• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Dragon Age, then and now.

StereoVsn

Member
giphy.gif


Shadows of Amn was the peak and the only reason I don't lump KOTOR in with the downfall is the Wookie Life Debt.
I will agree to disagree. While DAO and ME1 don’t quite hit the highs of BG2, they are still great games.

DAO weaves an interesting story and has very solid writing and characters.

ME1 introduces an amazing space opera type universe with again a damn good story, great sense of exploration (despite its faults), and again, good characters.

Even ME2 and ME3 have their moments even though I wouldn’t classify them as RPGs (IMO of course).

But really you can just see quality and imagination dying out post DAO and ME1.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
IMG-4710.jpg


I think there’s more to veilguard than what we’ve seen.

I think there’s an animosity towards dragon age Veilguard especially because of the terrible trailers.
 

AJUMP23

Member
I like being able to pause the battle in DA and set up actions and move your party. Now the game looks like hit X hit A dodge flip.
 

Pop

Member
The recommended processing power to properly enjoy Dragon Age II is an AMD Phenom II x3 tri core CPU and a Radeon HD3850 512 MB.

Dragon Age Veil Guard will debut alongside the AMD 9950X 16 core CPU and the RTX 5090 32 GB

The style not how many pixels it has
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
The irony is that the original DA was BioWare’s attempt to go back to their roots as they were making more action-y games over the years… and now Veilguard is making ME2 look like a 80s CRPG.
 
I forgot DA:O had a tactics section, love it when games have that. Programming conditional statements as part of the game.
Programmable tactics were SO great and still to this day quite unique to me (I know a few other games such as ff have it, but I've not played any of them this far). I remember I've downloaded a extended tactics mod and really went to town on programming. Incredibly fun seeing my own tactics come to life. Didn't even need mch pausing cause the programming was so robust (with the mod that is).
 

Neon Xenon

Member
I imagine you played ff12,if not you will like it.
I took a closer look at the screenshot of the Tactics menu and thought, "huh, that setup menu reminds me of the Gambit system from Final Fantasy XII." Happy to experience it myself when I play Dragon Age: Origins for the first time soon.
 

Hudo

Gold Member
I was never a big Dragon Age fan, but this:

is really shitty. It was the best thing those games had.
to be fair, only DA: Origins really had that. DA2 and DAI already took away the depth in favor of making it accessible to both action and tactics players (and failing both audiences).

It's a good decision to finally settle on one thing (action RPG) and try to make that work.
 

Luipadre

Gold Member
taash-icon-dragon-age-the-veilguard.jpg



There's just something about this design that fucks me up, fam. I don't even know if I'm looking at a man or a woman. I hate this with every fibre of my being.

This is the kind of shit you see when you're sick and you have a fever dream about bizarro circus acts chasing you through a supermarket or something. It's grotesque.

yeah that image is... She is a girl and she looks much better on the ingame shots but still...
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
taash-icon-dragon-age-the-veilguard.jpg



There's just something about this design that fucks me up, fam. I don't even know if I'm looking at a man or a woman. I hate this with every fibre of my being.

This is the kind of shit you see when you're sick and you have a fever dream about bizarro circus acts chasing you through a supermarket or something. It's grotesque.
Yeah, this character design actively annoys me, it's like they asked an IA to create the most punchable face ever.

Edit: she is a girl? What? :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
Last edited:
Let's face it. The people who made Bioware the behemoth it was are far long gone and moved out to other stuff, as expected of this industry. That's why I don't have any hopes for this to be anywhere as good as DAO. Bioware's just making games based on what appeals to the masses in modern times. I'm not their target audience anymore.
 

nowhat

Gold Member
Say what you will about DA2...

...ok, I'll just say it, unpopular opinion, it wasn't that bad. It certainly had issues with recycled environments and such, but that's due to EA wanting a new Dragon Age in 18 months. It's a miracle the game got made at all. I maintain if it had been called "generic ARPG" people would have been much more receptive to it. As a sequel to Origins it doesn't compare at all (fun fact: it was called Dragon Age 2 because of EA as well), but it was never meant to be a direct sequel. The Qunari design though, that game absolutely nailed it. It has been downhill since.
 

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
ME1 and DAO were post KOTOR and quite good. Things went down from there.

ME2 was a good action adventure with RPG elements. ME3 had issues. DA2 was BS thanks to EA idiotic deadlines. DAI was mediocre…

And then we have MEA and Anthem. And whatever the fuck this is.
It's actually amazing to think that BioWare created what I would consider one of the very best games of all time and that would be Mass Effect 2. It's easily in my top five video games ever.

It's so sad to see developers that created the best game in history of gaming fall so far. There's so much potential they have but they wasted it on absolutely ridiculousness.
 

Inspector Q

Member
Even the UI changed drastically from Origins to DA2. In DAO they made the UI look like a weathered, blood soaked book:

tumblr_pqzc30zp3g1uf33zto2_1280.jpg


Then DA2 comes along and everything just looks too clean and sterile:

inv_hawke.jpg


So yeah, not sure what the deal is with Bioware. I guess it's a combination of a lot of good people leaving and the wrong people taking over.
 

Khyle

Neo Member
2015 onwards has been a constant lesson in learning to let go of things in entertainment and media that I once used to love to the point of obsession, due to clearly not being the target audience anymore.

Star Wars being the main offender, aside from a few beacons of light that didn't last long. My breakup with Dragon Age probably started even earlier.

It's okay. That has only made me appreciate and cherish even more the few things that used to be targeted at me and still seem to do so today (things mostly coming from Japan, to be honest, but there are some exceptions).
 
