Originally Posted by robertthebard
Originally Posted by Zerubbabel
Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
Originally Posted by Zerubbabel
gradual drag away from what looked like a dark fantasy
I dunno ...

There are scenes about killing childerns ...
There are scenes including eating sentient beings ...
There are scenes where your character have to participate in torture ...
There are scenes including painful forced transformation into different creature ...

What more "dark fantasy" do you want? laugh

Yes, our characters can have colorfull and pastel pink hair (and beard) ... and yes, animals are able to create whole sentences ... and yes, not whole existence in this world is pure grym, gore and desperation ...

How can this outweight everything that stay in the game is beyond me. O_o

Please don't straw man my argument. I made no mention of whole story beats, and my critique was clearly focused around visuals, aesthetics, and tone. DOS2 (significantly darker than DOS1) had people having their souls removed (sometimes by your own character) into empty husks, along with the crucifixion of those still-living husks, references to the varied torture/punishment methods of Braccus Rex, the imprisonment of children, the ability to slaughter an entire city, the ability to slaughter entire peoples, an early scene where you watch the equivalent of a magical lobotomy, and way more. It also had the Magicockerel, goofy merchants, and other joke characters, an at-times cartoonish style (that was still a dramatic improvement over DOS1), and a lack of consistent tone. *Morally dark scenes are not the same thing as maintaining a dark fantasy aesthetic.* You can make a film about torturing people and use a bright, old school Disney-like aesthetics and people would not be talking about its dark aesthetic. In fact, there have been many works that parody children's animation with gore and other "dark" events, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Tree_Friends, but we do not refer to these as "dark" animation. By "gradual drag," I am already conceding that the game initially had features of dark fantasy, which include (but are not limited to) what you mentioned in your post, and that Larian is moving away from such an approach. I made no statement as to there being some "outweighing" or substitution of dark moments for dark aesthetic. In fact, I am satisfied with the "dark" moments, but I am talking about an aesthetic ideal. If I had to point to what I mean, compare Dragon Age Origins to the rest of the series, or Morrowind/Skyrim to Oblivion https://i.redd.it/2ev31s0rqrd41.png , or DOS2 when just compared to DOS1, or the FROMSOFT games compared to the whole industry. Visually, we are losing dark aesthetics and contrast each patch. Except for the Nautilloid, the sense of fear and desperation is vanished from the game, only held up in that sequence by the color palette of the Hells and the body horror of the Illithids.

Hmm... So the BSN was alight with "there's no darkness in Inquisition". Of course, they chose to ignore walking through the field of crispy corpses, I guess because it happened off camera? As someone with thousands of hours in the Dragon Age series, what about the initial part of the Stone Prisoner DLC? What about the Peak, where you retake the warden stronghold? What about Alistair's doll collection, or licking lamp posts? You see, I kinda see where you're trying to go, but I'm looking at this through a different lens, this is an RPG, not a survival horror game. In that genre, all tension, all the time is expected. In this genre, I expect to have moments of levity, or downright absurdity thrown in. Sometimes at really inappropriate times.

Not against any of what you are talking about. But the APPEARANCE of the game could use a bit more darkness even when giving you those moments of levity. I think the fix is in lighting, shadows, contrast, art, and palette. There's way too much color in our companions now, especially their skin. A lot of places that were awash with shadows and flames in darkness now look washed through. I feel like everyone here is ignoring that my complaints are specifically aimed toward the visuals of the game, not the narrative approaches. Crypts should feel ancient and scary. Nautilloids should be strange and harrowing. Ancient Temples should be dark and musty. Darkness should be used to highlight the unknown, the strange, and the terrible. Also, after the Nautilloid, it seems that Larian largely abandons the "otherworldly horrors" angle, which is just disappointing. We get "spooky" with Ethel, the Hook Horrors, and the Necromancer's Basement, but not otherworldly, like in the teaser.

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