he did it because he thought it would make him a better mage, despite the fact that it was that very tendency that put him on the chopping block.
@@adamjenkins7653 Then you are an idiot
Dragon Age: Origins can be forgiven for it’s combat (which I thoroughly enjoyed anyways because each play through gave me more knowledge of its intricacies) because it wasn’t going for anything ground breaking. It was, and still is, an amazing story that is the video game equivalent of writing a book, but using a game to tell the story as opposed to ink, paper, and a flashy looking cover.
Mediocre combat is forgivable when the overarching story and characters are interesting and cohesive, another grand example is the Witcher III. Today games have become so action focused with fast paced, flashy combat that any backstory becomes blurred and secondary.
"Even the person who doesn't play Dragon Age, or even care about the series, I appreciate you watching the video."
That was nice of you, to acknowledge that even John Epier can be watching your video.
One of my favorite things about this series is actually the romances, as cheesy as they are. Origin felt like a interactive book, where the story was so good and you got so attached to the characters it just made sense that feelings would evolve after months together in dangerous situations. Allister is cheesy and sweet at the same time, Anders romance is so tragic if you're with him till the end, and Solas' romance could be so deep if you're an elf, especially with the next game being centered with him.
I only got to playthrough once, but my romance partner was Morrigan. I went into the last battle distracted by her disappearance. I had bought into her and my character living happily ever after. Instead he got baby daddied lol
@@bwestacado9643 that's how I felt after I did a playthrough with her as a romance option. Did you play the Witch Hunt expansion? It really adds to her story and you can join her and your son to live together through the Eluvian. That made me feel a bit better about the pair lol.
@@bwestacado9643 there is a dlc where the warden follows her to some different dimension where they raise their kid together
Alistair is unironically one of my favorite characters of all time. I related so much with his lack of confidence and uplifted my bro in every step of the journey. Im not gonna lie, the actor voicing the mage in baldurs gate 3 is enough reason for me to pick that game, that is how much I adore him.
@@zzxp1 The fact that Origins managed to have the exact opposite effect on me (ended up killing or banishing Alistair in all of my playthrough but one) speaks volume to how good the game is
I don't think Cassandra and Leliana needed purely cynical motives in order to make the Inquisition morally grey. Cassandra is a hothead who's idealistic but quick to violence, Leliana is a cynical utilitarian who increasingly sees people as pawns, and both are utterly convinced of their own righteousness. Either of them could pretty easily go off the deep end and do something morally dubious without Bioware radically changing their beliefs and personality. Having the Inquisition start out reasonable and get more radical over time seems like it would fit the series themes pretty well.
Edit: Also, I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like I interpreted those John Elper tweets way differently than everyone else. The PC's companions are kind of like their family and that element was central to Dragon Age from the beginning. You can say that he's focusing too much on one part of the series, but I don't think it's a totally indefensible interpretation of the games' values.
Feel like the point of Corypheus was entirely missed, he wasn't an evil dude who just loves evil, he has this whole speech where he talks about how he tried to break into the throne room of God only to find the throne was empty (this was the event that created the Darkspawn). He is now obsessed with trying to return to that throne room because he thinks that the universe needs a God and that he could be it. The Chantry thinks he had a delusion given to him by demons during his first attempt, it is classic Dragon Age ambiguity. Yes everything revolves around Corypheus in the game because like... he is an insane super being trying to literally become God and only you, an absolute nobody who happened to stumble upon the rift mark can stop him.
Yeah, I quite like him myself. Raw lines and interesting story ideas. I just haaaaate his boss fight; the events around it feel so rushed and contrived and unearned. I think he would be more memorable and more favorably perceived if his fight was given better buildup and if he was made to be a bigger threat. Like this video says, a "Haven 2.0."
@@breendart134 He is built up if you played the DA2 DLC though, and he is proceeded by his reputation, as being one of those fabled magisters who entered heaven according to the chantry in origins.
Either way I don't think you're supposed to focus so much on him, and more on the mystery and what's going on with everything. If you play the game hack and slashing and aren't intrigued by the mystery, then sure, it's like watching a sherlock holmes movie with no interest in murder mysteries. The whole game is setting up this big question you don't understand, and then at the end it's revealed with the whole dreadwolf twist.
@@7PlayingWithFire7 In my opinion, a post-credit reveal does not excuse an underwhelming boss fight. And I do not buy that I'm not supposed to focus on the character who is presented for most of the game as the main villain. I love Corypheus' build up in the Legacy DLC of 2, and he is a very challenging fight in that game, but the fight in DAI feels rushed (he just shows up without any sort of real finale sequence to get to him) and the combat against him is way too easy (as someone who plays on higher difficulties). I think there's a lot to like about Corypheus - but that doesn't mean that he and the game's narrative structure are by any means above my criticism.
"Who was the urban planner for Kirkwall, f*king Lucifer?"
I just spat up my dang drink and made a mess. 🤣
I was just about to post this comment! I love it haha
It used to be a slave market, so... Yes
As a matter of fact, Anders personality changes during the 3 acts. Its seen in the party banter conversation, between him and mainly Varrric. While in act 1 they joke around how they are going to murder People like Meredith and with what methode, in Act 3 he doesnt joke anymore. Varric calls him out ofr it and says that he has changed. While they could have made it more appearent in the ialouge with HAwk directly, they have actually made the journey from Awakening to Da2, but very subtle.
To me it wasn't subtle at all. I finished awakening and got right into DA:2 Cause it had just gotten out. I was SO happy. Then I met Anders and...he was just so different. Making a couple jokes doesn't make up for the absolute dramatic character shift he had. It was so jarring to me that I still remember it now
@@EvaLoVerde That wasn't what I was talking about. In the video, he complained about Anders not changing during the entire second game and just being a one-note character. I disagreed with him and said there is very well character development of Anders in DA2, but it isn't very obvious if you don't look for it. That Awakening Anders and DA2 Anders are completely different people is obvious and kind of easy to explain away with the fact that he has become an abomination and is slightly politicized. But that's not what I was talking about.
