What Are You Playing: 9 Years since the Last Dragon Age

[Errorname]

Honestly I suspect that's because the writers of DAO wanted to focus on the city elves and thus the human/dalish relationship focused on in other games in underdeveloped.

Eh, it's not that the Brecilian stuff isn't developed, it's that it's developing concepts that the later games mostly drop. Like there's stuff going on in the Brecilian forest, it's just that none of it ever comes back. And there is important foundational stuff happening with the Dalish, the Eluvians are a big deal and Merrill becomes a companion in the next game, but none of that factors into the Brecilian quests at all. It's not the only instance of Dragon Age Origins showing the symptoms of writers who are still getting a feel for what they want to do with this setting, but it sticks in my memory a bit.

[Anonymouswizard]

Eh, it's not that the Brecilian stuff isn't developed, it's that it's developing concepts that the later games mostly drop. Like there's stuff going on in the Brecilian forest, it's just that none of it ever comes back. And there is important foundational stuff happening with the Dalish, the Eluvians are a big deal and Merrill becomes a companion in the next game, but none of that factors into the Brecilian quests at all. It's not the only instance of Dragon Age Origins showing the symptoms of writers who are still getting a feel for what they want to do with this setting, but it sticks in my memory a bit.

Yeah, all the Dalish stuff that becomes important is in the Origin, although it's also rough (notably Eluvians are stated to be Tewinter, not Elvhen). The main Dalish questline is a really weird take on the Dalish/human conflict going for a sins of the few impacting the many thing, I suspect if it was written with the current direction of the series in mind it would have been a village of humans harbouring an old feud.


Reinstalled NWN:EE to mess around with the toolset, which doesn't work on my laptop, so I'll try it again another time. But I did use it as an eexcuse to have another go at ADWR, which has some moments early on that are quite unfair (I'm looking at you sewers!).

[Zevox]

Very much enjoying doing FF7 Rebirth on hard difficulty. Having done a little grinding to get to level 70 (didn't take too long, you get a ton of xp on this mode), I was able to pass the boss that I was struggling with and move on - though it still took several attempts. Every major boss so far has taken at least two, in fact, which is kind of nice. None have become a major slog that's taken a ton of attempts, they're just challenging enough that I'll need to learn the fight notably better than I did on normal, which is good balancing for a mode like this IMO, makes the fights very satisfying.

I'm now on Chapter 7, Corel, so roughly halfway through the game. Having Chadley's Open-World Filler already done does wonders for the game's pacing, oh my gods it's so nice being able to just ignore all of that and get on with it. Do side-quests until I run out, then on with the story. It's still just as true to me a decade and a half later as it was back when I was first trying Bethesda games: open-world game design generally just drags games down for me. This one's lucky it has such an excellent combat system and good storytelling and characters to carry it the first time around.

Well, I also redo Queen's Blood matches, because that's fun. Plus it turns out that Queens Blood players either get beefed up on hard difficulty, or just scale as you rank up (I never went back and redid matches on normal, could be either or), because I've been finding everyone has better decks and makes better plays than before. I'm still winning easily most of the time, especially since I put together a new deck after starting hard mode that seems to be quite powerful now that I've got the hang of it, but the upped difficulty was pretty obvious when even Crybaby Ned from Kalm is dropping replacement cards and actually trying to steal my claimed spaces like he has a clue what he's doing. And I have had to do a couple of matches more than once to get the win too, so that's nice. Should probably experiment some more with more new decks, I've got almost all the cards in the game now (just need that Bahamut card from the hardest Golden Saucer challenge to complete the collection), so I can pretty much do whatever I feel like.

[Sermil]

I'm playing Cobalt Core on the Switch.

Description

Cobalt Core is fundamentally Slay the Spire but in spaceships. Similar action-cards-limited-by-energy fights, similar blocking-vs-damage cards tradeoffs, and a very similar map -- 3 maps with branching paths, with some tough enemies with artifact rewards, some repair shops (campfires), some ? squares, a bunch of normal enemies, all leading to a boss fight to get to the next area.

There are two main innovations:

First is positioning. It's a little like a 1-D Into the Breach. Enemies move and declare their attacks, and then you can spend a resource called Evade to move left or right to limit damage or to line up your cannon. Most ships have weak sections (extra damage) and armored sections (less damage). Since Evade carries over from turn to turn, there's some risk/reward -- do I burn 1 Evade to avoid 1 shield damage, or just let the shield take it? I have a really strong attack card but the enemy is 4 spaces left of my cannon -- do I burn all my Evade, making me a sitting duck next turn, so I can play the attack? There's also a midrow with drones or asteroids or missiles which you can move with a resource called Droneshift, making missiles miss you or lining up an asteroid to block an enemy shot or making sure your attack drone will hit the enemy's weak point.

