Still has issues, still a bit irritating, and still just generally awesome. Hell, I actually cried, and I’ve replayed this a dozen times. Big recommend.
Type Of Review: Veteran Run
Total Story Score: +20
Total Gameplay Score: +13
Golden Number: 102.27
Cheats: No
Total Play Time: 1 days / 6.95 Hours
Time Reviewed: 03-03-2022
Story Positives:
- Voice Acting: Surprisingly good voice acting in general for the main characters…
- Voice Acting: …but also for the NPCs. The US soldiers sound like kids, the SAS sound like seasoned vets, there’s variance in tone and direction depending on outfit, etc.
- Intro: Crew Expendable. Immediately establishes what kind of game this is
- Intro: The car ride. I can’t even begin to summarize the level of detail in this level, and the visual storytelling going on everywhere…
- Intro: …easily earning two positives for what is essentially a barely-interactive cutscene
- Storytelling Mechanics: Briefings. Lots of info is given very quickly and often powerfully in the briefings, and the satellite radar approach helps to sell both the detachment and the modern feel
- MSQ: Proper escalation and foreshadowing in Blackout, with Kamarov and Nikolai
- MSQ: Death From Above. This is probably the second best mission in the game narratively. The detachment, the deliberate lack of music, the total dehumanization of the targets, the dull tones of the crew, the cold professionalism, all seen through the eyes of the person on the radar telling someone else to push a button that kills people…
- MSQ: …easily earning…
- MSQ: …three positives
- Moment: You know the one. Don’t front. This moment… it’s perfectly built up and paid off, it’s literally the fulcrum of the series, and… it hit a lot harder than I thought it would…
- Moment: …earning…
- Moment: …three positives
- MSQ: Shock and Awe
- Cutscene: Shock and Awe
- Banter: Love the banter between the squad mates
- Outro: The Outro does a great job of raising the stakes without getting ridiculous, and feels incredibly tense…
- Outro: …but the finale where we’ve already won, and need to just survive, and finally being rescued by Kamarov, is a great moment
- Brickwork: Really great brickwork in this one…
- Brickwork: …just… everywhere really
- Theme: Modern war… sucks
Story Negatives:
- Writing: A weirdly large amount of ‘just go with it’ slides under the spectacle throughout
Gameplay Positives:
- Intro: Crew Expendable. Good pacing, good structure, good tutorial
- Tutorialization: The obstacle course. Gets across an idea of what to do and how to play, but also encourages the player via score and distinct scoreboard to repeat it just for fun
- HUD: Minimalist (and reactionary) without being obtuse, very helpful on the fly
- MSQ: Blackout, and the gradual encirclement and finally push through the village
- MSQ: Charlie Don’t Surf, and the charge into enemy held territory
- MSQ: Hunted. Night-time sequence that bounces between stealth and loud
- MSQ: Death From Above… a good turret mission, go figure
- MSQ: Shock and Awe… tense, short, and well paced between holdouts, turret sections, and pushing through heavily held territory
- MSQ: All Ghillied Up
- MSQ: One Shot One Kill
- Viscerality: Guns look, sound, and feel fantastic…
- Viscerality: …earning two positives
- Kit: Not the best, but still a decent spread between turrets and guns
- Pacing: Prologue
- Pacing: US invasion of Madeupistan
- Pacing: SAS evacuation of Nikolai
- Pacing: All Ghillied Up
- MSQ: Sins of the Father
- Level Design: American missions (loud, hardware, reinforcements)
- Level Design: SAS missions (quiet, behind lines, outnumbered)
- Level Design: Final missions (somehow combining the previous two)
Gameplay Negatives:
- Raspberry Jam: Yep.
- Sound Design: Very bad audio balancing on the cutscenes
- Difficulty: Boring difficulty
- Encounter Rate: Monster closets
- Visual Distinction: While deliberate, it’s very hard to tell enemies, friendlies, and civvies at a glance
- Bug: Consistent crash on The Bog
- Outro: The Outro… is honestly kind of the worst aspects of the game combined. Terrible visibility, inconsistent checkpoints, lots of enemies, etc.
- Graphics: Entirely too much visual noise and irritation and jarring camerawork
Still one of the best games I’ve ever played (#5 on the list as of reviewing), and one of the best shooters I’ve ever played. Massively recommended.
Type Of Review: Veteran Run
Total Story Score: +39
Total Gameplay Score: +29
Golden Number: 247.36
Cheats: No
Total Play Time: 1 days / 6.57 Hours
Time Reviewed: 03-06-2022
Story Positives:
- Visual Storytelling: The initial, expansive base under Shepard
- Brickwork: S.S.D.D. has an astonishing level of detail going on, establishing tone and scene
- Plot: The core plot of the game is surprisingly tightly knit
- Foreshadowing: This allows the game to have plenty of foreshadowing
- Internal Continuity: And the internal continuity similarly remains tight throughout
- External Continuity: The game also is made much better by how it follows through, both literally and thematically, from Modern Warfare 1
- MSQ: No Russian speaks for itself. It’s everything it needs to be, and for that…
- MSQ: …it gets two positives
- NPC Set Dressing: Excellent usage of NPCs in the cityscape areas to flesh out the story
- Brickwork: Brazil is just… gorgeous
- Doodads: Brazil also has insanely good doodad design
- Doodads: No Russian (the airport) similarly nails the Doodad design
- Storytelling Mechanics: Pre mission satellite briefings are awesome as always
- Moment: The voice acting, presentation, and immediate professionalism of the ACS glitch… followed by the invasion
- Visual Storytelling: Wolverines mission tells a lot just by looking around as the russian troops airdrop into suburbia
- Voice Acting: The main characters are excellent of course…
- Voice Acting: …but the supporting cast nails it across the board
- Pacing: Each Act is very, very well paced. Proper lows, highs, tensions, breathers, and stressors…
- Pacing: …earning each act…
- Pacing: …a pacing positive
- Cutscene: Of Their Own Accord’s intro is one of the more chilling moments in gaming for me. It’s just the emergency broadcast… no fancy, flashy logo or graphics, no epic music, no voice over. It’s chilling
- MSQ: The intro to Of Their Own Accord, by itself, deserves its own positive. The walk through the bunker, the background chatter…
- Visual Storytelling: …and the walk out into Washington DC, and the trench warfare
- Babylon 5 Effect: The story really looks different the second time around
- Brickwork: Contingency continues the brickwork excellence
- Moment: The astronaut watching the nuke go off is very, very well executed
- Sound Design: General. Awesome sound design
- Sound Design: Second Sun gets its own sound positive for the proper use of no music, as well as the muted eeriness of it all
- MSQ: Second Sun of course is amazing, what can I say
- Moment: The finale of Whiskey Hotel. The chilling normalcy with which the rangers speak of revenge upon Moscow