I believe the theme for DA2 is more abstract than what we saw in DAO and DAOA, DA2 is a story about fortune. The vicissitudes of fortune to be precise. This is not the fortune that favors the bold, the greco-roman fortune, it's the medieval Fortuna, which pushes you around like a ragdoll and you can't do anything about it. It exemplifies how something always goes wrong no matter how hard you try, it's a story about impotence, or alternatively, accepting fortune and trying to make do with circumstances that are out of your control. It's the opposite of a power fantasy in the midst of a genre that sometimes feels like a huge power trip. It reminds me a lot of Disco Elysium, in that sense... We could say that DA2 did that first but not so much in an open and obvious way. No matter how hard you try to sympathise with or understand the qunari and their religion, if Isabela ends up betraying you, there's nothing you can do but make do with a terrible situation that you couldn't have realistically changed. Same goes for act 3 and the lyrium sword (that plot point reminded me the most about Disco Elysium, how in the end sometimes ocurrences are totally senseless no matter how much theorising you put into your previous deductions)... From humble beginnings to whatever you wish, Hawke's story is about dealing with fortune in its most brutal and merciless form. I believe that if we saw the story in this light we would appreciate it more, even though the gameplay leaves much to be desired and the writing pales in comparison to DAO. The world of DA2 is a world that has its own interests, it's not just a canvas to be shaped by the actions of the player. And somehow that makes it feel more genuine, as if just like in reality, things do resist to your desires, and the bigger they are, the more resistance they encounter.
Nah it just had a really rushed development, people who defend this are reading way to much into this game.
@@adeptdamage3669 He has a point. A rushed game can still be true to its theme, and the theme of the game is what he mentioned.
All this explanation for a garbage game
You've summed up my feelings perfectly on the story of this game.
The game is centred around the repercussions of the world that's out of your control. You're not some chosen one (i.e Grey Warden or Inquisitor) ready to save the world. You're just an immigrant running away from conflict with your family and building yourself up in a city that's rife with conflict and struggle.
It's not black and white, everyone had their reasons for doing the things they thought was right and you're stuck in the middle of it, exactly the same as immigrants in real life.
Enjoyment from this game's narrative and characters comes from realising the fact that you're the underdog, you don't always win. It's not what most CRPG fans are used to, but it's the reality of our world.
I've never played a AAA game that so accurately portrays the feeling of being powerless in a world surrounded by conflict.
Even though the game had shitty design gameplay wise, I really empathised with its narrative and characters!
I agree with this and it’s one of the things I like about the game. Hawke affects the world they inhabit but they don’t control the world. There are other people in Hawke’s universe and they have their own problems which boil over and become mass movements that Hawke gets caught up in. It was pretty brave of the developers to make a fantasy rpg where no matter what you do, you can’t prevent bad things from happening to characters you like and you don’t get to be king of the world. Hawke’s story is a tragedy and we know this from the framing device so instead of being invested in a specific set of outcomes, we’re invested in Hawke’s journey. At least I was.
I feel tearful for those Dragon age Origins nostalgic music. It was my first exposure to high fantasy and will live in my heart forever!
Same omg
Inquisition has better music
@@beezystuff3 nahhhh true fans of dragon age will always remember the first time booting up origins and hearing that music
Hold on, Corepheus told you what he wanted in your first meeting in a fairly cliche villain monologue. He tells you that he was one of the Tevinter Mages that broke into the Golden City and found that the "throne of the Maker" was empty. His plot is to break in once again and take that seat for himself and become a God. Am I the only one who finds that fascinating because it means all of the myths that the Chantry preaches is actually true and he is the proof - or it could be that he is just some mad Dark Spawn like the Architect.
Given that Corphy was the high priest to Dumat who was the first of the Old Gods, I think he - is - actually one of the remaining original Magisters Sidereal who entered the fade and started the blight. Game lore says he was Sethius Amladaris before he went by Corphy.
DA:I dlc basically sets up the pre-human war between the Elves and Dwarves which arguably led to the Blight being created (theory time: from Andruil experimenting on long dead titans) and the veil was created to contain its spread between both the fade and physical parts of the games world.
The only reason why the Golden City wouldve been Black upon visiting it for the first post-veil would be from centuries of exposure to the Blight, which is confirmed through DAI
@@leftlucid isn’t the Black City just the part of Arlathan that was in the fade? And the blight was the other elven gods attempt at killing Solas iirc?
@@3adgamd3r yes the Golden/Black city is thought to be the Fade part of Arlathan, but im saying if it was already Black/Blighted by the time Corphy broke through then the blight had been doing damage for awhile.
Andruil went mad because she found the “corruption” or Blight which means the Elven gods nd Solas were trying to contain it
@@leftlucid yeah, it does seem like the blight is a form of a virus, that was contained, and when the magisters entered the black city, they got tainted, and then returned back to the world, and then infected others.
It's a very brave perspective from bioware actually. Most of the developers probably just try to giv us some "very serious scientific explanation" to explain everything in this fantasy world.
To this day Origins is the best game I ever played. I remember waiting for the second Mass Effect and, later, for Dragon Age 2 as Bioware games were amazing. Hell, I learned English because of these games. And to this day I curse EA...
Ea Should of never been
Dragon Age Origins has the best dialogue choices I've ever experienced. It's the only game where I've felt the player character became a fully realised person entirely through playing them, not by writing a backstory in advance.
Also, mechanically I love this era of Bioware when they focused on powerful abilities and interesting builds and didn't give a damn about balance (at least in the player's favour), which really doesn't matter in a single player RPG. What matters is the feelings of threat, progress and power, and this delivers in spades. In terms of character builds, Dragon Age Awakening is my favourite fantasy game (beating even BG2 and Dark Souls 2).
