Alpha Phoenix
Member
It's not saying much. I think both games had a weaker cast than BioWare's earlier output. DA2, for all the shit it gets, had a much more believable cast than both.
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How's ME: Androneda compare to DA: Inquisition
- Thread starter MAX PAYMENT
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shawnbuddy
Member
Both really good games but I like Inquisition a bit more. Has a slightly better story, more interesting locales and better companions. ME:A has better controls and gameplay, though. It's a fully polished TPS whereas Inquisition is a bit of an awkward action/turn-based RPG hybrid with some MMO gameplay elements.
The big difference is that Inquisition is a fully supported game with very satisfying DLC that fills in gaps in the story. And Andromeda was abandoned and will never get those.
The big difference is that Inquisition is a fully supported game with very satisfying DLC that fills in gaps in the story. And Andromeda was abandoned and will never get those.
Admiral Woofington
Member
Inquisition didn't have awful characters, you seem to be confusing their designs with their actual characters.
It had an interesting enough cast, it's just that their character designs as a whole were so unappealing people seemed to pretend the characters themselves were bad.
No characters in DAI are as much of a travesty as Anders is in DA2
Nachtfalke
Member
Ryzaki009
Member
There's two villians actually and the second one is not worst than ME:A. hell even the first one isn't because he at least has a backstory other than conquer people lol.
Admiral Woofington
Member
yeah the second villain is arguably the best and most interesting villain in the entire series so far.
And
if he has a major role in DA4, even better
Son Of Sparda
Member
I completely agree with this.
I can't believe people are putting it over Andromeda. Yes, it had more polish and some of the characters were really good, but the MMO design in Inquisition is faaaaaar worse than Andromeda. The game literately gates your progression so you would go and do some of the most boring and generic "side quests" that I've seen in a role playing game.
IMO, Inquisition is "Fetch Quest: The Game"
Audioboxer
Member
Both of them chart the continued downfall of Bioware as a games developer. Once a great, now an average to occasionally good run of the mill developer.
They still have the cash backing but they don't half need to start investing in talent and much better writers.
Bethesda aren't far behind the Bioware trajectory to mediocrity. All the rough edges and risk taking is being obsessively polished out of a lot of these RPG developers. Ubisoft are still probably the kings of run of the mill open world generator deluxe. Jostling it out with Bioware, and as I said above, Bethesda not far behind.
Creativity bankruptcy will ruin western RPGs. They might still score 8s and 9s for being polished products, or having decent gameplay, but often they'll be soulless displays of fetch quests and tired tropes.
They still have the cash backing but they don't half need to start investing in talent and much better writers.
Bethesda aren't far behind the Bioware trajectory to mediocrity. All the rough edges and risk taking is being obsessively polished out of a lot of these RPG developers. Ubisoft are still probably the kings of run of the mill open world generator deluxe. Jostling it out with Bioware, and as I said above, Bethesda not far behind.
Creativity bankruptcy will ruin western RPGs. They might still score 8s and 9s for being polished products, or having decent gameplay, but often they'll be soulless displays of fetch quests and tired tropes.
DAI, had well fleshed out characters and story, it is excellent in this regard, even though I didn't care about a single character or the story. Probably was due to how lackluster everything else about the game was.
MEA, I enjoyed female Ryder, and it looks cool in 4k... It's just a disappointing game full of sadness and unfulfilled dreams.
MEA, I enjoyed female Ryder, and it looks cool in 4k... It's just a disappointing game full of sadness and unfulfilled dreams.
shawnbuddy
Member
If GAF doesn't join an initial hate bandwagon like with Andromeda, a retroactive hate bandwagon eventually forms. GAF hates Skyrim now, too, for example. Japanese stuff seems less susceptible because of the large wee- uh, Japanophile contingent.
Bethesda studios games always sell well, hugely well, it's the long list of studio acquisitions that have struggled. And it's easy to name call Bethesda, but they're not the publisher. But I do wonder who calls the shots on a lot of these things, because it seems Zenimax predominantly serves as a litigious buffer rather than a true game publisher.