- Moment: Do not trust Shepard. I repeat; Do not trust Shepard
- Characters: Good main cast
- Characters: Good supporting cast
- Moment: Just Like Old Times intro and speech by Price. It’s exactly as powerful and to the point as it needs to be. No grand gesture, no great victory, no ‘beat the bad guy and win’… we’re here for just one thing
- Banter: As usual, great banter throughout
- Brickwork: Suburbia has the usual excellent brickwork
- Brickwork: Whiskey Hotel, ditto
- Consequence Storytelling: A lot of actions are followed through very smoothly and naturally
- Outro: The entire outro is fantastic, up to and including…
- Outro: …the final knife fight, and the dead men in the desert
- Themes: Revenge, what is it good for, absolutely nothin’
Story Negatives:
- Writing: Hollywood nonsense…
- Writing: …more hollywood nonsense
Gameplay Positives:
- Kit: Good gun variety
- Controls: Plays very smoothly compared to its predecessor
- MSQ: No Russian… the optional nature of the earlier mission is nice, but what’s really good is the charge through the airport against entrenched defenders
- Options: The ability to bypass No Russian (twice)
- Enemy AI: Very good AI in general
- Friendly AI: For both friends and foes
- MSQ: Wolverines… you start off fighting through suburbia, have to hit the gas station, then the burger town, and the whole time there’s no feel of arduousness or backtracking. Enemy placement and design varies, as do the tools you have at your disposal…
- MSQ: …earning it two positives
- MSQ: Takedown. Despite the frustrations, it’s still a great showcasing of the new AI and dynamic nature of the firefights
- MSQ: Hornet’s Nest. Ditto from before, but without the irritation this time, plus some excellent variety and pacing…
- MSQ: …earning two positives
- Viscerality: All the same viscerality of the last game, but now with even more…
- Viscerality: …earning two positives
- Pacing: The gameplay in general is very well paced across the board
- Pacing: Act I continues pacing both within and across missions
- Pacing: Early invasion missions are just… awesome
- MSQ: The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday is a very fun joint infiltration and assault mission, varying up both
- MSQ: Of Their Own Accord is honestly one of the better mid game missions…
- Pacing: …getting its own pacing positive
- Pacing: End game…
- Pacing: …times two
- MSQ: Whiskey Hotel. Hammer down is in effect
- MSQ: Second Sun. Just… Second Sun. Somehow these missions continue to one up each other…
- MSQ: …making it the best mission to date
- Mid Mission Checkpoints: Very well placed, and reasonably spread
- MSQ: Loose Ends continues the trend of excellent missions. It’s brutal, in all the right ways, gives you a ton of kit, and tons of options for how to deal with the assault…
- MSQ: …earning two positives
- MSQ: Endgame. The final assault, chase, the whole thing is just great
- Music: Excellent music
- Yoshi Drums: And excellent Yoshi Drums
- Replayability: While this exact version (the remaster) lacks the Spec Ops missions, the main campaign continues to be very replayable
- HUD: Same good minimalist HUD design from the last game
- Sound Design: Fantastic sound design, between barks and directions giving you a lot to decide what to do very quickly
Gameplay Negatives:
- Railroading: The ease with which the action setpieces can go badly, completely screwing the entire section, is just irritating
- MSQ: Takedown (geometry and dead ends)
- Raspberry Jam: Not as bad as the original believe it or not, but still there
- Visual Distinction: Same ‘hard to see’ deliberate issue from the first game
The game that codified so many gaming concepts, if you haven’t played it I highly recommend it. It dips in quality after Act 2 (and almost never recovers thereafter) but the story’s still legit and the game is still a classic for a reason.
Type Of Review: Veteran Run
Total Story Score: +32
Total Gameplay Score: -1
Golden Number: 74.17
Codifier: The Diablo ARPG Format
Cheats: No
Total Play Time: 3 days / 24.42 Hours
Time Reviewed: 03-28-2023
Story Positives:
- Brickwork: Act 1 green fields
- Brickwork: Act 1 green fields original
- Brickwork: Act 2 desert
- Brickwork: Act 2 desert original
- Brickwork: Act 5 in general
- Brickwork: Harrogath
- Brickwork: Harrogath
- Brickwork: Hell
- Brickwork: Kurast Docks
- Brickwork: Kurast Docks
- Brickwork: Kurast Docks Original
- Brickwork: Lut Gholein
- Brickwork: Lut Gholein
- Brickwork: Lut Gholein
- Brickwork: Lut Gholein Original
- Brickwork: Palace
- Brickwork: Palace original
- Brickwork: Rogue Encampment
- Brickwork: Rogue Encampment
- Brickwork: Rogue Encampment Original
- Brickwork: Rogue Monastery
- Cinematics: General quality of the cinematics fidelity
- Doodads: Harrogath
- Doodads: Kurast Docks
- Doodads: Lut Gholein
- Doodads: Lut Gholein
- Doodads: Lut Gholein Original
- Doodads: Rogue Encampment
- Doodads: Rogue Encampment Original
- External Continuity: The story is a direct sequel to D1, and does a good job of continuing not just its threads, but using it for the betterment of the overall work
- Music Direction: Each song is not just great by itself, but wonderfully designed to accentuate the different locales across Sanctuary
- Pacing: Act 2 pacing and flow
- Visual Storytelling: Bloody Foothills
- Visual Storytelling: Harrogath
- Visual Storytelling: Kurast city proper
- Visual Storytelling: Kurast Docks
- Visual Storytelling: Lut Gholein
- Visual Storytelling: Rogue Encampment
- Visual Storytelling: Rogue Encampment Original
- Voice Acting: This is when Blizzard had really started getting good with voice acting…
- Voice Acting: …and it shows
- Background Lore: Random dialogues with the villagers at multiple steps throughout
- Atmosphere and Tone: Yep
- Humor: The Cow Level
- Characters: Generally memorable, amusing characters
Story Negatives:
- Plot: Act 2 finale. The ‘battle’ between the forces is honestly pretty badly choreographed, Diablo just has no issues whatsoever in getting there before you, there’s no sign of the fact that they got there first, and the whole thing fails at its intended purpose of having the player ‘lose’
- Writing: Also, Tyrael just sort of… deciding Marius needs to be the one to carry the stone east is ridiculous on every level
- Writing: Why is Marius dragged along for so much of the plot? There’s no point or benefit in it until he accidentaly’s Baal’s soulstone
- Story Sequencing: Act 3 main plot
- Writing: How the hell is Marius there in the Durance of Hatred?
- Plot: Act 4 and the absence of story
- Story Sequencing: There’s a whole lot of ‘how did we get here’ or disconnected tissue in the narrative
- MSQ: So Nilathak is evil, barely explained, and insists on betraying us despite everything, for some reason, and…
- MSQ: …it was all for nothing because what Baal was doing was ultimately barely affected by this
- Outro: There’s… so much wrong with the Outro. Baal goes for the stone, corrupts it? Somehow? Also Tyrael is like okay let’s blow this sucker up. And worst of all, what’s it all for?
