- Joined
- April 12, 2009
- Messages
- 23,459
Trying to keep it as short as possible
Pros:
- Great graphics, sound and music.
- Bard songs pwn any other game with such thing, songs/poems are recorded on two languages, there is room for improvement (someone give Malukah a job!)
- Openworld similar to Risen 2 & 3, exploration on par with those games
- Puzzles ranging from very easy, easy and medium difficulty to one challenging
- Superb story with a brilliant ending with great character development (except… I'll mention later)
- Party banter is so good you'll switch party members all the time just to hear all you can (don't miss Cassandra+Varric+Dorian!), there is humor all over the place
- Optional crafting not necessary to finish the main story, but to deal with most of challenging enemies, you need it (wrote somewhere, to get the best equipment you need to kill dragons, but to kill dragons you need to craft equipment!)
- Wartable missions that just look like a filler but are in fact preventing your character to stumble upon too hard to deal with areas
- Many c&c that would make the game worth replaying (different wartable missions depending on your race, Chantry leader depending on your actions, sidekicks evolution depending on your actions, etc) if only the filler content wasn't so damned annoying.
Cons:
- Keyboard/mouse clunky, apparently it'll be "fixed", no autoattack apart from holding R/leftmousebutton, no queuing actions
- Horrible inventory system in beyond repair state
- Bad Sims 4 design choice ("No pools no toddlers") means no swimming!
- Abnormal amount of filler content (requisitions, endless respawns, timewasting on gathering herbs and ingredients)
- Endless mobrespawns have abnormal rate (kill something, another mob instantly appears), very annoying and distract you from enjoying the beautiful surroundings
- Spam V to highlight loot instead of highlight toggle, Fablelike digsites "secrets" with easily to miss minimap flash when near one (in Fable a small shovel would appear like you're looking at that spot all the time, an utter design fail IMO)
- Minimap completely useless
- Mounts utterly useless except in Hissing Wastes
- The game feels full of sex and sextalk, but… no children! well, apart from… no spoiling!
- Loot is not handplaced but is random and you won't collect all possible schematics (unless you cheat!)
- Bioware promised you'll be able to specialize/modify keeps/strongholds you claim during the game, this was cut out from the game without any notice or explanation, I thought you need to do something special for that till I finished the game and found out on Bioware forum it's actually removed feature (although the release was postponed)
Questionable if good or bad, would be definetly good as a challenge if hostiles didn't respawn like crazy everywhere except in main story missions:
- 3 slots for pots, one needed to unlock, two open by default
- No healing spells (only a nonspammable ability for certain class)
-
The game currently has about 50 bugs. You might think it has more, but not really. For example a certain necro spell causes quests becoming unsolvable, so it's not a bugged this quest, that quest, etc quest, instead of 87346587364 quest bugs it's actually 1 skill bug.
Some inquisition classes (means not base classes you start with) are perhaps not thought over enough as they provide you possibility to solo (the game was not designed for that as when you use invisibility mobs freeze since they don't know who or what to attack). These classes are not really OP as you still have to carefully move and use skills in fights, but mobs should have some counters if attacked by invisible soloplayer.
Some classes are however very well made and allow you to move away from standard tank+rogue+mage+fourth_anyone party setup. Artificier for example ups critchance and shortens cooldowns and you can nail easily any mob including a dragon if playing that class with a party of 3 rogues and a mage - who needs a tank!
I've noticed a few "plotholes". Although they look more like bugs now when I think on that..
Solas mentions a certain mob before you even meet it like it's known what's that about (got me confused), later he doesn't alert a certain someone on another one's whereabouts but instead the story picks up on that after you explore Temple of Mythal (this one becomes noticable only when you finish the game and think back).
Cassandra looks impossible to please, reacts completely illogical. A quote from Bio forum (and it really happens exactly like that, not that it's impossible to get her approval anywhere, it's just odd how she reacts plotwise):
http://forum.bioware.com/topic/531079-wtf-cassandra-end-game-spoilers/
Finally Florianne if alive and recruited as an agent doesn't appear on the list of agents, but does appear if you kill her.
