Well, I'm glad that you're enjoying it at least to some extent. Cutscenes have been a controversial point for what feels like generations now, because developers haven't really found a better way to divulge chunks of narrative in games, but that's not something that bothers me very much personally. I don't feel as though the narrative is "disjointed" per se, but the idea that cutscenes break up the actual game experience in ways that are annoying is an old complaint and a valid one for many.
I will say that in a broad context I think there's actually a lot of legitimacy to what MysterD has been saying about RPGs. Look, Mass Effect 2 wasn't really an RPG; it was a cover-based shooter with RPG elements; that the same studio produced that and Dragon Age: Origins was simply amazing to me. While I appreciate that the ME series was nominally an RPG series, even the first game felt like an action game with some decision-making and NPCs thrown in and the second game made the combat even more "twitchy" for lack of a suitable technical term. The RPGs I grew up with were long and detailed affairs and were first and foremost about telling a story in an interesting setting; they also had deep character customization options for your PCs so that no two parties were alike and it was very possible to create a party that was so imbalanced you're destined to fail. That's what a good modern cRPG does, to me.
I also think that if a game is an average of >100 hours to complete (complete meaning different things to different people, obviously), it's not crazy for it to ease you in. You may decide within an hour of playing a game that you don't like it enough to never play again, but to really get into it and have a good working knowledge of its systems may take 10 hours--and games may be designed to spoon-feed you bits and pieces over time. Heck, DA:O's character origins took several hours to play out.
Well, I brought this up and getting the Play Store on there wasn't too tricky. I'm just disappointed that I can't use my live wallpapers, but I'd have to bite the bullet and root it to do that, and I kind-of like Fire OS for using my Amazon content.
I find it funny when people talk about Mass Effect 1 and Alpha Protocol - both games had the same issues, for a game that you control directly like a shooter (and no real point + click): too much RPG elements (i.e. both stats are important + "dice-rolls") are underpinning things + governing if you connect with damage when you actually shoot someone. You could shoot someone, hit 'em in the head, they react, don't get hurt, or it pops up with a "Miss" or "Zero Damage" taken. That makes no sense in a game that controls like you shooter, especially when firing from point-blank range.
The same people that loved Mass Effect 1 criticized Alpha Protocol b/c "Mass Effect 2 changed how RPG's should feel + play like, when shooting." Mass Effect 2 didn't change RPG's technically; it was a really a third-person cover shooter w/ RPG elements (decision-making). They simplfied the crap out of the RPG systems in the game; so much so, they threw some of that stuff (but not all of it) back into ME3. They removed most of the RPG non-sense from ME2 b/c sinking LOTS of points into Guns makes NO SENSE in a game you're iron-sighting or aiming down the barrel + actually shooting. You should really see + feel it working.
Fallout 4 improved immensely in its combat b/c for the most part, it followed ME2's lead here, got rid of Guns (and its categories) going from 0-100 in point-sinking + rolled it into (more or less) a 4-10 point Perk system. It's too bad FO4 left out a lot of the RPG + decision-making that made FO1+2+NV so great; hell, FO4 ain't even on FO3's level in decision-making, TBH.
Dragon Age: Origins is a much different game, as that's more of an old-school cRPG - it's a party-controlling strategic-style cRPG with the allowed BioWare strategic pause. That game really doesn't have much direct-action elements - as you aren't really controlling every swing, motion, and movement in 3rd person or 1st person perspective like you would in say Skyrim. You're queuing attacks up, changing tactics on the fly, and things of that sort - and more or less, watching it unfold in real-time.
For there to be cut-scenes, storytelling, dialogue, good writing, cinematics, voice-acting - all of that stuff better be good if they're going to use those mechanics. Not everybody can excel at doing these things properly, making it sometimes feel like not only am I playing a good game, but I'm also watching a good movie. For me - BioWare Edmonton games; Obsidian games; Troika games (Vampire Bloodlines); CD PRojekt (Witcher series); and Funcom games (see TLJ, Dreamfall, Red Thread's Dreamfall Chapters, The Secret World) can often get away w/ utilizing a heavy approach of this stuff b/c often their writing, storytelling, voice-acting, and things of that sort are always top notch + are putting everybody else to shame. These companies truly flesh-out their worlds, characters, story, plot, and whatnot - so when they do so + don't screw this stuff up, it's great to see these things actually done properly.
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