I do hope that BioWare paid attention to Final Fantasy 7 Remake. They tried to make a party based, pause and play action hybrid twice and I didn’t find either particularly fun to play. Then FF7R came out and, at least in my opinion, showed exactly how to do it.
If they decide to put their own take on that formula, I’m totally down to give them a shot, despite my usual misgivings with their games. While I appreciate a strong story, gameplay is always king for me. As long as the story isn’t isnt atrociously awful I be forgiving on a good enough story.
I’ve not played FF7R so am not going to say it doesn’t do gameplay better, but I really enjoyed combat in ME:A, even though I was initially worried as I tend to avoid games that require good hand-eye coordination and quick response times as I’m frankly rubbish at them. But it felt like a great evolution of gameplay in the first three ME games. Whereas DA:I combat I found extremely disappointing and a big step backwards from both DA:O and DA2, largely due to the over-simplified-to-the-brink-of-nonexistence tactics system.
In short, I don’t personally think there’s a clear pattern of prioritising story over gameplay by the studio. Though it’s clear that there have been many things wrong there that have led to their games not living up to their potential, so perhaps it’s not a bad thing that there’s been some staff turnover. I’m also not sure how much is EA’s fault but I agree it doesn’t seem feasible that all the blame can be laid at their door.
Still, while I think both DA:I and ME:A could have been a lot better, the next episodes in the franchise would need to be a lot worse before their new entries cease to be auto-buys for me.
I don’t think that they necessarily prioritize gameplay over story, I just think that they aren’t great at designing gameplay systems. Even Origins was a bit underwhelming for me. The game was largely chugging potions and spamming whatever was on cooldown.
Then in DA2 they dumbed down the strategic gameplay while padding out every single fight with waves of enemies. Can never fight just a group of random thugs in an alley way, you need to fight their 20 buddies who were chilling on nearby rooftops too. It was just such a slog.
I didn’t really play Inquisition. Eventually I bought it for $5 but only played maybe 3 or 4 hours. I ran into a group of bears while not paying attention and half my party was immediately downed. Realizing I wasn’t winning that fight I decided to run away, only to discover you can’t. If you get too far away the bears teleport to you. I had to run all the way across the map to a safe zone to get away. Once I did I just paused for a moment and said “this is bad” and uninstalled the game. 😂
I’d love for Dreadwolf to be just absolutely awesome. Party based RPGs are my favorite type of game, and there aren’t many big budget ones to choose from. I’m not expecting anything from BioWare, but I’d love for them to change my opinion.
I also hear rumors that Starfield is in a bit of a Charlie-Foxtrot development hell and that MS is forcing Bethesda to rush. Heavy sigh.
