#the big dragon age replaythrough

[fandom-geek]

anyway just realised i completely forgot to make a post abt completing the first part of the arl of redcliffe quest and the broken circle, so thoughts!

...i had completely forgotten that alistair does know who his dad is.

on that note, alistair does say that duncan also knew, but it's not entirely clear if alistair told him (and duncan pretended not to know already), if the reverend mother told him (and he pretended not to know already), or if duncan was actually transparent about already knowing but just didn't say how.

alistair also gave me the quest about finding goldanna, which again makes me think abt fiona. when he eventually finds out that his mother is actually an elven mage who is alive, he's gaining a living mother and losing a sister who... doesn't want anything to do with him (from what i recall), but is still alive and has her own kids. which isn't necessarily much, but when alistair's spent most of his life thinking that she's his only relative, that's some complicated grief to have. especially if he finds out that duncan did know abt him and promised to look after him secretly (as per the calling).

anyway - back to the quests!

defending redcliffe was. a pain. the mayor did not survive, despite me turning on easy mode. i was tempted to try a few times to get the cutscenes for "you saved everyone" but i hate the long walk between the two fights so fuck that. rip mayor dude, you were decent.

the redcliffe sideplots! hi bella and kaitlyn! i not-so-immediately showered them in gold so they can both yeet away to denerim. apparently i may have fucked up getting kaitlyn's "marry bann teagan" ending by not buying the sword, but i also gave her a ton of money so who knows. we'll see when i get to the epilogue. also yeeted the blacksmith's daughter back to her dad, so i've finished all the redcliffe side quests i actually care about that are the most significant.

you know how i was complaining abt veilguard because of eurogamer's review of the press demo the other day? there's a good chance that plots like bella and kaitlyn will be non-existent there given the "can't really interact with any random city npcs". so. that'll be a fuckin tragedy if that's the case. same for the whole of redcliffe, actually - even if they're not questgivers or lack extended dialogue, it's a town that actually feels like a town thanks to the variety of npcs you have.

redcliffe castle wasn't too painful to get through, and it's actually pretty interesting in hindsight of the later games. connor, unlike wynne (who we shall meet shortly), cole and anders, is kinda our foremost example of an abomination actually living up to their name. and the boy is creepy, even if him making bann teagan dance is lowkey hilarious. sorry teagan.

i had completely forgotten how alistair goes from "he's an abomination, we must kill him D:" to "...we can save him? oh thank fuck". it's pretty interesting that despite being raised as a templar against his will, he'll repeat the chantry's stance at first but he's immediately pretty glad if you offer a reasonable alternative - no matter how much it stands in opposition to the chantry.

broken circle time!

it's very funny how your introduction to the templars is "all the mages are corrupted and lost to demons.... we must kill them" only to immediately go through and realise they've managed to clear a section, courtesy of wynne and her spirit of faith. i reblogged a piece of meta abt this a while ago, but this quest is nowhere near as morally grey as some ppl make it out to be. the templars are practically buffoons (with some having the excuse of being tortured) who do literally nothing to solve the situation, while the mages are actively risking their lives to save each other. cullen is just... urgh. it says something that wynne is willing to defend him by saving he's been tortured, and the fucker doubles down on his "murder all mages, even the kids" rhetoric. i really hate that bioware retconned his endings from da:o.

it's kinda a shame that despite alistair telling you that the templars are addicted to lyrium, it never actually comes up in the broken circle. cullen being tortured and in withdrawal would be a bit more interesting to explore, but idk. would it be insane of me to draw a parallel between a tortured cullen thirsting for blood and a contemporary usa jumping to indiscriminate warfare over 9/11? .... yeah? ok, fair enough

wynne, my beloved! i hadn't realised how blatant it is almost from when you meet her that she's been possessed by a spirit to help her keep working past her own literal death. she also immediately adds a much calmer adult voice to the party, even if i wanted to yeet morrigan into the abyss with the "survival of the fittest [and none of the circle mages are it]" bullshit she kept spewing when we first met wynne. darling, please get over your elven-god-mother's brainwashing some time this game, it's deeply frustrating

