The Villains: What still separates BG1 from other RPGs after all these years
SharGuidesMyHand
Member Posts: 2,580
I recently bought DA:Origins when it was on sale at GOG and have been playing it for the very first time. I've apparently completed 26% of the game (or so it tells me), and I've really enjoyed a number of things about it, including the story, characters, and dialogues. However, one serious drawback to the game that I've encountered (and which may ultimately discourage me from continuing to play it) is the combat, which feels more akin to action-oriented games like IWD or Diablo than a story-driven game like BG1 - in other words, the game just keeps throwing waves of the same nameless thugs, mages, and/or demons at you, instead of presenting you with individually unique and memorable enemies and encounters. I find that when games do this (like Pillars), the combat comes to feel very repetitive, even tedious, as though it were an impediment or distraction to experiencing the story rather than an integral part of the story itself. Practically every time that I step into a new room now, I think to myself, " *sigh* Oh goodie, yet ANOTHER room full of nameless thugs/mages/demons, etc. ..." This isn't to say that the battles aren't still challenging, but the game's "method" of challenging you is to simply increase the volume of nameless thugs that are thrown at you. On top of that, this kind of repetitive/tedious combat will usually seriously diminish the replay value of a game for me.
By contrast, like many things about BG1, the combat emphasized quality over quantity - instead of endless waves of nameless goons, you encounter individually memorable enemies like Silke, Nimbul, Bassilus, Brage, Davaeorn, etc., who have their own unique abilities, personas, and in some cases, even backstories. For me, many of these characters are almost iconic. Even after all these years, I still get apprehensive about guys like Tarnesh, Nimbul, and Davaeorn, since battles against them are often very unpredictable - they can just as easily kill you as you can kill them. IMO, it's one of the standout qualities of BG1 that still separates it from other RPGs that have come along since then.
Anyone else here feel the same way?
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I can't speak for Dragon Age: Origins because I haven't played it in a long time, and my appreciation for BG1's combat has dulled since I've played that game a LOT, so I'm not the best judge of this.
By the far the biggest difference is that current RPGs have suffered considerably from a kind of antagonist 'arms race', a sort of evolution undertaken to increase story tension, innovation, visual impressiveness, etc. They have increased in scope and power until they are all-powerful, all-knowing, all-destructive and, because of this, all the same.
Sarevok and his goons are memorable to me because of the plot in which they are involved. They are stronger than the average enemies, but they remain firmly rooted in a believable and reasonable plotline/setting. They stand out, but not too much; there's nothing otherworldly about them, a failing of far too many game plots that all too often just throw demons or gods at you, and they are believable in so far as the scope of their plans. World ending threats are too powerful to be any kind of character at all, because they've gone so far into the high end of powerscale that their abilities, presentation and motives can be nothing else but one dimensional.
The smaller scale of BG1's plot and enemies allows more intrigue and development, something which the main protagonist can believably explore and get involved in/subvert. BG1s enemies have names, and things to say, and plots to scheme.
Too many other games are just 'demons that kill stuff and want to take over the world, cuz' that's what demons do'. By threatening everything and everyone, many enemies become rather blase, something the protagonist can only relate to in a distant 'I'm fighting them because no one is against stuff like 'living' and 'saving the world'. Of course you have to do that, you're one of the fools who lives in the world.
In BG1, the Iron Throne has it's scheme with its far reaching consequences, but they are also after YOU.
DA:O has its share of memorable battles just like BG has its share of waves of critters.
That being said...
The BG Saga give us that feeling that our hatred against an enemy is personal.
It's not the combat system or the names of the enemies, but the fact that you are being hunted, and tortured, and experimented, etc. We're not a pain in our enemies a**es, THEY'RE a pain in our a**es.
