23 replies to this topic

[berelinde]

If you can do it without massive spoilers, please explain your choices.

[Vicen]

I have not finished the game...only in act 2...but I would have to say Merril would be my top choice...with Varric coming a close second...

I love Merril's innocent nature and her mage tree is not half bad either...

I choose Carver as the least...mainly because I have not yet started my 2nd playthrough as a mage...and I dont find any of the other companions to be to my disliking...

[Kulyok]

I loved Anders - I was pleasantly surprised by his voice and his writing(including the romance), and of course, his quests, from the beginning to the end of the game, provoked great emotional response. Applause for the character's writer. And his introductory dialogue is still pleasantly humorous. By the way, it's no great spoiler that there's a Fade quest in DA2, so my advice would be: try to play it with Anders in all possible ways(but save first!!) and speak to him afterwards. The outcomes are very character-revealing.

I liked both Hawke siblings, Fenris(not the romance, though), Aveline and Varric. With Merrill and Isabella, I stayed mostly indifferent, but since I never much liked Isabella and it didn't change after a DA2 playthrough(her personality is largely the same), I chose Isabella as the least-favored character. Maybe I'll like the girls better after a romance with a male Hawke, I don't know.

I haven't played much with Sebastian yet, I only opened my old saves and played his Act 1 and Act 3 quests(his Act 3 quest is good, by the way). I don't think he is devout or forgiving type(not great qualities for a Chantry brother), but, well, that's his personality. What I like *less* is his accent and his face(which looks much like a porcelain doll). But, again, I haven't seen all his content yet.

[princesspurpleblob]

I really love Anders, although I don't like his voice acting as much. So he is obviously my favourite<3

I voted Merrill for least favourite. She is someone who will irritate me to no ends.

Other than those 2, I really liked Fenris and Aveline. I found Varric and Isabela pleasant enough. I started off hating Carver but he became ok towards the end of the game. I never played warrior or rogue, so no idea about Bethany. Also I don't have Sebastian.

[Darziak]

I'm not finished yet but Varric is my fave so far, he's like a best friend to my Hawke.

Anders is my least favourite.

[EvaineDian]

I choose Varric as my favourite. I like the chest hair jokes, he's funny, manly and you can be snarky with him. I'd romance him if it were possible.

Least favourite is Carver - I didn't see much of him, and whenever I saw him he bitched about my being a mage and cooler than him!

I didn't like Merrill at first, but her voice, her accent, her innocent babbling and her getting lost all the time are so very endearing. I'll definitely give her romance a go.

Fenris isn't as troubled and brooding as I had feared, but is actually quite fun to be around. I wanted to romance him, but accidentally killed his romance path and became his friend instead.

That Anders isn't his lovely cheerful Awakening self anymore is sad, but there's a good explanation for that at least.

Isabela is incredibly shallow, but sometimes she reveals there's more to her than she wants to admit. I'm curious as to what her full romance is like, I just had a quick tumble with her.

Sebastian is too pious for my taste and what he said about my decisions at the end annoyed me, but I'll also try his romance.

I like how Aveline isn't pretty at all, I think it's very fitting for her personality. For some reason, I feel as if she had more quests than the others or just longer or more memorable ones? The only thing that bugs me a little is her name - it's pronounced almost exactly like my RL name and that sometimes gave me a bit of a start.

I played a mage, so I didn't really get to know Bethany.

[Gorzag]

I really liked the whole cast a lot, but Varric and Merrill were the two I liked most (I voted Merril, but it could just as well have been Varric), followed closely by Aveline.

Varric was funny, really felt like a good friend to me and we seemed to agree about almost everything. He also had great banter with everyone else as well.

I liked generally evrything about Merrill, her voice, her accent, the cute babbling, but I think she was quite determined as well, going on with her research when everyone in her clan was against her and such. I liked her romance too, though it felt like there was somehing missing of it, which, as I later found out, was true- I have a bug that led me to missing at least two conversatios with her, and it seems plenty of others have had the same issues.

