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straightforwardly ([personal profile] straightforwardly) wrote2015-03-22 12:04 pm
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0069 | in which I finish Dragon Age Awakening, & share a few links

► So, I mentioned recently I was pretty close to beating two games, one of which was Dragon Age Awakening. Apparently, I didn't quite realize how close I was, or else I might have done it months ago— I mainly stopped because I was in the Deep Roads and utterly sick of it, but I was literally a step away from finishing it, haha.

Also, I'm apparently really behind on talking about my thoughts / what I've been doing in this game, but, thankfully, I had pretty decent notes about what I wanted to talk about, so it still works out. ♥

Fun fact: according to my records, it took me exactly three months to the day to beat this game. Much of which was spent telling myself, "I'll get back to finishing the Deep Roads later", whoops.

More on my adventures with my Lúthien behind the cut!

  • I loved how, when recruiting Nathaniel Howe, I got the option to say, "Some of my best friends have tried to kill me." Cough cough, it wasn't only friends who did that (since Lúthien romanced Zevran), cough.

  • I gave Anders the cat, and it is the cutest thing ever. Every time he interacts with Ser Pounce-a-lot, I just die a bit from the overwhelming cuteness. He's not quite at Zevran's level, but I am definitely charmed. Cats are, apparently, my not-so-secret weakness.

  • Ha, when I switch to Nathaniel to open a chest, he keeps questioning what is this "strange force controlling me".

  • After running around the map a bit, meeting Wynne, helping Anders with the templars and meeting Nathaniel's sister, all of which I enjoyed very much, I headed to the Wending Forest and met Velanna!

    Who is a bundle of bitterness and rage, and I pretty much adore her and want to hug her and pet her hair. I liked how the fact that she and Lúthien are both Dalish was addressed when they met, and how she then flipped out at her for "siding" with humans.

    In any case, I jumped on recruiting her so fast once I got the option.

  • Speaking of which, there are so many new Grey Wardens. So. Many. Maybe I should have expected it, since they needed to build up their ranks, but I didn't expect to get all of these options.

  • When I woke up in the Silverrite Mines with all my items and armor missing, I have to admit that my first thought was, "What about Ser Pounce-a-lot!?" I have a cat problem.

  • Master Wade is back! ♥ I have so much affection for him. The first time I met him in Origins, I was all, wow, what a jerk, but I've really warmed up to him. He's still kind of a jerk, but he's such fun. It doesn't hurt that he gave me really nifty armor too. Yes, Master Wade, I will totally run around and give you interesting things to work with on the sly.

  • My default party from this point on became Anders - Velanna - Nathaniel, and it was pretty much the best thing ever for me. Not only do I adore all of them to the stars— which is a high consideration for me when making my parties— but their skills also really, really worked for me. Lúthien was my warrior, Nathaniel the rogue, and then I had Velanna as a battle-focused mage and Anders as a healer. None of them rival my love for Zevran, but I have to admit that I think I ended up liking those three much more than most of my companions in Origins.

  • Speaking of which, I have to admit that I'm really, really worried about all the vague things I've heard about Anders in Dragon Age II. I'm not spoiled for anything, thankfully, but I get the impression that he's a polarizing character, and that he's not quite like how he was portrayed in Awakenings? I don't know how true that is, but I am a bit worried because, as of right now, I'm utterly charmed by him. I'd romance him or Nathaniel or Velanna in a heartbeat.

    I guess I'll see what I think when I actually play Dragon Age II.

  • I went back to Vigil's Keep, and guess what? Surprise! politics. I did not expect that.

  • I did the stuff in the Black Marshes, but I did not have many notes on it. I do find it a bit creepy that one of my party members is essentially a walking corpse who has the same name as one of my near relatives inhabited by some spirit.

    That being said, I do find the Justice-Aura interactions interesting.

  • I'm not sure which I find the most entertaining— the dialogue between Anders and Nathaniel, the dialogue between Anders and Velanna, or the dialogue between Nathaniel and Velanna.

  • Annnndd then I found myself shippping Nathaniel/Velanna really hard PLEASE SEND HELP. They're bonding! Over their sisters! It's so cute! And I want more. >_>

    ...I think this is the first Dragon Age pairing I've really shipped, other than Zevran/f!Mahadriel.

  • YES ANDERS WE KNOW YOU LIKE TATOOS ON WOMEN. WE KNOW.

    I've gotten that dialogue about a hundred times. I can quote it from memory. I think I hit a bug. And I am really, really sick of hearing it. Agh.