Btw, the strongest builds in the game are actually dual-wield warriors/rogues and archer rogues, both using their basic attacks (if built correctly).
Mages are basically easy mode.
Mages on harder difficulties are pretty much controllers / Healers , Duel Warriors or Dagger Rogues backstabbing benefiting from haste are by far the best damage dealers
I would highly recommend Disco Elysium
@@Neuroticmancer It's on the list :)
@@Christhegreatbro an Arcane/Blood mage PC can mostly solo nightmare difficulty with 4 active spells Forcefield/inferno or blizzard/Blood Wound/blood sacrifice. I finished it with my companion as blood packs (Full constitution stats and health regen gears also they don't fight lol) . It's fun playthrough and its easy when you get the blood mage specialization.
Dragon Age 2, story wise, was a hit for me, because the message I read in Hawke's story was "Sometimes you lose through no fault of your own. You can do everything right, and still fail. You're one person, you can't inflict your will on the world against the tide of thousands of other wills. But you can, for a while, enjoy what you have and cherish the people and things around you, and take comfort in each other."
"At 50 to 60 hours..."
Me, already with over 110 hours in DAO and not even finished the base game yet: ...
Pardon... how?
@@thatdodo8263 Probably has to do with the fact that I can rarely let more than 2 second pass in combat without pausing. And that I spend way too much time trying to determine the optimal equipment for each of my party members. And that I'm an insane completionist (although even I stopped caring about the notice board quests after a while).
@@benl2140 i hope you didnt miss that one Blackstone quest when you have to get a guy in Lothering before it gets destroyed by darkspawn i always forget about him
@@benl2140 still 110h is around the time it takes me to finish everything on nightmare
@Ellana Wolf with all the dlcs playing at nightmare and with a lot of pauses it can be easily done but after finish the game several times you will be finishing way before that
1:09:40 I'm gonna have to play devil's advocate and defend this interaction. You are not considering Isabella's personality and history: she *is* a lying thieving snake. She is a pirate by caree, so why would she want someone to say some meaningless bullshit about being a good person? Hawk accepting her nature, and valuing her despite it is far more meaningful.
Wow. You aren’t bitter, are you? ☺️. I suppose I am the same towards a) My mother-plowing “family” that stabbed me in the back during the Noble Dwarf origin, and b) that manipulative twat Anders.
Why are not all reputation checks as deep? Sorry, it doesn't check out. Consistency is important.
Because DA2’s companion influence system isn’t “Best Buddy” vs “Hated Enemy”. It’s a lot more akin to “Kindly supportive” and “Bullshit caller”. The four romanceable companions can be romanced at full Rivalry, characters are more loyal to a full Rival Hawke than they are to someone in the middle ground.
In that dialog’s case? It’s not about “Nice” versus “Mean”. It’s about “Sure, I’ll let you hide back into those lies you surround yourself about being selfish and ready to run at any time” versus “...dudette, that’s bullshit, you did the right thing for selfless reasons, stop thinking the worst about yourself”.
All of the romanceable companions have personality issues. Isabella has massive commitment issues and self-loathing. Merrill is delusional about the level of control she has over her Blood Magic. Fenris is consumed by a desire for vengeance and his hatred of mages, all mages, everywhere (except Bethany). Anders is obsessed over Mage Freedom at any cost (literally any cost...) and delusional about how much being possessed by Justice is changing him.
The “Friendship” path is comforting them, making them feel safe and welcome, maybe trying to help them with it softly. Rivalry is not letting that stuff lie, while still their friend (most of the time). It wasn’t pulled off perfectly, but like a lot of DA2, it was trying something interesting.
@@Bollibompa you again ? lol DA2 is consistant (rewatch the video) same location , same enemy , same encounter . . . everything is consistant (if thats not clear that im actually sarcastic then i need to point it out) btw i got it right when i said it was bioware and EA (did just not have a dam clue EA purchsed Bioware as i clearly pointed out i dont care about the companies)
The only thing I miss is the companion AI, it was amazing to give them the ability to heal themselves and protect the healer if she was attacked and so on.
I swear, the highlights of Inquisition was seeing Scout Harding each time you discover a new zone. And that fancy event.
Until you realized you couldn't romance her 😩
@@sidiouswargaming3971 you actually can
@@nicovelardita8619 A single line by Vivienne during Trespasser does not a romance make.
@@andrewaddison777 I didn't said it was a good romance hehe
I don't know if it got patched out, but I could only flirt with her ever once and never again on repeated playthroughs, very strange
Deep Road-itis? I think you mean Fuck the Fade Fever.
I found the Fade cool on the first go through cause I liked the challenge of figuring out how to get through, but I don't think it has much replay value. I use the Skip the Fade mod on subsequent playthroughs.
@@Becca-bm8rt I liked the Fade the first time too but the blurry camera effects gave me a literal headache. Bless whoever made that mod!
The fade wasn't that bad. I breezed through it in 30 minutes tops on my first go. Though I am a fast learner so there's that.
The deep roads on the other hand. Hahahahahahahahahahahahhahah. Worst. Section. Ever!!!
The Battle of Haven in Inquisition (One of my least favorite sections in it) at least didn't overstay it's welcome.
The Deep Roads are supposed to be massive AND filled with monsters. Doing otherwise is spitting over the Dwarves (which won't be surprising, nobody likes the Dwarves even though they're much more interesting than the tolkienesque elves which has been done to death).
@@budakbaongsiah Yea imagine not being able to reclaim your lost cities with literally empty Deep Roads....xD
If you take Solas everywhere he usually have one opinion that he'll change over time even apologise. That trait means he's able to change and i hope that in DA IV we get to interact with him a lot and maybe change the outcome of his goal.
I'm hoping for that too.
It turns out the real Dragon Age was the pansexual friends-with-benefits we made along the way.
People need to cut it out with these comments cause they kill me every time I read one. LMFAO
Yes. We can *all* agree with this, right???