Inquisition had a healthy pre-emptive hate bandwagon, too.
DA:I story, while nothing exciting, is better than ME:A and it has the benefit of Trespasser that sets up the next DA game well.
DA:I has some characters that are well written and voice acted like Cassandra, Varric, Vivienne and Solas but it also has Sera and Cole.
ME:A does not go that low
but it does not go that high.
ME:A is a terribly voice acted game. With the fixed but uninspiring model acting it feels like a bad movie with bad actors.
ME:A's Gameplay feels better as a shooter than DA:I as an action/turn based party combat. But ME:A's combat suffers from repetitiveness.
ME:A does not seem to have level lock where you can go up to 27 level in DA:I.
They are both great looking games, i wish the rest of Bioware's departments could keep up with their landscape and object artists.
Music in DA:I is good, ME:A feels absent most of the time.
ME:A has SAM and if you play on PC i am informed that there is a mod that shuts it up.
All in all, Bioware has made better games that these two.
Edit: Forgot about DA:I's power system and the combat table. They work in real time and they suck big time.
DA:I has some characters that are well written and voice acted like Cassandra, Varric, Vivienne and Solas but it also has Sera and Cole.
ME:A does not go that low
except for Liam
ME:A is a terribly voice acted game. With the fixed but uninspiring model acting it feels like a bad movie with bad actors.
ME:A's Gameplay feels better as a shooter than DA:I as an action/turn based party combat. But ME:A's combat suffers from repetitiveness.
ME:A does not seem to have level lock where you can go up to 27 level in DA:I.
They are both great looking games, i wish the rest of Bioware's departments could keep up with their landscape and object artists.
Music in DA:I is good, ME:A feels absent most of the time.
ME:A has SAM and if you play on PC i am informed that there is a mod that shuts it up.
All in all, Bioware has made better games that these two.
Edit: Forgot about DA:I's power system and the combat table. They work in real time and they suck big time.
Audioboxer
Member
Bethesda are going ham at polishing Fallout and TES down to the bone. They should take note that when talking about either franchise large portions of the fans repeatedly state their favourite entry is never the latest. While Skyrim gets a lot of praise, sorry, it's still not better than Morrowind
Fallout 4 was far more "meh" than Skyrim. New Vegas destroys it, but that's Obsidian. Fallout 3 is still better than that and that was Bethesda.
Obviously when I infer polish I don't necessarily mean bugs. I'm referring to run of the mill quest designs, stories, writing and everything else that plays it so safe it's like generic overpolished shite Holywood will keep making movies from because it still garners average to good reviews. Basically, not many low lows, but not many high highs either. Just right down the middle. That works for many but others like me prefer the days when there's high highs, even if it means some risks fall flat in the process.
Bring in talented writers though and you'll get far more high highs than low lows even with all the risks they may take. Have a good project lead and they'll be able to nudge the writers here and there to keep them on the right track. Have a bunch of amateurs or hacks and you can bet it's tried and tested all the way to produce another safe clone devoid of creativity.
Admiral Woofington
Member
what? when?
Prior to Inquisition releasing many on GAF were hyped because everything being released about the title was about Bioware going to something closer to DAO and learning from their mistakes from DA2.
The biggest issue with DAI was that they made these huge bubble worlds with nothing much to do in them besides MMO-like side quests.
And a lot of the interesting material for sidequests being left to a boardgame.
That's not true, FFXIII still regularly gets threads criticising it years after release, a timeframe long after Andromeda will have been forgotten, in fact it had one yesterday about use of nonsense terminology in games. Same goes for various Tales, Star Ocean etc games.
Japanese games are hardly immune to hate threads, no matter if deserved or not, and the forum has series that get an easier ride than others here for both western and eastern RPGs. FF is probably the highest profile mainstream Japanese one that takes a regular kicking for its recent games and spin-offs here, while From, Atlus and Falcom's games seem more likely to appeal here due to the more focused direction at an rpg fanbase. Same goes for why Bioware and Bethesda get criticised for recent games aiming at mainstream appeal while stuff like Divinity etc that aims more directly at fans of old-school crpgs is less likely to be met with a storm of gifs and memes for every mistake made.