- Outro: Who knows. Typical Blizzard ending
- Brickwork: Act 5 Original
- Internal Continuity: Whole lot of ‘because plot’ just flinging around everywhere
Gameplay Positives:
- Alternate Leveling: Talents as a core system (effectively invented by DII)
- Alternate Leveling: Talent synergies (and how they help you to not waste points in your build)
- Level: Arcane Sanctuary (probably the best level in the game, neat gimmick and rewarding without being too frustrating)
- Builds: While somewhat limited by connected systems, there’s plenty of good Build gameplay here
- Co-Op: Co-op exists
- Co-Op: Campaign co-op
- Core Mechanic: Shrine system and its various benefits (including Wells)
- Encounter Design: While exceptions exist, there are plenty of good examples of good encounter design
- Enemy Design: The good enemies are pretty legit
- Enemy Variety: Surprisingly good enemy variety
- Enemy Variety: Second positive for enemy variety
- Hub: Lut Gholein
- Hub: Pandemonium Fortress
- Hub: Rogue Encampment
- HUD: Informative, helpful, good at-a-glance
- Interface: Mouseover & Tooltips
- Intro: The first bits (starting next to an NPC who gets you started, beelining Akara, road leading to the first dungeon, and shown how to both ‘sweep’ an area and forced into a unique encounter) all work really well to get you into the type of game this is even if you’ve never played D1 or similar games
- Itemization: Charms and the trade off they offer (inventory space for stat bonuses)
- Kit: Amazon
- Kit: Amazon
- Kit: Assassin
- Kit: Assassin
- Kit: Barbarian
- Kit: Barbarian
- Kit: Druid
- Kit: Necromancer
- Kit: Necromancer
- Kit: Necromancer
- Kit: Paladin
- Kit: Paladin
- Kit: Sorceress
- Kit: Sorceress
- Kit: Sorceress
- QoL: Several small but neat QoL changes
- Music: Tristram’s music continues to be awesome… oh and other good songs too
- Options: From the remaster, lots of good new options
- Party AI: Surprisingly good
- Traversal: Waypoint system
- Viscerality: Amazon
- Viscerality: Druid
- Viscerality: Necromancer
- Viscerality: Paladin
- Viscerality: Sorceress
- Viscerality: Sorceress
- Minimap: Even better than in the first game…
- Minimap: …and now with options on placement and visibility
- Replayability: Generally good replayability up to Act 2
- Replayability: Lots of gameplay mechanics which encourage replay
Gameplay Negatives:
- Alternate Leveling: Runewords can only be used on grays and whites
- Audio Spam: Yeah, it’s not as bad as in D1, but it’s definitely there
- Boss: Diablo. Hits like a truck, slows you, obliterates minions, and way, way too much health…
- Boss: …for two negatives
- Boss: Duriel is the worst boss in the game, and honestly one of the worst in gaming. He hits like a truck, has a charge / moves fast, slows you, and all of that’s already irritating but then you fight him in a VERY small area which you cannot simply walk back out of. This is on top of having no warning the boss is coming, and the fact that he turbo nukes minions, which combined with his other facets makes him very unforgiving to certain specs. But all of this is compounded by Duriel’s greatest sin; he’s boring. There’s nothing to him really. Earning him…
- Boss: …a full…
- Boss: …three negatives
- Builds: While the builds are many and varied and awesome, it IS possible to build yourself into a corner especially if you don’t know what you’re doing or how committed it is
- Co-Op: Quest syncing, hassles in grouping, etc.
- Difficulty Curve: Hoo boy. The game likes to just sort of lurch forwards in difficulty periodically, and then back, and then forwards…
- Dungeon: Maggot Hole. It’s tiny, cramped, easy to get stuck in, and almost totally invalidates several builds, but it’s even worse if you’re playing with friends cuz you’ll get stuck around and on each other
- Encounter: The Venom Lord boss pack in Act 4 can go directly to hell, as all the inferno-type mobs can
- Enemy Design: Act 3 irritations, especially the inferno-type mobs
- Enemy Design: Act 4 in its entirety
- Enemy Design: Irritating enemies across the whole game
- Graphics: Framerate and related issues with original graphics mode
- Grind: End game grind for experience
- Grind: End game grind… for items
- Grind: And of course, the terrible drop rate in general
- Hub: Kurast Docks. It’s honestly legitimately badly laid out from a gameplay perspective
- Info In Game: General (how specific abilities work, how specific items operate, etc.)
- Info In Game: Horadric Cube recipes, good luck figuring any of those out without a guide or the internet
- Info In Game: Rune word recipes, ditto
- Interface: Inventory limitations. The inventory space is honestly far too small, and that’s before you consider the inventory tax of tomes, keys, and occasionally quest items
- Itemization: Ammo. Honestly, enough said, but even ignoring the ‘ammo problem’ they don’t do anything interesting with ammo etiher to offset it
- Itemization: Junk. There’s way, way too much junk and unlike some other games, there’s nothing you can really do with the junk except accidentally pick it up
- Itemization: Runewords. They’re neat, but they’re very unforgiving, they’re RNG on top of RNG, and good luck figuring it out without a wiki
- Itemization: The drop rates and spread of drops is just way, way too low, especially for how much junk enemies drop
- Kit: Druid. While every class suffers this problem to some extent, Druid is the worst in how it doesn’t even really become its own class until level 24ish and that’s just way too long to be as plain as it is
- Launch: DRM check in system requiring you to log in periodically to keep playing the game you own
- Level: Act 3 sewers. Boring, samey, over-large, and the way forward is rather random
- Levels: Jails. Plain, dull, frustrating, and hard to see
- Levels: Monastery … everything wrong with Jails again
- Lighting: Man it’s hard to see in general
- Outro: The final dungeon is okay, the final gauntlet is whatever, but Baal is yet another of those awful DII style boss fights
- Overworld: Act 3. It’s one nice big, long corridor that actually still manages to fail because there’s branching paths, some of which are mandatory (and some of which just waste your time)
- Overworld: Act 4’s overworld is either plain vanilla empty or, worse, frustrating platforms to navigate
- Padding: Act 3 jungle. This is partially due to the pseudo maze nature of the minimap but there’s entirely too much roaming for how little content there is
- Padding: Act 4 is weirdly padded for how short it is
- Prime Opt: Act 3 quests have no real rhyme or reason to them, and are actively hostile towards the player figuring them out unlike, say, Act 1 and 2’s
- Prime Opt: Rescuing the barbarians in Act 5 quest by itself is just so damned frustrating
- QoL: Talent system lack of commit/undo/idiot proofing
- Respec: It’s there, but it’s VERY limited. One per difficulty and, worse, nothing actually indicates it’s there or that it’s limited
- Traversal: The waypoints are heavily inconsistent. Some are fairly static, some are designed to be ‘in the path’ or useful, some can be wherever, and huge swaths of time can pass between them
- Traversal Mechanics: Stamina. I honestly want to give it more negatives, but I can’t in good conscience, but I still hate it and how it doesn’t really do anything other than make you occasionally move slower
- Visual Continuity: Act 3. Good luck figuring out where you are, where you’ve been, and where you need to go
- Visual Distinction: Act 3 Original. The visuals are REALLY bad here, to the point where it’s a barely-varied palette and paths and terrain are legitimately difficult to see
- Replayability: Act 3 and onwards actively discourages replayability
- Penalty For Failure: Dying can REALLY suck in the wrong circumstances
This is one of the best gameplay games ever made. I look forward to replaying it yet again later. Also the highest ranking game I’ve covered to-date.
