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Comment by JohnMakin | Hacker News Reader

I am still extremely bitter about how BioWare, in my opinion, ruined the dragon age franchise. While not "truly" turn based, dragon age origins and dragon age 2 had the spirit of it, and felt like a party-based tactical RPG. Then out of nowhere, the studio decided to abandon that with inquisition and turn it into an action/adventure style of game. I had never really been so bitterly disappointed with a game release.

After that I knew they were done. ME3 was the last good game they released, imo.

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They wiffed on ME3's ending.

At least you can pick the color filter to apply to the ending.

they could go from infamously bad ending to one of most creative endings ever by just saying indoctrination theory is correct

“It was all a dream” nonsense IMO. It’s fun to play with that idea, but I’d find that a lame cop out ultimately.

it's not a copout if the whole trilogy sets it up and the overarching pillar that holds up the whole story is mind control and the first two games set up villains to warn against the two bad options and 60 hours of gameplay conditions you to never pick the red option

If over 2/3rd’s of the game I’m hallucinating, it’s an “it was just a dream” story to me. I don’t like being lied to in games in a way that can’t be found out. KOTOR people are actively obscuring the truth on the fly but the facts are in plain view. It’s way more effective. Especially given the Jedi claim moral authority yet are very comfortable gaslighting you. That’s the kind of story that takes a lot of work, thought, and care, and the payoff is you get something like indoctrination theory but more grounded and less dependent on straight up deceiving the player in a way that they can’t figure out for themselves.

its one scene thats hallucinated not 2/3s of the the game?

To be fair, ME3's ending was doomed before that game started.

I'd place it around the start of ME2.

ME2's ending was just terrible. The boss fight was ridiculously cheesy.

In contrast, ME1's ending may have well been a master class in game cinematography and writing.

The entirety of Mass Effect 1 was a master class in writing, from the opening cinematic to the ending credits, that more than made up for somewhat janky (though nevertheless entertaining) gameplay.

I think the Mass Effect games were very flashy but the gameplay elements were pretty shallow. It felt like all the dialog led to the same outcomes, you could be a paragon and give all the "good" replies to conversation or give all the edgy renegade replies and the story would proceed the same way. It kind of felt like it gave you the illusion of choice without actually giving you any real choice. I think it was endemic to the 2000's era RPG's Fallout 4 had exactly the same problem.

The combat wasn't very engaging either it was a boring feeling cover shooter. None of your character abilities or gear or anything seemed to have much of an effect.

Are there any games you like that you felt did give you a real significant choice in how the story played out?

Going back to the 90's the Original Fallout games (the Turn based ones) would give you different endings depending on the choices you made through out the game. Most recently Baldur's Gate 3.

Edit: Deus Ex series too

Ah we have the same taste in games :)

I originally asked because for most of the games I've played (and the ones you mention) the overall story played out the same regardless of your choices.

There could be branches and dialog changes but they always reconverged at important story points that stayed constant. And of course the cutscenes at very end would be different. Take DeusEx - some minor things would be different depending on your actions, and at the end you basically got to press a button to choose your ending.

The only real exception I can think of is Fallout New Vegas, where the game storyline would become wildly different as you chose to help different factions....that game was a rare exemplar of "choices matter".

Deus Ex which gives you three choices at the end?

Much of ME2's story is terrible (some of the side character stuff is delightful, but the 'main quest' is a train wreck).

My point was that ME3 was doomed because ME2 utterly failed at bridging the gap between the strong start of an epic that was ME1 and what should have been the conclusion in ME3.

In fact 'fail' may be generous. I don't think it even 'tried'.

I always thought this was a hot take but I agree!

"probing uranus" was so worth it tho

True.. it is genuinely hard to deliver on that kind of a build up.

The studio's biggest sin came before that when they used DLC to paywall off major parts of the story in ME2. Anyone who didn't fork over even more of their cash got an incomplete game and a plot that made no sense.

The only major part of story of ME2 that got paywalled is the Lair of the Shadow Broker and I don't feel like I missed much by not playing it (at least on my first playthrough, second I had the DLC). And even if you take a ME2 save with that DLC to ME3, I felt like ME3 does a decent job of explaining what had happened.

> if you take a ME2 save with that DLC to ME3

oops, I meant to say without that DLC

Meh I liked it. In fact they shouldn’t have caved and added to it IMO.

IMO the last good game they released was DA:O. ME2 was such a let down, with them removing the RPG elements from the gameplay and the main story being a mess which railroaded you into working with Cerberus. ME3 was even worse. While it's sad to see Bioware go, they haven't been making good games in quite a long time.

While it is a popular theory, I don't think that Saudi Arabian guys who are trying to diversify their oil-bound economy care about virtual human relations as much as US/EU tech puritanists that already rule tech, assessing every ownership of every nipple in Instagram stories

There's basically no difference between Saudi oligarchs and western oligarchs. They're all just the same assholes who think they should get to dictate how other people live their lives.

Ironically, the gameplay is what meant I only managed to get through DAO and DA2 with a bunch of cheats. Realtime with pause is a horrible monstrosity. It combines the worst parts of action and turn based.

Veilguard was my favority gameplay wise, but the writing... well you know.

Honestly, I've felt this way before (gaming since the 90s), but try watching somebody play RTwP a bit to get a feel for it. It can become very smooth and comfortable. The hardest part is to learn to trust the timings.

When Dragon Age 2 came out, Bioware was still running things day-to-day.

By the time of the next Dragon Age game, EA was deep in making decisions.

I might be in minority but I really enjoyed both Inquisition and Veilguard.

I thought Inquisition was quite enjoyable but clearly showing EA's management structure and the story of the game's development and decision chains. It won GOTYs for a good reason because they really did take a huge swing at a massive world and for the most part they succeeded.

Veilguard was very poorly marketed to appeal to a neoliberal crowd as if the characters and identity was the primary draw rather than the core story themes (Wizards v Templars, Societal Order vs Individual Freedom, the capacity for evil and corruption of either side) and the world which was fascinating. I love me some inclusion and well crafted characters, but the focus on it to the exclusion of all else as a queer person it gave me the same ick as a corporate float at a pride parade.

I enjoyed Inquisition and couldn’t stand Veilguard. But I also never played any of the earlier DA games.

You're in the minority for Veilguard but Inquisition is their highest selling entry in the series

With Veilguard I really enjoyed the combat systems. It was fun progression and at the end of the game you were literally a demigod on the batlefield - it was super fun, and taking some of the toughest optional challenges was very satisfying. And the character storylines(especially Lace and Emmrich) were very very good and I enjoyed them a lot. The weakest point for me was the big bad villain, who seemed barely competent to do anything at all - but overall I really enjoyed it.

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