Thats weak, GAF who are interested in said games do a fantastic job of promoting them, they are well served. There are also those that don't agree, and those threads are just as well served. These things, both positive and negative occur throughout a game's lifecycle and beyond. Some may be susceptible to certain threads, and feel it's a slight against their person, but that's not for me to say.
Came to say this. Also the DA dlc was better than the actual game by some margin, particularly story wise.
Bethesda are going ham at polishing Fallout and TES down to the bone. They should take note that when talking about either franchise large portions of the fans repeatedly state their favourite entry is never the latest. While Skyrim gets a ton of praise, sorry, it's still not better than Morrowind
Fallout 4 was far more "meh" than Skyrim. New Vegas destroys it, but that's Obsidian. Fallout 3 is still better than that and that was Bethesda.
Obviously when I infer polish I don't necessarily mean bugs. I'm referring to run of the mill quest designs, stories, writing and everything else that plays it so safe it's like generic overpolished shite Holywood will keep making movies from because it still garners average to good reviews. Basically, not many low lows, but not many high highs either. Just right down the middle. That works for many but others like me prefer the days when there's high highs, even if it means some risks fall flat in the process.
Bring in talented writers though and you'll get far more high highs than low lows even with all the risks they may take.
Yeah, I agree
Admiral Woofington
Member
Bethesda are going ham at polishing Fallout and TES down to the bone. They should take note that when talking about either franchise large portions of the fans repeatedly state their favourite entry is never the latest. While Skyrim gets a lot of praise, sorry, it's still not better than Morrowind
Fallout 4 was far more "meh" than Skyrim. New Vegas destroys it, but that's Obsidian. Fallout 3 is still better than that and that was Bethesda.
Obviously when I infer polish I don't necessarily mean bugs. I'm referring to run of the mill quest designs, stories, writing and everything else that plays it so safe it's like generic overpolished shite Holywood will keep making movies from because it still garners average to good reviews. Basically, not many low lows, but not many high highs either. Just right down the middle. That works for many but others like me prefer the days when there's high highs, even if it means some risks fall flat in the process.
Bring in talented writers though and you'll get far more high highs than low lows even with all the risks they may take. Have a good project lead and they'll be able to nudge the writers here and there to keep them on the right track. Have a bunch of amateurs or hacks and you can bet it's tried and tested all the way to produce another safe clone devoid of creativity.
Bethesda for sure needs to grab some of the talent from Obsidian for the writing, whoever they have on their writing staff is horrible.
I just hope they put a big emphasis on perfecting the engine and improving the melee combat.
Mass_Pincup
Banned
DA:I has: better level design, more interesting story, more interesting side characters, better graphics
ME:A has: Better gameplay, No Rift/Power point system bullshit
DA:I is the better package and its not even close.
The story was actually engaging and I really liked the world they crafted. All the fetch quest and the Power point system killed the replayability a bit but I'll be replaying it before I waste my time trying to end ME:A.
That's like not true at all, there's an hate bandwagon for FFXV, Tales of Zestria and I seem to recall one starting behind Persona 5.
Japanese games are less susceptible because they're just less popular.
ME:A has: Better gameplay, No Rift/Power point system bullshit
DA:I is the better package and its not even close.
The story was actually engaging and I really liked the world they crafted. All the fetch quest and the Power point system killed the replayability a bit but I'll be replaying it before I waste my time trying to end ME:A.
That's like not true at all, there's an hate bandwagon for FFXV, Tales of Zestria and I seem to recall one starting behind Persona 5.
Japanese games are less susceptible because they're just less popular.
