Summary
As part of my journey towards jumping intoDragon Age: The Veilguardlater this year, I’ve been playing all of theDragon Agegames in order, starting withOrigins. I’ve been very impressed – although DA:O is dated,its writing is still first class even when compared with modern RPGs, and I’ve been enjoying my time with the game more than I expected to. That is, until I reached the Lost in Dreams quest.
Lost In Dreams Is Mandatory For The Outcome I Want
The Fade had me looking into an imaginary camera like Jim in The Office because I was so angry at it. My path to Lost in Dreams was a meandering one. I’d started at Redcliffe Village, where I was informed that undead corpses had been coming from Redcliffe Castle every night to attack the place. After defending the village that night, I fought my way up to the castle, where I discovered that some idiot prince got himself possessed and the only way to un-possess him was by entering the Fade.
My old pal and blood mage Jowan’s plan to sacrifice someone and enter the Fade to kill the demon sounded a little too dodgy for my tastes, so I took the other option, which was to go to the Circle Tower whence my elven mage came from and beg for help. It was part of another main questline, anyway, and I want to gain the favour of the mages, so I figured I might as well kill two birds with one stone.
Little did I know that one of the birds being killed would be me. Repeatedly. After gaining access to the Tower, I found that it had been somehow overrun with demons and abominations, and the Templars were preparing to kill everyone inside. That seemed excessive, so I offered to go in and clear the Tower myself to ensure that the survivors could be brought to safety, which surely would make the mages like me more. I was then told that once I go in, I can’t come out, and I say something along the lines of “Sure, sounds good”. It was a noble idea, but still a stupid one.
After fighting my way through rooms of enemies, and getting brutally killed several times (playing on Xbox means I have much less opportunity for true tactical play, which I assume is why I keep getting my butt kicked), I made my way to the fourth floor and entered the central room. Here, I found a Sloth abomination that promptly put me to sleep, and I woke up alone in the Fade. There was no avoiding it – to free the Mages, I had to go through with this. Maybe Ishouldhave let the Templars just nuke the whole thing.
Is The Fade Broken, Or Does It Just Suck?
This is where the true misery starts. I’m told that I’ll have to explore different areas of the Fade, using different forms to get through obstacles. The first one I have to master is the Mouse, which I can use to travel through mouseholes and take shortcuts. Allegedly, the Mouse form allows me to use stealth, which is the problem – it doesn’t work.
Stupidly, I built my mage to be more of a support character that boosts the strength of my companions’ weapon attacks. I have a couple attacks myself, but nothing particularly strong, and my character struggles to hold ground against big mobs of enemies. Because of this, I figured I’d just rely on my Mouse’s stealth ability to get past groups that I couldn’t defeat myself. But it doesn’t work. Even if I enter a room stealthed up, groups detect me and I can’t leave until they’re all dead.
So I transform into my human form, get murdered, and start all over again. It’s Sisyphean, how many times I’ve gone into the same room and been murdered by the same group of Darkspawn. I can’t get past this one room, because my stupid Mage keeps getting murdered. It sucks.
I’ll probably have to drop my difficulty just to get past this area, but the thought of having to do this all again, with multiple forms, in pretty much every area so I can kill every guardian protecting Slothandfree my companions from their dream realms makes me want to throw up. I’m not having fun anymore, and I realise now whyone of the most popular PC mods for DA:Oallows you to cut through all the stuff that sucks. Good god, I can’t imagine going back to the game later tonight and doing all this for another couple of hours. I’m not going to quit, but I’ll need to take a day or two off just to gather my resolve.