Type Of Review: Veteran Run
Total Story Score: +73
Total Gameplay Score: +180
Golden Number: 494.42
Cheats: No
Total Play Time: 5 days / 29.12 Hours
Time Reviewed: 4-4-2023
Story Positives:
- Background Lore: Act 4
- Background Lore: Caldeum and the recent issues
- Background Lore: Everything about the madness of Leoric and how awful that period of time was
- Background Lore: Tristram
- Banter: Some surprisingly good banter throughout the whole game, mostly between NPCs but still…
- Banter: …there’s also the occasional bits between the PC and the Followers
- Brickwork: Act 1 fields and plains
- Brickwork: Act 2 deserts
- Brickwork: Act 2 Oasis
- Brickwork: Act 4
- Brickwork: Act 4
- Brickwork: Bastion’s Keep
- Brickwork: Blood swamps
- Brickwork: Caldeum
- Brickwork: Cathedral
- Brickwork: Early Westmarch
- Brickwork: Greed’s realm
- Brickwork: Leoric’s Manor
- Brickwork: One last brickwork positive for the optional side areas in the bonus content
- Brickwork: The Path
- Brickwork: Tristram area
- Brickwork: Westmarch proper
- Brickwork: The early desert
- Brickwork: The High Heavens
- Brickwork: The High Heavens background
- Brickwork: Pandemonium
- Character: Covetous Shen
- Character: Eamon
- Character: Haedrig Eamon
- Character: Kormac
- Character: Lyndon
- Character: Maghda
- Characters: Act 1
- Characters: Act 2
- Characters: Act 2
- Characters: Act 3
- Characters: Act 3
- Characters: Act 4 continues the Act 3 character moments
- Characters: Act 5
- Characters: Act 5
- Characters: Act 5
- Cinematic: Act 5 intro is just … really, really good. Wonderful visuals, excellent voice acting, fantastic presentation
- Cinematic: Act 5’s intro does several surprisingly well designed bits of storytelling, including showcasing Malthael’s usage of souls to empower himself, the fact that he is still operating as wisdom, and the fact that Justice can’t do anything against this course because it is still ‘wise’
- Cinematic: Again, excellent storyboarding and technical excellence in the Act 2 cinematic
- Cinematic: Class opening cinematics
- Cinematic: Opening cinematic
- Cinematic: Technical excellence and storyboarding of the Act 1 end cutscene
- Cinematic: The Act 4 finale cinematic is a bit empty but still good…
- Cinematic: The little touches and surprising excellence in storytelling in the Act 1 end cutscene
- Cinematic: Yep, the Act 3 cinematic is still high quality
- Cinematic: …and still has several neat little nuances and details to it
- Doodads: Act 1 fields and plains
- Doodads: Act 2 Oasis
- Doodads: Bastion’s Keep
- Doodads: Caldeum
- Doodads: Cathedral
- Doodads: Leoric’s Manor
- Doodads: Tristram
- Doodads: Westmarch proper
- Humor: Whimsydale. What can I say
- Intro: While the plot stumbles a lot, the Intro is actually quite legit at establishing tone, theme, and stakes
- Moment: The various past characters moments for each class in Pandemonium
- Moments: The lost hope segment of Act 4
- MSQ: Defending Bastion’s Keep
- Prime Opt: Kormac’s Arc
- Prime Opt: Kormac’s quest
- Prime Opt: Lyndon’s Arc
- Prime Opt: Lyndon’s quest
- Prime Opt: Shen’s quest
- Secondary: Bastion’s Keep side stories
- Secondary: Caldeum side stories
- Secondary: Kormac and Eirena
- Secondary: Side stories in streets of Westmarch
- Secondary: Side stories in Westmarch town
- Secondary: There are many in Westmarch and they are awesome
- Secondary: Vidian and the Sanctum of Blood side arc
- Storytelling Mechanics: Quest log and relisten and sort options…
- Storytelling Mechanics: …very well done
- Visual Continuity: Act 1
- Visual Continuity: Act 4
- Visual Storytelling: Bastion’s Keep
- Visual Storytelling: Early Tristram
- Visual Storytelling: Intro to Reapers
- Visual Storytelling: Leoric’s Manor
- Visual Storytelling: The Path
- Voice Acting: Covetous Shen
- Voice Acting: Followers
- Voice Acting: Followers
- Voice Acting: Main PCs
- Voice Acting: Main PCs
- Voice Acting: Secondary NPCs
- Voice Acting: Secondary NPCs
- Voice Acting: Special mention to Westmarch NPCs
- Voice Acting: Zoltun Kulle
- World Building: Act 4
- World Building: Act 4
- External Continuity: Proper usage of the setting
- Lighting: Generally good usage of lighting throughout
- Sound Design: Generally good sound design
Story Negatives:
- Character: Leah’s continued insistence on disbelief is bonkers on several levels but then it’s all just there to lead up to her suddenly hitting a switch and being cool with everything, which is worse
- Cinematic: The Act 2 cinematic is neat and all but completely unnecessary, and only really functions to give the heroes their next destination
- Cutscene Incompetence: Adria is, of course, super powerful and effortlessly accomplishes everything
- Cutscene Incompetence: Cain’s death
- Foreshadowing: Adria… it’s actually even worse because they both do and do not foreshadow this, and nobody picks up on it in universe
- Foreshadowing: Tyrael and the lack thereof
- Gameplay / Story Segregation: Everything
- Moment: Cain’s death
- Moment: It was secretly Tyrael all along! Dun dun dunnn
- Moment: So they kill off Leah, do it badly, and do it for no reason
- Outro: And it trips at the finishing line, as Malthael decides to free the seven Evils… so they can come back in the future. Yay
- Pacing: Act 2 Kulle section
- Pacing: Everyone’s instantly on board with every weird plot thread
- Plot: Act 3 problems
- Plot: And the only reason they do that is to have their stupid reveal
- Plot: So the Stranger has amnesia
- Plot: Underthought with Tyrael and the undead plague
- Story Sequencing: Act 3 problems
- World Building: Also Diablo is now the Prime Evil despite many reasons why that both shouldn’t work and the fact that it’s about to be made to be not a big thing
- World Building: Myriam can literally see the future. This pretty violently contradicts how Fate worked earlier and honestly is just done to wink at the player periodically
- Writing: Also all of that secrecy and twist and build up and amnesia was just for the fact that… surprise… the demon lords are here. We, it’s worth noting, already knew this in Maghda’s much better done build up
- Writing: Also Diablo has been behind everything for 3 games now despite no build up, logic, reason, or even satisfaction therein
- Writing: Cain’s death
- Writing: Leah’s plot-driven powers
- Writing: So, Tyrael does all this stuff to… hang around in town and periodically give quests. What a complete waste of Tyrael
- Writing: So Cain survives for a week in the cathedral, but never escapes, but also is fine… sssure
Gameplay Positives:
- Achievements: Cosmetics
- Alternate Leveling: Kanai’s Cube
- Alternate Leveling: Legendary gems leveling
- Alternate Leveling: Paragon Levels
- QoL: AOE Looting
- Boss: Belial
- Boss: Belial
- Boss: Diablo isn’t the best, but he’s still a fun fight
- Boss: General
- Boss: The Butcher
- Boss: Zoltun Kulle
- Boss: Greed
- Boss: The Dual Bosses
- Endgame: Bounties
- Endgame: Bounties and late game viability
- Builds: Abilities
- Builds: Abilities
- Builds: Abilities
- Builds: Followers