The other is that you don't play a single character, you play a three (out of eight) person crew on one of five ships. Each character tends to have a particular theme: Dizzy is the shield specialist, Riggs is the Evade specialist, Peri tends to do direct damage, Isaac is the drone/midrow specialist, and so on. So instead of just playing "the Watcher" or "The Silent" which tend to always start the same, you can play Dizzy, Riggs, and Peri on the Ares one time and Dizzy, Riggs, and Isaac on the Gemini the next time for a somewhat different experience even at the start.

The third difference is that Cobalt Core actually tries to have a little story, as opposed to Slay the Spire, which just kinda gestures in the direction of one. There's a clear goal instead of just trying to go up ever-more ascensions.

My take

Overall, fun. I keep saying I'll put it down, but then I keep playing. Still, it doesn't have the depth of Slay the Spire.


The crew choice gives a noticeable amount of variety, especially at the beginning of runs, but it also has downsides. Since each character's deck is now only a third of your possible cards, there's a lot less strategic depth to each. Unlike Slay the Spire where you can discover multiple deep, hard-to-complete but super-powerful combos, there's only really one or two strategies for each character. The other downside is most of the defensive stuff is in the decks of Dizzy (shields) and Riggs (evasion). So for 4 of the 5 ships, you almost have to take at least one of those two.

From a story point-of-view, though, the 3 crew does allow the crew to banter among themselves, giving them a little more personality. Like Slay the Spire, you're coming for the gameplay not the story, but still, it's nice for your characters to have a little chance to become more than icons.

There're also two issues with pacing, which felt like the developers never really went back and thought about how the game looks before the "everything is unlocked" phase. The first is that, when you start the game, it drops you immediately into a run on the lowest difficulty -- which is called Normal but come on, it's Easy. If you are paying any attention, you can defeat the "final" boss on your first run. The game isn't over (you have to unlock 18 memories for the real ending -- 3 for each of 6 crew members -- and you unlock one per defeat of the "final" boss), but still -- as opposed to Slay the Spire, where you kept seeing new and interesting things your first several hours into the game, as you gradually got good enough to make it through more of the 3 maps, cruising through the map and killing the "final" boss on your first run feels like a little bit of a letdown.

The other is kinda specific, but to unlock a ship called the Gemini, you need to win one run without Dizzy, Riggs, or Peri. The problem is that, normally, the first point you can unlock the Gemini is when you have Isaac, Drake, and Max. Isaac, Drake, and Max are a horrible crew choice -- they don't synergize well. In particular, they don't have almost any defensive skills and tend to get murdered in most ships. There's one ship, the Tiderunner, which could probably win with that set of people, but I hadn't unlocked the Tiderunner yet at the time I got Max. The correct answer is to wait to unlock the 7th character (Books) and the Tiderunner -- but how do I know that? I wanted to get the new unlock, so I tried to win with Isaac, Drake, and Max over. And over. And over. It was a huge frustrating wall of no progress. Plus, I generally dislike Max's deck, and losing with him over and over didn't improve my opinion of him. I finally happened to unlock Books and managed to win with Isaac, Drake, and Books, but it was real low point in the game.

On high points: The Tiderunner. I love the Tiderunner. The Tiderunner's big trick is that playing the leftmost card in your hand moves the Tiderunner left, and playing the rightmost card in your hand moves the Tiderunner right. Obviously the ship can be a gamble, but overall, it's way more maneuverable than the other ships. And, it's the only ship you can really play without Dizzy or Riggs, so it's nice to have that change. But the reason I love the Tiderunner is that it's super-powerful if you are willing to really pay attention, but it punishes you severely for inattention. You have to count cards, figure out exactly where you want to end up, and really think through how you are going to end up there. Playing cards in the wrong order will end up with you taking serious damage -- and the Tiderunner has fewer shields and less hull than the other ships. But it really rewards careful play.

Other points: I'm playing on the Switch because I want a lay-in-bed game, but I do miss mouse and keyboard. In particular, I've lost at least two runs because I hit Y (end turn) when I meant to hit B (flip card) -- a mouse where the end turn button was further away from the other controls would be nice. And one time, an accidental brush against the touchscreen played a card I didn't want to. Other than that, it runs fine on the Switch -- if you're not the sort of person who mixes up buttons, it will be fine.

