Lelianna's elvish lament at the camp fire after the forest quest was completely unexpected. Animation was dodgy but nice music and a good touch of atmosphere.

This game loves its binary, obvious good/evil choices no matter what it claims. Kick the orphan or give it all of your gold. Typical Bioware.

I completed the section in the mage tower today. Oh I hated it! Worst section of the game by far.
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First the long trek through the bland tower, which I'd already explored and gotten bored of during my origin story. Then the fade section - a maze filled with repetitive combat against enemies my mage struggles to handle. Getting mobbed by groups of strong melee dudes without any party members at all sucks; I was dying at least once on most fights and ended up having to save obsessively in every single room. And it went on forever. And it ended in yet another binary save everyone/ill everyone choice. It was at this point that I realised such choices were grating on my nerves; I was expecting better and have seen better in many other games.

I got a load of permanent stat boosts out of it but I'd forego them all if it meant skipping that area on future playthroughs.


On the subject of romances:

Alistair
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needs his influence into the white box before he will sleep with your character. That takes persistent effort, time, and it evolves along quite natural lines. He's an old school charmer - he gave my character a rose. He's shy, he's bashful, and there's some good flirty conversations. The one about licking lamp posts in winter is memorable.

His scene was shorter than Zavran's. One wonders if that was a subtle comment on the fact he was a nervous virgin?


Zavran
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chucked himself at me after a couple of conversations, the very first time we were in camp after I acquired him. I was able to sleep with him when his influence was about halfway filled on the good side. He's flirty, charming, and basically the kind of guy who sidles up to you in a bar and tries to get you into bed for a laugh. :cough: scum, then :cough: I'm also going to have to label him a bit selfish; most of the sex scene was about what my character was doing for him, without him returning the favour.

He also comes straight out and says he's attracted to both men and women right at the start which kind of feels a bit nasty (in terms of attitudes to those preferences) when he's basically a man-slut who admits he never says no and will take whatever he can get. The attitude does fit the character history, I admit.

I reloaded my 'entering the camp' save to wipe his feelings back to a lower level rather than continue with him drooling after me.


Lelianna
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Was making passes at my female character quite early on as well. How matters would have progressed I can't say; I didn't realise that one of the dialogue lines I chose completely shut down the possibility of the relationship developing past friendship.


Combined Lelianna and Zavran barely even spoilers comment
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It feels rather bad that the two characters that are romanceable by both sexes are both so easy to win over.

Maybe Morrigan is easy too, and it's only Alistair who takes a bit of effort?


I found both of the romantic cutscenes to be excruciating to watch. These character models are no way good enough for animation which requires contact - it was like watching dolls with clipping issues. At one point my character's face disappeared up to the ears through a torso. The facial expressions were worse; I don't know what effect they were going for but drugged date rape probably wasn't it. At one point in the Alistair scene my character's face was pure "Did you know you had rough fingernails before you did that?!" Should have used high quality renders like Mass Effect did or cut to a black screen as per KOTOR.