- Builds: Kanai’s Cube
- Builds: Legendaries
- Builds: Legendaries
- Builds: Legendaries
- Builds: Legendary gems
- Builds: Legendary gems
- Builds: Rerolling
- Builds: Rerolling
- Builds: Runes
- Builds: Runes
- Builds: Runes
- Builds: Sets
- Builds: Sets
- Builds: Sets
- Builds: Talents
- Builds: Talents
- Builds: Talents
- Combat: Charge mechanics
- Combat: Potions
- Combat: Potions
- Controls: B Move
- Co-Op: Campaign co op
- Co-Op: Co-Op exists
- Co-Op: Ease of co op sharing
- Co-Op: Ease of party interaction
- Co-Op: Ease of sharing 2
- Co-Op: Loot sharing
- Co-Op: Loot sharing again
- Co-Op: Party interaction 2
- Co-Op: Party interactions 3
- Co-Op: Personal loot
- Co-Op: Proper campaign co op
- Core Mechanic: Gems and related designs
- Cosmetics: Banner
- Cosmetics: Dyeing
- Cosmetics: Pets, Wings, Pennants
- Cosmetics: Swapping freely and on the fly
- Cosmetics: Swapping x2
- Cosmetics: Unlocks
- Cosmetics: Unlocks x2
- Difficulty Options:
- Difficulty Options:
- Core Mechanics: Followers: Not the best, but with some abilities, decent AI, and the full gearing, they’re a good aspect of the game
- Graphics: Foreground culling
- Endgame: GRifts
- Endgame: GRifts
- Hub: Act 1
- Hub: Act 2
- Hub: Act 3
- Hub: Act 3
- Hub: Act 5
- Hub: Act 5
- Hub: Act 5
- HUD: Enemy health bars
- HUD: Enemy health bars plus toggleable
- HUD: Honestly the same general quality HUD we’ve always seen, but still good
- Info In Game: Kanai’s Cube
- Info In Game: Lots and lots of info on all the actual stats you can have in your game…
- Info In Game: Significant information available on inventory screen
- Info In Game: …leading to two positives
- Interface: Chat colorization options
- Interface: Indicator when you have new dialogue to listen to
- Interface: information in skill mouseover
- Interface: Kanai’s Cube
- Interface: Mouse-over
- Interface: Mouseover comparisons
- Interface: Mouse-over X2
- Interface: Mouse-over X3
- Interface: Profiles and ability to look up everything
- Itemization: Cursed chests
- Itemization: Targeted loot
- Itemization: Treasure Goblin and their varieties
- Kit: Barbarian
- Kit: Barbarian
- Kit: Barbarian
- Kit: Barbarian Leveling
- Kit: Barbarian Leveling
- Kit: Barbarian Leveling
- Kit: Barbarian Synergies
- Kit: Barbarian Synergies
- Kit: Crusader
- Kit: Crusader
- Kit: Crusader
- Kit: Crusader Leveling
- Kit: Crusader Leveling
- Kit: Crusader Leveling
- Kit: Crusader Synergies
- Kit: Crusader Synergies
- Kit: Demonhunter
- Kit: Demonhunter
- Kit: Demonhunter
- Kit: Monk
- Kit: Monk
- Kit: Monk
- Kit: Monk Synergies
- Kit: Necromancer
- Kit: Necromancer
- Kit: Necromancer
- Kit: Necromancer Leveling
- Kit: Necromancer Leveling
- Kit: Necromancer Leveling
- Kit: Witch Doctor
- Kit: Witch Doctor
- Kit: Witch Doctor
- Kit: Witch Doctor Leveling
- Kit: Witch Doctor Leveling
- Kit: Witch Doctor Synergies
- Kit: Wizard
- Kit: Wizard
- Kit: Wizard
- Kit: Wizard Leveling
- Kit: Wizard Leveling
- Kit: Wizard Leveling
- Levels: General dungeon design
- Levels: Most of the Heaven levels are the best constructed ones in the game, keeping the randomized puzzle pieces thing going without being too patterned or too random
- Lighting: Cathedral
- Log: Chat and lore logs
- Map: Lots and lots of good info…
- Map: …worthy of two positives
- Minigame: Challenge Rifts
- Minigame: Challenge Rifts
- Minigame: Challenge Rifts
- Minigame: Leaderboard
- Minimap: Visual distinction and color usage and visible abilities…
- Minimap: …for two positives
- MSQ: The siege strike setpiece is surprisingly neat and unique for being something so simple
- MSQ: Westmarch cityscape
- Music: Generally good music
- NG+: Unlocks as you go
- NG+: Keeps everything as you go back
- NG+: Granuliarity in where you can go
- NG+: …allowing you to go to individual quests…
- NG+: …which is bonkers
- NG+: Keeping everything x2
- NG+: Keeping everything x3
- NG+: Generally good interface and options
- NG+: Generally high quality
- Option: Ability to lower difficulty on the fly…
- Option: …for two positives
- Options: Not the best, but some decent accessibility options
- Outro: Final boss
- Outro: Final boss
- Outro: Final dungeon
- Pacing: Act 1
- QoL: Ability presets
- QoL: Ease of morphing gems, gear, and other swapping related stuff
- QoL: Rebirth mode
- Respec: Great respec
- Respec: …which is worth…
- Respec: …three positives
- Respec: Can do it on the fly near instantly with good interface design…
- Respec: …which is worth…
- Respec: …three positives
- QoL: Return to entrance runes
- Secondary: Optional dungeon layout, design, and worthwhileness
- Secondary: Optional objectives on quests
- Viscerality: Barbarian
- Viscerality: Barbarian
- Viscerality: Barbarian
- Viscerality: Crusader
- Viscerality: Crusader
- Viscerality: Demonhunter
- Viscerality: Monk
- Viscerality: Necromancer
- Viscerality: Witch Doctor
- Viscerality: Wizard
- Viscerality: Wizard
- Viscerality: Wizard
- Visual Distinction: Cathedral
- Traversal: Waypoint system. Find as you go, travel from anywhere, travel instantly from town, travel instantly from one to another, the whole system is easily the best waypoint system in gaming…
- Traversal: …earning it…
- Traversal: …three positives
- Endgame: Seasonal stuff and variety and general fun
- Endgame: Seasonal stuff is just… a great idea really…
- Endgame: …earning three positives
- Encounter Design: Generally good combinations of enemy types
- Enemy Variety: Lots and lots and lots of enemy variety…
- Enemy Variety: …earning…
- Enemy Variety: …three positives to gameplay
- Penalty For Failure: Release (timer), release at checkpoint, release in town, rez’d by friend
- Sound Design: Good sound design for loot, enemies, attacks, leveling, etc…
- Sound Design: …leading to two positives
- Replayability: Just… the best replayability. New classes, builds, modes, story zooming, story removal, challenge rifts, seasonal stuff…
- Replayability: …earning it…
- Replayability: …the coveted triple Replayability
Gameplay Negatives:
- Boss: General health sponginess in several bosses
- Co-Op: 4 player party size
- Gameplay / Story Segregation: Pretty much everything
- Info In Game: There is still some stuff that is just not in the game and requires a wiki
- Launch: Auction House
- Launch: Difficulty
- Launch: Difficulty
- Launch: Itemization drop rates
- Launch: Itemization drop rates
- Launch: RMAH
- Launch: RMAH
- Launch: RMAH
- Launch/DRM: Always online
- Launch/DRM: Always online
- Launch/DRM: Always online
- Music: Massive over-use of the one theme in Reaper of Souls
- Padding: Act 2 plot coupon juggling
- Padding: Act 3 dungeon stretching
- Padding: Act 3’s latter half honestly just… draaags, just like some of the worst D2 dungeon stretches
- QoL: Accidental dialogue skipping
- Randomization in lore drops
- Endgame: FOMO in Seasonal design
- Audio Spam: Yeah there’s a fair bit
- Difficulty Curve: The rather jarring jump at 61 isn’t fun
Still a very good game, still absolutely worth a playthrough if you haven’t. I would skip Awakening and Golems though.
