Yeah, Mark of the Assassin isn't per se a huge narrative arc, it's a fun little adventure story though and I thought there were some nice touches, I liked little things like the tossing coins in the fountain game. Also getting to an environment that was mostly green rather than mostly brown was quite nice visually considering how most of DA2's areas look. It's sort of a pity I've played these games relatively late and therefore pre-spoilered on some major stuff, because
Corypheus appearing in Inquisition
would have given legacy a MUCH bigger payoff if I hadn't seen it coming.
Also, I'm surprised that Accidental Merrill is more of a thing than just me. Maybe there's also something about how the queuing of romance cutscenes works in there.
As for symbolism... yeah there's quite a lot but I sort of expect that in big storyline RPGs? Anything that has a proper core plot tends to fall into that. Skyrim's backdrop is concerns over nationalism and imperialism, the first Witcher game deals with fears over genetic modification, fascism and anarchism, and DA2's concerns - authoritarian outside religio-political movements, terrorism, control over law enforcement, etc - likewise deal with a lot of contemporary anxieties among the sorts of people who write and play games. It's just a bit inevitable, I think, that a game that tries to get the players to consider moral questions will end up framing those much like the moral questions of contemporary society. So I'd say I was quite relaxed about that.
I actually get more annoyed about big aesthetic shifts in the games, I'm not a fan of the C18th formal dress codes that randomly turn up in Inquisition for example. Though that's partly me feeling that C15-16 (which is really what DA aesthetic averages out to) formal wear was fantastically silly and I'm sad they didn't include it. But there's definitely a feeling for me that Origins felt very pseudomedieval in its look, DA2 a bit more early modern, but then Inquisition feels a bit aesthetically all over the place.
Well yesterday I played through what is my new least favourite single quest in any major RPG I've played to date. Like, I remember some sections of some games that have been frustrating in the past (I guess Sagani's companion quest in Pillars of Eternity does run this one for its money on dislike), but it's rare for me to actually feel significantly more miserable after playing a game, not because the game was trying to poke at my emotions but simply because the experience of playing was just that bad. I genuinely considered whether it was worth getting through the remaining 60 minutes of the quest in order to access the remaining 60 hours of the whole game.
The quest in question was Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, a core, unskippable quest in Inqusition which hit all my least favourite things at once. Some light spoilers below, but not bad ones (I don't name any of the characters or tell you how the plot panned out) -
- Being on timers is stressful. It's not a bad mechanic all the time, but it should be used sparingly and pairs really badly with an exploration mechanic. Being on multiple timers for different things, including one you're not properly told about, is just armadillo.
- It's not like I should have to explore to find where the rooms are in the Winter Palace, it's practically the most famous building in the Empire. Could nobody have just, you know, drawn me a plan of the grand apartments or guest wing? What do I keep a spymaster for? Also some characters, including the one I'm dating, have literally been here before and could just tell me e.g. where the library is.
- Rules like "when the bell goes you have to get to the ballroom before the third bell or it's a faux pas" are things that the game actually should make explicit, especially when you're surrounded by characters who are experts on Orlesian culture and whose whole job at the ball is to ensure you know how to deal with the situation.
- Giving players optional sidequests to introduce mechanics, neither making it an obvious requirement that people should do them nor allowing them access back into the area where you got them, then introducing further quests that you needed those quests done to complete, is bad questline writing.
- Games should be wary, or at least very clear, about what dialogue options mean and the tone they set (DA2 was oddly better at this than Inquisition). People read words differently, and different words have subtly idiolect-different meanings. A quest where you can pick nominally perfectly reasonable dialogue options and get slapped with massive penalties for all of them is a bad quest.
- Also having the game penalise you among the surrounding crowd for things you say during a conversation where the LITERAL WHOLE POINT IS THAT YOU'RE TALKING WHILE DANCING SO PEOPLE DO NOT HEAR YOU is just infuriatingly silly.
- For all the "ooh politicking" you do not actually do a single meaningful bit of negotiating in the entire quest. Also as the game points out, the politicking people are so complacent they don't notice the multiple assassination plots in their midst. If my character had the capacity he'd be very disillusioned, you get the whole game building up how masterful and mysterious the Grand Game is and it turns out it's a bunch of armadillo rules made up by a group of people who when real politics happens turn out to have brought draughts to a chess tournament.
- Also a final boss battle which makes no sense at all, since whilst you're keeping the assassin busy the Empress can be being bundled away to safety by your troops. Even though I had to do it twice because I lost the first time, I'm pretty sure the entire squad of troops and large band of chevaliers left in the ballroom who had by this point noticed all the harlequin assassins would've been sufficient to keep the Empress safe. At which point, why is [insert The Real Killer here] fighting me outside? They should be running away OR trying to block my path with mooks whilst getting back into the ballroom to take pot-shots at the real target.
- The painfully C18-19 aesthetic is the sort of level of frippery that really makes me want to burn a building down, and yet I don't get that option.
- The dress uniforms are really bad and I feel especially sorry for Leliana, a woman whose hobby is nerding out about footwear, and Josephine, an aristocrat in her own right, that they're having to wear horrible coat and sash getups not the ballgowns they richly deserve. Also Iron Bull, my seven foot tall horned bodyguard, deserved a ballgown too. THAT would be a fashion statement.
And that's just some of the reasons I didn't like the quest. It was not fun. It was the opposite of fun. Sigh.
Also I got bored and doodled "if Iron Bull was a highland cow" as a sketch.
(https://i.imgur.com/yi6ctvc.png)
And with that it is over. Whole game incl. all three DLCs. Was fun, can recommend, looking forward to whenever DA4 appears, etc :)
My key game choices overview:
Inquisitor: Hamilcar Trevelyan. Warrior, specialised in sword & shield + battlemaster, champion as his final specialisation.
Romance: Josephine
Companions: Got on well with basically everyone I think and they all survived. Sera's still a Jenny, Ranier is do-gooding around the place, Bull a tal-vashoth mercenary, Dorian returned to Tevinter, Varric is running Kirkwall, Vivienne has her own mage circle, Cole is humanified and on tour with Maryden the bard, Solas is, well, as per plot, Cass is reforming the seekers and helping Leliana who is Divine, Cullen has retired to help addict ex-Templars with his new pet dog, and Josie is running the family business.
Act 1 Allies: Mages (allied not conscripted)
Orlais: Run jointly by Briala and Celene
Hawke: Survived, Stroud was left in the Fade.
Wardens: Joined the Inquisition
Drank from Mythal's well: Morrigan
New Divine: Leliana
Inquisition: Disbanded at the end