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[eroeru]

@IcyWolf803

That doesn't say much. Is it good? Why is it good? Did you not like origins because of its inherent flaws or is it more a matter of preference... And what are your preferences, what do you look for and hate in a game?

[Gaidax]

Just finished my first play-through ever including DLC's (all nightmare no less) and overall the game is good, although I believe it fell short of the expectations one would have after Origins.


Story:

The good:

•    It is rather nice to see a story which is not about yet another peasant/apprentice/footpad from some mud hovel in ye' ole' village embarking on a quest to save the world from the second hour of the gameplay. I see people bashing Act 1 for a lack of direction, but they kinda tend to miss the point that Hawke and his family are busy trying to survive as a bunch of unwelcome foreigners in a dangerous city ruled by gangs and righteous zealots who happen to "dislike" one of the family members for what he/she is. It's not about saving the world here, it's about making a living.

The bad:

•    Final act and ending are way too rushed, especially after the final battle, you pretty much almost get slammed in the face with credits after like 2 minutes of epilogue. In Origins, for example, the ending is really well done - you your several minutes of glory it the throne room and a last opportunity to talk to your companions and other NPCs of significance and then you even get a nice wrap up of impact of your decisions on various elements of the game beginning from the global "this and that happened with Orzammar" and up to "Thanks to your generous waste of cash, Betty moved into a city and opened a brewery". This sort of thing is really nice, because it shows that apart of your "I r hero and saved everyone", your ingame decisions matter in the fates of some puny mortals too besides the whole grand saving scheme.
•    Another issue with the story is that you are thrown in a city with a main theme being the whole templars and mages conflict with templars supposedly relentlessly hunting apostates to the point of genocide, yet you a pure-bred 100% apostate (and a blood mage no less!) can happily run around Gallows courtyard in a party of apostates with staves and robes, reeking of magic and Anders seemingly doing his best to ****** off every templar you are talking with and with all that you get absolutely no attention from templars whatsoever. This is just wrong, really.

Quests:

The good:

• The mail system is a good addition that makes a perfect sense, if people need your help, than they would want to seek you out one way or another and state their business with you. I also liked the spam, things like that Antiva bank account scam and "does your dwarf shy away from the Deep Roads?" put a smile on my face - more of that in DA3 please!

The bad:

•    Is it me or 98% of the quests I take result in an eventual bloodbath? This is quite bland, in my opinion. Add more "peaceful" sidequests that do not require you to perform yet another genocide to get any results. There seemed to be countless opportunities missed to introduce fun side quests, like you paying a visit to your neighbours or their party/ball/whatever in Act 2 or some more decision driven quests in Act 3 where you get to "flaunt" your status. Even such things as how you got to know "Lady" Elegant. A good example of a fun quest well done would be the whole Guardsman Donnic "fiasco" (minus the inevitable genocide).
•    Major quest that takes you to foreign lands would be welcome, from DLC we can see that Hawke was not exactly stuck in Kirkwall forever, giving us some core non-DLC quests that take you away from the usual cave/coast/mountain/Deep Roads and put us in a whole new location/map for several hours, would be extremely good - I am sure if it would be done there would be much less negative feedback floating around, since one of the major complaints was the fact that you were basically stuck in one place all the time.
•    Sidequests - you know the ones where you find some random item and you magically know that it belongs to a certain guy in Lowtown or whatever. I guess such kind of a reverse quest keeps your journal clear, but it makes me wonder if Hawke got some sort of psychic powers that will be expanded on in DA3.

Conversations/Chat Wheel:

The good:

•    It seems chat wheel allows you to actually adjust your character's personality over time, if you tend to chose more smartass remarks you will notice that as the game goes on, your character will be prone to respond in a sarcastic manner to some events even without the option to engage into an actual active conversation.
•    Party banter - good good good! It is fun and let's you squeeze out some more interesting information about your companions and now it also includes more than 2 people at a time. In MoTA DLC I seen you made another excellent addition to it by making Hawke a part of the occasional party banter. More of this in DA3!
•    Party members active participation in conversation - the cases where you can transfer decisions/conversation management to another, more suitable party memeber. This was a good touch, there should be more of it, IMO.
•    Investigate - good addition, which allows to recieve more information with little danger of accidentally setting off the events you did not intend to set off.

The bad:

•    Sometimes Hawke's actual responces are only vaguely close to what the wheel suggested or are delivered in an unappropriate manner (like the wheel says "a" and what you get out is "@").
•    Romance options - really badly done, honestly! The whole romancing part of the wheel should be redesigned for future game - not only the "heart" option seems to be a fireproof way to eventually bed your LI no matter how ridiculous it sounds or how unappropriate it is for the conversation at hand (like let's say Anders talking about his plight with Justice and your female Hawke out of blue starts to sprout some absolutely ridiculous lines that fall several centimiters short of "Screw your plight and agony, just bang me now, I'm in heat and that's all I care about!" and what's even worse is that it actually works in a long run. Honestly, this heart thing should be removed for good or at the very least appear only after you made enough initial progress to lead to the more intimate conversation - Origins did it right.
•    Party banter on a technical side of things - every time you do a quicksave, whatever line was being said there is lost completely (unlike in Origins where it kept going just fine) - this is really frustrating, especially considering that on Nightmare you are used to press F5 just about every 10 seconds outside the combat. Another issue is that much of the banter seems to trigger near the area transitions, so you are either forced to wait out before you move on, which is bearable or what's worse is the banter starting just about the same moment as you initiate the transition and then you see the loading screen and all you can do now is just yell "ffs" since you pretty much lost that conversation forever. Having a chat history would be nice too, btw.

