#we love u lucanis i will draw him more

[fattylime]

Santiago & Lucanis for @/kentonanamiz on twt 🐦‍⬛

[serenityfails]

early stage DATV thoughts

okay well first off here's my sweet baby angel Rin

smooch smooch smooch smooch smooch i love you little bouncing baby elf

kissy kissy mwah mwah mwah

baby.

i failed to get screens of bren before i left the cc because i was hitting the wrong screencap button. i deserve only death.

okay now the rest of the game.

i truly am withholding judgment until i get further in because i know i am in the very early part of the game. i've only gotten harding, neve, bellara, and lucanis so far. i can sense that they are keeping you pretty tightly on the rails and slowly drip-feeding tutorial shit throughout until you get everyone. that's fine, sure.

howeveerrrrr i am not a huge fan of the feel of this on-the-rails section. it feels............ mobile game-y. and i think part of that is the art style in varric's narration sections? they're trying to riff on nick thornborrow's very distinct art style that we saw previously in the games and of which i am a big fan and the replacement art style is like.... murder mystery match 3. i don't like it.

i'm trying to unclench and lean into minrathous being more futuristic and like, ye olde cyberpunke, but i'm not quite used to the slickness of it all yet. it doesn't feel dragon agey. this is something i might get over in time, or i might not. i'll wait and see.

i also don't find the music very distinctive but hans zimmer is imo a deeply boring composer. i miss u inquisition ost...

so far all the dialogue and characters also feel very flat. i am also hoping this is just because i am still stuck in the world's longest tutorial section and that they'll start to ease into being people instead of exposition dispensers soon. i know there's always the section at the beginning where they have to act like people regularly explain known facts about the world to everyone. it just feels particularly glaring here for some reason. like how many times is harding gonna bark something completely obvious at me. i heard you the first five times and also the tone indicators on the screen seem to think i'm an idiot robot who doesn't understand dialogue and feels the need to summarize every cutscene for me.

that aspect is really sticking in my craw bc the thing i LIKE about dragon age is that it lets you draw your own conclusions about what the characters say and what they're trying to convey to you when they say it, i don't want some fucking subtitle being like BY THE WAY HERE'S THE SUBTEXT OF THIS SCENE, shut the fuck uUUuuup

neve is hot but her affect is very flat and i haven't found the hook for her character that's made me interested in her yet. i like lucanis more than i thought i would, but i did just meet him. bellara gets on my nerves but i'm trying to give her time to cook. harding never struck me as an "interested in dwarven lore" person so i am also waiting to see where that goes.

so far the character i like most is.... my Rook. lmao

i sound like a negative nancy rn but i do like the mage combat gameplay despite being bad at video game combat. it's really fun. dagger and orb forever. also the game is reeeeeally pretty. i think the faces don't always look great in motion and the lip flaps seem mushy delivering the dialogue but you know what it still looks better than like any of the other games so whatever. the hair is so whooshy. can't believe they finally did it, the absolute madlads

all right i should probably sleep or something. will continue to Ponder as i play