Type Of Review: Veteran Run
Total Story Score: +95
Total Gameplay Score: +17
Golden Number: 217.27
Cheats: Yes (To bypass Golems of Amgarrak)
Total Play Time: 9 days / 63.57 Hours
Time Reviewed: 9-5-2023
Story Positives:
- Atmosphere: Being a noble lord // Keep management
- Atmosphere: Genuine gratitude for doing the right thing. This is something only a few games really nail, but few nail it better than Dragon Age Origins where often-times your reward for helping someone is just a few lines of dialogue saying thank you, but we get this sort of thing persistently and it’s sufficiently well acted that the whole way through I find myself feeling like I’ve really helped these people…
- Atmosphere: …earning it…
- Atmosphere: …three positives
- Atmosphere: Golems of Amgarrak. For all its issues, it manages the tone quite well
- Atmosphere: The general tone of massacring your way through Denerim during the Darkspawn Chronicles is actually quite fun
- Babylon 5 Effect: Loghaine, the Darkspawn, the Grey Wardens…
- Banter: All the inter-party banter is good stuff, easily earning…
- Banter: …a full…
- Banter: …three positives
- Banter: Morrigan and Allistair’s banter gets special praise
- Brickwork: Castles and Keeps
- Brickwork: Orzammar
- Brickwork: Ostagar
- Characters: Alistair. Alistair is just awesome, interesting, engaging, well acted, well presented, and one of my favorite characters in this game…
- Characters: …earning him two positives
- Characters: Anders, Nathaniel, and Sigrun don’t have much time to move and breathe but they’re still good and I’m still with it
- Characters: The Architect and the Mother are both fascinating and bring up concepts that question the whole setting (that will never be followed through on but moving on)
- Characters: Branka is, by herself, shockingly evil and in a well thought out, well written, horrifying way
- Characters: Duncan gets some good stuff, seemingly generic good but honestly no he’s quite pragmatic and concerned with the Blight over all other things, a properly done ‘Renegade’ character
- Characters: The Dwarf Origins and Orzammar in particular are peppered with memorable and fun side characters
- Characters: Flemeth has relatively little screen time but they do a lot with it, and she is well positioned both for the plot and for Morrigan’s arc
- Characters: Jowy & Daveth. They’re only the beginnings of characters, but there’s a lot implied here, and they’re interesting despite… y’know
- Characters: Leliana. The convert who still enjoys the thrill of her old job, who seeks significance in her life
- Characters: Loghaine… lost to paranoia and madness, utterly incapable of managing or uniting the country
- Characters: Morrigan is the best character in the game. Layers to her make her a fully fleshed out, three dimensional character, and her arc can go quite a few different ways depending…
- Characters: …earning two positives
- Characters: Oghren, the veteran warrior who lost his wife, house, and status, and delved into drink instead to escape, but still retains his keen insight into things and willingness to help his people
- Characters: Shale, also known as HK-47 Two, is mostly amusing, but she is quite amusing
- Characters: Denerim NPCs
- Characters: Wynne, the motherly sort who remains buried under guilt and fear
- Characters: Zevran, the man who seeks death because of how unhappy he is, who nonetheless does all he can when given the opportunity, is awesome (made even better by his romance)…
- Characters: …earning him two positives
- Consequence Storytelling: Dwarf Noble Origin follows through on itself quite well in how events proceed
- Cutscene: Good establishment of what we need to know very quickly and efficiently (Darkspawn, Grey Wardens, and it’s been a while since the last incursion)
- Cutscene: The Ostagar cutscenes, logical issues aside, are still good stuff
- Dialogue: Dwarven dialogue in general is probably some of the tightest dialogue in the game
- Doodads: Orzammar, one of the only places in the game with decent Doodad design
- Doodads: Awakening in general steps up the Doodad game noticeably
- Exposition: Lack of knowledge about Darkspawn and Grey Wardens, by total coincidence
- Humor: The Pearl’s special encounters
- Humor: The poet tree…
- Humor: Yyyep, Awakening got me several times
- Integration: The choices you’ve made determines who’s there for the final battle, both in story and in gameplay
- Moment: Character introductions in general
- Moment: Morrigan and Flemeth
- Moment: Shale’s introduction and that poor chicken
- Moment: The Bannorn and Loghaine’s first confrontation
- Moment: The charge into Denerim…
- Moment: …and Alistair’s speech
- Moment: The entry into Orzammar
- Moment: The final round up of your characters and their arcs before the final battle
- Moment: The Joining
- MSQ: City Elf Origin, for all its flaws, nails both railroading and motive very well, and gives insight into culture, people, and politics
- MSQ: Dwarf Commoner Origin is another very good origin, with tight characters, intrigue, compelling plot, and multiple gradients with the same general outcome…
- MSQ: …earning it two positives
- MSQ: Dwarf Noble Origin fires on every piston, between multiple paths and lots of ways to portray your character and plot and everything, all culminating in just being out-classed and struggling through anyways…
- MSQ: …earning it…
- MSQ: …three positives
- MSQ: The Fade, its lore, and its insight into characters
- MSQ: Human Noble Origin. It’s very cliche’d and very typical and very predictable… but none of that matters because it’s done quite well. It is dark, tragic, immediately gives us motive, helps establish a lot about Fereldan and several of our principle villains, and is a good insight into the politics of the country…
- MSQ: …earning two positives
- MSQ: Orzammar conclusion
- MSQ: Orzammar initial quests and indications of Harromont vs. Bhelen
- MSQ: Redcliffe in general (the dead, the keep, the demon)
- MSQ: Some of Morrigan’s ritual paths not only work but fit, are well acted and written, and work in character
- MSQ: The Rescue is, weirdly enough, really really well done. There’s a lot of possible permutations, they’re all good, and they’re all awesome…
- MSQ: …earning it…
- MSQ: …three positives
- MSQ: The very idea of what Branka did to reach the Anvil is so many levels of horrible all on its own
- Outro: The final charge up to the Archdemon
- Outro: The final ending slides
- Outro: The final playable epilogue is an awesome way to interact with everyone one last time, but also showcase your choices regarding the characters to date…
- Outro: …earning two positives
- Plot: Hook: Why we have to do it, why the army can’t do it, why we’re recruiting
- Plot: The Darkspawn are an existential threat: No matter what type of character you play (within reason), all can profit from dealing with the Darkspawn
- Plot: We’re not here to save the world, we’re here to save Fereldan… but better than that, we’re not here to save Fereldan from the Blight, not really, we’re here to save Fereldan from Fereldan…
- Plot: …and I love it
- Secondary: Orzammar has some of the better side quests in the game
