(no subject)

[some_stars]

one thing I am appreciating about DA, besides the NPCs, is that the really difficult battles--the ones that I either sweated through a dozen times or ended up cheating on, which defeats the point a little but I can appreciate the intent--come before the really horrible moments. Like when you're fighting your way up the tower to light the beacon, near the beginning--it's your first big "mazebox o' monsters" situation, and it's HARD, and not like anything you've had to do until then. And then you watch the cutscene of Duncan dying and the beacon glowing, and it totally GETS you because you fucking WORKED for that beacon. And then, the night zombie battle at Redcliffe, although I eventually cheated out of it--but I've read from various places that it takes up to twenty minutes of constant fighting to get through--so after about a hundred tries at that and finally, finally making it to the end, you're faced with the choice between killing a kid or killing his mom with blood magic. And I think it's a pretty effective and interesting way to make the choice feel more real, because you've just suffered through the results of what they did and fought against dark magic. Also, you go to the tower expecting a triumphant rescue and instead you're faced with that horrible situation. It seems like a really interesting consideration of how the gameplay affects the emotional impact of the non-fighting parts and the cutscenes.

This is all probably really obvious to anyone who's ever played an RPG before, isn't it? *g*