Dragon Age II: Convention Demo Impression
Playtime: 10~15 mins per session, about 3 sessions, one for each class
Graphic & Aesthetic
Characters are much more refined this time around compared to DA:O. Not only did they improve the models and texture, alot of work has gone into making subtle and unique animation for each scene. The armors are more detailed with interesting shape language, the proportion of female human character looks to have been greatly improved as well. What really impresses me is minute change to character's brow and corner of the mouth while talking and the facial expressions during emotional scenes are also very noticable. Just goes to shows how much work Bioware has put into making the cinametic (including the conversations) believable. Sure, it might not be L.A. Noir, but it certainly is leaps and bounds ahead of Origin. I remember DA:O having that one shocked facial expression for just about everything that happens in the game.
The only problem I have is with the oversized weapons. Bioware explained the necessity for it in DA:O due to recognizability in top-down view, but they only seem to have gotten wider and thicker in DA:2; the two-handed sword in the beginning section is especially bad with that ridiculous long handle. The combat animation also looks very awkward. It's not a question of whether flashy animation is preferable or not, it's the quality of the animation itself that bothers me. The attacks look stiff and jerky carrying no weight and momentum, and the characters all look like their lower body is rooted to the ground during auto-attack sequence. While it wasn't much of a problem in DA:O, now that the game has adopted a more ARPG control on the console, I'd expect it to have the same quality of animation from an action game. A good example is Tera, a korean MMORPG, the two handed weapon animation are completely over the top but because it has very smooth transition and weight behind each attack, it looks natural to its art style. DA2 feels like it still in that awkward inbetween place. Oh, the channeling animation when casting Firestorm really stands out on the other hand, very cool animation for that one.
I only got to see Lothering and ran around Kirkwell for a few minutes so I can't judge the over all quality of the environment. From what I've seen though, Lothering looks rather uninspired. The barren landscape with those jutting rock formation looks like nowhere in Feralden we've seen. I know the Darkspawn spread the blight wherever they go, but I never knew they're capable of terraforming the landscape. It also lack signs of ruin with those huge empty fields. Kirkwell on the other hand looks quite impressive, the scale is believable and befitting for a large city, unlike Denerim in Origin. They seem to have built level vertically much more than they did previously, it gives a better sense of space and grandeur. If I have to nitpick, I think the only flaw that stood out was the fact the scene just looks too "clean". Everything looks brand new and you don't really see signs of people living there.
Control & Camera
First I've got to say kudos to Bioware for making the choice to make the combat more reactive in DA2. The movement control is smooth and attacks and talents have excellent response time across all three classes. The choice to give closing attack to melee class makes the combat very fast paced and exciting. I find myself forgetting to control my companions because I was enjoying the action aspect of the combat so much. I've never played DA:O on console so I cannot make comparison, but switching between companions on controller is intuitive, and pausing and issuing commands works much like they did in Mass Effect 2. Attack is performed pressing A, and skills are performed with the X, Y, B buttons, holding down the Right Trigger gives additional row of skills.
There is one problem however, the enemies seems have way too much health at low level. WIthout access to many skills, I have to spam the A button so many times my hand was sore after playing the demo. The fight with the Ogre was especially bad in that regard. It also impede camera control. The camera in DA:2 on default setting doesn't seem to follow your character very well so if you sudden turn around to attack you'll often find your camera facing backward and you can't spare your thumb to turn it manually because you have to keep tapping the A button.It was pretty annoying and forced me to pause constantly to adjust camera angle which destroy the flow of the game as an action rpg.
Gameplay & Mechanic
This is the part of DA2 where I'm most satisfied with. I'm sure most of you have read the talen description I've posted so I won't go into details about that. However, the cross class combo implentation and the talents themselves are nothing short of genius. It reminds me alot of Monster Hunter and Xenoblade but with a much more complex and interesting twist to it due to the tactical aspect DA2. The talent tree system is intuitive and allow alot of freedom so we seldom need to put points in talents we never use as pre-requisit anymore. Since the inventory was blocked in the demo, I can't really comment on the itemization. The companion AI seems pretty bad this time around when it comes to tactic though. I find my mages wasting Fireball and Mind Blast, and generally being frustratingly stupid. Bioware did add some more conditions to the tactic but it's not nearly enough compared to what Advanced Tactic did for DA:O. I don't mind micro-managing all my aoe spells since I do it anyway in Origin, however I can see this being a problem for other players.
I can't really comment on the game's difficulty much at this stage in the game,I sincerely wish Bioware would move away from statistical difficulty more. Tweaking numbers to increase difficulty is the oldest trick in the book, but it's also quite boring from player point of view. Now that DA:2 features enemy waves it would be very interesting to see challenges that test our coordination and control, which also add alot of replayability. Say a particular encounter typically spawns 2 waves of enemies on Normal and Hard, but it spawns an extra wave of archers on the balcony in Nightmare, suddenly it's a totally different situation that requires different strategy to handle. Or things like a boss having shifting vulnerability and resistence to different elements or attacks that require player to pay close attention to which talent to use and when. The dialogue wheel on the other hand has been a much debated topic.
Personally, I've been quite vocal against paraphrasing and voiced PC in general. The intent icon does help a bit to prevent the infamous Thane I WANT YOU scenarios, however, I still find that often what Hawke says is completely unexpected and has very little to do with the paraphrase if at all. I find myself just ignoring what the wheel says and pick by the icon itself which really doesn't feel much like role-playing to me. However, I've come to accept DA:2 for what it is. It a completely different game with very different focus from Origin. Sure, I'm going to miss the freedom to role-play in Origin, but DA:2 stands on its own just as much as Mass Effect 2 did with its own pros and cons. I think we should just appreciate DA:2 for what it is and wait and see what Bioware has in store for us in DA:3. Who knows, they might take a whole new direction again.
Conclusion
Overall, I have to say I'm generally optimistic about DA2. While it's apparent it won't give me thesame kind of complete role-playing experience as DA:O, it's certainly an entertaining game in itself. Also, looking at the game from a different perspective really makes it alot easier to ignore some of the design choices I might not have agreed with when I try to treat the game as an extention of Origin in my mind. The combat mechanic and the tactical aspect of the game has been improved so much I'm afraid I won't be able to stand DA:O combat at all after a run through DA:2. It also offers alot of of replayability with all the combination of classes and skill trees with synergy between them. I know that I will enjoy DA:2 based what I've seen for sure, it might not be perfect, but I certainly don't regret my Pre-order. Now I'm really looking forward to the release date. Oh and even more so, to the evantually release of toolset+, crossing my finger and hoping they'll confirm it soon.
Modifié par Naitaka, 20 février 2011 - 03:43 .
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