I believe that the realism concerns about short-duration spells are mitigated with the introduction of contingency at higher levels. SCS is sensible enough to allow you to opt-out from the prebuff AI and let enemy NPCs rely solely on the "enemy sighted" trigger.
throne of bhall, jade empire and dragon age origins are the only good endings bioware made. all the others don't have enough closer due to lack of epilogue slides.
I hate the drow. I hate them for the same reason I hate the Sith in the Star Wars - their entire society is absurd. It's based on this ludicrously-exaggerated, completely unsustainable form of social Darwinism where even the slightest demonstration of weakness is likely to get you a knife in the back. These people couldn't run a lemonstade stand without it collapsing into an inevitable orgy of betrayal and backstabbing, let alone construct an entire functioning society.
I feel that Morrowind had a much better portrayal of dark elves - they were grim, humourless, and cynical, their politics were often bloody and byzantine, they were often racist and fanatically religious, and they enslaved races that they felt were "inferior." And despite all this, they were never portrayed as cartoonishly evil as the drow.
And I don't care for Drizzt, either. Not only is he a brazen Mary Sue, his name sounds like a vulgar expression for urination ("Don't drizzt on my leg and tell me it's raining!")
Aerie isn't that bad of a character. Yes, she is often whiny and pathetic, but note that Quayle never once asks her if she wants to join CHARNAME's party. He just decides that she ought to join this band of adventurers that he barely knows, despite the fact that she has no real idea what she's getting into.
Video game romances are awful. What separated Baldur's Gate 2 from other RPGs was that your party members had their own personalities, their own opinions, and oftentimes their own agendas. That they could fall in love with the player character felt like just an extension of this. But then BioWare decided that every...bloody...game had to feature party members that could be romanced, to the point where they felt less like characters and more like stock love interests: "Here's the haughty ice queen, here's the sweet, innocent girl, here's the anguished Nice Guy(TM), here's the bad-boy with a heart, and so on."
And with the continued obsession with romances, the fans became more and more deranged, culminating in the infamous "What does Tali's sweat taste like?" post to the BioWare Social Network.
But these kind of romances are shallow and creepy. They take something that, in real life, is extremely complicated and reduce it to "You can talk to me five times, say the right thing three times and I'll love you forever!" In Baldur's Gate 2 it wasn't so bad, because there were dozens of "love talks" and they were spread across a good deal of the game's length, and you actually had to think about what your character was going to say, but in more recent BioWare games the dialogue has been so dumbed-down that romance is literally a matter of picking the "heart" icon.
The new Enhanced Edition characters aren't on the same level as the original BioWare NPCs. The biggest problem, as I see it, is that they game wants so desperately for Rasaad, Neera, and Dorn to seen as sympathetic that it feels forced. Neera is chased by a Hannibal Lecter-esque Red Wizard who comes off like a rapist. Rasaad is introduced being harassed by some cartoonishly-ignorant country bumpkins just to demonstrate noble he is. Dorn is introduced slaughtering his former party members, who are so vile and cowardly that he comes out looking sympathetic by comparison.
And Neera is just...ugh...I take on her board just to swipe her gem bag, then, at the first opportunity, I send her off to the basilisks east of the Beregost temple.
I hate the drow. But these kind of romances are shallow and creepy. They take something that, in real life, is extremely complicated and reduce it to "You can talk to me five times, say the right thing three times and I'll love you forever!"
"But news flash, the genre’s called fantasy It’s meant to be unrealistic, you myopic manatee" J.R.R. Tolkien
Seriously, though, the genre is called "fantasy" not "slice of life." I don't expect the romance to be believable, hell most the characters mentalities aren't even believable. The romances is far from the least believable thing in all these games.
Just saying.
And now for an actual unpopular opinion...
I actually like romances in videogames, but I hate when they are just left up in the air like in 90% of JRPG. Kotor Bastila romance is still one of my favorite because of how it got played. With the mental link she established between Raven and herself.
If you want to drill down into conversation and love talks. In 90% of the dialogue by design the top answers are good, the middle ones neutral and the bottom ones evil/bad.
It makes it clear to the player, but overall I am not a fan of it. I like them to bw randomised such that it is more ambiguous what each response/line would have as effect.
it helps that he's alot more fleshed out in inquisition. in 2 he is just there. in origins unless you did the mage origin as a female he is just another npc.
@IgnatiusReilly Can't say I agree with everything you said, but you made some good points. A bunch of openly evil factions in fiction have societies who by rights should collapse overnight. *cough* Warhammer, and BioWare romances have arguably become overly formulaic. I believe these are things that can be solved with care and attention, but how is a question for more experienced people than myself to answer.