Fuckin underrated comment 😹😹😹😹😹
What why tf did you bring that into this game
*Laughs in bioware*
Dragon age origins was something else when it released back in the day, it was part of a peak era of gaming.
DAO for me is like a big, dark, and well-written 1000 pages fantasy novel with an amazing story and characters. It was not afraid to be scary, to be dark. DAO sets the tone right at the main character's prologue where you can be betrayed by your own brother or your cousin might be kidnapped be raped by the son of the arl or your entire family will be killed betrayed someone they considered a friend. And it will hold this tone right until the end, I remember how the Deep Roads quest with Broodmother scared the young me so much back then I was afraid to continue to play this game lol. I don't replay it often, it's a big game and I'm not a fan of the battles tbh, I prefer something more fast-paced, but it wouldn't fit in DAO overall style.
DA2 is like a novel that everyone hates, but it's my guilty pleasure. There are weak moments in the game of course, like repetitive locations, unnecessary time jumps, etc, but I love it anyway. I love the story, it's dark too, but not in the way DAO was dark. It's about a character who tries hard to have a better life, but each time it comes with a cost. Each time they succeed, they lose something dear. They get to Kirkwall but lose their sibling. They get a mansion, a title, and riches, but another sibling leaves them (or even dies too), they become Champion, but their mother dies in a horrible way. And I love the scene near the end of act 3, where Bodhan says that he and Sandal are planning to leave, and there was such a feeling of loneliness there. Hawke tried so hard to give their family a good life, but in the end, they're all gone. And there's no way to get a good and happy ending for in DA2, you either leave or stay and become a Viscount of a broken city, and Hawke will lose it anyway in DAI. This game is not everyone's cup of tea, many people hate it for a variety of reasons, but I replay DA2 often with all the dlc, and each time I love it a bit more. I really wish Bioware had more time to work on DA2, not some 18 months, but like two or three years of development. But oh well, we got what we got I guess.
DAI is weird. I can't say it's a bad game, but I just can't love it the way I love DAO or DA2. I just feel detached from everything that happens in the game, and the main story itself is kinda short if you think of it. Corypheus was great in DA2, his boss battle in Legacy was one of the hardest for me in DA2, but in DAI he's kinda meh. The game looks beautiful, but kinda empty and the Inquisitor has a personality of a cardboard box. DAI is probably my least favorite game in the series. I did want to love it, but I just couldn't.
I agree with you completely. For some reason, I love DA2, and I have played it through several times. I love it, despite the weaknesses you mentioned. And of course Origins was the first one I got and it was such an amazing quest-type game that I could spend hours and hours playing. It felt really magical to me and I was hooked from the first day. Inquisition just feels…I don’t know, bulky? Too much stuff in it that feels irrelevant to the story. I have still played it a lot, but not my fave.
Inquisition is the only one i've played and boy, that game is tiring, it's so close to being great but it just never reaches it's apex, i finished all the side quests before focusing on the main story after a short break, and it was just meh, the most interesting stories were told on the war table
DA2 It's not only my favorite game of the series, it is literally my favorite game, so I completely feel you on the guilty pleasure thing.
@@kron7536 SZFffszszszsszfSFFSSSSZSSSSZSSSSZSSZSSSSSZSFSSzasszsszssssssszssssssssssssfssaszssssssssssssssssffs
This comment perfectly captures my sentiments as well. Objectively, I should be able to say that Inquistion was better than DA2 and yet if I were to replay either of them.. I'd much prefer DA2. For all it's faults it's still a charming and enjoyable experience while Inquistion just has this clunky, janky, vaguely mmo style pointless feel to it
Omg, “Alistair but ugly, Alistair on meth, Alistair with an extra chromosome” I cackled laughing at that, really took me by surprise lol. This video is great :) I love all 3 games but it does highlight the issues with the two later ones. Hopefully those at Bioware will take critiques like this into consideration for the next instalment!
Then hopefully Sony will release Bloodborne on Steam and they'll be world peace forever and all the dead people will come back to life.
I laughed like a scooby doo villain at those
Poor girl, so hopeful and full of positivity. It's sad that just dealing with the gaming industry will leave her jaded and untrusting
Dragon Age Origins, Dragon May Cry 2, and Bald Simulator 2014
Dragon Age Origina, Mages and Templars tantrum with 5% dragons, The Egg and his betrayal
That bald did look crisp tho tbh
In Dragon Age 4 Solas will destroy the world by standing in the sun. Its rays shall reflect from his head and bathe the world in a shining radiance that will burn it away in an intense searing flash.
The mosaic pieces and bottles of wine are put into a sort of basement treasury area in skyhold. It’s pretty cool to fill the empty rooms up with ur collectibles
They should do a dragon age origins remaster
Dude, your amazing analysis and clear passion for RPGs has had me sat watching hours and hours of reviews for game series I’ve never even played. Stellar work
Like so many on here, came back to watch again after the release of DA4 - a good reminder of what it was supposed to be. Look forward to your analysis after the fact.
Considering Anders and his Chantry Annihilation: Mage towers had been annulled ~17 times in up to this point in DA history, sometimes for no real reasons. He probably considered the game score 17-1 at this point.
Well the algorithm didn’t recommend me the first one, but it did recommend the second, so I guess it works out?
Same here
It just works
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@@pedrorenault5335 thanks Todd, very cool.
was there a first one? wut
I think one of the best parts of DA lore is that it does not just list history/facts but tells you the history through the perspective of a variety of authors. It means that the player has the choice to take a lot of info at face value or interrogate sources for motives/ideology and question the status quo within the world. This is why I think despite all its flaws the plot for DA2 does such a good job of forcing the player to confront the uncomfortable divide between the mages and templars and how this divide is bigger than just the events and choices of Hawke. You play a main character, yes, but they are not the be all end all of the universe
I thoroughly enjoyed the dragon age series. The party member relationships were what drew me in.
I love these long analysis videos. I can tell you out a lot of work into these videos. Keep it up!