(also, morrigan gave me her quest to steal flemeth's grimoire while murdering her mum! wooooooo!)

the fade is the fade. mildly less tedious with a guide in hand, but annoying as hell. i conceptually get what bioware was going for - the companions' nightmares and the shapeshifting are both fascinating narratively and gameplay-wise, but the trudge to get there is frustrating as hell. there's a line btwn purely linear levels and forcing ppl to slowly backtrack a ton, and this doesn't achieve anywhere near the balance it needs. though it does reinforce that the mages are significantly more willing to save each other, regardless of the risks to themselves.

oh, and it always cracks me up how much weisshaupt looks like ostagar. i know they only had so many tilesets for decorating, but the main part looks practically identical to the raised platform/lower hall where you meet alistair and later having the meeting with loghain/cailan.

i burnt through health poultices like no one's business on this level, so the final boss was fun. not actually that bad, but i had to seriously micromanage the party's healing post-fade onwards. plus preventing him from corrupting the mages is hilariously easy once you've got the litany.

managed to run into zevran on the way back to redcliffe (and stopped by honnleath too), so now i've got another rogue and shale. i get there's plenty of worldbuilding reasons for you to have less mages than rogues/warriors but with my poor cousland also being a rogue, this party feels insanely rogue heavy.

camping was also pretty funny, bc wynne basically threw a ton of her major dialogue conversations at me back to back. alistair also snogged my cousland despite much teasing, so that was fun. speaking of things i had forgotten, i had definitely blanked on zevran's backstory in the crows frequently involving torture as a training method. wonder if they'll include that in veilguard since one of your companions is the grandson of the head crow (i fucking doubt it).

back to redcliffe - not much to say except the fade section here is pretty interesting. it's heartbreaking that saving him means damning him to the circle but hey, at least he's only stuck there for the next seven years! given his age, he probably doesn't even go through the harrowing before the circles dissolve.

[stillwinterair]

Upon my recent replaythrough of Dragon Age Inquisition I've decided to actually... order the maps from my favorite to my least favorite

The Western Approach

Crestwood

The Hissing Wastes (yes, I know I'm crazy for having this one so high)

Storm Coast

The Fallow Mire

The Emerald Graves

Emprise du Lion

Exalted Plains

Forbidden Oasis

The Hinterlands

Not currently including DLC locations because I haven't played them in a few years.

The top 5 are really, really high above the bottom 5, like there's a pretty steep drop off after the Fallow Mire that becomes exponential as you go down the list. The top 5 are all generally excellent experiences for me, the Emerald Graves is okay, the next two are forgettable, the Oasis is aggravating, and the Hinterlands is miserable

Storm Coast and the Hissing Wastes are very much... Designed For Me maps in aesthetic and tone, but the rest of the top five really are what I think BioWare should be leaning into for future open world sections of their games. The Western Approach, Fallow Mire, and Crestwood are very tightly-paced, well-crafted experiences that all work very differently from each other

The Western Approach is a mostly linear level masquerading as an open world, designed to be engaged with over time. It's essentially a big circle, although you can only move through about half of it at first, clockwise. Part one involves capturing a keep, one of the best quests in the game imo, and then you're pretty much locked off until you complete a war table operation. So you leave, handle other stuff, and come back eventually with another piece of the map unlocked to explore, ultimately get another war table operation, and leave again. When you return for the third time you're a lot more familiar with the map, and there's a nice dungeon to do as you work toward completing the map's full circle. There's a really nice sense of progression over time, I do just wish there was more content in the middle stage, and that the operations to progress through took actual in-game time to simulate this feeling better.

The Fallow Mire is just straight up a really tightly paced map without too much side content (and the content that's there is mostly well written and rewarding). This is the most classic Dragon Age quest in the game, and although the tone of it is kind of miserable (bog zombies...... eugh), it's honestly a pleasure to have a throwback to some very Origins-esque quest design

Crestwood is by far the most responsive to quest progression. The map very physically changes, twice, over the course of its main quest -- first, when the lake is drained, and again when the main quest is over, and morning comes. There's some genuinely good writing here, the quest design is nicely varied, and overall it just feels like the best crafted area Inquisition has.