The repeated inclusions of Cullen in the already mediocre Dragon Age series is an abomination.
The (debatable) quality of the Dragon Age series notwithstanding, you're right. Cullen was a deranged fanatic in the first game, a complete moron in the second, and I don't even want to know what he was in the third - the fact he was a romance option and Varric wasn't is one of the dozen small reasons I'll never pick up a copy of Inquisition. Any way you slice it, quite what people saw in him besides his looks will likely be a mystery for the ages.
Supposedly his interactions with the female mage warden are really cute. I don't really see it and I liked Greagoir a lot more, at least he has a personality.
Geez, seriously? I knew from before about him being a character female mages could tease and he'd get all flustered, but did they miss all the other scenes he was involved in, like the part where he tells you to kill all the mages in the Circle Tower because it's the only way to be sure?
@HalfOrcBeastmaster He is such a eh character that I forgot cullen was in the second. Then again, the only characters in the second that I liked was the mage, isabella, and Flemeth,
Character development doesn't seem like the right word. I would have thought one developed a character gradually over time, and let the player/reader/audience/whatever have a glimpse of it in action, rather than suddenly making a mean character nice or a stupid character smart.
Character development doesn't seem like the right word. I would have thought one developed a character gradually over time, and let the player/reader/audience/whatever have a glimpse of it in action, rather than suddenly making a mean character nice or a stupid character smart.
He does make sense if you look at the series as a whole though. He starts of nice to nages (especially towards a female origin). After Uldred rebels and slughters/tortures everyone, he goes into shock. He suddenly sees all mages as enemies at worst and too dangerous to let live at best. Between 1 and 2 he must have gotten fed up with what he saw as templars being too nice to volatile untrustworthy beings, so he transfers to Kirkwall, where the Knight Commander is much less tolerant of mages. In Kirkwall he sees his new worldview lived out in Knight Commander Meredith. He seems okay with things until she starts to become unhinged. Seeing apostates and enemies even among her own templars and normal townspeople and not just the mages. Watching her fall farther and farther into paranoia and dangerous actions. It holds up a dark mirror to what Cullen believed true/wished to act on after what happened in the Ferelden circle. He has a realization that the extreme measures enacted by Meredith cause more problems than solutions. Now there is a large gap timewise between 2 and Inquisition. Long enough to see every mage circle across Thedas rebel against the chantry, followed by the entire Templar order leaving as well, when the Chantry tries to reign them in and prevent them from indiscriminately slaughtering mages and mage sympathizers. Cullen has witnessed first hand over a period of years how badly both extremes have hurt Thedas. What happens when mages rampage unchecked, as well as how much harder they push back when abused. He is older now and wiser, much more willing to find compromise and understanding between both parties. Sorry for the book, but Cullen is one of my favorite characters due in no small part to all the development his character undergoes.
@thedamages Cullen is pure fanservice. His change between Origins and 2 was so out there and sudden he was simply a different character. He could have been called "Ser Beefcake" and his role would have been absolutely identical. He does have genuine development between 2 and Inquisition but the fact remains he has a much larger role than he should simply because he is popular, while characters who should be important end up with little more than cameos.
@thedamages Cullen is pure fanservice. His change between Origins and 2 was so out there and sudden he was simply a different character. He could have been called "Ser Beefcake" and his role would have been absolutely identical. He does have genuine development between 2 and Inquisition but the fact remains he has a much larger role than he should simply because he is popular, while characters who should be important end up with little more than cameos.
I don't see how this should be held against the character. If it opens up the potential for development - and in my opinion Cullen is reasonably well done, coming from someone who did not experience the romance - then whether it's fanservice or not shouldn't matter. It's like saying the Garrus romance for Mass Effect was bad by default solely because it was written solely because the fans wanted it. That's just not fair.
As much as I hate referencing TVTropes for anything Breakout Characters are not a bad thing, if the artist actually knows what they're doing. If you think Cullen's badly written, fine, but that's no more a crime than any other new character having the same problem.
@Artemius_l I never played Mass Effect nor am I interested in doing so therefore your comparison doesn't mean much to me. That being said Breakout Character is a divisive trope by its very nature: either you like the character to begin with and everything's fine or you don't and then it will annoy you because such expanded roles always come to detriment of other characters.
And you guys really shouldn't stop arguing with my unpopular opinions, and post your own instead
To get back to Baldur's Gate for a minute, the Chromatic Demon offers a fun opportunity to use different kinds of attack spells that I, at least, would normally never bother with, like Death Fog or the like, but honestly, I usually find it more efficient to simply beat him to death with fighters, 99% damage resistance be damned.
Comments
yes this is unpopular there are alot of people that hate the whole game.