[Corlindale]

I've been reading interesting things about Cobalt Core as well, as I'm a huge Slay the Spire-fan but haven't quite found anything else to scratch that particular itch. Maybe one for the birthday list.

Also, I gotta say you are really selling me on those FFVII remakes, Zevox. I'm planning to get a PS5 soon, and I am starting to think they should be my first games. I really miss the experience of playing a genuinely good Final Fantasy game, as I was a bit meh about XII, bounced off XIII and didn't really like the looks of either XV or XVI. I also never finished the original VII back in the day, as my disc got scratched and blocked my progress, so would be lovely to see the story through in a modern package.

I've been playing what I always play when I'm a bit between games: Tales of Maj'Eyal. I don't want to jinx it, but I think I'm finally on course for my first victory on Nightmare difficulty after dozens of failed attempts. Tried out a Gunslinger in the Embers of Rage campaign (a steampunk-themed expansion) and despite feeling meh about that class in the past, I have to say it really comes into its own once you get some nice gear and the right skills. Turns out the skill that enchants your ammunition to explode combines extremely well with AoE abilities like Static Shot. In effect it makes every enemy in the blast radius detonate with its own explosion, meaning that with tightly packed groups you get a cascade of overlapping blasts. Extremely satisfying and very deadly. Still have to be careful as the Gunslinger does not have a ton of defensive abilities, but I've been stacking life and life regen quite a bit, and I'm trying to play less recklessly compared to my usual style. I've reached the entrance to the final dungeon, although I may delay it a bit to do the various optional areas.

[zlefin]

There's an amusing tavern brawl in hearthstone, it's another of those weird special ones rather than a fight. In this particular one it's setup as a quiz, where you have to match a set of card images and their card texts with the names, you get 14 cards to identify and about 22-ish card names to work with. Though it might be hard for people who haven't been following the whole time, as there are a lot of cards. Sometimes though you can guess based on patterns in the names, as there are a lot of those. It was neat and different at any rate.

Got Civ 6 at long last, only the base game, not the dlc, but i've been enjoying it, it's different enough to be cool to explore for now. I find it interesting how it's the first civ in quite awhile I've played where there really is lots of spare unused land that last awhile, because it's not that worth overexpanding due to scaling costs rather than due to crippling happiness debuffs. You can expand heavily, it's just not that effective. It feels a bit 'gamier', especially for the city-states, not quite as much living breathing world as civ 5 (not that that was high in that regards either). The combat system does continue to feel better balanced, or at least would be if the ai wasn't even more inept at warfare than in 5. It does feel like you don't get to customize your civ quite as much as I'd like for each game; the card system for bonuses especially, since you get to change it so often. It's only really the government choices which heavily vary from game to game, well that and which city state bonuses you get.

I've also been making some modest progress on the ol' king's bounty armored princess. Still a fun game, maybe i'll actually manage to finish one :) I always tend to peter out on them in the late game, as your character build changes less and less in the late game, and the fights start taking longer, also your army comp varies less over time. Mostly it's that some zones are a bit too large; I prefer the smaller zones because it means you get to shift focus more often.

[Sermil]

I've also been making some modest progress on the ol' king's bounty armored princess. Still a fun game, maybe i'll actually manage to finish one :) I always tend to peter out on them in the late game, as your character build changes less and less in the late game, and the fights start taking longer, also your army comp varies less over time. Mostly it's that some zones are a bit too large; I prefer the smaller zones because it means you get to shift focus more often.

Whenever my wife watched me play that, she insisted the title should be King's Bounty: The Quest for Some Clothes.

[tyckspoon]

I've been playing what I always play when I'm a bit between games: Tales of Maj'Eyal. I don't want to jinx it, but I think I'm finally on course for my first victory on Nightmare difficulty after dozens of failed attempts. Tried out a Gunslinger in the Embers of Rage campaign (a steampunk-themed expansion) and despite feeling meh about that class in the past, I have to say it really comes into its own once you get some nice gear and the right skills. Turns out the skill that enchants your ammunition to explode combines extremely well with AoE abilities like Static Shot. In effect it makes every enemy in the blast radius detonate with its own explosion, meaning that with tightly packed groups you get a cascade of overlapping blasts. Extremely satisfying and very deadly. Still have to be careful as the Gunslinger does not have a ton of defensive abilities, but I've been stacking life and life regen quite a bit, and I'm trying to play less recklessly compared to my usual style. I've reached the entrance to the final dungeon, although I may delay it a bit to do the various optional areas.