SILENCE VERIFIED
ua-cam.com/video/IJ5mLkdp_tA/v-deo.html
Then you'll love this guy
@@dkj62990 ffffffffxffff. H zaa as
Appreciate the work you put in for these videos, I'm sure they're time consuming, but I have a bone to pick with the way you describe DA2's story, especially with your understanding of Anders/Justice character and the Qunari Arc. First of all the Qunari were not immigrants, they were more like a foreign reprsesentative/diplomatic force on a mission to reclaim an item of significant religious and cultural importance to them. The Fereldans were the Refuges/immigrants. The Fereldans tried to integrate themselves in Kirkwall society (looking for jobs, getting political power, invested in the city's well-being etc.), the Qunari did not. They simply were there in order to to complete their mission and then fuck off back to Par Voleen. Kind of weird to imply that these to groups were similar. More than that, the Qunari didn't take every possible step to undermine the city's rules, leaders or societal norms. They were content to live in the area of town that was provided to them by the city's authorities untill their mission was complete. The Arishok didn't just decide to massacre the city because he got a '' little angry'', he put up with a lot throughout the almost a decade of stay in the city. It was the unjustified hatred towards his people that ''forced'' his hand. We literally play through a mission where we see hyper nationalistic fanatics rounding up random Qunari and executing them. We can definitely assume that the Qunari were looked upon with extreme disdain by a part of Kirkwall's citizens. But even after hate crimes and needless racism and descrimination, what tipped the Arishok over the edge was when the leader of that hyper nationalistic/religious ideology/organization murdered the Viscount's son, who was a friend of the Qunari, in an attempt to blame the murder on the Qunari and force the city's leaders to take arms against them. That's when the Arishok almost verbatum say's to Hawke '' Yea well you know what, we literally have done nothing to these people, we haven't harmed them or meddled in their affairs but now they pushed it too far and we''ll cleanse the city in the name of the Qun''. The massacre they inflicted on the city was undoubtably horrific and morally wrong, but to just boil it down to ''they were cunts and when they got a little angry the just massacred innocents for almost no reason'' is not only a reductive, but a juvenile way of understanding the story that was told throughout a small part of Act 1 and the entirety of Act 2.
Glad I’m not alone! While watching the video I felt like I was going crazy. I was just like, did I seriously misinterpret the entirety of the Qunari and their purpose in Kirkwall??
No, no I did not.
I feel like in this video DA2's and DAI's plot were presented in a dumbed down way to make DAO look better, like you could say that DAO was about a cliche hero chosen by fate, fighting the big bad to save the day with their quirky companions. Also in the DAO part he voiced his opinion about Alistair and Morrigan being good characters to later in the Inquisition part make an argument that whether a character is good or not is subjective...
@@poisonbiscuits you're literally the chosen one in all of them. Maybe not to the same extent in DA2 but 100% in Inq
That appears to be what he does with every entry in a series that doesn't meet his personal expectations and interests.
Amen
Wait a second
This seems familiar.
It’s a re upload
Deja vu.
Its a bomb
@@mb-ue8um A BOMB JC
Right? It took me until dragon age 2 kirkwall discussion for me to realize it was a re upload lmao
I loved the break down of one of my favorite games. The only thing I was bothered with was your explaining of Corypheous. In game he claims to be one of the group of magisters that tried to break into the Golden City and corrupted it making him one of the very first darkspawn and abominations. His self proclaimed goal is to use the magic in your hand to open a portal to the fade and make himself God.
1:13:19 You CAN permanently clear out those enemies- there’s even a side quest for it. A member of the friends of red jenny pays you for completing each group.
I wouldn't call the codices boring; it's a bit like being an archeologist. And I always look forward to Brother Genitivi's next entry.
You have to give credit where its due: a video game made me want to read.
"I hate the way it's going and lament what it abandoned and think it's vastly inferior, but I'm going to buy it anyway."
This is one major reason why things get worse and worse and move further away from what made them great in the first place.
ikr
Micro transactions, paid dlc, live service, pre ordering unfinished games, loot boxes. If idiot gamers didn't eat this shit up it wouldn't exist.
But...if I just pay for the pre-order so I can get the day 1 DLC and immediately get the season pass that costs the same amount as the base game then maybe theyll retroactively redo the entire game to no longer be offensively inoffensive, brain-dead streamlined musou gameplay, and re-hire those who have long left after yet another developer became poisoned by corporate bs!
She's dead Jim. You have to let it go.
This is the reason I refuse to buy Inquisition. It's such a polished single player mmo turd without any depth or charm it's not even funny anymore. I LOVED DA2 despite its many, many gameplay shortcomings but Inquisition isn't worth the gigs it takes on my hard drive, much less $60.
@@Anna-md5nc I feel there is some charm....if you watch it through dragon age T.V on youtube where they manage to make a somewhat good thing to watch, despite how silly bows look for the main character.
duncan didn't kill a companion -just- for having doubts. the companion was killed because he was backing out and the grey wardens HAD to keep the details of the joining secret so potential recruits wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. nothing spoils a secret quicker then someone terrified by it.
Which makes them a messed up cult.
They lure new and naive candidates with promises of glory but hide all risks. And once you learn about the risks it's already way too late.
Dragon Age 2 was actually my first Dragon Age game (bc i was young and new to the series and i was gifted it by someone who thought i might like it) and tbh i know ppl hate it but it’s still my favorite of the games
i know there are flaws and i know ppl don’t like it, but i still have a huge soft spot for it
I remember watching my uncle playing origins when I was about 9 and the world and it’s characters was unlike anything I’d ever played before. The characters, the setting and the lore were all just fantastic and the fact that the choices you made from one game carried over to the next games was mind blowing. I eventually bought my own copy of the game and loved it. Heck if it wasn’t for Origins, I never would have been introduced to things like Lord of The rings and the High fantasy genre in general.
The talk about BioWare and EA redeeming themselves did not age well.