I feel that Morrowind had a much better portrayal of dark elves - they were grim, humourless, and cynical, their politics were often bloody and byzantine, they were often racist and fanatically religious, and they enslaved races that they felt were "inferior." And despite all this, they were never portrayed as cartoonishly evil as the drow.
And I don't care for Drizzt, either. Not only is he a brazen Mary Sue, his name sounds like a vulgar expression for urination ("Don't drizzt on my leg and tell me it's raining!")
Aerie isn't that bad of a character. Yes, she is often whiny and pathetic, but note that Quayle never once asks her if she wants to join CHARNAME's party. He just decides that she ought to join this band of adventurers that he barely knows, despite the fact that she has no real idea what she's getting into.
Video game romances are awful. What separated Baldur's Gate 2 from other RPGs was that your party members had their own personalities, their own opinions, and oftentimes their own agendas. That they could fall in love with the player character felt like just an extension of this. But then BioWare decided that every...bloody...game had to feature party members that could be romanced, to the point where they felt less like characters and more like stock love interests: "Here's the haughty ice queen, here's the sweet, innocent girl, here's the anguished Nice Guy(TM), here's the bad-boy with a heart, and so on."
And with the continued obsession with romances, the fans became more and more deranged, culminating in the infamous "What does Tali's sweat taste like?" post to the BioWare Social Network.
But these kind of romances are shallow and creepy. They take something that, in real life, is extremely complicated and reduce it to "You can talk to me five times, say the right thing three times and I'll love you forever!" In Baldur's Gate 2 it wasn't so bad, because there were dozens of "love talks" and they were spread across a good deal of the game's length, and you actually had to think about what your character was going to say, but in more recent BioWare games the dialogue has been so dumbed-down that romance is literally a matter of picking the "heart" icon.
The new Enhanced Edition characters aren't on the same level as the original BioWare NPCs. The biggest problem, as I see it, is that they game wants so desperately for Rasaad, Neera, and Dorn to seen as sympathetic that it feels forced. Neera is chased by a Hannibal Lecter-esque Red Wizard who comes off like a rapist. Rasaad is introduced being harassed by some cartoonishly-ignorant country bumpkins just to demonstrate noble he is. Dorn is introduced slaughtering his former party members, who are so vile and cowardly that he comes out looking sympathetic by comparison.
And Neera is just...ugh...I take on her board just to swipe her gem bag, then, at the first opportunity, I send her off to the basilisks east of the Beregost temple.
It’s meant to be unrealistic, you myopic manatee"
J.R.R. Tolkien
Seriously, though, the genre is called "fantasy" not "slice of life." I don't expect the romance to be believable, hell most the characters mentalities aren't even believable. The romances is far from the least believable thing in all these games.
Just saying.
And now for an actual unpopular opinion...
I actually like romances in videogames, but I hate when they are just left up in the air like in 90% of JRPG. Kotor Bastila romance is still one of my favorite because of how it got played. With the mental link she established between Raven and herself.
It makes it clear to the player, but overall I am not a fan of it. I like them to bw randomised such that it is more ambiguous what each response/line would have as effect.
The repeated inclusions of Cullen in the already mediocre Dragon Age series is an abomination.
He is such a eh character that I forgot cullen was in the second. Then again, the only characters in the second that I liked was the mage, isabella, and Flemeth,
/ (╯° °）╯︵ ┻━┻
¯\_(ఠ్ఠ ˓̭ ఠ్ఠ)_/¯
In Kirkwall he sees his new worldview lived out in Knight Commander Meredith. He seems okay with things until she starts to become unhinged. Seeing apostates and enemies even among her own templars and normal townspeople and not just the mages. Watching her fall farther and farther into paranoia and dangerous actions. It holds up a dark mirror to what Cullen believed true/wished to act on after what happened in the Ferelden circle. He has a realization that the extreme measures enacted by Meredith cause more problems than solutions.
Now there is a large gap timewise between 2 and Inquisition. Long enough to see every mage circle across Thedas rebel against the chantry, followed by the entire Templar order leaving as well, when the Chantry tries to reign them in and prevent them from indiscriminately slaughtering mages and mage sympathizers. Cullen has witnessed first hand over a period of years how badly both extremes have hurt Thedas. What happens when mages rampage unchecked, as well as how much harder they push back when abused. He is older now and wiser, much more willing to find compromise and understanding between both parties. Sorry for the book, but Cullen is one of my favorite characters due in no small part to all the development his character undergoes.
As much as I hate referencing TVTropes for anything Breakout Characters are not a bad thing, if the artist actually knows what they're doing. If you think Cullen's badly written, fine, but that's no more a crime than any other new character having the same problem.
And you guys really shouldn't stop arguing with my unpopular opinions, and post your own instead