This also gets pretty silly with any of the ammunitions that have area effect special on-hit effects using either Static Shot or the piercing ammunition enhancement to a similar result - shoot through a line of five enemies, set off 5 separate ice bursts or exploding fires or windbursts or whatever. Gunslinger in general really likes procs/bonus on-hit effects due to their very high capacity to just dump attacks onto things.

Good luck with the final boss - I recall that one being quite challenging as a Gunslinger due to being nearly impossible to take down in one ability cycle and putting a lot of pressure on your Steam reserves to be able to keep using your special shots. Although I think that was also my first Embers of Rage run to get there and probably half of it was thanks to not knowing the fight gimmick. (Which I have since forgotten so I still don't know the fight gimmick.)

[Zevox]

Also, I gotta say you are really selling me on those FFVII remakes, Zevox. I'm planning to get a PS5 soon, and I am starting to think they should be my first games. I really miss the experience of playing a genuinely good Final Fantasy game, as I was a bit meh about XII, bounced off XIII and didn't really like the looks of either XV or XVI. I also never finished the original VII back in the day, as my disc got scratched and blocked my progress, so would be lovely to see the story through in a modern package.

I'd definitely recommend them, obviously. I can say from experience that FF7 Remake works well even if you've never played the original, since I'd only gotten partway through it (maybe 25-30%-ish) on my one attempt prior to Remake, and I barely remembered anything from that attempt at the time anyway. Rebirth I can't say the same from experience, since after Remake I both went and played the original in full and played the re-release of Crisis Core (which is basically a prequel game). I do think there's more in Rebirth that assumes some level of knowledge of the original story for full effect than in Remake, but you're probably mostly fine assuming you know of the most famous moment from the original. Which I'd bet you do, I certainly knew it long before even my first try at playing the original, since it's right up there with "Snape kills Dumbledore" and "Rosebud is the sled" in terms of famous spoilers. (Both of which are also from things I've never seen/read, come to think of it.)

[Corlindale]

This also gets pretty silly with any of the ammunitions that have area effect special on-hit effects using either Static Shot or the piercing ammunition enhancement to a similar result - shoot through a line of five enemies, set off 5 separate ice bursts or exploding fires or windbursts or whatever. Gunslinger in general really likes procs/bonus on-hit effects due to their very high capacity to just dump attacks onto things.

Good luck with the final boss - I recall that one being quite challenging as a Gunslinger due to being nearly impossible to take down in one ability cycle and putting a lot of pressure on your Steam reserves to be able to keep using your special shots. Although I think that was also my first Embers of Rage run to get there and probably half of it was thanks to not knowing the fight gimmick. (Which I have since forgotten so I still don't know the fight gimmick.)

Yeah, I'm getting the feeling that I'm only just scratching the surface of the interactions you can play with. I haven't really used the piercing ammunition much (I'm so lazy that I've just set Combustive Shots to auto-use when I spot an enemy), but it does sound like there's potential there as well.

I worry a bit about the final boss too. I've beaten it twice on Normal. Once with an Oozemancer which was slooow and once with an Annihilator where I felt like it was just obliterated. But I don't really remember its main gimmick either, will be interesting to see how it plays out.

I'd definitely recommend them, obviously. I can say from experience that FF7 Remake works well even if you've never played the original, since I'd only gotten partway through it (maybe 25-30%-ish) on my one attempt prior to Remake, and I barely remembered anything from that attempt at the time anyway. Rebirth I can't say the same from experience, since after Remake I both went and played the original in full and played the re-release of Crisis Core (which is basically a prequel game). I do think there's more in Rebirth that assumes some level of knowledge of the original story for full effect than in Remake, but you're probably mostly fine assuming you know of the most famous moment from the original. Which I'd bet you do, I certainly knew it long before even my first try at playing the original, since it's right up there with "Snape kills Dumbledore" and "Rosebud is the sled" in terms of famous spoilers. (Both of which are also from things I've never seen/read, come to think of it.)

Good to know, sounds very promising. Yes, I do know the thing you are talking about despite never reaching that point in the game. It's one of those famous spoilers that's hard to avoid.

[Sapphire Guard]

Forspoken It's competent and has potential, and wandering around literally looking at the scenery was quite nice. The final boss has good design, a good name, and an interesting backstory I want to know more about, but given the reviews, we'll probably never know. I want to know more about the lore, but probably not enough to actually try hunting it all.