- Secondary: The conspiracy plot in Awakening is one of the better individual arcs in the game (also Awakening in general)
- Storytelling Mechanic: Codex, as per usual
- Theme: Stagnation. Traditionalism is everywhere and the effects and impacts it has on everyone
- Voice Acting: Alistair is one of the better, more nuanced acting jobs in the game…
- Voice Acting: …earning two positives
- Voice Acting: Awakening Main characters all have good voice acting
- Voice Acting: Awakening side characters also have good voice acting (notably the Mother and Architect)
- Voice Acting: City Elf Origin characters
- Voice Acting: Dalish Origin characters
- Voice Acting: Duncan, in general but also for his narration
- Voice Acting: Dwarf Commoner characters
- Voice Acting: Dwarf Noble characters
- Voice Acting: Flemeth, and the return of Janeway
- Voice Acting: Human Noble characters
- Voice Acting: Leliana
- Voice Acting: Loghain because, I mean obviously
- Voice Acting: Mage characters
- Voice Acting: Morrigan is the best actor in the game. She manages so many tiny, nuanced details in every line, but also more overt pieces, and some fun and ‘bad acting’ sequences…
- Voice Acting: …earning…
- Voice Acting: …three positives
- Voice Acting: Oghren because, shockingly, Steve Blum is a good actor
- Voice Acting: Ostagar characters
- Voice Acting: Redcliffe characters
- Voice Acting: Shale manages a great dry wit tone
- Voice Acting: Sten is wonderfully blunt and has some great moments
- Voice Acting: Wynne speaks a bit specifically but she does a good job with it
- Voice Acting: General, for all the good voice acting I missed, for there is so much
- Voice Acting: Zevran and his own nuance
- Voice Direction: Extra nuances and details in every performance in the game…
- Voice Direction: …earning it…
- Voice Direction: …three positives
- World Building: Dwarf Commoner Origins
- World Building: Dwarf Noble Origin shares double duty with Dwarf Commoner in how it insights into Orzammar and Dwarven society
- World Building: Leliana’s Song, exposition and build up, and a lot of moving pieces in the background
- World Building: Mage Origin
- World Building: Soldier’s Peak and some insight into the history of the world
- World Building: Urns of Andraste and our first real look into the Chantry, no really style
- Writing: Some very good exposition in Dwarf Commoner and Noble Origins
- Banter: Witch Hunt
- Consequence Storytelling: If (if!) you are in a romance with Morrigan, Witch Hunt is honestly a great pay off for the whole affair
- Writing: Morrigan’s romance is well thought out, sweet, and does great things for her character…
- Writing: …in addition to being one of the best romances in gaming…
- Writing: …earning it three positives
- Writing: Alistair’s is, similarly, very cute. He’s adorkable, has no idea what he’s doing, and is totally heads over heels in love, and you can take it a lot of directions…
- Writing: …earning it two positives
- Writing: Leliana’s romance isn’t on the same level as the others, but it’s still good and it still deserves a positive
- Writing: Zevran’s romance is honestly weirdly great for the type of character he portrays, an it easily earns itself…
- …two positives
Story Negatives:
- Brickwork: General. Whole game just doesn’t look… good
- Brickwork: The Deep Roads especially. Hope you like endless grey and brown caves
- Character: Oghren… in Awakening… is an abrasive, irritating, unpleasant character with nothing that redeems him
- Consequence Storytelling: Lack of payoff across the board, especially for the Origins…
- Consequence Storytelling: …earning two negatives
- External Continuity: The near total lack of continuity between Origins and Awakening is not great
- External Continuity: Special bonus points for how Oghren is a completely different character
- Moment: Anora’s speech is hilarious, but man it’s just so… so bad
- Moment: Mhairi’s death is… extraordinarily badly done. She just kind of drinks, falls over, dies, and the scene moves on less than a second later
- Moment: The horror movie sting at the end of Golem of Amgarrak
- Moment: The unnecessary squick and edge of male city elf origin
- MSQ: On the flip side, Morrigan’s ritual doesn’t work for several of its permutations and, worse, is a bit too… well frankly badly written as a base concept. It reads as a bad porno script rather than what they were probably going for
- MSQ: So… the Landsmeet. The game really wants us to pick Loghain or Alistair and that’s fine in and of itself (even if I’m not super into it) buuut the way it’s handled is too forced and too Fake Drama. The whole thing stinks of not having enough time to massage the sequence properly
- MSQ: The entire city elf origin’s middle section is… unnecessary at best and tonally dissonant at worse, but worst of all its all just for its own sake. It’s shock for shock and leaning too hard into The Edge and instead it detracts from the work
- Writing: Ostagar has several issues across the board, especially with the total nonsense of the battle
- Outro: Awakening in general just sort of falls flat in the Outro
- Plot: So… the Grail quest is one of the most ‘because plot’ things in the entire game. The noble lord is super poisoned, cool, so let’s spread to the winds chasing a rumor of a relic which might exist because it’ll totally cure him. Bonus points, the relic is real and does cure him. Sure
- Story Sequencing: Ssssooo Redcliff is just… sitting there, on pause, and the longer you wait the less sense it makes (there’s other issues with the ‘choose your own order’ thing too)
- Storytelling Mechanic: Limited party size problem… I’ve been thinking about this but this is just awful, for the Fade, for banter, for reactions to quests…
- Storytelling Mechanic: …earning it two negatives
- Storytelling Mechanic: This dovetails nicely into the other problem with the limited party size; gated content via Approval. You are (heavily) encouraged in both gameplay and story to seek Approval, at the cost of playing the way you want and choosing the way you want
- World Building: So… why do the Darkspawn have gear and torches and catapults?
- Writing: Also, and this is a weird negative but… Mhairi dying was not a really good decision I think. She’s too interesting to be tossed away for what is essentially just tradition
- Writing: Leliana’s Song has a … lot of issues
- Writing: So… the Joinings. Lots of people can just join and it’s not treated like a big deal and everybody survives and it just sort of… cheapens the entire affair
- Writing: The Underthought of the Super Poison
- Writing: Very awkward exposition in Dwarf Commoner and Noble Origin
- Consequence Storytelling: If you are not one of two very tiny slivers of character, you have… no reason to do Witch Hunt, and the game provides even less
- Outro: (Witch Hunt) We cannot stand against the vague, foreboding foreshadowing… dun dun duuun
- Outro: (Awakening) Also good lord what a nothingburger ending
- Internal Continuity: Several issues that clearly point to changed ideas and directions mid development
- Writing: We’ve seen this before, but several of the good bits of character developement for a few characters (notably Zevran) are locked behind romance.