Companions:

The good:

•    Companion equipment management - I like NOT being able to brutally slaughter the looks of my companions by equipping them with all sorts of armors. This reminds us that they are companions with their own needs and fashion guidelines and not some sort of overgrown barbie dolls to play around with. Updating their looks with various companion only "gifts" is a nice touch and should be explored further in DA3.
•    One-click remarks, in some places it is not appropriate to launch a fullblown conversation and having companions toss some sort of a short single sentence remark in a middle of (yet another) bloody quest is good overall. The bad part is that it is used everywhere, which is expanded further.

The bad:

•    Romance - again, it was honestly awfully done compared to Origins. Once you get through all the 100% success hearts and bed your LI it seems you do not hear much from it anymore. Sure he may pop a one-liner here and there in conversations, when you try to flirt with a random guy/gal but other than that there is simply nothing - you can't initiate a conversation with him even when alone. Basically bedding seemed to be a pinnacle of the romance in DAII, while in Origins it was merely a starting point or at the very least not the final destination after which there is nothingness.
•    Inability to launch any sort of conversation outside the companion quests or random gifts delivery. It is really awkward coming to let's say to Merrill's house and getting a single (and unchanging at that) line about how her house is a mess and that it is actually clean sometimes. Now I don't expect tea and cookies, especially considering that she has only water, but having a chat about life, her past or recent events in the city should have it's place. I find it strange that I could go as far as talking about shoes with Leliana in Origins and I can barely get to know who the heck my companions are in DAII. Now again, I don't exect this chatter to happen everywhere, but at the very least it should be there in the companion's "base" and maybe some of it in the city at day.

Locations:

The good:

•    Areas (as few as there are) are done well and look nicely and detailed overall

The bad (and a lot of it sadly):

•    Areas reused - areas reused as a whole would not be such an issue if it would not be as frequent and as badly done as in DAII... Not only the areas are reused in excess of 5-10 times in some cases, which is ridiculous, but there is literally 0 effort involved in actually attempting to mask it with textures or debris/furniture/trees/whatever. As if that was not bad enough, minimap exposes this grand fail even further showing us passages to the currently locked areas making this whole fail even more obvious. One word: HORRIBLE! Is this a Bioware game?
•    City seems to be rather small and dead - Kirkwall once held 1 million slaves in it and hell knows how many citizens, what we get to see can barely support 500 people with a stretch. The city is supposedly full with refugees and whatnot, but then we go on it's "streets" (I use this word with a huge stretch) and you see like a couple of merchants, several static people around here and there and maybe 2-3 "patrolling" guys. When the Lowtown "Bazaar" consits of whole 4-5 merchants with no clients and window shoppers around, you know something is wrong. Another thing is that there is abo****ely nothing of interest going on in the city, I mean it is a city filled with refugees, criminals and even apostates, yet there is not even one case of someone stealing or guards persuing some thief or templars walk around looking for apostates and questioning people... Even the trademark doom crier is not there. Nothing happens at all, despite the fact that at the start of Act 1 someone tried to snatch your purse.
•    Key locations seem to be ridiculously small - take the Gallows as example, when you arrive to the city you see a huge fortress welcoming you in the cinematic, what you eventually get to see, however, is a whole 2 ridiculously small areas, compared to the supposed size of Gallows. From what I seen, the whole Gallows could be easily packed inside the Origins' Circle Tower basement. Same story with the Dalish camp, I mean it's not even a camp - it's like 8 or so elves with several wagons - it would work for a one day camp, but not for the amount of time they were there.
•    Is it me or it never rains or snows in Kirkwall? Ok let's assume it is located in some sort of desert which it is not, then no sandstorms? Same about the areas... If you reuse the areas then at least add different weather schemes and sky textures, just to liven it up.

Creatures:

The good:

•    Errr... something? Well some bosses are cool and so are Quinari (or whatever the dominant race there is called), but that's about it. Dragons are well done as well.

The bad:

•    Darkspawn - one word: fail. They look like some undead clowns now, that is just bad... Emissaries on the other hand are way too robotic, the fact that they use Arcane Horror models is not helping really.
•    Elves - you made elves look ridiculous, although there is some effort to remedy the situation in DLC, so I guess you got the message already.

