How good is the story in this? Is it as good as the first?

[Tentacule Un Seigneur]

Basically, how good is this games writing?
Main Plot?
Characterization?
Character development?
Story Arcs?
Side Plots?

Does it handle those things well?

Does it avoid Plot Holes, Hanging Plot Threads, and Deus/Diablo Ex Machina nonsense?

(For potential reference, please don't bring up the combat, as no matter how good it is, it is of tertiary importance to me compared to the story, which in my subjective opinion is the most important aspect of a RPG)

[Tentacule Un Seigneur]

Originally posted by Nikalykos:

Originally posted by Zook:

This isn't really a spoiler, but lets just say that they retcon the previous games and they character assassinated loghain

Without going into detail, Ima just say its similar to how disney brought back darth sideous

Isn't it the same for all Bioware games? They do it all the time. :crusader_helmet:

Well, they only really started doing that after EA Acquired the Studio and the original Creative Team and Heads left.

[Viper]

SImilar..about the fade..same stuff really.

[jeremyj621]

The story is very linear compared to previous DA titles with fewer branches in the main plot. As the game progresses you can pick up side quests and companion quests, though even these are fewer than in previous titles.
Character development is much more complex with a huge skill tree. Specializing in a particular branch of the skill tree is essential as there are just too many skills to try and diversify.

[Tentacule Un Seigneur]

Originally posted by jeremyj621:

The story is very linear compared to previous DA titles with fewer branches in the main plot. As the game progresses you can pick up side quests and companion quests, though even these are fewer than in previous titles.
Character development is much more complex with a huge skill tree. Specializing in a particular branch of the skill tree is essential as there are just too many skills to try and diversify.

By "Character Development" I mean the writing term "Character Development", as in how the different characters grow, interact, and develop as the story progresses. Not any game mechanics, but how the characters are written relative to each other and the main plot.

[Manta]

Dialogue feels a little underwhelming. It's not bad, but it sometimes feels like they were playing it a bit too safe.

The overal story is quite good. An established formula for sure. Nothing you haven't seen before. Save the world stuff. But it does its job.

[Tynaeve]

Main story is great, side content and companion dialogue feels very cringe and at least 50% written by AI. Like I got a part of the game that threw in Dorian from DA:I and it was extremly dissapointing..

[Tentacule Un Seigneur]

Originally posted by Red Phantom:

The story and characters are pretty much universally considered to be the weakest parts of this game. If you go into it expecting it to be anything like Origins in terms of writing quality, player choice or tone, you are definitely going to be disappointed.

That's unfortunate....~sighs~...guess I will just go play another playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3.

Was really hoping for another exciting story of a game.....
There aren't enough games with good stories and characters to them unfortunately.

[Truman]

The writing is done by writers who have no life experience. Given the known working conditions of the studio I would imagine an AI did some heavy lifting. This is all made worse by robotic dialogue with voice actors that really didn't feel safe in pushing boundaries or expressing any emotion that fits the context of what is happening. It's mostly awkward.

Its a mediocre "openworld" RPG that has somehow decided to use exposition, exposition, exposition as its primary story telling technique. It treats you like an idiot most of the time.

I've seen shape boxes more puzzling than what we get in this game. Everything has a marker telling you what to do and a teammate who will pester you with a solution.

[12InchParadise]

The story is the weakest part of this game. Nobody can say good things about it, unless they never played games with well written stories and characters.

[mademan2]

I am about 30 hours in, doing some side stuff but not all.
In short, no, in terms of writing and what you ask, it doesnt hold a candle to Origins, I do think that this is easily the worst written DA game in terms of logical consistency, impact and how natural it comes across, there is little subtlety or nuance, usually it is just straight up disposition.
There is also little to no opportunity to actually roleplay, even Inquisition wasnt this bad imo, tho it is comparable to it, but Origins had a whole lot more options. You cant be evil or even mean, you cant really make evil decisions or even bad ones aside for just skipping everything I guess. The dialogue choice variance is just several versions of yes I will help you and rarely does the spoken dialogue actually match the dialogue choice.

