The writing and acting are comically bad, but they were also comically bad in Andromeda. This seems just as bad, if not worse, for different reasons, so there's no real surprise. I don't think it's worth the rage. We often like JRPGs with bad writing and acting(granted in some cases part of the charm) . I can take bad writing/acting to a certain extent if the game is fun. This game just doesn't look fun. What is worth the concern is EA's practices with reviews. Badly written games come and go. Let's face it DA only had one great game and a decline ever since. No shortage of good RPGs now Western or Japanese.

^ I'll die on the hill that Inquisition was a great game and not so badly written, medicore in parts yes but not out right bad.

I'm on that hill with you buddy. 

Me too. I absolutely love Inquisition. It’s the only DA game I’ve played and I was really excited for the next instalment until…

Played it for a couple of hours and... it does feel like a game made by the developers of Inquisition and Andromeda, alright.

If you've played these two you know what you will be getting into. It's a progression of the same formula, with the same quirks, qualities, defects, etc.

The art style didn't bother me at all but the dialogue does. It's just not that good.

We'll see where this goes.

"I disagree with that mob mentality, because it's not even trying to foster equality, but another kind of hatred"

The irony is that you are in fact part of a mob which is why you were for so long stuck on the topic of minority representation as opposed to touching any of the actual angles that are truly informing the quality of the game and its overall writing.... Instead salivating on a few select exchanges with one character in a 50hour RPG. You were obsessed only with how it navigates minority circles, being "bi" does not negate you from this bias. Especially since the most provocative issue is a character being non-binary and giving trans options for the player, I presume you are not trans or non-binary? You spoke of radicalisation in an earlier post completely unaware of the fact you yourself sound like you're becoming radicalised. 

We can't act like the game in question is fostering any kind of hate or allude to it promoting extreme hiring policies which exclude entire races/demographics of people, so why force those talking points here? This is all really extreme hyperbole that you're projecting onto this review thread and forcing onto this game.  Those wider frustrations you have deserve their own discussion and threads.

"we don't fucking need to be sat down like a toddler and educated on how to interact/treat other walks of life" What I find funny is that in the clip that is doing the rounds where the character apologises for misgendering someone, literally 3 seconds is spent on topic of gender, the rest is spent on them dissecting their unique cultural approach to sincere apology. That is world building but people can't get past the reason why they're apologising...

"The people I know, be they black, Trans or Gay, they just want to be treated like normal human beings, not treated as some separate special group or propped up like some gimmick marketing ploy"

It's totally fair to see a topic and feel that it doesn't feel authentic to the world the game is set, its fine to think the a piece of dialogue felt awkard or forced ... But to characterise anything close to DEI as some sinister corporate agenda, that is when you are being part of the "mob". For one give the developer some agency to have their own vision. It's not like EA forced their last star wars game to have some queer angle. If this is what felt interesting to Bioware let them touch on it. I've yet to see any content from the game which represents the aforementioned minority groups as marketing ploys or gimmicks. If a character can have a narrative arc about unrequited love, being rejected form their clan etc, then another can have one about struggling with their identity. It is a double standard to permit only the human experiences which feel relatable to you.

Lastly I do want to reflect on this "trend" of classical fantasy worlds reflecting the make up of the present world. This is not going to change. Fantasy was always born as a mirror for worlds in which people lived in and modern worlds are multicultural. Unless there is source material to dictate otherwise, there is no reason to see diversity as anything other than a normal interpretation of said fantasy world. I do of course want writers/developers to be consistent and athentic with world building in most material. For example I don't expect there to be black Elves if the elves are themselves not of human skin tone... But if the elf is just a white man with pointy ears, there can absolutely be a black/asian subgroups of that. Same with Dwafts etc. Tokenism is real, so I don't want to pretend I don't see you point at all. 

I've been watching a few hours of it, I can see how casuals would vibe well with it but to say it's at the same level as Inquisition is not correct based on just a few factors, the VA siuational direction to the VA actors is ass, the facial animations are ass, the writing and dialogue is ass, the Disney pixar half assed approach at graphics is ass, the colour palette is ass, the large head to small body proportions of the characters is ass etc and so on.

These weren't problems in Inquisition. Graphics weren't as clean but the world looked better, the characters looked better and were certainly more expressive, the VA matched what was happening. There is a clear lack of talent and TLC in this on the dev side, as you can see the VA themselves are stellar but it's the devs doing them a disservice. I don't believe core fans will like this but I can't see why the casual fans, the odd game here and there gamer and dad gamers wouldn't vibe with it in the same way they would an Ass Creed game. 

I still have to get to the where the modern social politics is inserted cause I'm really curious to see if leading into it, perhaps it isn't as cringe and on the nose as it seems without context but with what I'm seeing so far, I hold no hope. Things are very cringey already.  There is one instance where there is a pop up telling the player that they have encouraged a character on the benefits of multicultural backgrounds which is so unbelievably cringe, a good writing team would actually right that into the dialogue in a way that suggests it without saying it aloud but to do it with a pop up is just horrific. I don't believe the team to be doing this in bad faith, I think they really are just Unbelievably talentless at their jobs and perhaps when in a team setting the talented ones get suppressed for design by committee as was the case with Concord. 

Inquisition is not that good, really. And this isn't that bad. (Compared to one another, I mean)

By the way, the heads are anatomically correctly proportional (7.5x) to the body, the same as Andromeda. What you are missing is the 'heroic' 8-9x proportions used in Mass Effect etc. These are used for artistic reasons, same as hero lighting on characters, not because it's realistic.

It doesn't have to be realistic and I know it's an artistic decision obviously but it's an awful decision all the same. 

It's not that bad but it makes Inquisition (which I think isba great game) look like a true masterpiece comparatively. 

Dialogue-wise, yes, gameplay-wise, no. So it's a wash, really, depending on how the maps turn out in this one.

So far I honestly think this is at the same level as DA2 and DAI. Good but not exceptional. A solid 8/10 after a few patches and DLCs. The third act is supposedly spectacular in this game, so we'll see if something changes.