Gameplay Positives:
- All Roads Lead To Rome: All the major quest hubs
- All Roads Lead To Rome: Arl Eamon
- All Roads Lead To Rome: Landsmeet
- All Roads Lead To Rome: Mage Tower
- All Roads Lead To Rome: Orzammar Initial
- All Roads Lead To Rome: Redcliffe
- All Roads Lead To Rome: The Rescue
- Builds: While mostly an aspect of the abilities, there’s still gear and party make-up, meaning there’s a decent variety of possible builds in the game…
- Builds: …earning two positives
- Choices: Brecilian Forest
- Choices: Denerim
- Choices: DLCs (Soldier’s Peak, Shale)
- Choices: Dwarven Noble
- Choices: Keep mechanics in Awakening
- Choices: Landsmeet
- Choices: Lothering
- Choices: Origins in general
- Choices: Orzammar
- Choices: Redcliffe
- Choices: The final epilogue slides showcasing many of your choices
- Controls: Variance between top down and action modes
- Core Combat: Pausing and being able to give orders in combat is a nice feature by itself
- Core Combat: Sustained system. This is great, gradient system that allows the player to reserve a portion of their casting for permanent buffs, which can be toggled and controlled at will, at however much you want, or you can reserve your resources for casting… it’s all up to you…
- Core Combat: …earning two positives
- Core Mechanic: The Approval system and its unlocks for abilities and quests
- Core Mechanic: The Darkspawn Chronicles recruit and upgrade mechanic is actually pretty fun
- Core Mechanic: The gambit system is awesome, and honestly probably the best implementation of Gambits in gaming that I’ve seen. You have tons and tons of options to customize how the party does what and when…
- Core Mechanic: …earning a full…
- Core Mechanic: …three positives
- Core Mechanic: And a bonus positive for the Presets, both baked in and custom
- Encounter: Broodmother fight
- Encounter: Defending Redcliffe
- Encounter: Ostagar (Emissary, tower, Ogre)
- Encounter: Ser Cauthrian
- Encounter: The Drake setup in the Ruined Temple
- Encounter: Generally good encounter design across the whole game…
- Encounter: …earning it…
- Encounter: …three positives
- Enemy Design: Decent design throughout
- Enemy Variety: Decent variety throughout
- HUD: Color distinction in text and buffs
- Integration: The choices you’ve made determines who’s there for the final battle, both in story and in gameplay
- Intro: Lothering is a really good Intro. It gets across character moments, sidequests, multiple paths to victory, and is nearly completely optional…
- Intro: …earning two positives
- Itemization: Gold, equipment, drops
- Kit: Archer builds for rogues
- Kit: Melee in general, for rogues and warriors both
- Kit: Two hander gets its own point for being surprisingly legit
- Kit: Sword and Board is, unironically, one of the best setups in the game, with good buffs, stances, and abilities, and more viable builds…
- Kit: …earning two positives
- Kit: Similarly, Mage is pretty legit for pretty much the same reasons…
- Kit: …earning two positives
- Level: General dungeon design in Awakening
- Level: Kal’Hirol is surprisingly decent, a good step up from Origins dungeon design
- Level: Trials of Andraste, probably one of the better dungeons in the whole game
- Mods: Depth of mods
- Mods: Ease of mod implementation
- Mods: The devs did eventually release a dev toolkit (though good luck finding and implementing it)
- MSQ: Fade (kit in forms, level design)
- MSQ: The multi party combat during the Outro
- MSQ: The Rescue is just a great mission. Depending on who you bring and how you do it the quest can go a lot of different ways, and there’s a gradient here too; it’s not ‘fight’ or ‘don’t fight’. Plus you can rescue yourself! Earning it…
- MSQ: …two positives
- Pacing: Out of combat regen seems like a minor thing but it keeps the pacing good, which is important in such a long game with so much combat
- Prime Opt: Keep upgrade quests and related arcs
- QoL: Bank, respec, unlock tomes, and a few other tidbits added in Awakening
- Save System: Quick saves, auto saves, and manual saves…
- Save System: …for two positives
- Viscerality: Between the meaty melee and the fun magic, plus the impact of such abilities, the game has decent viscerality…
- Viscerality: …earning two positives
- Replayability: First, the game has plenty of alternate options and playstyles but…
- Replayability: …then there’s the very nature of the game and how it encourages replay given the very nature of the Choice gameplay
- Choices: Romance gameplay choices
Gameplay Negatives:
- Audio Balancing: Lots of minor issues throughout
- Audio Spam: There’s not a ton but there is some and it is irritating
- Boss: The Darkspawn Chronicles final boss fight is all the wrong things about escort quests magnified. The amount of ridiculousness on display here while defending a paper tiger is bonkers…
- Boss: …earning the encounter two negatives
- Boss: The Harvester fight is overtuned to hell and back but even if we ignore that, it’s just kind of boring
- Bug: Audio bugs with ambient lines
- Bug: Lots of bugs in Awakening
- Bug: Memory Leak. This is easily the worst memory leak I’ve seen in gaming, requiring a reset (on average) of about once an hour, earning it…
- Bug: …a full…
- Bug: …three negatives
- Choices: As per usual, the Persuasion stat is neight-unto mandatory and limits your build potential
- Choices: Or lack thereof re: Awakening
- Choices: So the Hardening for Alistair is already kind of vague and unnatural (unlike the Leliana one where it’s clear where it’s going) but also it has a substantial impact on how his future and the endings can go
- Core Combat: While I do, legitimately, enjoy the core combat there’s just SO much of it that it gets old
- Core Combat: …made worse by virtue of trying to force something the game doesn’t, at its core, support
- Core Mechanic: Approval only effects present party members, which can lead to irritations and issues with regards to trying to raise Approval appropriately
- Core Mechanic: Attribute and skill point tax on tactics slots (requires Cunning and Skill Points)
- Difficulty: So Golems of Amgarrak can go directly to hell with its difficulty cliffs
- Encounter: Forced positioning after dialogues before a fight
- Encounter: Severe over-tuning of several encounters in Leliana’s Song…
- Encounter Rate: Similar to the Deep Roads, the Brecilian Forest just… has way, way too much trash
- Encounter Rate: The Ruined Temple of the Sacred Ashes quest just has far, far too much endless boring trash fights
- Encounter Rate: Yeah there’s honestly just… way too many trash fights in this game
- Graphics: Gross, as per usual
- Graphics: Improper resolution scaling (especially subtitles)
- Graphics: One of the few spider negatives in gaming
- Graphics: The blurry headache-inducing nature of the Fade is a toggle, which is nice, but that toggle is very unclear in its labeling, which is not
- Interface: The inventory problems get worse in Awakening
- Inventory: So if Alistair leaves the party heeee takes everything with him. Cute
- Itemization: Limited bag size. This becomes even more irritating over time…
- Itemization: …for a second negative
- Itemization: The Injury system and subsequent item tax
- Itemization: The Rogue lockpick tax
- Level: Brecilian Forest, general. Very narrow, very nothing-burger, honestly feels worse designed than even the endless repetition of the Deep Roads
- Level: For all its positives, Kal’Hirol just drags on entirely too long
- Level: More problems from the Ruined Temple and DAO’s approach to dungeon design
- Level: This is mostly a feature of level design, but the Deep Roads are a slog. Samey corridors and boring visuals in an endless dungeon fest fighting wave after wave after wave of enemies…
- Level: …earning two negatives
- Minigame: The Shale puzzle. Getting stuck on the terrain, taking pointless damage, and dialogue spam the whole time
- MSQ: Fade (badly balanced, sucks for some classes, game isn’t built for solo combat)
- MSQ: The Fade, general (several smaller but extant issues throughout the experience)
- Music: Darkspawn’s battle theme and the repetition thereof in an expansion where we fight almost exclusively Darkspawn
- No Music: And also there’s huge, huge swaths of No Music
- No Music: Inconsistent music. Sometimes it plays, sometimes it doesn’t
- Outro: The final fight with the Archdemon is passable… which is honestly the problem, it’s just another fight really
- Padding: Random Encounters and trash fights
- Padding: The final few trash fights and general fights (with infinite respawns) of the Outro
- Party: Extremely badly designed party members which you can’t respec in the DLCs
- Respec: The lack of respec in a game with so many options and possible builds hurts viability and experimentation…
- Respec: …made worse by companions coming pre-leveled without option, limiting things even further
- Secondary: The quest designs of the Brecilian Forest are bland, boring, and worse, in some cases best left undone
- Seconds In Minutes: Unlocking and the Rogue of Requirement
- Starting Options: Limitations of race are already irritating but locking you into Origins per class is worse
- Walkthroughitis: It’s disturbingly easy to permanently miss content through no fault of your own in Awakening
- Choices: It’s entirely too easy to stumble into a romance, and with no take-backs or other options to avoid it