2016 Game Review Haiku, #57 – Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

Pirate, assassin
Kenway breaks foul Templar plot
Big fan of shanties

–

Here we go again. Another year of me attempting to produce quality Japanese poetry about the videogames I complete in three syllable-based phases of 5, 7, and 5. I hope you never tire of this because, as far as I can see into the murky darkness–and leap year–that is 2016, I’ll never tire of it either. Perhaps this’ll be the year I finally cross the one hundred mark. Buckle up–it’s sure to be a bumpy ride. Yoi ryokō o.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is concerned with the fate of the world, not text size

Like many, the millisecond I saw that one of Amazon’s major Cyber Monday bargains was for $15.00 off the very still new Dragon Age: Inquisition, I dropped whatever I was holding/doing and purchased a copy…for the PlayStation 3. It arrived a few days later and sat on my kitchen table, waiting patiently for me to finish up some artwork projects, as well as Suikoden II. Here’s a quick life lesson for y’all that I’ve learned over my thirty-one years of doing this grind called living: don’t start one massive RPG before completing another.

Anyways, over the weekend, I put about an hour and a half into Dragon Age: Inquisition, and all I got to show for it is this t-shirt that says “Leave the Hinterlands” in big, bold, bloody lettering. Nah, that’s not true. What I actually got is a female dwarven warrior named Girgna, who likes to charge right into the thick of things and even taunt enemies as she swings a sword into their necks. This style of fighting is very much the opposite of my usual path, but my friend Tom is also playing the game, walking the good, wholesome path of a nice wizard lady named Dandelion, and I wanted us to have different experiences to talk about.

Dragon Age: Inquisition evidently picks up immediately the events of Dragon Age II, where mages and Templars are finally at ends with each other. However, there are talks of a peace treaty in the works, but those deals and promises are interrupted by a magical explosion, leaving a single survivor. Yup, that’s you, the one with the green-colored hand. Some believe you caused this explosion, while others think you’re a blessing from the prophet Andraste. Either way, demons are now emerging from the rift in the sky, and you are the only one who can do anything about it. Get ready to age a dragon or something.

So far, I’m finding my return to Ferelden…a bit underwhelming. Granted, I’ve not touched the series seriously since Dragon Age: Origins, deciding after trying the demo and listening to the Internet that Dragon Age II was not for me. Now, I really really liked Dragon Age: Origins; it had characters and scope and deeply integrated lore and tough, but rewarding combat. It also had some problems, such as tiny text, glitched Achievements because I know I killed at least 500 darkspawn (though not 1,000), clunky inventory menus, and that whole side quest surrounding the Fade. Still, the good outweighed the bad, and that banter while wandering around towns or the forest really gave me the warmest of warm feelings.

However, in just an hour and a half with Dragon Age: Inquisition, I’m experiencing a ton of issues. The graphics on the PlayStation 3 version are sub-par; I mean, it looks like the first game, which came out four years ago, and I know we can have nicer visuals at this point thanks to Grand Theft Auto V and even Destiny. Many textures are garbled and flat or late to load in when a cutscene starts. Again, graphics are certainly not everything to me, but working graphics is a whole different issue. Audio sync is also off, and there was one moment where characters left the scene, but the camera remained fixed on the forest for a few extra seconds, while nothing happened. And this all brings me to the thorniest of roadblocks: the tiny text. I cannot sit on the couch and read most of the text, which is, y’know, frustrating for a roleplaying game where you make important decisions. I cannot read weapon descriptions or newly added lore blurbs. I cannot see the numbers for my character’s experience bar. Sounds like it doesn’t matter if you have an SD or HD television either, and I’m not the only one upset about this.

I’ll hold out hope (but not much) for a future patch to increase the font size. Until then, I’m relying on other elements to tell me what’s going on. When you examine an item, you’ll see some bars below your character go up in green or down in red, thus telling you if it is helpful or not. That said, I don’t know exactly what each bar is measuring. Some dialogue choices are accompanied by a small graphic, indicating what kind of response you are about to give, even if you can’t read it. Girgna has now finished the prologue section and been told about the Hinterlands, but I’m still hanging around the opening area, trying to find some crafting items to make weapons and armor before I move ahead to the zone everyone says to not linger in. Plus, there’s plenty of hairless nugs running around, begging to be target practice.

Not the best start for Dragon Age: Inquisition. Call me crazy, but I like reading the text in my videogames, even if it is badly translated.

George Stobbart is dirty, makes me laugh

The other week, Tara and I spent most of the afternoon moving stuff into our new place. Since I got out of work earlier than she did, I arrived at Grimmauld Place first, did what I had to do, and had a good hour or so to kill until she arrived. Thank goodness I never go anywhere without my Nintendo DS 3DS!

It’s been some time since I played Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (first half-hour review here), and I had a hankering for something other than my usual go-to titles (Dragon Quest IX, Pokemon White, Let’s Golf! 3D, or Scrabble). I couldn’t quite remember where I had stopped plot-wise, but I do remember that I had just finally broken free from the restraints of only exploring Paris, arriving in Ireland outside a pub and schmoozing with the locals about a ruined castle–that’s also haunted. Oooooh. I did not actually enter the pub back when I saved the game for the last time, which was around the six-hour mark, so it was a great re-starting point, entering a bar with lots of people to talk with and lots of new items to pick up. Eventually, George learns a heap of new information and leads, and we’re back to Paris to see what Nico’s up to. Mostly spoilers.

Back to George, and the game decides to suddenly get really funny. I mean, it’s been decently funny from the get-go, but when George infiltrates the hospital and has to pretend to be a competent doctor amongst an array of incompetents….it goes to a whole new level. Exhausting dialogue options has never been so humorous.

Plus, this little bit of inner dialogue happens later on in a church:

Sorry for the shoddy camera work. I had to resort to using Photobooth on my Mac, holding my 3DS up at an angle I can only describe as awkwardly decent. If you can’t make out the text, George is talking about the firm buttocks of young ladies. In a church. Ya dirty boy.

I’m kind of stuck on a tripod puzzle at the moment, and it’s basically “steal a tripod,” which is not as easy as it sounds. While online looking for better screenshots of the above moment of glory, I discovered that Ireland is like only the second place out of six or seven locations that George and Nico will be visiting during their search for shadowy Templars secrets and killer mimes. And I’ve played for six-plus hours so far. This is a long game. I hope to finish it soon, but if I continue to only nip away at it in bite-size increments…it might take a good while. Hmm. So long as George continues to voice his dirty thoughts, I’ll make a more of an effort then.