Ad-free long format content. this channel is such a gem
Tranquil is more like a magical version of a lobotomy, rather than a castration, but go off lol. Good vid though
Thats the same thing to some people ;)
@@cheezburgrproduction That's because some people think with their balls.
I always saw it as an allegory for mentally ill people going on psych meds. It dulls but pacifies people, and it is a sad solution to a sad problem.
@@del5582 Nah. My meds don't dull/pacify me, they make it possible for me to live cause I'm not constantly wading through symptoms. Tranquility seems far more like an analogy for a lobotomy to me.
@@Becca-bm8rt Antipsychotic meds are a literal chemical lobotomy. Studies on monkeys show they physically deteriorate the brain. But I'm sure your psychiatrist prescribes them off-label because you had a tummy ache.
21:31
Both the Codex and characters actually make note of the fact that The Fade is a representation of the real world, composed by beings that lack creativity of their own and as such, resort to copying human realities. (But yes, I also think it was a strange choice to maintain the brownish colors at all times)
Dragon Age Origins remains a game I will show to my non-gamer friends and get them into RPG gaming. The story and characters and dialog are gripping. But it never seems to fail that if they then eagerly grab DA2... they experience what I did... disappointment. These friends are also usually not willing to give Inquisition a try, and if they do, they are meh about it.
On the other hand, I have met many new fans of the series who started with Inquisition and love it, and don't understand why those of us who came at it from the start of the series often don't agree.
The forgotten and the chosen. An iconic tale eternally retold in the world and in stories.
I am in the 2nd camp
I feel like dao had a focus on the narrative and inquisiton on the game aspect. Theres so much filler "video game" content in dai it gets very boring very fast, especially because of how infrequent party banters are. I wouldve done all the misc quest in origins where i find myself avoiding it in inquisition and the origins also feel very left field when inquisition gives you the race specific dialogue trees.
Da2 just feels like its own game or an inbetween between the two games. I can see why people disliked it, but if you play it as the story of "hawke," i find it more enjoyable and you feel like an actual found family with your companions
@@megasocky Yes. I agree.
@@megasocky
Yeah, I think you captured the pros and cons of both games. I love all the games but I can tell why someone might not like the first, second, the three and the games in between the main 3.
Fun fact, I never met Isabella. I was filling in the questionnaire thing for Inquisition and it asked a question about her and I just stared blankly.
weird she is a playable compagnion (i know in origins you can "refuse" the to join you or just not save them like Sten in his jail) but i did not know you could miss her and dont meet her at all . . . she was my favorite in the series
I met her, but the game bugged during her mission, so I haven't be able to recruit her. When I found that the "solution" was to reload the save and wait before picking up the quest item, I was too ahead with the story and didn't want to go back and replay it. Meh.
In my first Origin run I never met Leliana. I didn't see the tavern door and left Lothering without meeting her
@@beniaminorocchi yep, happened to me, as well. Which is a bummer because of her involvement in Inquisition.
@@sirbradfordofhousejones I loved it though, made my second run much more interesting
I played dragon age 2 first, I was young and late to the series. I absolutely loved it's take on fantasy and the first chance I got to get origins I got it. Keep in mind I was of the generation that didn't like prequels, the new stuff should always be better, the mindset of my group. But I still loved it, because not only was the game THAT good, the series was, the lore was THAT good. I then bounced around and played both games every now and then, they'd always be a go-to for me if I was ever bored. I can remember when inquisition came out, I pre-ordered it. I loved it too, it was a mix of origins style and dragon age style, the developers learned what was wrong and they improved on it. I especially am fond of it because this game came well before monetization became seriously mainstream. Yes its in it BUT only online and I never had an issue with that. Dragon age always has a place in my heart.
I played Origins on release and had crazy high hopes for it, it being a Bioware game. Bioware were the best in the world at the kind of game I liked playing.
Origins blew me away. It was excellent in every way. It felt cinematic and epic and it lived up to the hype and also the reputation of Bioware.
Luv and Peace.
Origins isn’t a prequel though it does sound like one
God I love Origins, the other DA games are still more or less exactly what im looking for in a game but man Origins is in a league of its own.
As a whole, with everything released so far. I have always thought that the overall tone for Dragon Age was... History and how it’s shaped.
Origins was the foundation. It set the tone, shapes the world and created the lore. It built the world, it was dark, gritty, and at times... glitchy and clunky. But with all of this, it gave us a foundation to jump off from.
DA2 embodied and emboldened this theme of History and perception of history. What better way to move this theme along, than having a story told literally in the third person by Varric. I always assumed, that DA2 was told like one of Varric’s badly written novels. Since he is literally shaping Cassandra’s perception of reality and history throughout the whole game. Maybe the generic maps and repeated enemies were a design choice and we all just missed the greater point to the game. If the game as looked at through this Lense, it’s secretly brilliant... just not very fun or entertaining.
Finally, Inquisition flipped the scrip. It took pre-established lore and told us, everything we knew was wrong. Because “History is written by the victor.” Who was the victor in this story, The Chantery. They have shaped all of our knowledge since Origins. After the M/T conflict and war, and the Chantery lost most of it’s influence and power. A third, unbiased force, the inquisition, set out to make the world right. As such, it discovered real lore and things thought lost, dead or buried. Even so much as our perception of Magic, the Fade, Elven Gods, Old Gods, Tevinter, shit everything.
I may be totally wrong in this assessment, but this is what I took from the series.
Side Note to my opinion personal opinion. Great work on the retrospective. Much praise.
Well this was well put together
The Qunari are the most interesting and compelling for me. The Arishok in DA2 is one of my favourite characters.
Being real the generic maps and repeated enemies in DA2 is just because the game was very rushed and they gave them no time to do anything better, but one of my favourites headcanons that I seen in this fandom is basically what you mentioned, that they are like that because Varric is telling the story and he's just bad describing things, or that he's not even describing places, he just says "a mansion" and Cassandra imagines the same generic one each time.
