Pros and Cons of Games

So playing Dragon age: awakenings I was thinking about how different my "must buy" games are from each other. While playing through I was thinking about how many of the quests and environs reminded me of other games I had played, named Oblivion and FFXII (the run around and collect bottles quest) So I decided... to make a COMPARISON! haha.

Bethesda.
Oblivion/Morrowind.
Ah, I love this series. I have been buying the games ever since Morrowind and have every expansion pack (I think, they may have brought out some for Oblivion I haven't seen yet)
Pros:
- Love, Love, Love the quests in this game because there are so many and for different factions, so there is always something to do. The quests aren't dry either, often they have twists I never saw coming.
-Enviroments, Bethesda are so good at creating an atmosphere among Morrowind/Oblivion. I mean I had never seen something like Vivec before, a sort of compound city, amazing. I like how people in different cities have different armour and different races, nothing is missed.
-Lore, amazing! I spent hours in Morrowind readings books in the library (not so much in Oblivion) my favourites were the one called Pelle or something like that, about a man who is in love with a statue and turns it accidentally into a monster and the Vivec verses :D.
- Culture, as I said before each place in Morrowind at least had different cultures and I really enjoyed running around Oblivion doing all the Gods quests. The depth of the world is amazing.
- Do what you want, You know you don't have to do any quests if you don't want. You can buy a house, wear a nice dress, go to the church, eat at the tavern, go home and sleep. You could just live a normal life!
-Lots of loot! You can find lots of nice weapons and armour around, you're not confined to one nasty piece of armour.
- Don't take my stuff! Yeah I like how people get angry if you take their things!
-Story, loved Morrowind's plot, especially the whole Neverine thing, it was nothing that had been done before which was shocking (but I think it was based around Hindu myths, so foreign to our culture) Oblivion... mmm....

Cons:
- Lonesome, yes I get lonely. Your character has no family or friends, you spend your days raiding tombs and dungeons and what do you come back to, an empty house :(. (However in Morrowind you did have your "servants" but hell... not the same) I get lonely especially in morrowind as everyone is so RACIST! but you know at least Martin liked you in Oblivion XD.
- Too hard, in Morrowind at least. It took forever to get past Lvl 2 (not to mention I was trying to be a healer and a fighter at the same time -_-)
- Fugly NPCs, seriously...
- You can be ANYTHING! I joined the mages and the fighters guild and the assassin guild and the thieves guild, so really I could do anything without any consequences :(.
- Killing Lucian in Oblivion :( you bastards.
- No Romance option, come on!
- You are genderless, even if I pick the female option, i'm not treated any differently then if I was a man, the real world doesn't work that way :(.
-Dungeon fatigue, I get so bored of going through the same old tunnel all the time with the creepy music, I used to get so frustrated when someone sent me to a cave. I really really hate it. Oh and then someone thought it would be fun to have Oblivion gates, I was so happy when they all got closed. Hated them so much...
- The people with Corpus whatever, ugh they creep me out.
- Really tho the main beef I have is the loneliness, it really gets on my wick!!
- Can't get through without cheats (sorry i'm not a hardcore gamer... like that bit at the end of Morrowind where you needed such and such strength to open the door, not fun)
- Not warm fuzzy feeling, it's a cold cold world out there.
- The walking corpses in Oblivion and the sound they make ugh.

Bioware/whoever else
Neverwinter Nights/Dragon Age
Ah another series I love :D. Also have all the games and all expansion packs, even though I didn't play the last expansion for NWN2 the merchant one :(.

Pros:
-Romance!! YAY!
- Not lonely, not at all. You have your little rag-tag band and I grew to love them all! World doesn't appear so cold with them.
- Really good fighting system, I loved being a Cleric so much I always picked it.
- Hilariously funny, the dialogues between your characters and between your character and NPCs especially in NWN2. I will always remember, when we came into contact with a desire demon in NWN: Sand: stand aside i'll handle this! Khelgar: One more step and you'll be kissing the paving stones! XD.
- Amazing characterisation, I'm not kidding, I have fallen in love with about two male characters from these games (neither were canon romance interests hahaha)
- Good storylines, especially Hordes of the Underdark <- my fav
- Puzzles, yep sometimes it's nice to have them pepper up the dungeon exploration.
- Linear, unlike Morrowind/Oblivion