Combat:

The good:

•    Faster and smoother combat, I think it is done well overall with some minor gripes like lack of tactic view and some autoattack animations being a bit overblown like 2-h and staves ones... 2-h could use being a bit slower (but not Origins slow, heaven forbid) and autoattacking with staves is a bit overblown... it is cool, but honestly does everyone actually "need" to do all those acrobatics excercizes to shoot a bolt from a staff? Another minor problem is that autoattack sequence is too repetitive - it is all the same 4 small shots and then one big one being all completely the same all the time - a bit of random factor could be nice there or at least 3-4 different sequences per weapon just to make things less static.
•    Spells are well done, they look powerful, literally pack a punch with game physics applied and look much deadlier as they should be... Such spells as Cone of Cold and Chain Lightning get a special notice, being massively improved from Origins, where they were quite anemic compared to awesome DAII implementation.
•    Physics: physical/elemental force is a great addition that makes combat more lively and real, after all if I get a swing of huge weapon in my face I might go flying which happens sometimes and so with spells - getting zapped by chain lightning surely would interrupt me for some time at least. Good.
•    Waves: many people bash this one, but I think it more has to do with a fact that waves are overused (and the whole scotty beam thing) rather than being bad on their own. Waves as a whole are good, because it creates additional and unforseen surpirses that result in you saying to yourself "oh maaan..." or "oh ****..." and then ending up with you barely walking away alive in the end from what seemed an easy victory several minutes ago. Again, waves are good for the random surprise factor, but on the other hand this should be used much more rarely than it is now. I'd say drop it from 95% of the fights to let's 35-40% with rest being bosses (with or without waves) and classic throw everything at once.
•    Giving Potions a decent cooldown is a good touch compared to Origins where you could bruteforce stuff by chain chugging potions.

The bad:

•    Waves overused... Just too much, not every bloody fight should end up being the same old you being zerged down, it just loses the flavour fast. Waves are good, but not when you make them being 95% of all encounters.
•    Tele-spawning, now people jumping out of windows, roofs, side doors or caves and even doing it from the back where you supposedly cleared the area are ok (even good, I like my softies being swarmed - adds to difficulty and thus more fun), but enemies swooping on you from a thin air is not good and we all know that swooping is bad.
•    AI: Is it me or enemy AI even with me playing on nightmare is kinda crappy? Enemies mostly have 0 ability to deal with even slightest kiting and I am not talking about running away to the entrance to set them up a bomb in a choke point, but such things as you being attacked by 5 guys in melee and if you start moving around in circles they will never be able to hit you AT ALL, even if you decide to run straight through them. Basically them moment you remove all the mages, ranged attackers and occasional melee with cc like Rage Demons or Assasins with it's teleport, then you have already won, even if there are like 10 melee guys running around after you. Another issue is that apart from bosses every enemy out there seems to have only one, maximun 2 abilities they ever use. I never seen any non-boss guy use anything like mighty blow or pinning shot against my team and those are not really some sort of super-elite pro fighter abilities considering you get to instantly learn them pretty much at any level, so your average joe should be able to pull it out here and there.

Abilites, talents and classes:

The good:

•    Talent trees are significantly improved compared to Origins, I like the shift from the Origins ability bars being overloaded by useless crap that you have to waste points on just to get to that one ability out of 4 that actually worths it (Mana Clash, for example). DAII gone the different and better route of having less spells that do more and you are relatively free to chose what spells you want to boost more at expense of the others. Another thing is that most of the spells are now Origins Fireball-class spells, which are not only damage, but also CC and can be used in multiple creative ways. IMO, having less spells that do more is a way to go overall.
•    Cross class combos - while I (on average) did not really rely on those in my nightmare campaign, these are really a treat for those who want to micro-manage some more and adds more to the combat overall.
•    Force mage specialization rocks, despite the fact that it has nearly no damaging abilities.

The bad:

•    Blood Mage specialisation - while fun by itself, it really should not have existed in DAII for many reasons, first of all it ruins immersion - you being a blood mage, using blood magic right and left to kill of scores of enemies, many of which are in the middle of Kirkwall, swarming with templars, yet the said templars do absolutely nothing to stop your apostate rampage (apostate by itself is bad, but apostate blood mage hugging and chatting with oblivious templars, despite the fact that you obliterate packs of dirtiest scoundrels with obvious blood magic and none ever rats on you and no rumors are going... what?).
•    I'd say 3 specialisations are a bit low there... 4 would be much better and give more replay value.
•    Warriors - did not play one yet but from what I seen it is based around using multiple dramatic and rather short or active upkeep based damage boosts to operate well... Honestly, pressing some button every several seconds just to buff yourself to the decent damage level is not my cup of tea. One major boost to activate once in a while - cool, but not like 3 different abilities to use constantly that do nothing except for buffing you.

Items, inventory, UI:

The good:

•    Overall I like UI, despite it being sci-fi'ish, it is very nicely done and is smooth and easy to use.
•    Junk storage is a good addition.
•    Stars make a nice quick guideline that helps you sort the stuff.

The bad:

•    Items with the same name are a huge pain in the ass... seeing 5 "Ring" and 4 "Belt" items gives me a headache.

Graphics:

The good:

•    I use Radeon 6990 so I got to experience all you had to throw at me and it was good. DX11 adds nice movie-like effects that are really good overall and it runs smoothly as a silk, and surprisingly even better than Origins... engine is well optimised, good job.

The bad:

•    Lighting is a bit off sometimes, most glaring example is MoTA DLC, when you are in a cell with no window and little light sources around, yet the lighting is like if you are standing under a daylight lamp or something.

Sound:

The good:

•    Sound is clear and voiceover is good.