You mean me sitting back crying that i had to use a freaking mod to get a dragon transformation, let alone a HIGH DRAGON form; which I couldn't even unlock until i started to playing the dlc? (the level you needed to reach high dragon couldn't be reached in da:o)
so with that being said, I really cant say much about DAO because I hardly remember anything about it, but I can compare SoD with BG1 because the exact same thing is happening as the OP is talking about
so I've only had 1 full play through of SoD and I doubt im ever going to do another one anytime soon, for some reason, people did not find the game hard at all, and here I am just getting my ass handed to me ( so it makes me wonder what difficulty people were playing on, because I was playing on insane, and it lived up to its name) but anyway I think the one problem I was finding, was there was just too many of this "wave" like encounters, even though they had a nice spread of different types of baddies and all that good stuff, it just didn't sit right with me, and the game would get more wavy and wavy and wavy, and I can understand the premise of that, SoD is based on fighting a whole crusade and such,
but when I come to think of it, its just not the BG way, if you fight "big" waves in BG1, a wand of fireball clears that up nice and good, and usually you would only fight small unique groups, and bg2 was the exact same way if not better, infact in bg2, rarely would you ever fight more than 10 guys at once, usually even only 6 was the most you would battle against (although there was the odd time you would fight against more, but they were very far, and very in between) and then when I play all the new content, to me, it just feels like this is not BG, especially the new content's AI increase is through the roof, its much higher than the original stuff ( and when I say the original stuff I mean, complete vanilla, no mods) and it just doesn't match at all, like I noticed when I brough aerie along, and you go find aldoy, how crap what an eye opener that was, and you can definitely tell what beamdog added, and what is original because the original is no where as brutal as the added content
I've only ever played DA:O once. While I don't remember any bad guy names except for Logain, the overall story still stands out in my memory. I think the Darkspawn and the demons were supposed be a Lovecraftian "evil beyond our understanding", kind of opposition. The story was more of a "man vs. nature" conflict, with the Darkspawn hordes acting as a force of nature, while the BG story was more of a "man vs. man" conflict, with a healthy dose of "man vs. himself".
I definitely remember with great clarity the companions of DA:O, their personalities, and their stories. They were that good. Alistair, Morrigan and her mother Flemeth, Dog, Sten, Leliana, Wynne, et al. Honestly, I think those companions were better written, voiced, and filled out than the BG companions.
However, I'm not sure if it's fair to compare the two games element by element. They come from two different times, two different settings, and DA:O had a much more advanced computer technology backing it. So this topic feels like an apples-to-oranges comparison, to some extent.
While the OP raises an interesting point that makes good food for thought, my current conclusion is that I remember villains from BG more just because of sheer repetition. And as for the antagonists of the two stories, as I said, they are not the agents of the same type of story conflict. All three of the main story conflict types are equally valid in good stories.
This topic is making me want to play DA:O again.
Other than that, BG has more than its share of throwaway mobs, just like Dragon Age: Origins. 2 and Inquisition are, on the other hand, significantly worse than BG in that regard.
What was the "man vs himself" part of BG again, because I thnk I miss that part, ESPECIALLY in bg 1. There was no man vs himself since nothing PC did as a whole conflicted with "himself". Even in bg 2 with the who "dream sequences" and even in hell where you had to do the trials, there was no self-conflict because the choices you made didn't go against the PC. They don't go against the PC because the PC is a blank slate. The problems with characters like PC in BG is since nothing about them are "actually" defined having self-conflict is actually a lot harder compared to other RPG characters who are more defined by "what/who they are"; which makes the choices the player actually make a lot more conflicting when it goes against the character's self-identity.
Now this doesn't deny the fact that you the player can and possibly will imprint self-conflict onto the character to make them more interesting, but that is not the character itself, but the character we the players want him to be.
@Fardragon
Logan didn't cut it as a Villian because he from my perspective he wasn't necessarily a villain, but more along the lines of an anti-hero at best or anti-villain at worse (oxymoron anyone?) His actions (murder of the king and nonstrategic abandoning villages) placed him in the villain seat for most people despite some of his ideas and claims did have ground to stand on. Seriously, I know we are the grey wardens and all, and its our job to end the blight, but... from my playthroughs the king didn't give me any incentive that he was actually taking the threat seriously! He was naively dreaming about fighting side by side with the grey wardens and not taking in the seriousness of that they were at war with a conquering army! I can even understand Logan's position of not really trusting the warden's. I mean shoot, one of the biggest holes in the game is that wardens are needed to stop the blight and the Darkspawn, and it has shown time and time again that their very blood is poisonous, yet you run around with a group of nonwardens who seem to have noo problem dealing with any of it and the Warden's only really needed to capture and kill the soul of the corrupted gods.
Lets not for getting the bonuses of becoming a GW, you have a shortened life span, and chances are high that you won't survive the joining ritual. Also, they don't tell you that you can be killed during the ritual, and you're not allowed to back out of the ritual joining when you learn the truth.