As for the other two in my top 5, well...

Storm Coast: Honestly, I just want to live here... the constant stormy weather, the waves crashing on the shore... absolutely gorgeous

Hissing Wastes: Big desert... under stars... it is simply Relaxing and Beautiful

[fandom-geek]

finished ostagar and lothering last time, so time for my second round of re-playthrough thoughts

the cinematics continue to be excellent, and you can really see the (at the time) recent lotr inspiration with how the battle goes down. kinda weird that the mages weren't ordered to attack alongside the archers, though. rip cailan, duncan, et al., i hardly knew ye.

it's interesting to think that (as per the wiki) that cailan knew that alistair was his brother. for all his talk of riding off into glorious battle, he still chose to give alistair what should've been a remarkably safe task. given cailan's character, i'm fairly sure it's motivated by a fairly straightforward "protect my little brother" desire, but it's interesting nonetheless

gameplay wise, i had completely forgotten that you unlock more tactics slots as you level up. it was annoying at first, but the more i think about it, the more it's a bit ingenious. it means that you have to get to grips with micromanaging your party in combat before you can just rely on the ai to take control of them successfully, in a bit of a reverse difficulty swing. i actually quite like it.

da:o's politicking plot isn't exactly the most subtle or terribly complicated, but it's still very well written. admittedly i've seen, like, one cutscene from that side plot so far, namely the landsmeet cutscene after ostagar, but still. you get very immediate and clear impressions of almost everyone involved - bar anora, who is being remarkably silent but clearly respects teagan, and eamon, who is busy being comatose.

and another hit from the 'definitely 00s worldbuilding' - leliana and morrigan's banter immediately posits that, if morrigan isn't an andrastian, she must be an atheist in our sense of the word. despite, yknow, for all intents and purposes being chasind, who have their own animist beliefs and shamans. i know morrigan is far from an even remotely typical chasind (thanks to her ancient elven god mother), but it's still a very 00s choice of them.

speaking of her ancient elven god mother. i got that banter where morrigan talks about how flemeth would seduce chasind men, bring them back home to have sex with her, kill them, then tell morrigan this was also expected of her as an adult. flemeth is winning the worst mother of the age award by a country fucking mile and we haven't even touched on morrigan's "i'm fairly sure my mother is going to kill me and possess my body" thing yet. what the fuck, flemeth???

that said, i am also this close to putting alistair and morrigan in a get along shirt. i hadn't really considered it before, but they're both deeply sheltered young adults who... aren't exactly in a good state btwn the aforementioned childhood and alistair losing his newfound family. add in my poor cousland who's dealing with all of this, the potential loss of any justice for their family, the actual loss of their family, plus her concern abt whether fergus is even alive... it's the trauma trio alright. not that anyone in the party is particularly well adjusted except for wynne and maybe sten, if only by qunari standards. perhaps shale too

(all of alistair and morrigan's bickering also led me to rewatching alistair and morrigan's conversation in da:i and ok. bioware did nail that. it's so wonderful to see how they grow over the next decade, especially with kieran in the picture.)

speaking of companions - leliana! it is probably some more 00s worldbuilding that everyone's reaction to her saying she had a vision that the maker wants her to go with them is that she's out of her mind, but it's funny enough that it works. also helps that we are talking about two grey wardens who have been publicly accused of treason and regicide, and a chasind-looking apostate. like.... yeah, even if you believe in the maker, having a random sister help you shank some guys in the pub then tell you that is probably a bit hard to get behind. not that that'll ever stop me from recruiting her, lol.

i had, uh. kinda forgotten that sten was imprisoned for murdering an entire family, children included. the things you forget after a decade, huh? i haven't really engaged with him beyond that because i figured my warden was not dumb enough to bring the convicted murderer running around the town where he got convicted, so, uh, yeah. need to talk to him in camp and figure him out more.

aside from that, not much more to add. i had actually forgotten abt the quest boards, then i only remembered the chanter's board, so imagine my surprise when i see the blackstone irregulars too. not the nicest bunch, but it's good xp either way. i'm fairly sure there's at least one more faction offering quests but i have basically zero memory of this beyond the chanter's boards, so i'm looking forward to rediscovering that whole thing.

