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A review in the corner, Anna NPCs 2.0


manlyMAN0890

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This topic contains spoilers for two quests from the mod Anna NPCs 2.0


I recently decided the mod Anna NPCs 2.0 is not for me. I decided it wouldn't be right to simply say that and let it be, since I did say that I loved it in one of the file threads and went on to give feedback on a mod I previously thought was a must-download. So, I owe it to myself to immortalize my thoughts on what I feel are where it falls short, and for the most part I'll be leaving out my personal preference. Yes some of it comes from personal preference and what I'm willing to put up with, but for the most part this is meant to be mostly objective. I didn't put it all into the thread for the mod because I didn't want it to be swallowed up. I do my business here in the corner, and people can ignore it if they want to.


A glaring peeve for me was that one person voiced almost all of the women added to the game, which makes the female companions sort of blend with each other. People might point to the dev team's voice-acting budget like that somehow makes it more bearable, but even then different actors recorded lines for their own voice type(s) that they contributed to the game. All of these new additions of the female gender are voiced by one person, and it's obvious.


The quests were thought out and unique to the person of each companion they were attached to, but they felt slipshod or forced in their setup. E.g. Elyndra's quest felt like it should have been over before it began: a few fools planning a hairbrained scheme that was doomed from the start get killed earlier than they would have if they actually made it to the palace. Case closed, and they wouldn't have succeeded in the first place, so I couldn't comprehend the motivation to go tell someone about it. The meadery quest I thought was particularly asinine. Props to the character for being strong and independent and pursuing her dream, but was that after raising enough money doing what she does best, or after retiring from it? Her independence is spoiled when the option to help is "here, let me pay to have the whole thing built", and it's a negative gameplay-wise that the player has to go out of their way to visit every prospective settlement she has her eye on. "Is it Falkreath?" "I dunno, we should go check out Riften and Solitude first." "It's Falkreath, isn't it?" And it was.


I liked Dragon Age too. I liked the companions, but when having three of them following the player at once, even two, it removes the challenge of combat...in Skyrim. This mod tries to add one awesome thing to another, but reese's peanut butter cups was far from the result. When I confirmed the option to "go to the camp", I found myself imprisoned in a valley surrounded by unclimbable cliffs on all sides. I couldn't figure out how to get out, so I had a fake panic attack just for laughs(I'm so lonely), but it was jarring for this place to exist. Dragon Age is not a sandbox, Skyrim is. A cell that exists solely to be "this is where you set up camp" is fine in a game that doesn't have the whole in-game world mapped out and prone to the ravages of exploration. Skyrim is that kind of game, Dragon Age is not.


Props for all the work put into Anna NPCs 2.something, but these problems, personal proclivities withstanding, are why I've decided I won't be taking the whole package.

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