DA:O had imho a very rich story, excellent NPCs, very good gameplay (except the fade, I hate the fade), an excellent ruleset (that maybe put mages a tad into OP territory but so does BG), good environments, excellent quest design where your choices actually matters and not everything is black and white.
Darkspawn are supposed to be more like a swarm than actual individuals but even so you face quite a few unique ones.
I loved the encounters, often fighting a few to 6-8 enemies at most with a very varied skillset, often around your level of power, very few pathetic fodder mooks (or gnolls/goblins/kobolds if you will). Very unforgiving if playing on the hardest setting and attempting no-reloads. A lot of skills and spells had a very satisfying "impact" upon use, also the spells and abilities used by your enemies. Have you seen the fireballs or crushing prisons being tossed around? Just a shame that the enemies wouldn't use the more OP tactics like paralyze bomb (glyph combo) or mana clash (I never used it since it broke the game). Clearly it has balance issues, but so does BG.
Every class was very useful but the standard holy trinity makes any party stronger, if you want to be on the safe side take two mages (with force field and crushing prison minimum) to make life easier.
Cunning rogues were the undisputed DPS kings, str/dex warriors the tanks, dex dw warriors (daggers) ok dps and tanky, pure str two-handed weapon warriors were good burst DPS with excellent CC and folded like wet paper towels when hit by anything (my favorite, not the most powerful by any stretch of the imagination but very satisfying to play, OP like everything else in awakening). Every class worked with different builds but clearly excelled at something. I actually think that DA:O made progress when thinking about party compositions.
If you had made this thread and pointed to DA2 or DA Inquisition I would not have anything to say in their defense. Are you sure it's DA:O that you've started @SharGuidesMyHand ?
Are there spectacular villains in BG1-2 - none that really spring to mind except maybe Saravok and his henchmen at the end of the game - sure you had semi-bosses at times but nothing that really comes to mind for me personally. Yes, DAO didn't have any remarkable villains but you had some enjoyable encounters with a few NPCs - like Flemoth (who is one of my favorite characters), and the wanna be Dwarf king candidates, the elf Keeper - characters that were more complex then merely just black and white villains. "Villains" were more complex with motivates that were not just simple world conquering overpowered crazies or monsters. The complexity of motives in the villain like characters made for a more ambiguous moral situations at times as you progressed through the story.
Choices and consequences in DAO had more of an impact as you progressed through the story - if you made a decision it would have a consequence somewhere in the story even if it was merely just a shop keeper that decided not to open his store. BG lacked some of the consequences of actions that DAO had but it still had some - but mostly I chalk the lack of consequences due to the age of the game and the limits of programming from an older rpg.....
Battles: BG - battles were okay - I enjoyed them but for me it was not spectacular - yes the boss fights might end differently but in DAO it did the same thing - darkspawns elites/bosses fought differently from battle to battle. For me in both games it was a bit repetitive with its hordes/waves of monsters especially the waves in DAO but nothing that was truly horribly repetitive. As for encounters - yes in DAO you got another room full of monsters but you got them in BG as well - its what is expected from adventuring and dungeon crawling - without these monsters we'd be taking a stroll in the park.
As for quality over quantity - DAO had quality as well - darkspawns came in a variety of types - you got elites soldiers all the way down to grunts - in BG you got bosses all the way down to the goblins/kobolds that infested everything. For me at least in terms of quality of bosses that filled the game (not end game bosses) it was about the same - fights became harder and more strategy was needed in order to win. The quality of DAO bosses was varied from the broodmother to Flemoth and the high dragon even the first ogre you encountered was deadly. But I will say that there was a variety of 'bad guys' that filled DAO - villains were not as easily spotted - sometimes a bad guy was not really a bad guy - it was a lot more gray than black and while as in BG.
DAO also offered more opportunities to truly role-play in a variety of different ways that had consequences to the game while in BG role-playing was rather limited to your own imagination.