Also, Wo Long grew on me in the end. I was consistently underlevelled, which suits me fine, the toughest fight was the first Lu Bu fight, but once you get through that you know the combat system and the rest comes together. Level 71 for the final fight, and it only took me a few attempts. I'm not super skilled, so the devs must have been being fairly generous. Notably, there is a fight with a dragon at one point where the difficulty seemedf to shift depending on how well you did with the previous fight, unless that was just me.

Many of the characters are actual historical figures, but I can't remember enough about them to wreck the experience. Had trouble remembering who everyone was.

Spoiler

Show

Villain's plot is straightforward and works well, he hands elixir to warlords that are in a tough spot to cause chaos while he does research. Eventually runs out of warlords and has to start forciblty converting your allies, but then the lead discovers how to heal that so he has to take a hand. Makes sense. Shame we lost Lu Bu, though.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

Forspoken It's competent and has potential, and wandering around literally looking at the scenery was quite nice. The final boss has good design, a good name, and an interesting backstory I want to know more about, but given the reviews, we'll probably never know. I want to know more about the lore, but probably not enough to actually try hunting it all.

I had a way better time with Forspoken than the internet hate would lead you to expect. It's got some interesting ideas and I actually enjoyed most of the writing. It certainly feels rough and unfinished in spots, but it was worth a playthrough.

[Errorname]

A thing I was struck with is that a lot of dialogue in Forspoken would have been completely inoffensive and even mildly charming with less effort put into the presentation.

There are a lot of lines that are fine as off-the-cuff barks, which get entire cutscenes of the characters standing still and blankly talking while the camera slowly pans. They're interrupting the gameplay for cutscenes that do not merit the interruption.

[Rynjin]

I guess it helps if you haven't been over-exposed to the type of dialogue Forspoken has. I've thought it was lame for a while now, personally. Just everybody trying to be "witty" or "quippy" but utterly failing and landing on "awkward" instead.

[Zevox]

I thought Forspoken had fun combat - I wish there were more such games with action combat applied to a mage - and there's something to be said for parts of its setting, at least visually.

Story-wise, well, Frey was a good character. The rest of it was pretty eh, and it clearly got incredibly rushed after the second Tanta, with the ending in general being a mess. Which is especially bad considering it had multiple delays, coming out something like a year and a half later than it was originally supposed to...

[Mr Blobby]

The Human Noble is pretty clearly conforming to the expectations of a second child. They're trusted with the responsibility of managing Highever while their relatives are away at war, and yeah there's definitely the prospect of them getting married off to another family soon, both of which are part of dynastic politics. It just doesn't feel as political because while all the Dwarf Noble's peers and family are backbiting pricks where the Couslands are all basically saints. That makes sense given where the antagonists of their stories are (DN is betrayed by their family while HN seeks to avenge theirs) but the former is obviously more interesting.

Yeah, I could sense a lot of unsaid stuff when HN's father is briefing them; basically 'if we both die at Ostagar, it's up to you to be the regent for your nephew and hold it all together'. It also feels 'political' when Bryce slaps down Howe for bad-mouthing Cailan; with hindsight, that might have been the final test - that if they'd agreed 'yes, Cailan is unsuitable' they might have hit the abort button.

I don't think Loghain planned for Alistair to be at the Tower of Ishal, I think he wanted him to die with Cailan and Duncan. I don't want to say Cailan sending Maric's other heir to the Tower singlehandedly threw a spanner into Loghain's plan, Alistair still very much would have died without Flemeth's intervention, but it was a good play and the thing that would have ruined it (the darkspawn attacking the tower) probably wasn't known to Loghain either.

Improvisation. The moment Cailan says 'send Alistair to the tower' [note it's Alistair by name], Loghain hears 'get my bastard heir presumptive out of the firing-line'. So he pulls the guards off the Tower, esp the ones trying to secure the 'basement tunnels' found earlier. He might even consider that the bastard being stuck in a tower with darkspawn swarming outside an even better situation than them being on a collapsing front line in a pinch-point - because the latter has the chance of survival [after all, both Aveline and Carver did] while the former has none.

...Went back to my Dalish rogue run, mostly because a) city elves have pretty good reasons not toput Anora on the throne, which I want to do, and b) I want to see if there's any special dialogue options when in the Alienage in the endgame...

There isn't. Not even Valendrian or Alarith [a pair who you'd expect to acknowledge it] don't bat an eyelid. I was kinda sad there wasn't an angry 'how [redacted] dare you suggest I sell flat-ears as slaves!' option to Caladrius - or even being able to tear a strip off Zevran afterwards ['you think I needed to be reminded about how slavery is bad?'] when he does a 'look at their eyes before you agree to the deal' line at you. This general 'lack of acknowledgement' through the whole game of Origins makes me suspect that the Dalish origin was added relatively late [the other one I suspect being Elf Mage].