  • The Children are so flipping creepy and they keep eating my face and it's gotten to the point that I pretty much started killing them first off whenever I see one, no matter what other enemies there might be. So. Creepy.

  • Entered the Deep Roads! Met Sigrun! Got really, really sick of the Deep Roads, took a break, and then didn't play for one or two months.

  • So around here's the point where I picked up the game again. I was all prepared to go suffer in the Deep Roads some more, and then suffer some more when I finally face the Broodmother, and then... I basically ended up walking into the next room, cut down some chains, and then I was done? That was surprisingly painless.

  • I chose to burn Amaranthine and save Vigil's Keep because, when I was cautiously poking at the wiki to see if it'd tell me the consequences of each as spoiler-free as possible, I saw that while I'd fortified Vigil's Keep enough for it to survive, there's apparently a bug that marks the party members left at Vigil's Keep as dead when you import to Dragon Age II, despite them surviving in the game itself.

    That, paired with the fact that I was promised that there was pretty much no one alive in there, led to me burning down the city. And convincing Anders that it was the Right Decision. Which, for some reason, reminded me uncomfortably of convincing Alistair to do the ritual with Morrigan and of all the ways that I do not always use my persuasive skills for good.

    And then I got swamped with guilt as I watched the remaining people in Amaranthine scream and basically be doomed as fire rained down about them. >_>

  • But it was really nice to see my companions' relief when I came back to help them! ♥

  • When the game began to focus on Varel fighting one-on-one with a darkspawn, I went, "oh no, he's going to die, isn't he." And then he got trampled by an ogre.

    This was pretty much my reaction: "Oh no! I liked him! Although I can't remember what his name was. Or what role he played in this game." I also kept wanting to call him Kristoff, even though I knew that Kristoff was Justice.

  • I sided with the Architect, died against the Mother, reloaded, fixed up my tactics, and ended up killing the Mother very quickly the second time— I didn't even need to use that extra healing move, or the stunning one, or the one that the Architect offered.

  • MY ENDING. ♥

  • Well, okay, not all of it was good. Apparently people believe that Lúthien choosing to burn Amaranthine is a part of a great big elf conspiracy to destroy all human settlement! And, on an unrelated note, the people around the Wending Wood decided to murder a Dalish elf child.

  • Velanna's ending was mostly happy? She became less bitter and hateful, but then she disappeared into the Deep Roads, so. =/ At least she had a few good years?

  • Speaking of disappearing into the Deep Roads, the same thing happened to Sigrun.

  • Anders, on the other hand, stuck with the Grey Wardens until the Circle of Magi wanted him to give a lecture, and then he left. And then he came back, and I got many warm fuzzy feelings.

  • Nathaniel fixes the damage done to his family name, yay. ♥ Also, he gets a statue.

  • Justice, apparently, wandered around for a while, and then he showed up on Aura's doorstep and dumped her husband's corpse there. I kind of really love this ending? I mean, I got the impression that the game was portraying this as a nice thing for him to do— and I can see the argument for that— but there's also something kind of twisted about, "okay, here's your husband's corpse, bye". I don't know, it just kind of makes me want to have more about Justice and Aura. Yay dysfunctionality.

  • BUT THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST PART WAS MY LÚTHIEN'S ENDING.

    Basically, she eventually retired as Grey Warden, and then reuinted with Zevran! ♥
    Some claim the commander went to Antiva, chasing after the assassin Zevran. One rumor suggested the pair engaged in a terrible showdown in the Antivan capital, and others say they took over the Crows. Perhaps they adventure together still.

    SO PERFECT.


And now I'm really, really excited to get to Dragon Age II. However, unlike Awakenings which I accidentally bought before Origins, I don't own Dragon Age II, so I'll have to go see if my GameStop has it. If not, I might have to wait. =/

Still. SO HAPPY.

► In regards to the latest episode of Death Parade, I have many feelings, but not so many concrete thoughts. That being said, I don't understand why the fanbase seems to be so angry at Ginti. He was just doing his job as arbiter— I suspect that any other arbiters would have done the exact same thing. Besides, it's not like Decim has never lied to/misled one of his guests before.

► It's been a while since I did a good link-dump, so here we go. I think I'll stick to fannish meta, this time around.
► It appears that I've been mispelling Shall We Date? The "Nilfheim"'s title this entire time. Apparently, it's actually spelled "Niflheim". Oops. I've fixed the tag, but it's misspelled in all of my previous entries about it.
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