I voted Anders for my least favourite, but I didn't really dislike him either. However, I always felt I had to be bit cautious with him, even when I agreed to help him, and he felt a bit too fanatical and serious at times. But the thing with Justice was quite interesting, and by no means was he a bad companion. Oddly enough, despite the fact that we disagreed about a lot of things, I got his friendship to 100% for some time, until later I refused to help him with a thing.

[berelinde]

I chose Anders as my favorite companion, no surprise there. First of all, I'm a sucker for woobies. His psychological collapse is painful to watch, and it made me care about him even more. His banters are awesome. He sounds like he's trying, but he can't quite put his heart into it. His romance is bittersweet, but I don't think I'm ever going to be able to romance anybody else in this game. Hawke will romance Fenris this time, but only until he disappoints her. After that, back to Anders.

I chose Sebastian as my least favorite. Narrowminded and preachy is a bad combination for me. Especially when my favorite class to play in DA is mage.

[princesspurpleblob]

I chose Anders as my favorite companion, no surprise there. First of all, I'm a sucker for woobies. His psychological collapse is painful to watch, and it made me care about him even more. His banters are awesome. He sounds like he's trying, but he can't quite put his heart into it. His romance is bittersweet, but I don't think I'm ever going to be able to romance anybody else in this game. Hawke will romance Fenris this time, but only until he disappoints her. After that, back to Anders.

I couldn't agree with you more. Ander is carrying such a burden for doing what he thought was best for both himself and his friend. And like Kulyok pointed out in other topic, that *one sentence* make you forgive him no matter what. I'm trying Fenris romance at the moment. It is good but I don't think I can playthrough to see the ending with him. Back to Anders again for me.

[vilkacis]

I'm not voting here because I didn't pick up Isabela or the DLC guy and told Fenris to go fuck himself, and I'm still debating whether it's worth replaying to see what I missed (probably not), but out of the people I had, Aveline was the only character who accomplished anything during those ten years and also the only character I gave a fuck about. I'm actually rather surprised at how much I liked her.

Jandice is probably the worst. I liked them better when one was Alistair 2.0 and the other was some kind of crazy undead thing I could leave in my castle and ignore for the rest of the game.

[Choo Choo]

Whoo, okay, I haven't played very far yet and I haven't met them all, but...

I'm pleasantly surprised by Bethany, I really do like her. Varric is also a lot of fun. I've just recruited Anders, but so far so good. I'm a bit more indifferent about Aveline, but I don't dislike her or anything.

Merrill... my problem with her is that her entire personality is a retcon. If we'd met her in DA2, I'd find her adorable (and a bit of a Tali expy, for some reason), but I just remember the DA1 Merrill and it bothers me. Sure, in DA1 she was a very minor character, but what we saw of her doesn't mesh with DA2 Merrill at all. So... I like her, but she bothers me.

I chose Fenris as my least favourite, though. Don't know why, he rubs me the wrong way. And his voice actor doesn't suit him.

[Philiposophy]

My favourites were Varric and Aveline. It's hard to pick between the two.

[Gomb]

I still haven't finished the game, but I really, really dislike Fenris, to put it lightly. Surprisingly, I can tolerate Anders much more than I did in Awakening(in which I hated him),and I can almost say I like the changes in his character, although him being possessed by Justice is quite cheesy.

If I had to pick which companion I enjoy the most it would be a toss up between Aveline and Varric, but to be honest, none of the characters have had the same effect on me as companions from previous Bioware titles. But you get what you get.

[Kulyok]

I think I like DA2 characters about just as much as DA characters, or maybe a little more. In DA:Origins, I liked exactly three companions: Alistair, Morrigan, Shale. And Dog. And I hated Alistair in the end(still means he's a good character). Leliana, Zevran, Wynne, Oghren, Sten were "meh", and Loghain was excellent, but wasn't exactly a full companion. In Awakening, I liked Nathaniel and Anders, and "had to" like Oghren. That's it.