The bad:

•    No memorable soundtracks at all, Origins had amazing soundtrack with Leliana's song being especially worthy of a note... nothing like that in DAII - either reused or new stuff which is not that memorable (MoTA DLC was good in a final battle, however, the only one I really remember).

Overall:

    Overall I'd say the game is fine, I'd give it 6.5/10, the main and critical flaws are being a rushed and inconclusive conclusion, ridiculously extensive reuse of areas with no effort to conceal it, glaring story inconcistensies while playing a mage Hawke, companion relations took a step back from what was in Origins and finally the game pales in comparison to it's predecessor. On the other hand, combat is good, engine is good, game looks good and DLC's are a huge step forward that show what this game could be with a more time investment. I'd say if DA3 would give us RPG on Origins level with DA2 engine, UI and talent/skills mindset - it would absolutely rock.

  Good thing is that Bioware seems to listen to feedback, DLC is a proof of this, so I keep my hopes for DA3.

[TheWasian]

I agree with a lot Gaidax said and here is my quick input.

I completed my first playthrough of DA 2 about a week ago. I have to say I like DA:O a lot more as far as being an actual rpg. DA:O seemed to have a lot more character interaction, romances could be reinitiated after they were established, character/companion background was a lot more in-depth, skill tree was a lot more versatile, etc.

DA 2 seemed to focus on story and "polish" (combat look/graphics/etc.). Which don't get me wrong that's a good thing! Yet in an rpg you need to focus on rounding out actual interaction to make you feel like you ARE that character. DA:O executed this perfectly, but I constantly found DA 2 lacking. DA:O let you dig deep into your companions history, the games world history.

DA 2 in my honest opinion had what DA:O didn't which was the "cool" feel in combat from the more grueling looking combat scenes, etc. Yet at the same time DA:O still had the scenes where you killed Ogres and it would slow mo and show you doing the final blow on it. Wheras in DA 2 that doesn't appear to happen anymore. It's just a small touch up they took away but even the small things matter.

Companion customization was limited. I liked this but I can see how some people don't, you could no longer completely equip your companions with what armor you choose. For me this was great as I didn't have to worry about scrounging around for equipment, which I liked so I won't go into detail.

The skill tree was something else I didn't like in DA 2. Unlike DA:O it seemed harder to branch out to different skills and do a sort of "mix-and-match" as upgrades to abilities cost a full point. I just overall like DA:O's style of skill tree. Not to mention being a mage in this game seems so much more dull. I didn't like the concept of Lifeward being a potion. Heal, regeneration, rejuvenation, lifeward, and revival were all spells that made being a support class in DA:O so much fun (in my opinion) you kept your allies alive by healing them and keeping them alive/bringing them back to life. When they took that out of DA 2, I found being a mage so extremely boring as instead of healing so much and keeping them alive by support spells, it felt that I was forced to use offensive spells. DA:O provided you a chance to be more versatile in your combat role as a mage.

Not to make this sound like DA 2 was bad, I did like several things in DA 2. The texture pack was an amazing option, scenes where you interacted with characters changed a lot (example: inviting Merrill to live with you and you have scenes where you talk with her by the window, by the fireplace, etc.) it's nice when you're not always talking in the same spot, like the camp in DA:O. The combat animations were well done also hearing your own character talk a lot more was nice too haha.

Overall DA 2 was a good game but in my opinion it isn't great. DA:O seemed to be a lot better for me even with the authentication issues,etc. it had that DA 2 wasn't plagued with.


I know, I know I'm late in the game, but I wanted to get this off my chest. Also constructive criticism is welcome! Even though I know it may be controversial.

Modifié par TheWasian, 28 octobre 2011 - 09:11 .

[dsl08002]

This is going to be my review of DA2

The good things:

In Dragon age 2 we would be able to expand our view of the DA franchise both in gameplay and in storytelling. DA2 does handle it by going deeper in the conflict between the mages and templar and we learn more of the qunari.
In DAO we played as a grey warden with a mission to save the world, in DA2 we take a break from that which is good cause it could be braggin to save the world once again in the next game,

the graphics in DA2 is better than DAo and most importent all the people that you meet all look different compared to origin where everyone looked the same.

DA2 also came with a voiced protaganist as ME did, and this is actually good cinsidering your character felt more alive.

New companions in the game was well chosen by bioware to be in the game. Adn the romance seens was better.

The gameplay as mage was an massive improvement cause it was cool to fight like that.

the desicion in DA2 also carried consequences throughout the game and you don´t really know if you made the right call.

The bad things:

In DA2 there were to many reused areas such as dungeouns and caves and it was boring in the long run. Then you were only bound to one place and that is kirkwall and around it.

Then its the gameplay part where you didn´t get the realistic action but instead it was a quick slash and kill gameplay and sometimes enemys explode with a single cut from your sword. Several times the enemies just jumped down ledges when you were almost done fighting. You weren´t able to get the more tactical approach.

Storyline is very thin and predictable and very often you had to go back to several location.
It wasn´t like Origins which had a very strong story that could take strange side turns. ALL your desicion that you made in Origins Never had any impact on the Storyline and you didn´t get reference to The wardens either.

