I decided to continue playing before I reply to you, and now after roughly 60 hours and progressing Bellara’s story, I agree with you, my criticism was funny. She turns out quite alright and becomes very intriguing after a few more hours.

I honestly have to say tho, they really butchered the beginning of the game, and the more you progress, the more it seems to find it’s footing, or dare I say, a Dragon Age-esque tone.

Actually, that’s a good point.

I’m playing it too rn, and I agree with the stuff you said. Also, yes, the review bombing is all-out based-ness for the most part (~90% from what I’ve seen). But there are other criticisms that I think are valid.

I’m personally not enjoying the game, to put it mildly, for multiple reasons:

• the writing: the dialogs are flat, the lines are so repetitive that at some points I’m just zoning out, bc I don’t want to hear again that “dwarves don’t dream” or that “Elgar’nan and Ghilan’hanin” escaped their prison. I got the impression that there’s little love or even interest in the stuff they’ve been writing. It feels heartless and lifeless, which is incredibly sad given how interesting the plot actually is (bunch of guys trying to prevent the end of the world)
• the lore inaccuracies: it’s as if they started writing this game and went like “All that lore we created for and in the first 3 games? Shredd it, we don’t need that”. One instance would be the “dwarves don’t dream” thing. Dwarves sleep and dream. They just can’t enter the Fade in their dreams. (That’s just one, but there’s so much more.)
• the (voice) acting/tone of the game: I’m blaming this mostly on the dialog, but some voice lines are delivered in such unfitting tones of voice. Like, guys, how tf are you so cheery, you’re trying to stop the end of the world? That’s not per se a bad idea, but given that dragon age has always been so dark and sarcastic, it feels so out of place for all these characters being so annoyingly cheery. (Maybe I’ll get used to this, Idk)
• Bellara: perfect example of how to butcher a potentially amazing character. First of all, this character feels like a horrible stereotype of someone with ADHD, like “omg, sorry, I’m rambling and so random”, like fr, this is not how it works. Second, her backstory is actually great which really doesn’t shine through enough. And third, whoever decided to give her the Garrus line (“calibrations”)??? It feels so out of place and not funny at all.

I like the combat system, it’s somewhat refreshing to see an action rpg setup in dragon age, so that your mage finally doesn’t die immediately in close combat scenarios. I’m also madly in love with the hair animations. I keep entering the character creator to swoosh around the hair lol.

All in all, I wouldn’t recommend (buying) the game, but it definitely has its moments.

Again, not a bad idea, but I’d have to explain away 9 years for both degrees.

Edit: And as someone without any work experience whatsoever, I don’t see how omitting the degrees would really help improve my CV.

I’ve considered that too but afaik there’s a rule in my country that you have to prove your work and education history. Omitting something isn’t an issue, but to substitute that with anything else would require paperwork that I just don’t have. (And my potential employers have a right to ask for said paperwork.)

It’s fucked, intentionally so.

I feel for you, comrade. I’ve been looking for jobs for more than half a year by now and all I get is denial mails saying the exact same things you mentioned. I remember being told that getting a Master’s degree would open all doors for me and that I’d get a super mega great job out of it. Now whenever I get a reply, I’m either too inexperienced, bc I haven’t worked yet and “just studied” or they say I’m overqualified for the job, even though my degree makes me the perfect fit for the job. It’s not ending, and I don’t see it ending any time soon, if ever.

I’m not sure for how long I can still stand this bc it keeps killing me, very slowly and agonizingly.

Oh, more!