I don't think that was the plan or that it was a design choice, but thinking like that makes it more fun.
@@ladyorapma agreed
I love this interpretation!
Hearing the last 10 mins makes one really sad how they threw away what they set up before. But i guess "the message" is way more important than bringing the story to a conclusion.
Also "Why are there spikes" well because Kirkwall is a goddamn repurposed Tivinter prison!
I think people have been living there long enough to replace the stair case spikes with handrails.
@@blahmarduk With what money? Also the powerful citizens will not let them.
@@blahmarduk you say that when there's still confederate statues in America
As well as a slavers bay
Look maybe Kirkwall just has a really bad pigeon problem and the spikes are there to stop them from roosting :P
Origin was so good. One of the games I've had more fun with.
Origins was the only good Dragon Age sadly.
I loved all of them for the story two almost ruined it for me with the repetitive areas but I did love how much faster fighting was for all characters. Inquisition only thing I didn’t like was the side quests that had no meaning to the quests or main story itself just kind of thrown in but really loved all of them they were each unique and awesome in their own way. Like mass effect each different but each brought something. Awesome at least in my opinion
I think origin was by far the best, but I think they all have their own merits
@@joshuaandersen1075 won’t lie origins I loved as it offer more of a backstory to your character and I liked how you got to play it out a bit even two had it but inquisition just sort of gave you a brief look at your backstory instead I miss when you could play that first hour or two and get a feel for your character then get thrown into chaos although DA2 was chaos from the beginning lol
@@xanatricebass2741 yeah I replayed DA2 a lot even if it was super repetitive. I mean, despite that, I've never felt so emotional playing a game like I did when Hawkes mother died. And ofc the romances were good as always, it was incredibly unique. DAO has my heart tho lol
I think the main problems of the series in terms of creative, visual and narrative differences and why each game feels so different and unsatisfying to the players that started playing it with Origins can be boiled down to a simple fact:
Dragon Age Origins, at its core, is a horror genre RPG and its storyline and worldbuilding are centered around it.
While it may not be so obvious at a first glance, each area featured some sort of monster, like the darkspawn in Ostagar, walking dead in Redcliffe, werewolves and a haunted forest in the Brecilian forest, demons, spirits and possessed mages at the Mage Tower, broodmothers, giant spiders, darkspawn and that one demon who had a neat side quest that required you to collect its body parts for the Deep Roads section. While the execution of the horror elements in Dragon Age Origins didn't feel overwhelmingly scary, it made the player uncomfortable and disturbed, and paired with morally ambigous choices in the game, it gets a very grimdark, "dirty LOTR world" kind of feeling.
Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition still belong into the same world and while some things feel the same, the horror elements in the last two installments is almost nonexistent and too far in between to feel like the first installment, which is a shame, especially for Inquisition which had some great areas suitable for that.
That's also the issue I also have with darkspawn and the way that they evolved backwards in their design. Now they seem so much less scary and even more bland when you encounter them.
Even Corypheus looks a bit goofy next to the Architect.
Demons are the only ones that I've seen improvement on based purely on design, but what's interesting to note is what they gained in terms of design they lost with the lack of player interaction outside of combat, which made the demons scary in the first place.
Also, while that's not entirely the case (I'm looking at you, Knight-Enchanters), the magic system feels underpowered and generic, and worse, as it has been said, has became pick-the-way-you-sparkle thing, instead of utilizing the already established base for magic in the first games, which are the schools of magic presented to us in the first game and even referenced in the codex in the same game and also making sense why do others feel threatened by mages besides the demonic possession, it's because they are basically gods when it comes to utility.
While I agree that some spells in the first one needed a serious overhaul and even trimming some spells that produce the same effect with the stronger one being an evolved, better version of the other one (spells like Disorient and Weakness or Walking Bomb and Virulent Walking Bomb(the stronger one usually having an additional effect as opposed to its weaker counterpart)), the first system had an indentity and could have been a better core of the magic system than in the other two games, allowing for more strategy and less hurling every available spell at the enemy, the spell trees just needed some tweaking!
To add more onto that, spell combos in the first game were a really fun addition to the system and I'm sad that they removed it, because it encouraged players to experiment and find which spell combinations did what, and it added more flavour to already a flavourful and solid magic system. That being said, I feel like warriors and rogues are good in Origins, but great in the other installments. The combat, while certainly being more flashy and less realistic, it feels more engaging and fun, and the party combos and synergy is more thrilling than in the first game.
Despite this series having a lot of flaws and being frustrating to figure out to all the lore enthusiasts like myself, each game is good in its own right. I loved Origins for its journey, DA2 for its interesting story structure and its strangely fitting Hawke-centric storyline and Inquisition for its interesting and stunning enviroment that made the world feel more alive along with better character scenes than the rest of the games.
I'd really like to see DAO remastered. But for the other titles in the franchise, I don't really care.
They went too "experimental" for anyone who enjoyed the first to even bother with.
The main reason i dont care about the otehr 2 as much is mainly because Origins hasnt recieved a sequal yet. Both 2 and Inquisitions arent real sequals....
@@astralaris8712 they are continuations of origins. The blight was the start of the whole story.
@@marcelluspreston8392 Yes, i know, but never a direct sequal, and if not that, at least a game which stays true to it, combat and settings wise. Dragon age origins is the only game in the franchise you can actually call Dark Dantasy, the other 2 have completely different settings and tones.
Jade Empire had a nice feel to it.
Honestly Solas is much different character if you romance him as an Elf. Him turning out to be Fenrir is built up well too.
Dragon age origins is so nostalgic to me.
Sometimes I've got the feeling that I am one of the few people in the DA fandom, who actually liked and enjoyed Inquisition... I loved all three games, and I played them all repeatedly when they first came out, but I cannot possibly play DA:O and DA II any more. Despite its brilliance, DA:O has unfortunately not aged well (at least for me), and DA II, while not a bad game, was the weakest of the Trilogy, mainly because it was rushed. Inquisition, on the other hand I still play to this day...and I still enjoy it! I don't get why people bash it all the time..