Dialouge options with the Me wheel was very restricted because you could only fit with maximum
5 options meanwhile DAO had 8 whose dialouge options were all different.

Main Character Hawke is in my opinion not the best hero of all games, he/she is already a set character from beginning and we can only choose Name and face, you didn´t really bond with him/her as you did with the warden from DAO.

Companions are good in the game but they arn´t in the same league as Leliana, Alistair, morrigan, Sten,Oghren and so on. The most major flaw was that you couldn´t talk to your companions whenever you could, you could only talk to them at a specific time. Therefor you didn´t really bond with them as you did in origins as when you could actually feel the friendship between the characters or like the romance options. Also you couldn´t customize your characters armors or anything like that



Final verdict:

DA2 would be a good game IF it were the first game, but now it isn´t. If it were then my grade would be higher. The major problem i had with the game is that the should have sticked with the character from Origins and continue the story from there.

DA2 isn´t my kind of game most because it is not a good sequal to DAO which is the best game so far.

Therefor my grade for the game is

4 / 10

Unlike the First game DAO who took % years to complete, DA2 was actually rushed with only 1,5 years and it brought

[aaronil]

Great review Gaidax!

Here's my review based on 2 playthroughs as mage and warrior, and halfway through a rogue playthrough. I played through Legacy DLC and Mark of the Assassin DLC with the warrior. Also, I'm not a diehard computer gamer - it had been over 5 years since I played a video game, and DA:O was how I got back into it. And I continued with DA2 and DLCs. So that says a lot.

With this review I tried to cover new critiques of DA2 rather than technical ones that are often pointed to.

DA2 Review by Aaron (@aaronil), 10/29/11

Overall (7/10): I enjoyed the game, faults and all, and am interested to see how the larger story connects DA2 with DA:O. Unfortunately, the game's flaws slightly overshadowed its strengths.
The best points of DA2 really engaged me with this world the Dragon Age team has lovingly crafted. It's a fascinating world, and I look forward to learning more about it. What impressed me the most were: (1) the characters, and (2) the mythos & codex.
At the same time I felt DA2 aspired to be more than it turned out to be - the result was a flat experience. I wasn't as immersed in the game world as I had been with DA:O because of two things: (1) suspension of disbelief, and (2) scope.

Characters (+)
In many ways the characters of DA2, the great voice acting, and occasionally hilarious script were the game's saving grace during mediocre moments where I lost interest. And then there were times when the dialogue was just brilliant and I laughed out loud. The characters were so well done. Three examples come to mind...

(1) Comedy, especially countless Isabela & Varric lines. Let's see... One from Varric: "I think that statue is a statement on modern life. Possibly the statement is 'well, ****...'" And the time Isabela sets herself up when going to see Castillon's man "Come on, haven't you ever wanted to slap me? Even a little" Before you answer every other party members say "Yes." More like that!

(2) The way Hawke's auto responses adapt to the player's tendency toward a certain attitude in the dialogue wheel. I loved that. Occasionally something I didn't expect would come out of Hawke's mouth, but the great script and actor delivery dwarfed any issues. And the way Hawke's expressions tied into the actor's inflection amazed me. Great work!

(3) Unlocking deeper conversations with NPCs and companions made the world much more vivid and often gave depth to the current quest. In particular I'm thinking of the conversations with Meredith where you learn her sad backstory and how that's driven her to become the misguided leader of the Kirkwall templars. In just a short conversation her character became much more sympathetic and multi-dimensional.

(4) Ok, four examples - cause the characters were really that good. The Qunari. Everything about them is fresh. I almost was disappointed that the mage-templar conflict figured so prominently cause I was very intrigued by the Arishok and the Qun. The Mark of the Assassin DLC only magnified my interest. The Qunari world view, their social structure, and how they convert others merits an entire game!  The most insightful conversations that Hawke had during the game were with the Arishok IMO.

Mythos & Codex (+)
One of the things I liked the most about DA:O and the entire DA franchise is the importance of myths and legends. I was glad to see this continue in DA2. In fact, the amount of lore is overwhelming, which makes the well-organized codex a welcome addition. My favorite aspects of the mythos include these three examples...

(1) The way different pieces of lore tie into each other to give a sense of the bigger picture. I only wish that more of this came through character/environment interaction rather than through pop-up boxes when you read a book (I prefer games and books separate).

(2) I like the ambiguity of the divine in Dragon Age. DA2 in particular makes this more of a question by contrasting the dalish elves with the Chantry, and by calling into question the whole hierarchy the Chantry operates with. Just what is Fen Harel the Dreadwolf? Is Flemeth an old god, a dragon, both? Is the Qun a religion with its own god or is it a religious-like philosophy? Really fresh take on how important religion is, but also how ambigious it can be; I don't think I've seen that done outside of sci-fi literature. And DA2 does it quite well.

(3) There are several points in the game where knowing the mythos and lore help you succeed in a quest. Since I just played Mark of the Assassin, the wyvern scenario is fresh in my mind. I loved the investigation involved and how it really paid off to research and take your time preparing.

Supension of Disbelief (-)
Everytime the game started to get gripping and I found myself intrigued, something would completely pull me out of the experience. Three examples of what I mean...