One of the best things about BG1 was the ability to explore the world - you could wander and explore the areas as a newbie adventure just out of Candlekeep without world shaking consequences forcing you to act immediately. In DAO the world and its apocalyptic end is a lot more pressing - the Blight is a true and constant danger - areas fall to the Blight during game play closing that area forever - its less about adventuring and more about saving the world - but you can still do some adventuring as you go. One of the best thing about DAO is the choices you make have consequences - interaction between you and your NPCs along with everyone else that you encounter will alter the story - and as such while the story of world ending is rather overdone - the consequences/choices you make can alter the story in significant ways more so than in BG series.
Is that saying one game is better than another - no not really - both have their unique charms that make them enjoyable to play. You can play a good or more evil PC in DAO with a lot more consequence in the game as compared to BG but then again in the BG series it is a lot more personal for you while in DAO it is less about you and more about stopping the end of the world, you just happen to be very important in the saving of the world and of course there might be some personal motive as well depending on your origin of your PC.
For me personally, the NPC interaction in DAO was one of the best things - you could interact with them more fully - asking questions, getting replies or even the lack of replies as the case may be if you were not on friendly terms with them, and even actually having a conversation of sorts that you can initiate - which BG sadly lacked. The NPCs in DAO were for me more dynamic and before getting into the age of the respective games - even BG: SoD did not have that level of interaction between you and the NPCs in your team.
I think one of the exciting things about Dragon Age series is that you can import your story through out the game - choices made in Origins will have consequences in DA2 and even in Inquisition if you choose to import your story - which is a nice touch for the DA franchise and allows for the linking of story.
One of the fun things about BG for me was all the magical items - magical items were truly magical which DA did not have a lot of. Coming across odd magical items in BG series had to be one of the most enjoyable things - items that were cursed were fun to have and if you were brave enough you could even use it; DAO really lacked in that department, magical items lacked that magical feel for me at least.
Gaming mechanics: Playing through the series of BG - I think one of the best thing was the consistency of the gaming world - using basically 2nd edition rules - the rules did not change in any real way from BG1 to BG2; while in DA the gaming system changed in ways that players from Origins would have to relearn the mechanics of the game and going from DAO to DA2 to DA:Inquisition it changed again - which for me at least is rather annoying to say the least.
"Man vs. himself".
Bhaalspawn
Slayer
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." F. Nietsche, Baldur's Gate start game screen
The entire franchise begins with establishing a "man vs. himself" story conflict. I thought that was a no-brainer.
I assumed that what you was referencing too, but even then there was almost no conflict. If my memory serves, we had one dream sequence and one forced transformation dealing directly with the slayer and it didn't even make a powerful impact on the story at all. The dream sequences between PC and Irencus were stronger. Which was disappointing seeing in throne of Bhaal, the place where they wouldn't shut up about being a bhaalspawn and godly power. I would've expected the only 2 sequences in BG2 that were more of a foreshadowing setup for an actual "man vs himself" t setup; one would've actually expected the slayer identity, to take a more forefront role in the story and actually create a real ideal of "man vs Himself" situation on top of dealing with the five compared to what we got.
To put it bluntly, claiming that the two little scenes that we got in bg2 which actually led to nowhere as a full on man vs himself situation is like taking a little white lie (something insignificant) and saying it is the Watergate scandal. When slayer form was awakened, it should have had a much bigger place in the story than what it did, but it basically went nearly completely nonexistent. It is so nonexistent that you could remove the only two scenes in the game that they are a part of the story and the story won't deviate at all. That is how unimpactful it was and how little it played with a "man vs himself" scenario.
There are many ways to fix this.
The more evil you did, the sooner slayer actually started to emerge, or even begin to influence the choices the player could make.
After slayer became awakened, actually give it more direct influence on the main story. Actually showing the presence is still there and it is growing in power.
so on and so on.
Yes the franchise does begin with the concept, but beginning with a concept doesn't mean it also delivered it. Baulder's gate didn't deliver it and I'm not afraid to say it. In fact through the whole series I never once even felt that there was an inner conflict vs myself. The closest it got was PC coming to terms with his father's death.
Still, this is simply a semantic distinction. So, whatevs.
Having analysed disaster movies, I have to say that I am not a fan. I would rather have a devious antagonist with an evil plot to face off against. Call me simplistic and old fashioned.
And don't forget, the Nexus probably has the mods you're looking for.
-Directly (or incidentally) opposed to the protagonist.
Sarevok needs to kill you so he can be the last, and Irenicus needs your soul for his plan to work.