You and me both, partner
Yea the story goes into more interesting areas in the sequel and if returned to Origins you see how sequals really step it up in gameplay or story beats for the matter. I put it up to a nostalgia that dosent allow people to get past the image of something that would always be remembered better than it actually was.
I feel like one of the few myself sometimes as well, in how I just adore all three. Each has a thing here or there that isn't my favorite, but it's not big enough to really be impactful. I'm also easily entertained and story is my top priority though so... lol.
I really liked DAI. I’d have preferred side quests to an open world checklist but exploring, completing tasks, and getting into battles on a bunch of big maps is cool as well.
All the dragon age games have some duds for companions but inquisition has three awesome ones: Cassandra, Varric, and Solas which is more than the other games imo. Plus the friendship/romances were better in inquisition than in the previous games.
Pretty much the only thing that irks me is the way the war room worked which could’ve been rectified with one option: carrier pigeon. Just make a menu tab where you could look at the missions and select them.
I adore all three games!
24:18 honestly the same thing happens In Mass Effect 1 and in ME2 every single one of your potential squadmates dies if you don't recruit them.
Anders in DAII gets way more hate than he deserves. Yes his actions are awful, but not unreasonable at all. Treat people like garbage and they will do the worst to everyone responsible for their plight. It just so happens that unlike most mages, Anders also has the power to do something about this more than others. His whole arc shows that even good people with the best intentions in mind are capable of doing horrible things when pushed long enough.
This is something i actually really like about Dragon Age 2 - it explores completely different subjects than most games. Anders wasn't evil and tried his damnest to show that mages can be helpful to society and don't need to be held captive like animals, but it didn't matter because in the eyes of templars every mage is a potential threat. He also tried to convince Elthina over and over again to step in and do something about Templars and Mages, but she refused to get involved, even though she had the power to make a difference. He blows up the chantry when he sees no alternative because he feels like if he won't act on behalf of mages, no one will.
You actually weren't wrong about pro terrorist feel - i would even go as far to say that it's idealistic (if you can call it that) showcase of what terrorism is about - making a point. However, unlike real world terrorist attacks, which are usually tied to religion, this one is relatable and can even be agreed with, because the player can see what exactly led to this point.
Everytime someone does something horrible i think about what i would do in their place. That made it difficult for me to brand Anders as a villain, because in his place i can't say if i wouldn't do what he did (propably wouldn't be my first choice but still) and in the end i asked him to help me save the mages instead of killing him. Sebastian even left the party which made it even better.
every freedom fighter is a terrorist. i see no issue with using violence to achieve a good goal (in theory), but the way DA2 presented both sides really hurt the story, they were both cartoonishly evil. the templars were frothing at the mouth to kill people even before the red lyrium, but the mages were also always half a step from just boning a desire demon and letting whatever fade born monstrosity take their body.
not to mention anders had a better characterization in the dlc he appeared in originally, he embodied the fool arcana, just an apostate out to have fun and go about his way. that is a far more interesting character than another tortured rebel.
@@comyuse9103 Most Templars are just doing their job even if they don't agree with it and most mages don't want to have anything to do with demons unless they are pushed to the corner. Both groups have fanatics, but they are not representative of them as a whole. Aside from Karras and Alrik on Templar side or the Tarohne and Quentin on Mages side who else is cartoonishly evil?
As for Anders there are glimpses of his Awakening personality at some points like meeting with Nathaniel or talking with Martin, but they feel more like leftovers of the original concept of who Anders was meant to be, but due to very short development he was just trimmed down to who he was meant to become. I wouldn't say i like Awakening Anders better, but it's sure as hell not very satisfying to skip how he became much darker character.
As for him being a rebel? He was always one, but Circle in Ferelden was very nice compared to the one in Kirkwall. He escaped from tower multiple times and they just dragged him back there, but in Kirkwall it would mean tranquility or death. That's another reason why he's not "Be happy, go lucky" anymore.
Really want to read this comment but it's a big wall of text, could you put some blank spaces between big parts please?
@@nemijs It's hardly a big wall, but here you go.
@@Xertaron. Thanks man, didn't want to disrespect you or anything.
I’m the guy he mentioned at the end that has never played a single Dragon Age game, yet watched the whole thing. Love your content man! Keep up the good work!
Kirkwall was basically a prison town where the citizens of hightown got their rocks off watching imprisoned mages and elves get tortured or executed. Its supposed to look congested and imposing.
and lore wise it was the hub of the slave trade during the times of Tevinter
Found your ending incredibly sad. "There's no better time for Bioware to prove everyone wrong." It's a nice sentiment, unfortunately Bioware is just a name EA retains for marketing, they have no one left that is invested enough in their IPs to care, beyond profit. Bioware aren't able to prove anything, aside from just how little promise their name holds anymore.
My brother in christ, you can’t talk about the part where people walk in the snow and not expand on how much of a banger “The Dawn Will Come” is. Shit gave me goosebumps.
Origins will always be the game that sparked my interest in RPG. I am so glad I picked that that game up so many years ago, no regrets.
Origins just nails the horror / fantasy genre superbly. Really really creepy and disturbing storylines, great choices, mostly well written characters (i'm looking at you Zayne) and i personally, don't mind the turn based combat wheel.
Phenomenal video. It sums up my frustration with the Dragon Age series. I played DA2 and DA:I on the basis of how good Origins was. Origins is one of my favourite games of all time and seeing what has happened to the series (and the lore) means i won't be playing any further DA games. I think the fourth installment was released last week, but i can't even be bothered to watch a trailer.
On Dragon Age 2's night enemyies. If you clear them all in an area one will drop a note with their warehouse so you can finish the job. They will stop spawning for an act, some loot also. But you need to do it for every single area of a city 3 times.