[Anonymouswizard]

There isn't. Not even Valendrian or Alarith [a pair who you'd expect to acknowledge it] don't bat an eyelid. I was kinda sad there wasn't an angry 'how [redacted] dare you suggest I sell flat-ears as slaves!' option to Caladrius - or even being able to tear a strip off Zevran afterwards ['you think I needed to be reminded about how slavery is bad?'] when he does a 'look at their eyes before you agree to the deal' line at you. This general 'lack of acknowledgement' through the whole game of Origins makes me suspect that the Dalish origin was added relatively late [the other one I suspect being Elf Mage].

It's a shame, but I remember being a city elf having similar issues. Part of me suspects the game was originally written with HN and HM in mind and then a few 'you're an elf's were sprinkled in.

From what they've set up most quest givers should be dismissive of an elf warden.


Anyway, my external hard drive died and so once my new SSD arrives I can get into more modern stuff!

....

(Boots up Dragon Age.)

[Batcathat]

Maybe I'm misremembering, but my impression wasn't so much that some origins got less attention than others and more that the origins generally didn't really change that much of the game once they were finished.

[Mr Blobby]

The 'default elf' lines are for a city elf, from my guess [I've played all three elves all the way through]. Loghain is a bit better; he gets the difference between 'elven derelict' [City Elf] and 'wild elf' [Dalish] but an elven Mage comes under the former.

If I remember right, the Elf Mage gets exactly one conversation which admits their 'double minority' status [Eadric, the elf-mage in the Circle library in the Origin story]. There's a couple of bits which I think deserved a bit of 'elf-fleshing out'; the Arcane Warrior phylactery was the spirit of an ancient elf [but the elf-Warden wasn't curious?] nor could they point out to Wynne that perhaps her first apprentice [Aneirin] might have been better-placed with an elven mentor, or at least a human one who was more sympathetic to the myriad of injustices they'd suffered at human hands [esp as the City Elf comes from the same alienage as him, and how did that work out?].

And while yeah, the origin doesn't change that much the main quests afterwards, but each of them get their 'business and personal' quests - both dwarves get Orzammar, the HN gets the 'Arl of Denerim' and so on. However, as there are effectively five different 'combat styles' [Mage, archer, dual-wield, single-handed/shield and double-handed], four different romantic partners [five if you count 'none'] and six Origins [human-mage and elf-mage are effectively identical] you can effectively play the same game five times significantly differently.

[Anonymouswizard]

The 'default elf' lines are for a city elf, from my guess [I've played all three elves all the way through]. Loghain is a bit better; he gets the difference between 'elven derelict' [City Elf] and 'wild elf' [Dalish] but an elven Mage comes under the former.

If I remember right, the Elf Mage gets exactly one conversation which admits their 'double minority' status [Eadric, the elf-mage in the Circle library in the Origin story]. There's a couple of bits which I think deserved a bit of 'elf-fleshing out'; the Arcane Warrior phylactery was the spirit of an ancient elf [but the elf-Warden wasn't curious?] nor could they point out to Wynne that perhaps her first apprentice [Aneirin] might have been better-placed with an elven mentor, or at least a human one who was more sympathetic to the myriad of injustices they'd suffered at human hands [esp as the City Elf comes from the same alienage as him, and how did that work out?].

And while yeah, the origin doesn't change that much the main quests afterwards, but each of them get their 'business and personal' quests - both dwarves get Orzammar, the HN gets the 'Arl of Denerim' and so on. However, as there are effectively five different 'combat styles' [Mage, archer, dual-wield, single-handed/shield and double-handed], four different romantic partners [five if you count 'none'] and six Origins [human-mage and elf-mage are effectively identical] you can effectively play the same game five times significantly differently.

That sucks, I'm supposed to be viewed as the evil elf of the woods who kidnaps bad children and sacrifices them to their dread gods. Heck the Dalish Elf Origin gets this right with the brief scene with what I assume is one of the elves who ran away from the City Elf's wedding (the Dalish implicitly being one of the later Origins).

Am I really going to run through Ostagar a third time just to play an elven mage?

... at least the game doesn't expect mages to invest in the intelligence stat. Would be nice if the gameplay followed the lore in Oirigins and made Willpower an important stat for mages, but you can't have everything.

