I?m a big nerd-o and thinking of playing all the games again. I have my personal ?canon worldstate? in the keep, but I wanna experience the games again (for like the 8th time jfc)
I loved Dragon Age, too - until I got the "wayward son" glitch in DA2. It's a gamebreaking glitch where the son in a specific sidequest simply does not spawn, and you can neither cancel the quest nor progress the story without finishing it first. There was never a patch for the console versions, as far as I'm aware. I lost ~15-20 hours that way because I did not have a backup savefile where the quest had not yet been started... and I was too salty to play everything all over again, so I never touched the game again. I picked up DA3, however, and enjoyed it a lot, but DA2 still left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.
I loved Dragon Age, too - until I got the "wayward son" glitch in DA2. It's a gamebreaking glitch where the son in a specific sidequest simply does not spawn, and you can neither cancel the quest nor progress the story without finishing it first. There was never a patch for the console versions, as far as I'm aware. I lost ~15-20 hours that way because I did not have a backup savefile where the quest had not yet been started... and I was too salty to play everything all over again, so I never touched the game again. I picked up DA3, however, and enjoyed it a lot, but DA2 still left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.
Oh wow! I had heard of the glitch but never encountered it myself! I had all DA games on console too and didn't encounter any thank goodness. Whereas in Fable, I encountered glitches (while not totally game breaking) alllllll the tiiiiime. I've since ported all my DA gameplay onto my computer and now purely play the games on there since there was a significant sale on the games on Origin.
DA2 gets a pretty bad wrap, but I personally really liked it? It was small and a lot more contained than DAI is (obviously, and a lot of people also hate that -- i, for one, can't handle all those shards and only obtained them all in one playthrough). But the cast was really strong, in my opinion. Also, how can anyone hate the game that introduced Varric?!?! HE'S A BLESSING.
I'm just really in love with the characters in the DA series (some just from worldbuilding/writing standpoints as I don't "get along" with them all -- cough, Sera, cough). I'm part of the faction that had issues with Anders in DA2 even though I liked his character well enough. Only "main" character in DA2, and I guess the franchise as a whole, that I really just couldn't give a rat's ass about was Sebastian. He was so gd flat and it was a pain to even listen to him talk about the Chantry and ****. I couldn't.
I really enjoyed Dragon Age: Origins and played it a number of times back in the day to try out different builds and experience all the different stories and choices. I was quite fond of the world and the characters.
I bought Dragon Age 2 when it came out but upon hearing public opinion on it (the whole fiasco about being mostly in one city) I never ended up getting around to playing it through to completion. Seeing Dragon Age Inquisition and the reaction it got made me interested in playing that. Eventually I hope to actually get through Dragon Age 2 and then get to Inquisition but I haven't been able to do so as of yet.
I really enjoyed Dragon Age: Origins and played it a number of times back in the day to try out different builds and experience all the different stories and choices. I was quite fond of the world and the characters.
I bought Dragon Age 2 when it came out but upon hearing public opinion on it (the whole fiasco about being mostly in one city) I never ended up getting around to playing it through to completion. Seeing Dragon Age Inquisition and the reaction it got made me interested in playing that. Eventually I hope to actually get through Dragon Age 2 and then get to Inquisition but I haven't been able to do so as of yet.
I think it'd be a diff story if the reason it was all in one city didn't fit with the plot?? Like, the whole reason behind it makes sense.
The Hawke family needed to basically seek asylum in Kirkwall from the Blight and Kirkwall is basically a hub of political unrest where the events def bleed into the future of the worldspace (and next game).
I just felt like the cast was so strong and they broke quite a few stereotypes with them:
Fenris, an elf, isn't an archer or a mage, he's a monster sword wielding dude who hates mages.
Aveline, a woman, is the meatshield of your party (unless you play as one, ig)
Merrill is the sweetest (and one of the most naive) people in the franchise, but she's a "spooky blood mage"
Anders, the healer, is basically a bloodthirsty psycopath bc of Justice (everyone has diff opinions about his actions but ya)
Varric, a dwarf, is a rogue which is a little mold-breaking from other games, ig, not particularly DA (my origins canon worldstate is a dual-blade Noble origins dwarf)
Isabela is pretty standard but she's very enjoyable as well imo
It just really felt like a family and I was so invested in each character I encountered, whether I liked them or not.
But I enjoyed Inquisition a ton too. Some people I've talked to played Inquisition, but not the other two games, and hated the plot because it was confusing or whatever and bashed the game. And I'm like "this world is pretty politically intriguing???? ever heard of lore???? continuity???? storytelling???? READING THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A BOOK BEFORE SKIPPING TO THE THIRD BOOK MAYBE??" lmao
DA2 has a lot of big implications that bleed into the third game. Like, for example, the next game that comes out will be confusing as HECK if whoever plays it hasn't played Inquisition mos definitely. YOu can tell from the end of that game. Each one is so intertwined with the plot of the next and they all work so well as a ensemble. Origins could play as a stand-alone but if someone enjoys that game then idk why they wouldn't go into the next
but yeah, recurring characters, etc. are pretty important in this series. this was a huge ramble and idk if it's all coherent i'm doing like 8 things at once rn lmaooo
