I've pretty much been sucked in by Dragon Age lately and it's a GREAT game. The narrative in it is fantastic and there's no lack of great things being said. A few niggling annoyances to me though that don't seem to bother anyone else.

The world feels small and definitely 'console rpg like' to me. I generally hate this trend in games and it adds to heavily to the spoon fed feel of a world.

The fighting in the game is the LEAST interesting part of it to me as most fights are just a zerg fest and moving from one "orcs in a field" section to the next.

There is a particular party mix you need to be successful in combat in the. This works counter to the NPC stories in that you can't really adventure with the NPCs you like, you have to go for party balance.

The NPC mages they give you are the suck. You do about the same if you create a fighter or thief class but will be far ahead of the game if you make the main character a mage. I find this disappointing.

My other real comment is that I seriously doubt the toolset for this will be as successful as the Neverwinter Nights toolset. The game shines on cut scenes and voice-acting and I don't see communities having that strength. We'll probably just see "orcs in a field with various landscape" modules from the community because that's all the game is without the cutscenes and acting. I think the gaming community is missing the point on customizable toolsets. If NWN is any gauge, what players want is a world creation kit to make their own MMO. The 'M' in this game being 'Moderatly' multiplayer instead of 'Massively'. Nobody is filling that space and I wonder if anyone ever will.

Originally published at Flagon With The Dragon.