[Mr Blobby]

Tattoo + Arcane Warrior + Spellweaver + Ancient Elven Armour? Your Elf-Mage might not be Dalish but hell, you'd be the elven hero they'd like to have.

[Errorname]

Improvisation. The moment Cailan says 'send Alistair to the tower' [note it's Alistair by name], Loghain hears 'get my bastard heir presumptive out of the firing-line'. So he pulls the guards off the Tower, esp the ones trying to secure the 'basement tunnels' found earlier. He might even consider that the bastard being stuck in a tower with darkspawn swarming outside an even better situation than them being on a collapsing front line in a pinch-point - because the latter has the chance of survival [after all, both Aveline and Carver did] while the former has none.

Is there any evidence that Loghain engineered / allowed the Darkspawn attack on the Tower of Ishal, or is that just pure headcanon?

[Zevox]

Hi-Fi Rush released on Playstation today, and I've picked it up - but not started playing it yet. I think I'll finish my FF7 Rebirth hard mode run first. Which is a testament both to how much I'm enjoying the game, and how much faster it's going the second time around, when I can just bypass all the open-world elements, because I had fully expected to set Rebirth aside for a bit when Hi-Fi Rush dropped, since I'm quite eager to play it.

Also playing a little DBFZ here and then, when the game cooperates with me and gets me matches anyway. When it does, it works pretty well and I enjoy it. Getting more accustomed to it again, and I think I've settled on a team of Kefla/Super Broly/Lab Coat 21 for now. Though as always with this game it is tempting to make other teams and start learning them, particularly since I keep running into people doing things with characters that I like that weren't possible the last time I played.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

I guess it helps if you haven't been over-exposed to the type of dialogue Forspoken has. I've thought it was lame for a while now, personally. Just everybody trying to be "witty" or "quippy" but utterly failing and landing on "awkward" instead.

I thought it worked especially well in Forspoken simply because Frey isn't meant to be a likeable character. She's abrasive, standoffish, and selfish for a decent chunk of the game. She's making quips to show that she's "too cool" for everyone else, but a lot of her audience in-game are either annoyed or confused by it. Most of her arc is coming to realize she's her own worst enemy because she's internalized a view of the world where it screwed her, it'll always screw her, and so she needs to take what she can get whenever she can. I remember her getting progressively less quippy as the game went on; she opened up and started taking things more seriously. She ends up more earnest than she started, even if she's still a 20 year-old New Yorker.

[Rynjin]

I thought it worked especially well in Forspoken simply because Frey isn't meant to be a likeable character. She's abrasive, standoffish, and selfish for a decent chunk of the game. She's making quips to show that she's "too cool" for everyone else, but a lot of her audience in-game are either annoyed or confused by it. Most of her arc is coming to realize she's her own worst enemy because she's internalized a view of the world where it screwed her, it'll always screw her, and so she needs to take what she can get whenever she can. I remember her getting progressively less quippy as the game went on; she opened up and started taking things more seriously. She ends up more earnest than she started, even if she's still a 20 year-old New Yorker.

That's neat and all but swinging hot out of the gate with an unlikeable protagonist going through a pretty generic isekai story setup doesn't do much to make me narratively invested, and the gameplay was just kinda...okay so I'm not going to be sticking with it purely out of the fun factor.

The early part of a game really needs to hook you in, and you only get one chance at first impressions. That opening bit where she's getting shaken down in an alley and clapping back with dialogue that would make a high schooler's first attempt at writing a play look like fine art is not a great hook. And somehow, the non-Frey characters have even WORSE dialogue.

I get what they were going for. She's supposed to be this sassy, streetwise girl who gets by on wits and quick reflexes. Issue is she comes off as very un-wise and not knowing "how to play the game" around the thugs she's supposed to be working with, and in general not very smart at all, so there's not much reason to root for her.

She's not a "jerk with a heart of gold", she's just a jerk surrounded by bigger jerks.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

That's neat and all but swinging hot out of the gate with an unlikeable protagonist going through a pretty generic isekai story setup doesn't do much to make me narratively invested, and the gameplay was just kinda...okay so I'm not going to be sticking with it purely out of the fun factor.

The early part of a game really needs to hook you in, and you only get one chance at first impressions. That opening bit where she's getting shaken down in an alley and clapping back with dialogue that would make a high schooler's first attempt at writing a play look like fine art is not a great hook. And somehow, the non-Frey characters have even WORSE dialogue.

I get what they were going for. She's supposed to be this sassy, streetwise girl who gets by on wits and quick reflexes. Issue is she comes off as very un-wise and not knowing "how to play the game" around the thugs she's supposed to be working with, and in general not very smart at all, so there's not much reason to root for her.