Main plot is underwhelming for me, so far anyway, it has some higlights and some definitely visually cool moments, but it drops some of the great setup from Inquisition (like where the hell is Solas's elven army) and doesnt pay of a lot of important things, at the same time they do change much of the established lore or even established personality traits or opinions of characters for no apparent reason.

COmpanions go through their usual rigamarole of giving quest having short conversations and longer ones, it is structured similarly to ME2 in a way, where you gotta have them clear all their "distractions" to focus on the fight etc., some of them are competently written and likeable, I supririnsgly really enjoy Emmrich and his gentlemanly behavior, Harding is still her likeable self and Neve is also nice to keep around even if her voice actress sometimes sounds a little too casual or dissinterested. Davrin is a relative standout to me, I do like his story so far, the rest is either barely okay or annoying to insuferable for me.

The game is structured in a several small acts which comprise of a few small missions that you teleport around for via a hub, it isnt open world and it isnt naturally connected with you traveling from begining to end of a map, the more open parts tend to be twisty and winding, which works for like forrests and such but doesnt for cities.
You you do a few small missions and one bigger to conclude the specific part.

Side content is really more of what was in Inquisition in my opinion, despite what the devs said, there are no side story arcs to my knowledge, the core of the game and where its story and world interaction is, is the companion and main quests, side quests is about exploration, some very light puzzles, fetch and kill quests, there is some dialogue here and there but almost no choices or anything particularly interesting in my experience, they mostly serve to get you out there.

As for plot holes, to me its more about logical inconsistencies, changes to the lore and just ignoring or barely acknowledging a whole lot of obviously important stuff. The story often feels out of order or like I am missing something the characters explained, but they didnt.
With story being this disconnected and sometimes incoherent as a continuous narrative, its hard to tell if there are actual plot holes, again, its more just changes to anything that didnt fit or they didnt want to deal with. It sort of just jumps around from point to point for a long while.
Oh, one thing poped to mind I guess, why the hell is the MC supposed to be important this time around, usually it doesnt matter but we specifically get blamed or are expected to do crazy stuff that even the game innitially aknowledges as outside of our ability, nothing changes yet we are the sole reason things go right or wrong despite us generally being an ordinary, if capable person, the other games handle it far better.

Also, the continuation of the story from Origin is non existent, Warden or Hawke are not acknowledged whatsoever even when the story really feels like they should have been there and it would be really easy to write a few sentences acknowledging that.

It looks nice and gameplay is fun so far tho I can see it growing annoying eventually, but in terms of writing, characterization, companioms, immersion and investment, the things I really care about the game is at best of times good, most of the time average and often times abysmal.

[Tentacule Un Seigneur]

Originally posted by mademan2:

I am about 30 hours in, doing some side stuff but not all.
In short, no, in terms of writing and what you ask, it doesnt hold a candle to Origins, I do think that this is easily the worst written DA game in terms of logical consistency, impact and how natural it comes across, there is little subtlety or nuance, usually it is just straight up disposition.
There is also little to no opportunity to actually roleplay, even Inquisition wasnt this bad imo, tho it is comparable to it, but Origins had a whole lot more options. You cant be evil or even mean, you cant really make evil decisions or even bad ones aside for just skipping everything I guess. The dialogue choice variance is just several versions of yes I will help you and rarely does the spoken dialogue actually match the dialogue choice.

Main plot is underwhelming for me, so far anyway, it has some higlights and some definitely visually cool moments, but it drops some of the great setup from Inquisition (like where the hell is Solas's elven army) and doesnt pay of a lot of important things, at the same time they do change much of the established lore or even established personality traits or opinions of characters for no apparent reason.

COmpanions go through their usual rigamarole of giving quest having short conversations and longer ones, it is structured similarly to ME2 in a way, where you gotta have them clear all their "distractions" to focus on the fight etc., some of them are competently written and likeable, I supririnsgly really enjoy Emmrich and his gentlemanly behavior, Harding is still her likeable self and Neve is also nice to keep around even if her voice actress sometimes sounds a little too casual or dissinterested. Davrin is a relative standout to me, I do like his story so far, the rest is either barely okay or annoying to insuferable for me.