(1) Every mage and their brother in Kirkwall seemed to be possessed by demons. The third time I faced a quest involving psycho mages I just laughed. It could have worked if discovering the root cause of the crazies was part of the main quest, but it came across as ridiculous the way it was done.

(2) Isabela asking you to watch her back at her supposed meetup with Castillo (the first quest she gives ). A moment after meeting you she's asking you to protect her life? No way. And when you ask her "why me?" she basically gives a non-answer. Of course I could refuse the quest, but at least give me a reason I'm being asked and a motivation for why I'd want to take the quest.

(3) It's clear that we're meant to care about NPCs and feel like we're rising to power. However, the amount of screen time NPCs gets and the passage of time between Acts totally killed this for me. I wanted to care, but I didn't have enough history with the NPCs - or maybe they weren't three dimensional enough - to be invested in what happened to them. Then WHAM, time passes and new situations and NPCs are introduced, and I'm left trying to figure out what the heck happened, and why I should care about these new NPCs.

Scope (-)
During both my playthroughs I was left confused by DA2's scope. By scope I mean the boundaries of the game's story and the extent to which I can expect the hero's actions to make a difference. Here are three examples of how the scope in DA2 didn't work...

(1) The central story felt diluted because of the isolation of the various acts. The whole setup of DA2 was zeroing in on a trigger point of conflict. Act 2 and Act 3 had different conflicting factions, but the division of the Acts without much cross-pollination made it hard to tell which was the main quest. If one was more important then I'd have preferred the other to have been simply background. If both were equally important I'd have preferred their stories be deeply intertwined and not segmented artificially by Acts.

(2) So many times playing DA2 I felt handicapped like my decisions really didn't matter. Perfect example is the quest involving your loved one; all the attention to detail in the investigation and no matter how fast you get past obstacles, the horrible end result is the same. It's an uncontrollable fate, not a hero rising to their destiny.

(3) As soon as I saw the map of Kirkwall I figured it was just part of the world map. After getting acquainted with the game I realized that Kirkwall was the entire focus of the game. Then I kept meeting foreign NPCs with lush descriptions of their homelands, and finding written accounts of other lands; so I thought maybe another Act would take place outside of the Free Marches. After several trips to the Wounded Coast I began to feel trapped by DA2's "world." The extent of the game world felt muddled at the beginning and then claustrophobic at the end. If a story is focused on a narrow area/theme, I think it's best served with ultra clarity that it's about just that area/theme - and it needs exquisite attention to detail.

To wrap up my review, with so many unresolved mysteries, disjointed acts, limited/muddled scope, and abrupt ending, DA2 feels incomplete. Unfortunately these flaws made it harder to appreciate the game's strengths and the great creative effort that's gone into Dragon Age.

[Shadow6773]

My DA2 Review

 Graphics and Design: The first thing you literally see in any game. They are to many people, "kinda a big deal".

The graphics are vastly improved from DAO. Everything is crisp, clear and looks good. I would like to see them use a new engine but strictly from a graphical standpoint I have no complaints.  Race design was a mixed bag. I understood WHY they would change elf and Qunari looks, however I am not a fan of the new elves and their accents. Many people make the argument the previous design was just smaller framed humans with pointy ears, however I think it looked better and it was already obvious they were different from how they were treated alone(we have discriminated others for much more minor details so lets not argue that). I will say the darkspawn aldo did not benefit from Bioware's artistical brilliance in their changes. I will not go into level design as we all know about the copy paste dungeons. 

Characters and Character Interaction[/b]: Characters and interaction with them are there to immerse you into the story and bring things into perspective. They can make or break the game and the good ones are literally game icons, well known by fans and non fans alike. 

Sad to say but many of the characters fell flat for me. Maybe its because they all were stereotypes and predictable, maybe its because of the forced humor, maybe its because over a "10 year" period in the game you just are not allowed to interact with them as much as you would like and were not able to influence change in them. In any case I will elaborate.. Having half a dozen conversations with one character over the course of a game is not enough for immersion. Not being able to speak to and learn about them whenever you like is not good either. This in effect made your chosen companions and love interest not very companion-ish. DAO did this very well. DA2 not so much. 

I was not sure where to put my comments on the Conversation Wheel.. however seeing how it is such a huge part of character interaction I decided to stick it in here.

On the surface the idea seems good, but there are issues. The good thing about the wheel is now you have obvious(really) tones of conversation. The bad part is, oddly enough, also part of the "good part" in that there is a huge lack of and incongruity with the paraphrasing or labeled icon meaning. In DAO this was not an issue as when you picked your response you could read all of it and understand the multiple meanings/statements entailed as our quick minds(some quicker then others) did the job for us. You could easily layer in several tones, actually throwing in sarcasm, but also making a serious point for example. With this new system you can only get the overall tone but no idea of actual message. Its like saying that I will give you a fruit. You now know kinda what to expect, but its non specific whatsoever as I could hand you most anything fitting that group. Expecting an apple and getting a watermelon is a big difference folks. Personally, not knowing what the character will say does not help me with immersion.

Basically..