I enjoyed my time with ME:A but I never played more then five rounds of multiplayer and I was no where near a 100% clear. I am extremely forgiving and a huge ME fanboy but I couldn't get myself to do another play through. Coming from someone who's played through all the previous titles 3+ times and played hundreds of hours of the ME3 multiplayer everything surrounding this game is pretty sad.
Compared to DAI which had similar problems in terms of the fetch gather loop but something about the characters or the content was compelling enough to actually play multiple times. I also ended up playing the multiplayer for abit until the meta seemed horribly broken. There were definitely story beats that could have been improved but the final DLC really helped out the feel of the story and put it in a place that leads to a compelling sequel.
ME:A feels like it was set sail to fail both narrative and through execution. Such a bummer but who knows maybe in 10 years we'll get a first contact war or something that involves exploring the ME milky way since we never fully did that.
Compared to DAI which had similar problems in terms of the fetch gather loop but something about the characters or the content was compelling enough to actually play multiple times. I also ended up playing the multiplayer for abit until the meta seemed horribly broken. There were definitely story beats that could have been improved but the final DLC really helped out the feel of the story and put it in a place that leads to a compelling sequel.
ME:A feels like it was set sail to fail both narrative and through execution. Such a bummer but who knows maybe in 10 years we'll get a first contact war or something that involves exploring the ME milky way since we never fully did that.
The Greek Freak
Member
Imo both are flaming piles of shit that I wish I never wasted my time on. The writing in both is horrendous, I wouldn't recommend either to anyone even if they were free.
tell us how you really feel, now that we got the niceties out of the way
Rodney McKay
Member
That's my feeling on it. DA:I story wasn't that great (bad guy wants to do bad thing), but the stuff you do around the story was really enjoyable.
Companions aren't Bioware's best in either game, but DA:I's companions at least had some depth and were kind of interesting. ME:A's were just so bland even if they weren't outright terrible.
The open world areas in both games have the same dumb fetch quests in them, but DA:I at least had better visual variety (forest, coastline, jungle, two types of desert, etc.). The worlds in ME:A just too open and bland and a lot of them are less interesting repeats we had in DA:I (a sandy desert planet, a more rocky deserty planet, an ice planet, and a jungle planet), there isn't any fun in exploring, and the vehicle in the game feels like crap (ME1's Mako was a lot more fun), it's slow and there's no finesse to it.
I didn't really love ME:A's combat that much, Hut I was trying to play it like the previous games in the series. It feels like it's worse at cover-based shooting, but it is more fun as a run-n-gun shooter.
DA:I gameplay is very different, and it gets the job done, but I don't have a lot of fun with it overall.
I'll also add,
Dialog: DA
Graphics: DA
The dialog in ME:A really grated with me. The humor was either cringe or forced (there was maybe one joke that I smiled at the entire game), and there's so much of it from the main character that it makes it hard to take the story seriously when she/he is constantly joking no matter what options you choose them to say.
The graphics were really crazy to me since ME:A came so much later than DA, and the Mass Effect series was always so much better looking than Dragon Age last generation.
ME:A really dropped the ball with stuff like the lip synching and character faces, even after the patches.
I think it serves as an epilogue, so if you enjoyed the base game and want to know more, possibly leading into the next title, yeah
Pretty much everyone would tell you to absolutely play Trespasser. It really is a great DLC.
ffejeromdiks
Banned
Inquisition is better, but it's really not saying much, I think both games were pretty abysmal.
I'd give Inquisition a solid B+ and Andromeda a C. The gameplay in Andromeda is actually really fun but absolutely everything else about the game feels half-baked. The story also suffers from being completely uninteresting. Inquisition doesn't have a story to write home about either, and in fact seems almost fan fictiony at times with Morrigan and the Champion characters, but it's at least interesting enough to keep you interested in finishing the game. The dialogue between party members is also pretty great at times, I love the voice actor for Verric in particular. Inquisition was a good send-off for Dragon Age if another game never comes out. It didn't reach the same highs of the original game, but neither did it reach the lows of Dragon Age 2.
