arghvark

Actual review: the game is worth the price of admission on the basis of the character creator alone. I’ve already spent a few hours just spinning up characters, most of which I’ll probably never play, just for the pleasure of it. It somehow manages to outdo even BG3’s character creator. But the best part is, once in game, your character is fully animated and voiced in all the (many) cutscenes. And it is so well executed that I often find myself forgetting that the protagonist is my own creation rather than that of the design team. No one else anywhere is seeing this play out exactly the same way. The writing and voice acting is top-notch, and even though it’s not clear yet whether your dialogue choices can lead to truly branching storylines (I’m only ~10hrs in), they still make you feel like you’re actively shaping the conversation and expressing whatever your character’s personality is. Combat: I love the combat, it’s fast, fluid and most importantly, fun. I never fell in love with the combat in DA:I and this is definitely the most fun I’ve had with a mage, not having to stand in the back waiting for my cooldown timer and just spamming staff shots while kiting around because I was too squishy. Graphics and ambiance: it looks great. The locations are beautiful and the level design is excellent. Not open world but not fully on rails either. Sure, the overall visual tone is a little bright and Disney-like, I was hoping for something darker and grittier, but again, that’s a personal preference, I’m not going to give a bad score because it’s not exactly what I wanted… Story: engaging and well written, complex enough but clear. I’m not overwhelmed by factions like in other games, where I can never remember which are the evil cultists with the French accent, the other ones with the Slavic accent, or the third group of cultists that are trying to take over the other two. Pacing: there are a lot of cutscenes but they keep the story clear and moving along, and they’re interspersed with the right balance of exploration/puzzle solving/combat. I never find myself thinking “argh, I haven’t blown anything up in 20 minutes, let’s keep this moving”. Overall, I’m excited to keep playing, and have to keep forcing myself to not restart every few hours just to go through the character creator again and try out another class.