I am not sure about you but during the course of a normal day at least half of what I say is very much layered in meaning and tone. Sure I may joke and be serious half the time but the rest is a mixed bag and you can't design a nifty icon for that. The wheel may not need to disappear but it needs refinement as I see it as a limiter of my dialog options. Not only does it limit my options but now also becomes predictable when you figure out what comments or "icons" each character likes. Part of the fun and realism that DAO had was not being sure how any character would react to a given statement at any given time, even though you knew exactly what you where saying. Once again, anything that hurts player immersion is bad and needs to be fixed. Fix/redesign the wheel Bioware.

Voice Acting and Soundtrack[/b]: Because you need cool stuff to listen to while you kill things and you sometimes wanna hear what your companions say.

The voice acting for DA2 is a shiny ray of light in an otherwise dark tunnel. Special kudos to female Hawke. That being said, I  really never expected otherwise. DAO had it and DA2 does deliver here as well. The soundtrack I am sorry to say was not memorable. Its lacked any recognizable theme like DAO's main one and also no great stand alone like Leliana's Song. It was obviously rushed and did not help heighten the mood. 

Combat Mechanics and Character Gear: How you get from Point A to B in an expedient(violent) manner and with what stuff.

The combat is faster. Yay. The area camera is gone. Boo. Overall better, but not perfect. The "crafting" is meh and the cross class combos are not as good as they could be, they also try to hard to be "cross class" when having some combo's of your own is nice. Swooping and exploding enemies aside, Bioware also needs to be careful with character design/role. I liked the skill trees and the individual ones, however having only one character who can actually heal around and needing a tank mean you can't always have what you want in your party and limit what you can do. Did I make it through the game without having to listen to Anders in my party? Yes. Was it fun or easy? No. The inventory was a mess and lack of real loot was a bummer. The fact they they would not even label individual rings and such is incredibly lazy. On another note: if they want to simplify things, they could have added this.. when a character searches a body only have them "find" the useful things for me to pilfer because a good ai would do that. If I find another pair of torn trousers I will freak. There should be no junk taking up my inventory because its.. yah know, junk. Do you carry useless things with you all day? We should not even have a junk section in the inventory.

Armor and weapons.. not enough of them and a real problem being you have to min/max your stats to carry any of it so that hurts character design. I understand why they would make a fixed character "armor"/"look"/"uniform" or whatever. What I do not understand is why we don't have the option to equip them with it and then (if we choose)just toggle their look to a standard one like most game allow, for example, if you have like a gaudy helmet. 

Story/Plot: Each game has at least a shred of one, hopefully it makes sense. If its awful, its likely not a main selling point anyhow and that folks.. is usually called P*rn. Haha, I made a funny!
 
I will say this about DA2's story. I like the idea. Rising up from nobody to champion, navigating my way through treacherous political waters by way of cunning and influence, being a real power of change in my chosen home. I want that! Sounds awesome(smack that button!). Sadly the implementation was not so good. The story is designed to take place over ten years however on the surface very little changes with Hawke besides the cosmetic, ie living conditions. Even less changes with the other characters including their outfits, aging and attitude which is all static unless you romance them. Otherwise I assume they all have 50 of the same matching outfits in their closet. Part of the problem is the framed narrative and the time skips forcing the game into three parts. Another issue is the lack of a branching story line which makes your character feel very reactive to things as opposed to influencing them. Compounding this is the fact that other then being able to slaughter random mobs your character does not seem to have much influence for their station and thus can only solve problems by killing them. Choices are forced upon you with no real reason or gain to improve the story. What is worse, the choices make no difference in the overall story itself. The illusion of choice is all but transparent. The story's plot pits mages and templars against one another but nobody seems to be a happy medium and they both act very extreme for what is supposed to be a generally grey area realm. Aside from the vendors the city was clearly made up of lunatics for the most part. None of this really helps immersion and is quite confusing at times. 



Overall Rating: I give the game a 7/10. It lacks much of what made DAO great, has many issues both with the game and its identity and although my review may seem mostly negative, if it was a stand alone game it may have rated better. However because it is not, the issues mentioned in what is a second installment of a successful game are not as acceptable. Many things were overcompensated for when they just needed a slight adjustment and some things were good ideas but suffered from poor implementation and just plain being rushed. My average play through was a little more then half of what it took for me to beat DAO. Sadly without a good branching story line the game lacks reply value except for trying out other classes as the choices you make are moot. Given that DAO not only had several Origins stories and a choice driven outcome It comes nowhere close to the amount of time I have spend on DAO and have only beaten it 2x compared to DAO's double digits. Honestly I have no desire to pick it up again at this time. Hopefully from feedback DA3 will better represent a true sequel and fix the current identity issues with the franchise. From the DLC they are at least stumbling in the right direction.

Also kudos to Gaidax and Aaronil. I enjoyed reading your reviews and agree with almost all of what both of you had to say. 

Modifié par Shadow6773, 04 novembre 2011 - 09:19 .

[Phaedros]

dsl08002 wrote..
Unlike the First game DAO who took % years to complete, DA2 was actually rushed with only 1,5 years and it brought

5 years I believe.

But...  Given such a short dev time why say let's redesign from the ground up ..when DA:O was such a critical success .. beggars belief !

Could have followed on... 