She's not a "jerk with a heart of gold", she's just a jerk surrounded by bigger jerks.

She's not supposed to be a "sassy, streetwise girl who gets by on wits." It's very apparent from the first hour or so of the game that she's not getting by. She has no friends, she's facing serious criminal time due to her rap sheet, her peers are all users who see her as a tool (and try to kill her shortly after the game starts), she lives in an abandoned tenement, and she's not very good at much besides running away (which, intentional or not, is some great symbolism). The intro even ends with her two seconds away from suicide. Nothing about the first hour says that she's making it work. And the biggest clue to her character comes after being isekai'd. In a very non-generic way, after being teleported to a beautiful new world and granted fantastic magic powers, she takes one look at a monster and has a "Nope, f*** this. Send me home." moment. The girl who was about to leap off a building to her death would rather go back to wallowing in the misery she knows than take a risk doing something new.

She's a very broken person who's using her trauma as a blanket to wrap herself in. All the quips and sass are a facade hiding her insecurities, plus a way to needle people into being antagonistic towards her so she doesn't have to improve. As long as she has enemies to blame, she can keep being a horrible troll and pretending that it's not her fault that life is so bad.

I don't think you're even supposed to root for her at the start. As you said, you can point out a multitude of instances where she does something stupid for no real gain. It's not an Aladdin-like tale of a typical street kid becoming a hero, but more like the story of the worst person for the job being forced to be a savior. It's got a lot of clumsy dialogue (though I think the writing and the performances by the Tantas are all fantastic), but I think I enjoyed it mostly because it's so different than the usual barely-disguised shonen plot that most videogames use. It's even juxtaposed against itself, being a power-fantasy wizard game with a protagonist you absolutely do not want to be.

[Sapphire Guard]

I fall somewhere in the middle. Her dialogue isn't perfect, but it kind of sounds like what someone trying to be quippy would actually sound like. I do like her trying to be quippy with the gang at the start, where they respond by ' I am going to continue beating you'

Most of it is justified, she doesn't know what things are called, so she has to improvise names off the cuff. She's reluctant to save the world, but when you think about it, it's asking rather a lot.

'Hey newbie with powers you barely understand, go fight the most dangerous sorceress in the world.Have fun.' Sila is a hardened veteran with decades of experience, and combat is literally her specialty. If you take away the meta where the protagonist probably won't die, that's pretty much a death sentence. I don't think not being keen on that is necessarily selfish.

Frey is pointlessly snippy, she can't help but say stupid things (I mean, one of the first things she does is get mouthy with the presiding judge, a very counterproductive thing to do. I do think that she is supposed to be stupidly quippy to a self destructive degree.

In other news, I'm trying to play FFXVI. Enjoying it, but there is a moment where you have to pick up some sacks in the hideway, and the game glitches and won't let me progress. Annoying, it's not like those sacks can be too hard on memory.

[Mr Blobby]

Is there any evidence that Loghain engineered / allowed the Darkspawn attack on the Tower of Ishal, or is that just pure headcanon?

Howe told Loghain that 'somehow' two Wardens survived Ostagar. That implies he'd made fairly sure that they'd all fall there. Loghain's troops in the Lothering inn were asking around explicitly for 'an [PC race] of this very description'. That implies that Loghain quickly worked out which two. We also learn that Loghain is perhaps the only one apart from the Guerrin brothers who know of Alistair's parentage. Which explains why he sent the Crows against them.

I can't say it's provable that Loghain pulled his guards off the tower; merely that it fits all the other actions Loghain did on this and his general goals. And if for want of a Flemeth, it would have been [a 'rogue element' which nobody could really fit into their plots].

[Errorname]

I can't say it's provable that Loghain pulled his guards off the tower; merely that it fits all the other actions Loghain did on this and his general goals. And if for want of a Flemeth, it would have been [a 'rogue element' which nobody could really fit into their plots].

I'll say that everything you're saying is consistent with Loghain not actively sabotaging the tower defense and the Wardens being sent to the tower as an actual spanner in his plans

Just in the game as presented the tower doesn't seem like it was unguarded, they just weren't expecting the attack and got taken by surprise

[Batcathat]

Just in the game as presented the tower doesn't seem like it was unguarded, they just weren't expecting the attack and got taken by surprise

Also, aren't the temporary party members you get in the tower guards fleeing from it? Or are they arriving from somewhere else? I don't remember the specifics.