fascinating time capsule of the barren wasteland that was 2014 aaa titles. not the most soulless open world for the sake of piling on content ive ever touched, but an ill omen of what was to come. pretty much everything i love the dragon age series for is smallest and saddest in this one. a bunch of cool worldbuilding has been backpedaled or ignored in favor creating god's perfect centrist game. all of the companions are coworkers who barely tolerate eachother. unfortunately this was my introduction to the series so i do still love it very deeply but i consider myself happily divorced these days

so i read through this lets play/translation archive of the game because i do not speak chinese, which i honestly can't recommend enough. i'm really not over how much i liked this game. beautiful art, compelling characters, really interesting plot that shocked me by not completely falling apart in the back half. a lot of really cool stuff going on thematically too! just overall really well done.

or, in fewer, less vague words: lesbian danganronpa with hints of bloodborne go go go

i played through this with a friend over quarantine while we were separated, which i remember very fondly. the broader plot and worldbuilding is passably competent, especially considering romance is the main focus. the three different options for the player’s background are surprisingly distinct—there’s entire scenes and side characters that are unique to each one. even when you play through the same scene as all three, your motivations for being there, baseline reactions/dialogue outside of choices, and dynamics with other characters are often different enough to make it feel fresh. definitely adds a bit of welcome variety to multiple playthroughs if you want to see different routes.

the writing is generally solid, but there’s definitely a few clunkers. there’s this one godawful scene where you hang out with one of the nonbinary love interests and talk about gender/transitioning that is so jarring and corny i had to close the game and have a lie down about it. obviously it’s incomplete so it's hard to pass full judgement, but....i dunno. the whole game feels like it’s been sanded down to appeal to as many people as possible, so you end up with this weirdly sanitized queer vibe. Corporate pride parade ass dating sim.

also, on the pettier side of complaints, the character design kind of sucks, every single character is homogenously conventionally attractive, why does this studio consistently give their dark-skinned love interests light eyes and small noses its weird and also boring, also why are all of the men and nonbinary characters always at least 6 feet tall. that white haired bitch is a short king don't lie to me.