[fandom-geek]

i finally started my new playthrough of da:o, which i think is the first time i've played it in... eight or nine years?

a bit of context, since da:o is near and dear to my heart. da:o was actually the first rpg i played on pc, and one of the first video games i played where you could make proper choices (second to bioshock, i think?). it might actually be in the first five or so games i even played on pc, behind ck2, portal, and bioshock.

so even though i have considerably soured on dragon age as a series (sorry not sorry), i wanted to see if da:o still lived up to my memories of it. i might even play da2 and inquisition after this (even if it means finding my origin account, urgh) to see how they compare as well.

that said, initial thoughts.

my very first thought is that the opening is still insanely exciting. da2 and origins both nailed their openings, especially with the playable sections. this is something that i remember being quite disappointed that inquisition failed at since you don't get to play your inquisitor before the explosion, but that's a criticism for later if i play da:i

second thought - 'wait, is that how they pronounced cousland???'. for some reason i've been mentally pronouncing it as "COZ-land" for god knows how long when it's actually pronounced "COOS-land" ingame.

the movement is way floatier than i remember, probably because i've played a lot more games since then and origins was jointly released on pc and xbox/ps3. it's not really a qualm per se, but it's just really noticeable. probs doesn't help i've started playing this alongside code vein, a literal soulslike

courtesy of this being a fem!cousland run, i've got to say that the faux-feminist criticisms really hold up. origins does the very 00s "male 'feminist' who doesn't think abt it beyond a surface level" thing of "women can do anything but you've got to deal with comments and defend yourself for doing it" and considering it egalitarian. which. yeah. definitely somewhere later games improved upon, especially as it made zero sense within the worldbuilding context.

ostagar is so fucking pretty. highever is so beautiful. even the korcari wilds are delightful (if hilarious how you can spot the darkspawn loading in from 50+ metres away). not to be permanently putting inquisition in the shade, but there's one time i can think of them nailing the atmosphere for the frostback mountains as well as origins does all the way from ostagar. they're just so goddamn beautiful and isolating.

morrigan and alistair, my beloveds. alistair's whole "deflecting with humour" thing is a lot more blatant as an adult, and morrigan's attitude towards a fem!warden is so deeply refreshing after all the bullshit mentioned above. add in that i'm keeping that insight from the recent cousland post, so my warden is delighted/fascinated to meet a chasind woman (and slightly side-eyeing the witch mother coincidentally named flemeth like that lady who let the couslands take over highever). i am starting to recall why those two plus the warden were a favourite trio of mine.

SPEAKING of couslands, your introduction to cailan is fucking hilarious. it's interesting that a cousland warden has somehow never met cailan despite being from the second highest family of the land, but i write that off as bioware not wanting to make a cousland warden too op by already knowing him.

that said, i love cailan. his resemblance to alistair is so blatant, and it's interesting how they're both a bit sheltered and love their stories - even if cailan's a bit too sheltered for his role. alistair's thoughts on his own brother are pretty interesting too, since he clearly views loghain as the one in charge and doesn't seem to view cailan that positively.

(this is the bit where i go, ah fuck, i wish grandenchanterfiona was still about because i loved their takes on the theirins and loghain and their thoughts on this would've been great. may their memory be a blessing)

also, the combat was not as hard for me to get back into as i feared. the whole combat system, especially tactics, are a lot more straightforward than it is in poe (as much as i love it), even if i've got to remember how to get these fuckers to actually drink apply their poultices before they get knocked on their arses. playing as a rogue is particularly fun because it's basically auto crits as soon as you flank someone, so i suppose that's something i've missed.

i haven't actually finished ostagar yet - i basically got as far as the joining - so more thoughts once i'm further along. definitely looking forward to seeing leliana and sten soon, i'm very curious to see how my thoughts on them have changed over the last decade