Origins by a mile. There's just so much thought put into the overall story and the gameplay really harkens back to bioware's heyday of crpgs. Mages are a blast to use and there's still some strategy in the combat.

DA2 was rushed in every sense of the word and it's blatantly apparent. The whole story takes place in one city, there are like 3 unique dungeon maps that are reused over and over again, and the gameplay was changed to basically be an arpg i.e. hold down M1 and you win.

Inquisition was like they tried to return to form but EA said fill every pixel of the map with fetch quests and herbs to gather. What should've been like a 25 hour story driven game becomes a 90 hour slog fest.

I'd honestly just say play origins, then watch a story summary on YouTube for the other two.

[–] daddy32@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thanks. Sad to hear that. I've played and liked Origins, but quickly soured when playing 2. I was hoping that maybe 3 would be worthwhile... Maybe with some mods to reduce grinding, if they exist?

[–] Valencia@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

So there's a mechanic in the base game where to start quests you have to wait X hours in real life. And to unlock those quests to start the timer, you need "power" which is gathered from doing side quests or clearing a repeatable encounter. Combine this with all of the grinding stuff like gathering herbs and unlocking fast travel spots everything is a drag.

There are mods to reduce or even remove those requirements I listed so it's up to you how "cheaty" you want to get. I essentially removed the timer, doubled my power and XP gain, and removed the harvesting animation (honestly the best mod). Even then, after only doing main story quests, what I felt were important side quests, and like half of the companions quests, and only the final dlc to see the true ending, it still took me 55 hours...

Best I can say is start it up and when the game dumps you into the first map, only do the main story quests and then move onto the next zone. Because each map honestly probably has its own 55 hours of picking up rocks and killing bandits.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Would you say seeing your choices reverberate through the story by importing your saves makes it worthwhile, or no?

I've played and really enjoyed Origins, but haven't (yet) taken on the other two. With the size of my backlog I'd be happy to leave the other two unplayed as I was satisfied at the end of Origins, but the fact that you can import saves and have your decisions matter does interest me.

[–] Valencia@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It is pretty cool seeing stuff you did in the old games relate to what is going on now in the game.. But I feel like they didn't expand on it enough for it to be solely the reason to play the next two games. The biggest highlight is morrigan and leliana, who both have a big role in 3. Alistair kinda pops up every now and then, and the rest are non-existent in the other games besides passing mentions. Same situation for your companions in DA2, one is returning companion in DAI, others are like oh remember them?

I would say the biggest decider on whether or not it's worth is if you performed the ritual with morrigan. However, the result of that is kind of just swept under the rug since it seems like they were predicting they were gonna use that in the next DA game. But since the original DA4 got scrapped and there's no real save import for veil guard and I'm sure the choices they allow you to make to are only the huge ones like morrigans ritual, it seems kind of pointless. To me, games like this shine when they remember the small details, a minor npc you thought was cool and randomly pops up again later on.

Ultimately my advice is the same as above; watch a YouTube summary, or if you're feeling really frisky, read the DA wiki on the people you're interested in.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 3 points 1 month ago

Thanks for the super thorough reply, I really appreciate it! I did do the ritual, I think I got the "ring ending" for Morrigan as I entered the portal with her in the Witch Hunt DLC.

I agree with you on the appeal of these long series of games with save-import being the continuity, so it's a shame to hear it's not more elaborate than that. I know Welonz did a full Dragon Age series playthrough last year so I might just watch that some day. If Veilguard turns out to be incredible (doubtful) I'll take your advice and just watch story recaps I think.