These are my quick impressions of the game, admittedly a little influenced by a quick glance at the reviews.
First of all, all the good things from every BioWare game are here in full force. Not that much expansion necessary. Pretty graphics, awesome story (so far), great characters and production values.
From a basic standpoint the various game systems are good. I can't say great because I definitely have found some stuff that irks me. First, it'd be nice to have a little more guidance in finding things, as in points of interest or quest destinations. The map is a letdown in that sense. Moreover, the journal systems of other games (even Mass Effect) are less convoluted in structure and make these sorts of things more straightforward.
Second is something I expect is going to pop up as an annoyance across the board. Party members not under direct control are controlled by a series of conditionals. In situation x, do y. This is the same as the FFXII gambit system except you don't need to unlock behaviors, only slots. However they require way too much tweaking to get right, and honestly it's hard to see that your characters are doing anything you want them to. You end up having to do a lot of stop and go micro management. The opposite to this is FFXII where you could mostly let your party members act independently without excessive worry.
Last, this makes it way too hard to play a mage. Since you can't expect your characters to control enemies in any sort of organized fashion it becomes really hard to use your spells to full effect. Why is this? Friendly fire. I'm sorry, but the friendly fire is excessive and unnecessary. It should either not be there or a toggle should be available in every difficulty. I can't use my CC if my party is in the thick of it, because they all get caught- same for AoE.
To be honest I think this can all be addressed. I'll wait and see what BioWare does from this point on. Some better tactics presets, a little work on party AI alone would go a long way towards making things more fun.
Anyway, that's all a bit harsh. I played the damn game for 5 hours straight without noticing. I know it's a sad thing to say about games these days, but publishers rush developers (even on delayed games) and so I still think this is a great game, and figure a lot of what's wrong will be fixed. I do in fact recommend this game- of course I'd say PC is best.
First of all, all the good things from every BioWare game are here in full force. Not that much expansion necessary. Pretty graphics, awesome story (so far), great characters and production values.
From a basic standpoint the various game systems are good. I can't say great because I definitely have found some stuff that irks me. First, it'd be nice to have a little more guidance in finding things, as in points of interest or quest destinations. The map is a letdown in that sense. Moreover, the journal systems of other games (even Mass Effect) are less convoluted in structure and make these sorts of things more straightforward.
Second is something I expect is going to pop up as an annoyance across the board. Party members not under direct control are controlled by a series of conditionals. In situation x, do y. This is the same as the FFXII gambit system except you don't need to unlock behaviors, only slots. However they require way too much tweaking to get right, and honestly it's hard to see that your characters are doing anything you want them to. You end up having to do a lot of stop and go micro management. The opposite to this is FFXII where you could mostly let your party members act independently without excessive worry.
Last, this makes it way too hard to play a mage. Since you can't expect your characters to control enemies in any sort of organized fashion it becomes really hard to use your spells to full effect. Why is this? Friendly fire. I'm sorry, but the friendly fire is excessive and unnecessary. It should either not be there or a toggle should be available in every difficulty. I can't use my CC if my party is in the thick of it, because they all get caught- same for AoE.
To be honest I think this can all be addressed. I'll wait and see what BioWare does from this point on. Some better tactics presets, a little work on party AI alone would go a long way towards making things more fun.
Anyway, that's all a bit harsh. I played the damn game for 5 hours straight without noticing. I know it's a sad thing to say about games these days, but publishers rush developers (even on delayed games) and so I still think this is a great game, and figure a lot of what's wrong will be fixed. I do in fact recommend this game- of course I'd say PC is best.
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