Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Cutscenes are Overrated

One of the criticisms levied against the Shadow of Revan expansion is that there is not enough voice over/cutscenes.  The main story is full of cinematic sequences, but the side quests are not.  Instead, you get a traditional window of text along with some spoken dialog.  In the base game, almost every side quest had a cutscene.  In Makeb, the side quests were usually just a datapad which consisted of just text.

I think they found an excellent middle ground with SoR.  The dialog the side quests include is usually pretty good.  It's often times a mini-story and not a single statement. It's also pretty high quality, which we have come to expect from BioWare.  I actually don't miss the cutscenes at all.  Sure, they are great for the main quests, but I don't need them for every mission.  They just get tedious after a while.  Instead, save them for the important moments.

I've seen a number of people saying how this is just another example of them moving towards a WoW system.  I'd have to disagree.  If WoW had quality voiced dialog with every quest, I might actually be interested in doing their quests.  Overall, I am pretty pleased with the side quests in Shadow of Revan.  Keep up the good work BioWare!