So, nothing criminal and IQ insulting like ME3 plotholes, just tiny bits that in the end perhaps are not plotholes but patchable glitches.
For all of you who hate respawns like I do, there are several known exploits - I didn't use them.
But if Bioware will cheat on us, why wouldn't we cheat back? I believe we should be better than Bioware and not cheat, but then again, some will think differently:
-
Hopefully I didn't miss something.
If I did, forgive me.
Overall, after DA2 crap, Bioware took the right direction with everything except inventory and respawns. This is still not a mustbuy game, I suggest waiting for a patch (so they at least fix the odd gender bug, dx crashes caused by forcing the game into 30 FPS and some bugged skills/stats like bleeding).
Just as in case of other above average games, wait till you get a nice discount somewhere (20-25% at least). If the game was a masterpiece I'd suggest buying it immediately. Sadly, it's not a masterpiece as no grinder can be that.
If you'll buy, go for standard edition, deluxe edition provides useless crap equipment, horsearmor and mounts you don't really need for 10 more bucks.
Instead, you can use these 10 bucks to grab ME1, ME2 and ME3 that are currently discounted on Origin (4, 3, and 5 bucks respectively) for many hours of fun or something else that doesn't have overblown price.
8/10
Note that this is only about singleplayer campaign and the release version on PC.
I don't care for multiplayer and for all I care it can be 0/10 or 10/10 in DA3, I'll never touch it.
The number/10 can go higher depending on EA's decision to patch/not_patch different "cons" I've numbered.
Pros:
- Great graphics, sound and music.
- Bard songs pwn any other game with such thing, songs/poems are recorded on two languages, there is room for improvement (someone give Malukah a job!)
- Openworld similar to Risen 2 & 3, exploration on par with those games
- Puzzles ranging from very easy, easy and medium difficulty to one challenging
- Superb story with a brilliant ending with great character development (except… I'll mention later)
- Party banter is so good you'll switch party members all the time just to hear all you can (don't miss Cassandra+Varric+Dorian!), there is humor all over the place
- Optional crafting not necessary to finish the main story, but to deal with most of challenging enemies, you need it (wrote somewhere, to get the best equipment you need to kill dragons, but to kill dragons you need to craft equipment!)
- Wartable missions that just look like a filler but are in fact preventing your character to stumble upon too hard to deal with areas
- Many c&c that would make the game worth replaying (different wartable missions depending on your race, Chantry leader depending on your actions, sidekicks evolution depending on your actions, etc) if only the filler content wasn't so damned annoying.
Cons:
- Keyboard/mouse clunky, apparently it'll be "fixed", no autoattack apart from holding R/leftmousebutton, no queuing actions
- Horrible inventory system in beyond repair state
- Bad Sims 4 design choice ("No pools no toddlers") means no swimming!
- Abnormal amount of filler content (requisitions, endless respawns, timewasting on gathering herbs and ingredients)
- Endless mobrespawns have abnormal rate (kill something, another mob instantly appears), very annoying and distract you from enjoying the beautiful surroundings
- Spam V to highlight loot instead of highlight toggle, Fablelike digsites "secrets" with easily to miss minimap flash when near one (in Fable a small shovel would appear like you're looking at that spot all the time, an utter design fail IMO)
- Minimap completely useless
- Mounts utterly useless except in Hissing Wastes
- The game feels full of sex and sextalk, but… no children! well, apart from… no spoiling!
- Loot is not handplaced but is random and you won't collect all possible schematics (unless you cheat!)
- Bioware promised you'll be able to specialize/modify keeps/strongholds you claim during the game, this was cut out from the game without any notice or explanation, I thought you need to do something special for that till I finished the game and found out on Bioware forum it's actually removed feature (although the release was postponed)
Questionable if good or bad, would be definetly good as a challenge if hostiles didn't respawn like crazy everywhere except in main story missions:
- 3 slots for pots, one needed to unlock, two open by default
- No healing spells (only a nonspammable ability for certain class)
-
The game currently has about 50 bugs. You might think it has more, but not really. For example a certain necro spell causes quests becoming unsolvable, so it's not a bugged this quest, that quest, etc quest, instead of 87346587364 quest bugs it's actually 1 skill bug.