-Primary obstacle to the protagonist plot goal:
Sarevok is the puppet master behind the iron shortage, and Irenicus is the one who's either got Imoen hostage/can reveal secrets about your divine lineage.
-Shares important similarities with the protagonist
Sarevok and you share the same lineage, while Irenicus , well, I don't which similarities Irenicus has, so I'll give it to Sarevok.
Most importantly: CHARISMA. Making charismatic villains ain't no easy task, there's only one Joker , or Darth Vader, or Voldemort out there.
Villains was the topic at hand:
Loghain is a complicated character who turns from a hero into a power hungry tyrant due to a series of actions ranging from gray to black starting with his retreat (who was tactical surely? They would have lost the battle anyway wouldn't they? You never get to truly learn this!). His partner in crime Arl Rendon Howe is anything but gray, the classic evil bastard everyone loves to hate (and eventually kill).
Loghains daughter Anora is another complicated character, not a hero, not a villain, but a strong character with her very own agenda, clearly more looking after her own interests than those of Ferelden.
Loghains captain of the guard Ser Cauthrien is perhaps the most loyal and well meaning of all the characters in the game, it's just she's on the wrong side.
Uldred is a mage who when dabbling into blood magic gets more than he bargained for. A lot because of the oppression by the Templars who are considered good even if they don't always act like it.
Bhelen is a douchebag, but is Harrowmont any better? Do you want to give the casteless a fighting chance or continue the traditions that have the dwarves fighting a hopeless battle against the darkspawn?
The city elf origin story introduces you to a charming young nobleman and his family..
What about Duncan? Is he a Hero? A Villain? If he is a hero he sure has plenty of gray to him.
Flemeth is just iconic.
The Archdemon is the soul of an old god reborn. End of the world scenario and all that. The whole idea about the darkspawn, the golden city and the old gods are more than enough for me as a main threat.
There are quite a few more than springs to mind but this already turned into a wall of text..
Comparing DA:O with the BG series is very hard for me since they are so different. But for me both are amazing games.
I don't find anyone else in Sarevoks gang particularly memorable though, because they hardly are.
I disagree on Voldemort , I didn't find him particularly charismatic in anyway near the final books. He just ended up feeling pathetic in the final book.
I would have preferred less mucking about with dwarves and elves and more of the politics of Ferelden which was what the actual obstacle to dealing with the blight was.
1. Mainly that BG1's named enemies especially as parts of random-esq encounters (THE FASTEST DART THROWER IN THE WEST!!!) were very memorable - especially if they presented unique challenges or provided interesting loot (greywolf et al). If anything, I would say DA:O's problem isn't that they don't have some interesting fights or side characters that show up to fight you (your first Ogre is probably one of the most memorable parts of the game for me); it's that they're not spaced as well as they were in BG. An easy example of this is the Friendly Arm Inn. Yes, the top of the map has 7 total, nameless, identical (mostly anyways) hobgoblins, along with the first (typically) mage fight in the game. So, you have a memorable, different, named fight (since aforementioned mage tends to kill most players the first time they meet him) and 3 more straight forward fights in the same area. Whereas DA:O usually has a plethora of nameless samey fights which lead into a named fight or special event (which ends in a named fight). In DA;O I think it mainly serves to 1. provide tactical-ish combat 2. Bloodlust satiation (killing stuff is supposed to be fun) 3. pad the game length (especially egregious in DA2).
2. Games going for Bethesda-esq massively open worlds *requires* some sort of really big threat to feel impactful. A good example of this change is Fallout 1 to Fallout 2. Fallout 1 has 6ish towns and has a very focused story-line (virtually everything takes place and is specific to the small part of California where the game occurs), whereas fallout 2 is much larger in scope with 12 or so towns and so the threat is much bigger to balance things out (although is still quite focused for most of the game). Things just feel more important when there's less of it going on. DA:O is actually a kind of compromise - which others above have noted - since you have a very big antagonist COUPLED with a more localized and (as far as the story goes) important antagonist. Origin stories where Loghain directly screws over CHARNAME (or makes friends with those that do) serve that narrative quite well and give a lot more motivation to the player. But if you play an origin story that doesn't really involve Loggy or his goons, I could see how he would mean a lot less. If you haven't, play through the game as a Human Noble Female - it can really personalize the conflict with Loggy - it's a shame some of the other origins really don't set that up at all.