{"id":6311,"date":"2009-12-14T08:00:21","date_gmt":"2009-12-14T12:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=6311"},"modified":"2018-05-07T17:40:29","modified_gmt":"2018-05-07T21:40:29","slug":"dragon-age-twitter-review-pt-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=6311","title":{"rendered":"Dragon Age: Twitter Review Pt. 6"},"content":{"rendered":"
This is it. The discussion of the endgame. The spoilers here will be absolute. You’ll turn back now if you know what’s good for you.<\/p>\n

Also, Fraps crashed on me or something. I was smacking my screenshot button all through the endgame, and I have not a single image to show for it. Figures.<\/p><\/div>\n

Nearing the endgame of #DragonAge. Turned into a soap opera there for a half hour or so, but I think we’ve got all the talky bits over with.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is to be expected. It was messy getting rid of Logain. <\/p>\n

Have fun storming the castle!” You did NOT just go there, #DragonAge.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I admit. I laughed when Shale said this. I suck.<\/p>\n

The “big twist” in #DragonAge was mild compared to other BioWare titles, but it was still a good revelation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The big twist was that in order to kill the Archdemon, a Grey Warden must<\/strong> die. A Grey Warden must sacrifice his or her life to keep the thing from simply escaping and regenerating elsewhere once you destroy its body. There are only three Grey Wardens in the final battle:<\/p>\n

1) The Player
\n2) Alistair
\n3) Jonny Newcomer, the helpful plot exposition NPC.<\/p>\n

I knew #3 wouldn’t be there at the end, since:<\/p>\n

1) He was old and willing to sacrifice himself.
\n2) Having him available would have made the final choice too easy.<\/p>\n

Yay. The five-minute loading screen bug. That’s just the thing to enhance the drama at the end of #DragonAge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once in a while loading screens will start taking about ten times as long as they should. At this point it’s better to restart the game than to put up with it, although restarting the game takes a while as well. <\/p>\n

Why does the PC have this problem and not the consoles, I wonder?<\/p>\n

The #DragonAge boss is inside of an impenetrable fortress of ENDLESS LOADING SCREENS.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This. This is something that always annoys me about BioWare games but is instantly forgotten the moment I hit the closing credits. KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and now Dragon Age all have this. The story reaches its final climax, you’re ready for the final showdown, and then you’ve got to wade through about an hour of bland combat to get there. <\/p>\n

The beating-a-dead-horse combat, the dull scenery, and the loading screens do a lot to take the momentum out of the thing for me. <\/p>\n

And then I forget all about it because I enjoy the ending. <\/p>\n

Ah. I’ve felt like I was 1 loading screen away from the final battle for about the last 7 battles. Arg. #DragonAge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because I always forget that BioWare games end this way, I greatly underestimated how long it would take to get to the final battle. So I was really getting restless long before I got anywhere near the final boss. I didn’t know how far I’d have to go, so I kept assuming I was nearly there.<\/p>\n

Another massive complex full of darkspawn. Man, this was getting old an hour ago. This is just just a test of will. #DragonAge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Did I already mention that the battle through the darkspawn was a little on the long side? I did? Sorry.<\/p>\n

Dear BioWare:I’m at the door labeled “rooftop”. If this isn’t the last loading screen, your lives are forfeit. #DragonAge<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was. Good thing for all of us, I guess. <\/p>\n

And *******’s final speech makes no sense. “I never wanted to be king!” Um. YOU AREN’T! #DragonAge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Talking about Alistair here. The final choice is to sacrifice him or yourself to kill the Big Bad. There’s all this dialog about him being king here. Again, I wish I had screenshots because I’ve forgotten it now, but he brings it up. I have several options along the lines where I could say, “You can’t die, because you have to go on and be king now.”<\/p>\n

This made no sense at all. Everyone had agreed that Alistair wouldn’t be king, and he vigorously renounced all claims to the throne in front of the entire nobility. There would be no way for him to get anywhere NEAR the throne short of civil war, which he would never do.<\/p>\n

This was the very final conversation. It was supposed to be the quick exchange between the two of us before someone runs off and gives their life for the Greater Good. And suddenly we’ve got a bunch of politics and continuity errors. <\/p>\n

Kind of a shame to have that during this big dramatic moment.<\/p>\n

re: My earlier complaints on the ending… All is forgiven. This is one of the most satisfying and interesting since Fallout. #DragonAge<\/strong><\/p>\n

I really did waver on whether I should sacrifice myself or Alistair. I was playing a female, and I’d liked the romance between the two of them. It was heartbreaking to see that it had to end like this, and even on my way to the final battle I still wasn’t sure which way I wanted things to go.<\/p>\n

In the end, I let Alistair sacrifice himself. Since this was my first time seeing the end, I think this was the right choice. There are several interesting conversations to be had afterward, and I would have missed out on them otherwise. <\/p>\n

Sorry Alistair. Next time through the game, I’ll take the Stab of No Return.<\/p>\n

#DragonAge had a Fallout-style ending! “Here is what happened in X, here is how things turned out in Y, here is how you screwed up Z.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

And suddenly my mind is purged of all the annoyances of the ending sequence. If I hadn’t been commenting in Twitter, I probably would have forgotten all about it.<\/p>\n

The ending here is stellar. You get to talk to each of your companions and find out what they plan to do next, then you hit the “here is how things turned out” montage, which is very thorough. <\/p>\n

That’s it for what I had to say via Twitter. I think I’ll do one more wrap-up post after this one, and then we can do something else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is it. The discussion of the endgame. The spoilers here will be absolute. You’ll turn back now if you know what’s good for you. Also, Fraps crashed on me or something. I was smacking my screenshot button all through the endgame, and I have not a single image to show for it. Figures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42710,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311\/revisions\/42710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}