Last edited:

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
I get the lukewarm reception of inquisition in 2014, but retrospectively examined, I enjoyed the game quite a lot as I recently finished with around 130+ hours. The parts I really enjoyed about the game include great character writings and arcs, diverse companion personalities and reactions, well-written dialogues, ample branching and consequences, and most importantly the charming banters. You simply don't get these types of stuff in modern RPG very often nowadays.

The low quality repetitive side quests are still present but I found them much more tolerable this time - because since 2014 we've got too much braindead fillers in open world games I actually found some of inquisition's side contents refreshing. Roaming on some maps felt pretty good, particularly in hissing waste.

DA:I doesn't really improve over the years but I think it's aging better because how stagnant the whole AAA game industries are these days.

I agree with you that inquisition is better than people give it credit for. It’s as good as dao, kotor, me1? No! But it’s enjoyable and if you enjoy exploration my god the game is huge.

I really wish they patched it for next gen.
 

Flabagast

Member
I get the lukewarm reception of inquisition in 2014, but retrospectively examined, I enjoyed the game quite a lot as I recently finished with around 130+ hours. The parts I really enjoyed about the game include great character writings and arcs, diverse companion personalities and reactions, well-written dialogues, ample branching and consequences, and most importantly the charming banters. You simply don't get these types of stuff in modern RPG very often nowadays.

The low quality repetitive side quests are still present but I found them much more tolerable this time - because since 2014 we've got too much braindead fillers in open world games I actually found some of inquisition's side contents refreshing. Roaming on some maps felt pretty good, particularly in hissing waste.

DA:I doesn't really improve over the years but I think it's aging better because how stagnant the whole AAA game industries are these days
How does it run on PS5?
 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
I blame the complainers who gave the second game shit for all the brown on shit mountain. Bet you'd love a shiny new shit mountain now. Fuckers.

I actually got banned from the old Bioware forums permentally because I made a topic with a side by side GIF comparing the new darkspawn models in DA2 to the putty patrol from power rangers when Dragon Age 2 first launched.

If you remember all enemies just sort of jumped out of nowhere at the sides of arena in DA2, and the Darkspawn where no exception, even better the opening story had the arena surrounded by darkspawn just shifting about and waving there arms randomly in a big circle.

So yes some dev got very VERY angry that there new art direction when compared side by side looked like a total joke and my account was banned. Pretty pissed at the time but I look back and chuckle now... because yes it could have been much worse.

zQo3lE7.gif
 

Edgelord79

Gold Member
Agreed. Art direction is bad. This franchise has been butchered and I’ve lost all hope. I’m sure all the Gen Alphas and Millennials will like it and that’s who its for.
 

PnCIa

Member
I think this whole Dragon Age debacle has made me realize that it was ever only one good game, and then """Bioware""" coasting off of that one game and continuing to fuck it up even worse every subsequent entry.

This was never a great franchise, it was a single great game.
Stop using your brain. Just delve into the nostalgia for fantasy franchise from back then. Consume.
 
Last edited:

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
Agreed. Art direction is bad. This franchise has been butchered and I’ve lost all hope. I’m sure all the Gen Alphas and Millennials will like it and that’s who its for.
What gen alphas do you see talking about dragon age. The oldest one is 13 years old
 

stn

Member
I hope the gameplay is good, because the art direction is absolutely awful. It looks like a comedic Disney production when its supposed to be a gritty fantasy. I'm normally an automatic purchase when it comes to Dragon Age, but for this one I'm not pre-ordering and I will be carefully monitoring reviews. I just have this uneasy feeling that the game will have terrible comedy, fourth-wall breaking bad jokes, and I am sure they will discreetly throw in some modern-day political propaganda, because why not.
 
Last edited:

Edgelord79

Gold Member
What gen alphas do you see talking about dragon age. The oldest one is 13 years old
Ok maybe that’s young, point is that it’s not made for people outside the millennial group or younger in mind. The presentation looked like it was a hero shooter at times (as someone else commented here).

If it was made with an older demographic in mind then market research wasn’t done. Let’s see how sales are. Maybe I’ll be wrong.

Either way point is made. Not much more to say.
 

Humdinger

Gold Member
There's just something about this design that fucks me up, fam. I don't even know if I'm looking at a man or a woman.

I was going to say, "It's obviously a man. The facial structure is clearly masculine." Then I learned it's a woman, lol.
 
Last edited:

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
DUsGVSN.jpeg

Everybody’s hating on that nonbinary Qunari freak but why do I get the feeling this chick will be the most annoying party member? I haven’t heard her talk yet but I already want her to STFU.

She’s going to be like a combination of Tiny Tina + Rose Tico from Star Wars ep. 8
 

Ivory Samoan

Gold Member
OK.

....but that gameplay sample was more grimdark than anything in DA:I except for Trespasser - and tbh, looked to be a lot better put together than either DA2 or DA:I.

Obviously, Origins is on it's own level, but color my glasses rose, that had a shit ton of jank in it...but the vibe overwrote the jank.

I've done at least 5 full DA:O through to Trespasser playthroughs, and another 5 Origins on top of that, I'm all in on this one: it holds true to all the latest fiction (books/comics/tv show) but if you doing cherry pick a roo comparisons with decades old games, then year : you'll probably look to be painting a grim picture.....but it feels like a return to form to me, no shit.

Btw that fucking tactics Origins companion AI never worked properly either, rose tinted and/or lying 101 right there in it's jolly comparison lol.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom