tl;dr... Overall, it's not a bad game. If you're on the fence, wait for a sale, give it a try and make up your own mind about it. For me, it's fun...and that's what video games are supposed to be. I know I'll be putting quite a few hours into it. I'd give it 6.5/10.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I am a long-time fan of Dragon Age...bought an XBox360 for the sole purpose of playing DA:O when it was released, wrote hundred of thousands of words of fanfic, spent $$$ on art and merchandise, was pretty active in fandom spaces. However, said fandom spaces began to turn me off and I drifted away and onto other things. So when this game was announced...featuring my least-favorite character of the series...I gave it a pass. Watching the trailers and reading reviews here after release didn't really get me interested either.

However, a few of my social media mutuals began posting about their playthroughs and I started to get mildly intrigued. I finally broke down and said "I'll buy it, try to recreate my FFXIV OC in it, and if I don't like it after two hours, I'll get a refund." Well...as you can see by the play time, I actually have enjoyed it quite a bit so far!

Is the dialogue overly-optimistic at times? Yes...though I'm playing a Very Nice Boi who does have that "always-eager-to-help" attitude, so it fits him perfectly. I later recreated one of my other OCs...who is something of a snarky ♥♥♥♥♥...and had a much harder time with the dialogue not fitting her personality. And some of the companions just get on my nerves with how "peppy" they are (looking at you Bellara and Harding) and always spouting off with some bit of exposition.

Is it redundant with too much exposition? At times, yes. One other reviewer referenced the half-dozen remarks in a row about the "Archive spirit" and, boy, that was annoying. Either the writers just didn't bother to proofread or they just assume players have the attention span of a gnat and need to have it driven in multiple times. I haven't seen too much else like that...not enough to catch my attention anyway, aside from the combat callouts ("Ranged to your right", "We're under fire!") that do get annoying after a bit.

Editing to add about the combat (forgive me, I wrote this review at 4am)...My first time, I stuck it on uber-easy "Story" mode and boy....you could nap your way through battles on it.. As a mage, I could take down "boss/champion" mobs with ease, barely using any abilities or those of my companions. I kicked it up a notch for my second character and it's still pretty easy, but definitely requires a bit more tactics (or could be because I'm playing a rogue). The Mass Effect-style of choosing companion abilities mid-combat felt really clunky to me. I would've much preferred a setting to let the AI take over instead of feeling like I have to micromanage them constantly.

The graphics are gorgeous and the game itself runs very smoothly (I have the base "recommended" setup). I've only encountered one bug so far....fell into the river in Treviso and "drowned" but never died...just got stuck in a drowning animation loop until I fast-traveled out.

I tried to not get too nit-picky about the lore and went into it having sort of purged my brain of all things Dragon Age for the past few years, so I know there's some things that don't entirely jive, but they weren't enough to take away my immersion.

It's fun. I don't give a rat's buttocks as to what random overpaid streamer #572 says. I went into it with low expectations and was very pleasantly surprised. There's flaws, but nothing to completely ruins it for me.

tl;dr... Overall, it's not a bad game. If you're on the fence, wait for a sale, give it a try and make up your own mind about it. For me, it's fun...and that's what video games are supposed to be. I know I'll be putting quite a few hours into it. I'd give it 6.5/10. I'm going to preface this by saying that I am a long-time fan of Dragon Age...bought an XBox360 for the sole purpose of playing DA:O when it was released, wrote hundred of thousands of words of fanfic, spent $$$ on art and merchandise, was pretty active in fandom spaces. However, said fandom spaces began to turn me off and I drifted away and onto other things. So when this game was announced...featuring my least-favorite character of the series...I gave it a pass. Watching the trailers and reading reviews here after release didn't really get me interested either. However, a few of my social media mutuals began posting about their playthroughs and I started to get mildly intrigued. I finally broke down and said "I'll buy it, try to recreate my FFXIV OC in it, and if I don't like it after two hours, I'll get a refund." Well...as you can see by the play time, I actually have enjoyed it quite a bit so far! Is the dialogue overly-optimistic at times? Yes...though I'm playing a Very Nice Boi who does have that "always-eager-to-help" attitude, so it fits him perfectly. I later recreated one of my other OCs...who is something of a snarky bitch...and had a much harder time with the dialogue not fitting her personality. And some of the companions just get on my nerves with how "peppy" they are (looking at you Bellara and Harding) and always spouting off with some bit of exposition. Is it redundant with too much exposition? At times, yes. One other reviewer referenced the half-dozen remarks in a row about the "Archive spirit" and, boy, that was annoying. Either the writers just didn't bother to proofread or they just assume players have the attention span of a gnat and need to have it driven in multiple times. I haven't seen too much else like that...not enough to catch my attention anyway, aside from the combat callouts ("Ranged to your right", "We're under fire!") that do get annoying after a bit. Editing to add about the combat (forgive me, I wrote this review at 4am)...My first time, I stuck it on uber-easy "Story" mode and boy....you could nap your way through battles on it.. As a mage, I could take down "boss/champion" mobs with ease, barely using any abilities or those of my companions. I kicked it up a notch for my second character and it's still pretty easy, but definitely requires a bit more tactics (or could be because I'm playing a rogue). The Mass Effect-style of choosing companion abilities mid-combat felt really clunky to me. I would've much preferred a setting to let the AI take over instead of feeling like I have to micromanage them constantly. The graphics are gorgeous and the game itself runs very smoothly (I have the base "recommended" setup). I've only encountered one bug so far....fell into the river in Treviso and "drowned" but never died...just got stuck in a drowning animation loop until I fast-traveled out. I tried to not get too nit-picky about the lore and went into it having sort of purged my brain of all things Dragon Age for the past few years, so I know there's some things that don't entirely jive, but they weren't enough to take away my immersion. It's fun. I don't give a rat's buttocks as to what random overpaid streamer #572 says. I went into it with low expectations and was very pleasantly surprised. There's flaws, but nothing to completely ruins it for me.