In DA2, I fairly like Anders, Varric, Aveline, Fenris and both Hawke siblings. Not sure, but I could be okay with Merril/Isabela, too, in male Hawke's party(not yet, though. And still meh about Sebastian). So, same ratio.

[Choo Choo]

Okay, now that I've finished the game, I can quite safely say that out of all the companions, Merrill is my least favourite - and that includes Fenris and Sebastian (whom I dislike much for the same reasons as berelinde). She just can't take responsibility for her actions, can't admit that she was terribly wrong, refuses to at least acknowledge differing opinions as valid... All are qualities that I loathe, and no amount of adorkable twitchiness can change that. Ugh.

[Kulyok]

By the way, maybe I'm missing something, but what has Merrill done? Everyone in Dalish Camp speaks of her as if she was evil incarnate, but I wasn't told anything else besides "blood mage". And Warden/Hawke/Morrigan Ritual/Anders from Awakening/Jowan can be blood mages, and from what I understood, unless you suddenly decide to become an abomination, it's just another school of magic, much like Domination/Hold Person spells from Baldur's Gate 2.

(No one died because of Merrill's actions in my game, most of her clanmates were alive and well, and from my understanding, Keeper and Pol just did something foolish, no?)

[Jarno Mikkola]

What comes to my choices, I liked the Isabella the most... and Carver the least as he was never actually there. I liked the Varric a lot too,

Spoiler

he telling his tale about the attack to the house was nice, alone with Bianca and all that.

Was funny.

By the way, maybe I'm missing something, but what has Merrill done? ...

(No one died because of Merrill's actions in my game, most of her clanmates were alive and well, and from my understanding, Keeper and Pol just did something foolish, no?)

Well, she turned to blood magic because she wanted to restore the old Elf artifact, the magical mirror, the other mirrors are 'evil' or actually they were corrupted or something to that effect.
Now, the Keeper: Tried to protect Merrill and...

Spoiler

ended up being possessed by the demon herself.

And what comes to the end, yes because you took the blame...

Spoiler

had you not done such, you would have ended up killing the whole Elf tribe.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola, 21 March 2011 - 12:31 PM.

[Choo Choo]

Hmm, to phrase my problem with Merrill a bit better... the Keeper, and my Hawke, warn her about blood magic. Anders and Fenris. The moment I say anything along the lines of "blood magic is risky, are you sure you know what you're doing?" I suddenly get a +15 rivalry and she snaps at me. In my game, her entire clan died because of her dabbling.

[princesspurpleblob]

I still dislike Merrill the most, but in my 2nd playthrough I went all the way to 100% rivarly with Merrill and was quite pleased with outcome. Sure, we hate each others guts but some sense have finally made through to her thick skull and she smashed Eluvian herself. She even aided me in final fight because I sided with mages. Too bad I lost Isabela though. Didn't have enough friendship point with her to come back. Also, I only realised at the end, that I forgot to import my save game from DAO for this playthrough. DOH! *sigh*

Edited by princesspurpleblob, 21 March 2011 - 08:13 PM.

[Kulyok]

Aaah, imports really don't matter: it's only about the cameo with Alistair, a few extra lines for Cullen/Merrill, and whether to go through Fool's Gold quest or Finding Nathaniel quest(and its import is bugged, anyway).

By the way, I had 100% friendship with Merrill and she smashed the mirror, too. (Pity, I really wanted to follow my Dalish Warden and Morrigan through the mirror). I think that friendship/rivalry differ very little: 1) preludes to romance scenes are different; 2) instead of "you are a friend" they say "we don't see eye to eye, but I respect you"; 3) with Sebastian romance, instead of a chaste marriage of the Chantry you get "prince and viscountess" union.