Luke Fosbury

HONEST REVIEW After 80hrs of Gameplay, and achieving the platinum trophy, I feel that I can honestly review this game compared to other similar RPG's over last few years. Also, I have never played any of the previous Dragon Age games, so I am approaching this with with a fresh perspective. Negatives: This game seems to be 'Disney'fied', and I had to spend a long time tweaking my character so he didn't look like Prince Charming. I actually restarted the game after 45mins to re-tweak my character, because he just looked like someone out of 'Frozen', which was off-putting and it was hard to relate. The dialogue is awful, and akin to an 80hr counselling session for teenagers. The Non-binary dialogue and quest line with Taash was really cringe - and approached in a very childish way. It was a counselling session in coming to terms with being non-binary, rather than just owning it, and rolling with it, which I feel would be more fitting for a Fantasy RPG. BG3 would have definitely done it that way. The mini puzzles, like moving crystals around to open doors, seemed to be a bit of a cop-out, rather than putting some real creative thought into the puzzles. Dialogue options are pointless, and pretty much have zero outcome on the overall game - it would be better off without them. It's hard to get really invested in the story lines for your companions, and I often found myself skipping through much of the dialogue. Lastly, there is Zero replay-ability for the game - pretty much nothing would change on a second run-through. Positives: I didn't like it much at first, but the combat system ending up being excellent, especially when you get into the swing of things. The sound effects and Voice-overs are 10/10 Loot is plentiful, the upgrade system was great and novel, and there was plenty of exploration to be had, especially in the cities. The character customisation is the best I have come across, and the graphics and environments were amazing. Also, nearly all the side quests felt unique and I rarely felt like I was repeating something mundane over and over again to complete a quest. Some characters, like 'Manfred' were sooo good, he's awesome! Lastly, the overall story line was pretty good. In summary, there are definitely a few things that this RPG does better than any other RPG, and I feel that if they didn't go so PG and 'Disney' with this game, then it would be getting a lot better reviews. Overall, it's worth playing, but also probably worth waiting until it's on sale. I'd give it an 8/10