MAX PAYMENT
Member
I'm genuinely surprised at the responses. Ive only heard GAF shit on DAI. I liked andromeda, so now I'll give DAI a try. The GOTY edition is 11 bucks on PSN right now.
shawnbuddy
Member
They're not less popular on GAF, though. If GAF were more representative of the general gamer we'd talk about COD, Madden and Ubi open world games a lot more.
Audioboxer
Member
No lies detected.
Sorry for off topic, but someone did a great piece on how paranoid developers are from even letting the actors know what game they're working on, while they're working on it. Many Fallout 4 actors just came in and recited lines and were given no context for the role they were performing. And that is what struck me immediately playing Fallout 4 is just how flat and out of context everything seemed to be.
Audioboxer
Member
If that is true that is pretty terrible, and yeah, Fallout 4 is flat as hell. The main character is particularly bad which gave them a lot of flak. It does somewhat make sense to have a silent protagonist in a game with the customisation levels of Fallout. People aren't going to beat Bethesda up for it. What they did respond badly to is when sketchy quality VA is added.
Fallout 4 seems to be trying to be a set in stone main character, such as a Geralt, but in a world where they still want to have the Fallout 3/NV level of avatar customisation. Especially with going after the partner/child storyline. It didn't quite work. Frankly, it was as if they were trying to "Mass Effect" up Fallout 4. Forgetting that deep roleplay is a huge part of Fallout, just like it is TES, whereas other games get by with limited character role play (Mass Effect, which really just comes down to male or female) or none at all (TW3, Geralt is the main character, end of). Yes the actual quests in TW3 still have roleplay in your decision making, but the writing is all based on a set in stone avatar, which is Geralt. In TES you can be a damn cat or lizard if you want, Fallout sticks to humans, but you can create a pretty diverse human and want to roleplay to a degree and if Bethesda shoehorns you a bit too much into a voice acted, pre-set story, it breaks the immersion. These games often need a pretty "loose" main story, which can make writing challenging, but then the sidequests, lore, characters and so on can provide a lot of top quality writing to be added to the main story.
This is going a bit off-topic, but the thing both series have in common right now is a huge dip in writing quality for some overlapping and unique reasons.
Alpha Phoenix
Member
It's absolutely worth that price tag.
Son Of Sparda
Member
From what I've heard about it, when DA4 finally happens, that DLCs will be the thing that confuses the hell out of people that only finished DA:I.
It's hardly a surprise. GAF/Internet hated Andromeda even before it was out.
Killer Queen
Banned
For someone that's never played either series, are either worth buying?(PC)
Is Obsidian really that great at writing? The main reason I can't motivate myself to play Pillars of eternity is the story. Though suppose the weird mystical stuff might have played a role.
I have played Kotor 2 and I liked it when I started but when I replayed it years later I couldn't stand Kreia's ramblings which had once seemed so wise.
POE has trash writing. But don't shit on Kreia on my watch
The quality of her writing is not about her philosophy at all (though it's a nice little critique of the Force and Star Wars).
Audioboxer
Member
Eh, they're not untouchable, but they created a better Fallout game than Bethesda were able to. Obsidian doing a Mass Effect game would be interesting, but really, Mass Effect suffered when a lot of the original talent left. Bioware didn't replace it with equal talent, or even talent rough around the edges but striving to reach what some of the original writers pulled off (yeah yeah minus how the end of ME3 was handled). It's literally their largest current IP and they pulled a Konami with it. Just didn't give it to the right people.
Yeah, having DLC like that is always a compromise. In actuality only about 30-40% or so of people even finish the main story of any game, not just DA:I and even less so with DLC. Obviously they learned a lot from DA:I when they got to make their DLCs in such a way that obvious deficiencies were greatly improved. But yeah, with regards to the story and the revelations, I guess it's going to come down to how well they summarize DA:I/DA:I DLC's events in DA4 for new players/returning players who never bought the DLC. It's a concern of mine, mostly because the situation is so nuanced, but I'm hoping for the best.