The game is structured in a several small acts which comprise of a few small missions that you teleport around for via a hub, it isnt open world and it isnt naturally connected with you traveling from begining to end of a map, the more open parts tend to be twisty and winding, which works for like forrests and such but doesnt for cities.
You you do a few small missions and one bigger to conclude the specific part.

Side content is really more of what was in Inquisition in my opinion, despite what the devs said, there are no side story arcs to my knowledge, the core of the game and where its story and world interaction is, is the companion and main quests, side quests is about exploration, some very light puzzles, fetch and kill quests, there is some dialogue here and there but almost no choices or anything particularly interesting in my experience, they mostly serve to get you out there.

As for plot holes, to me its more about logical inconsistencies, changes to the lore and just ignoring or barely acknowledging a whole lot of obviously important stuff. The story often feels out of order or like I am missing something the characters explained, but they didnt.
With story being this disconnected and sometimes incoherent as a continuous narrative, its hard to tell if there are actual plot holes, again, its more just changes to anything that didnt fit or they didnt want to deal with. It sort of just jumps around from point to point for a long while.
Oh, one thing poped to mind I guess, why the hell is the MC supposed to be important this time around, usually it doesnt matter but we specifically get blamed or are expected to do crazy stuff that even the game innitially aknowledges as outside of our ability, nothing changes yet we are the sole reason things go right or wrong despite us generally being an ordinary, if capable person, the other games handle it far better.

Also, the continuation of the story from Origin is non existent, Warden or Hawke are not acknowledged whatsoever even when the story really feels like they should have been there and it would be really easy to write a few sentences acknowledging that.

It looks nice and gameplay is fun so far tho I can see it growing annoying eventually, but in terms of writing, characterization, companioms, immersion and investment, the things I really care about the game is at best of times good, most of the time average and often times abysmal.

My thanks, yes, this one is a pass for me I guess.

Ces't la vie, back to waiting for the next well written Sci-fi or Fantasy game.

Anyone have any recommendations on anything that seems like it might be good on the horizon?

[ParasiteX]

Originally posted by Tentacule Un Seigneur:

Originally posted by jeremyj621:

The story is very linear compared to previous DA titles with fewer branches in the main plot. As the game progresses you can pick up side quests and companion quests, though even these are fewer than in previous titles.
Character development is much more complex with a huge skill tree. Specializing in a particular branch of the skill tree is essential as there are just too many skills to try and diversify.

By "Character Development" I mean the writing term "Character Development", as in how the different characters grow, interact, and develop as the story progresses. Not any game mechanics, but how the characters are written relative to each other and the main plot.

Oh yeah, there's tons of "character development" if you enjoy toddlers talk to each other.

[mademan2]

It may be an obvious recommendation but if you are looking for a well written fantasy game with great characters deep world and very involved and varied possibility of roleplay, check out Wrath of the Righteous, its not an action game and it is quite difficult to get into combat weise, but I would just recommend playing on story difficulty if you are unfamiliar or uninterested in this type of gameplay just to get the story, its truly a marvelous game.

Beyond that, from the most recently released I would also recommend Ys X: Nordic. Its a jrpg and Ys generally has really solid stories, havnt finished it yet but it started out promising, tho I doubt it will top Ys VIII Lacrimosa of Dana, check that out as well if you havnt played it.

[ParasiteX]

Originally posted by mademan2:

It may be an obvious recommendation but if you are looking for a well written fantasy game with great characters deep world and very involved and varied possibility of roleplay, check out Wrath of the Righteous, its not an action game and it is quite difficult to get into combat weise, but I would just recommend playing on story difficulty if you are unfamiliar or uninterested in this type of gameplay just to get the story, its truly a marvelous game.

Beyond that, from the most recently released I would also recommend Ys X: Nordic. Its a jrpg and Ys generally has really solid stories, havnt finished it yet but it started out promising, tho I doubt it will top Ys VIII Lacrimosa of Dana, check that out as well if you havnt played it.

Recently started playing through Pathfinder Kingmaker myself and close to finishing it. And it's an amazing game. And everything i hear from Wrath is that it's a huge improvement over Kingmaker.
It's definitely not a game that will hold your hand or treat you like an idiot. And offers a decent challenge. Unlike DAV which treats it's players like morons.