Some inquisition classes (means not base classes you start with) are perhaps not thought over enough as they provide you possibility to solo (the game was not designed for that as when you use invisibility mobs freeze since they don't know who or what to attack). These classes are not really OP as you still have to carefully move and use skills in fights, but mobs should have some counters if attacked by invisible soloplayer.
Some classes are however very well made and allow you to move away from standard tank+rogue+mage+fourth_anyone party setup. Artificier for example ups critchance and shortens cooldowns and you can nail easily any mob including a dragon if playing that class with a party of 3 rogues and a mage - who needs a tank!
I've noticed a few "plotholes". Although they look more like bugs now when I think on that..
Solas mentions a certain mob before you even meet it like it's known what's that about (got me confused), later he doesn't alert a certain someone on another one's whereabouts but instead the story picks up on that after you explore Temple of Mythal (this one becomes noticable only when you finish the game and think back).
Cassandra looks impossible to please, reacts completely illogical. A quote from Bio forum (and it really happens exactly like that, not that it's impossible to get her approval anywhere, it's just odd how she reacts plotwise):
http://forum.bioware.com/topic/531079-wtf-cassandra-end-game-spoilers/
Inq: So, who should drink from the Well?
Cas: Let Morrigan take the risk.
Inq: Ok, Morrigan have at it.
*Cassandra disapproves*
Oh **** you too.
The woman is impossible to please. I took the mages as allies, she didn't like that. I didn't have Celene assassinated, she didn't approve of that. I gave the Wardens a chance to redeem themselves, she really didn't like that.
Cas: Let Morrigan take the risk.
Inq: Ok, Morrigan have at it.
*Cassandra disapproves*
Oh **** you too.
The woman is impossible to please. I took the mages as allies, she didn't like that. I didn't have Celene assassinated, she didn't approve of that. I gave the Wardens a chance to redeem themselves, she really didn't like that.
So, nothing criminal and IQ insulting like ME3 plotholes, just tiny bits that in the end perhaps are not plotholes but patchable glitches.
For all of you who hate respawns like I do, there are several known exploits - I didn't use them.
But if Bioware will cheat on us, why wouldn't we cheat back? I believe we should be better than Bioware and not cheat, but then again, some will think differently:
One is healing without pots (equip/unequip health belt), another is schematics/power amulets (never loot everything from a container but travel elsewhere, return, and the game will generate a new one in the same box). Finally wartable missions depend on the systemclock - just forward it up if you're tired to wait on some longlasting one.
-
Hopefully I didn't miss something.
If I did, forgive me.
Overall, after DA2 crap, Bioware took the right direction with everything except inventory and respawns. This is still not a mustbuy game, I suggest waiting for a patch (so they at least fix the odd gender bug, dx crashes caused by forcing the game into 30 FPS and some bugged skills/stats like bleeding).
Just as in case of other above average games, wait till you get a nice discount somewhere (20-25% at least). If the game was a masterpiece I'd suggest buying it immediately. Sadly, it's not a masterpiece as no grinder can be that.
If you'll buy, go for standard edition, deluxe edition provides useless crap equipment, horsearmor and mounts you don't really need for 10 more bucks.
Instead, you can use these 10 bucks to grab ME1, ME2 and ME3 that are currently discounted on Origin (4, 3, and 5 bucks respectively) for many hours of fun or something else that doesn't have overblown price.
8/10
Note that this is only about singleplayer campaign and the release version on PC.
I don't care for multiplayer and for all I care it can be 0/10 or 10/10 in DA3, I'll never touch it.
The number/10 can go higher depending on EA's decision to patch/not_patch different "cons" I've numbered.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2009
- Messages
- 23,459