Cons
- Same old same old, uses the cliche fantasy world, DA darkspawn = orcs. Also they stole so much from Lotr the film XD like the part where the darkspawn march out.
- Closed world, not as big as Oblivion
- not as big lore, though more in NWN, cut down in DA.
- Not continous, because these games keep getting swapped from game department to game department they won't always be the same, like that last expansion back for NWN2 (not mask) what was that about??
- Throw a massive monster at you as a boss... *yawn*
- Your friends can betray you ;_;
- I feel geeky playing it, dark elves? Am I playing D & D??
- Only one/two love intrests, let me at the older men dammit!
- DA -> got rid of all the good parts of NWN2 like, stats based on your childhood (flirt, bully etc), choosing your own God (now it's just the Maker), More classes (than just Rogue, Mage, Fighter) and most of all only the conversation choices, you now only have three (neutral, nice and dickhead) it's impossible therefore to be lawful evil or chaotic neutral, bring back that system dammit!
- Bad Camera angles, in NWN but not in DA
- Hordes of Undead (actually this is true in oblivion)
- DA <- you are asexual again, even as a girl no one treats me differently really...
- No consequences, just like in Oblivion/Morrow, this I suppose is the game creators way of not making you feel guilty, I was furious to find out my character could have killed Loghain with a smile, ugh... Don't make me feel better game FGS! you're supposed to be "dark fantasy"
- BAD sex scenes *cringe*
- Alistair... need I say more?
- Characters suddenly becoming noble so as to molly coddle you, happened in DA when my character had Loghain on the team, up till then he had been the villain then suddenly he was willing to sacrifice himself so I didn't have to... whaaa??? Same with the whole sleep with Morrigan thing, the men obviously don't have a say XD (I was glad that it gave me the option to refuse but really... it stunts my own ability to create my own story)However in NWN this wasn't the case, in Hordes, your female companion will betray you at the end because of her past. Also it's more based on how much you sweet-talked them like in NWN2 Sand and Bishop would betray you if you didn't up their affection.

Huh, there's more cons than pros there but really actually, NWN/DA are really good (NWN is better than DA in my opinion, story-wise and also no Alistair...)

JRPGs
Final Fantasy, Valkyrie Profile, Fire Emblem, uuuh... the rest.
I play a few JRPGs but not many, my Japanese quota is usually taken up by Harvest Moon but now and again I stray over.

Pros:
-Taken over from the west in terms of Folklore, they use the "evil aristocratic family"/arthurian thing really well, so I find a lot of inspiration from these games.
-Beautiful environments, especially VP
-Nice romantic stories *loving sigh*
-Good characterisation :D
-Quite dark, it's nice that not everything always goes right for the characters unlike in western games. Also more sexual I suppose... :P
-Really good fighting systems, here's looking at you FFXII
-Nice music (sometimes...)
-Good bosses which force you to have strategies rather than just hack/slash.
-Pretty men ^^

Cons:
-Boy as main character (unfortunately, unlike the others I can't choose to be a lady :( )
- Too hard and then some... I often can't beat the final boss sometimes without a guide (I fail at games :D) Also what is up with collecting 5000 of one bit of something that fell off something to get a rare weapon or stabbing a tree a thousand times until you win a shield? I don't have time! I just want to play the story!
- weird life lessons, um thanks...
- The enviroment is ALL!! Also I know nuclear war is a horrible thing, I don't need a thinly veiled aesop to tell me that.
- Stabs at Christainity, I don't mind as long as you don't completely misunderstand... like FF10, yeah I get it's supposed to the Catholic church in the past but c'mon! Sin as a big scaly thing? your dad becoming the messiah or something? (oh wait, it has Seymour and an forced marriage, my fav so I guess it wasn't all bad)
- Sexist, couldn't get through Star Ocean, ugh...
- Silly genki girls *stabs eyes out*
- Bad pairing, why do you like her/him? (FFVIII i'm looking at you)
- Make them gay for the fans

that's all I can think of right now XD hahah... I love to complain.

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