[GraysonBurrows]

I just finished DA2 today. I paid $13.00 and give it a B-. I really liked Isabella. The idea of the upgrading weapons, Bianca, should continue. The battles, well the could have used some polish. It was a fun diversion before starting up Skyrim.

[Sylfschiffer]

Unlike others fans, I really LOVE DA2 it was the best game I've ever played in my life. Even after more than 8 games of DAO, I still think the second game is better. Faster fights, better characters graphic (even if I miss Alistair xD), better characters relationships, a lot of subtilities from DAO and that our actions in DAO can be really seen from another point of view is awesome.
Also, the voiced character just killed me, I love it! And there's more humor ~ yay
I did more than 6 games (and yeah I have a life it's just that I kind of don't play anything else) in DA2, it still entertains me ^__^ and I can't find any default... really. Yes there are, like every game, but there's so minor to me. When someone talked to me about the spawning ennemies that come again again again and again, I was like "Wut? What're you talking about? It's just fine like this, doesn't it?"
What I can miss about DAO was the more "Middle Age" part. With wooden houses (less "urban") and more differences between social classes. Still, it's so great. I see it as the technology is going on (and Kirkwall is a big city so)

Modifié par Sylfschiffer, 14 novembre 2011 - 12:44 .

[SJackL]

I think BioWare provides good games with one serious flaw.  I like the Dragon Age series but I simply do not understand why Bioware does not address known bugs.  As an example, in Origins, there never was a patch for the elven armor gloves for PC.  In Dragon Age II, for PC, the DLC is full of bugs, but no patch.  Isn't it a tad sad to charge people for add ons and then do nothing to correct the problems with them?  To want a product that does what is intended is hardly complaining.

[BoricuaHLM]

New to the Dragon Age series really enjoyed the whole, but I guess my only problem is the last act, as it was rushed and the fact I can't do anything after the campaign and almost linear story line. However I can't stop playing it so no real complaint except what I mentioned.

[furryrage59]

b00mQQ wrote...

Dragon Age II was an amazing accomplishment by BioWare. Nearly every aspect of the core game was drastically improved, from the combat system and crafting to inventory management and companions.

What I really liked about it this time around is you can't buff your character to the point of invincibility as you could in Dragon Age: Origins. It truly made the game more challenging. In Dragon Age: Origins you could craft and buff yourself with just about every potion in the game simultaneously resulting in an extremely overpowered hero. You could solo the entire game on Nightmare like this, and I believe this was a gamebreaking issue. This was fixed in Dragon Age II and it made for a much more fluid and engaging experience since you actually feel like you need your companions at your side to back you up. Combat was more interactive and faster paced. Instead of waiting for my character to get into position as a Rogue I can just jump into the action and I really felt like an agile cunning Rogue instead of a Warrior with daggers. This was huge for me. However, I do believe that attacking was way too fast. The characters attack at unrealistically fast speeds. Yes, I know this is a fantasy game - but I've yet to see anyone in a fantasy setting jab someone with daggers 5 times within 1.5 to 2 seconds.

Character advancement was drastically improved. What I didn't like about Dragon Age: Origins was fixed in Dragon Age II and that's adburd combos such as Arcane Warrior. Additionally, every point I put into my character truly feels like it make my character stronger. This was satisgying. Even by level 5 you feel like you are so much stronger than you were at level 1. Toward the end of the game, you feel like a powerful hero, yet the game remains challenging. That is one thing that was missing from Dragon Age: Origins - truly feeling like your character is progressing.

The setting was okay, but I would prefer the story to go back to the 'epic adventure' style that Dragon Age: Origins had. The entire game taking place in one city was kind of discouraging and I often find it hard to play through the game more than one time. Kirkwall has some great points and it's truly an enormous city, but being confined in this one city truly removed the 'epic' feel that Dragon Age: Origins had as you were traveling all over Ferelden. That being said, the actual story itself was quite epic. Watching Hawk rise from a refuge to Champion of Kirkwall was quite a treat. I really enjoyed this, and I felt the writing was well done, as always from BioWare.

I felt the bosses were a lot better done this time around. The dragons are actually fun to fight rather than annoying, and the bosses in general are just fun to fight. The final boss in more than one occasion actually caused my heart rate to pick up. It was exhilarating!

Companions... just great. Loved them. They all had great personalities. I felt they could have gotten involved in the dialogues more often, but in general they were a great improvement. I really liked how each companion had their own armor sets so everyone doesn't end up looking identical, and how there was lore behind certain aspects of the armor. For instance, Aveline and her shield.

Now... on to what I think would make Dragon Age III surpass its predecessor:

• Make the story carry you throughout Fereldon, rather than just a single city wit a few outskirt areas that are just mere clones of each other.
• Make each dungeon, cave, building etc truly unique. This was acceptable in Dragon Age II as it took place in one city, but it would not work out in any other environment.
• Add puzzles to the dungeons! I cannot express this enough. Puzzles are just great! Dragon Age: Origins had a couple and I loved them. I feel each dungeon should have puzzles you need to solve to progress through the dungeon.
• Slow down combat just a tad. It doesn't need to be as slow as Dragon Age: Origins, but a mix between Dragon Age II and its predecessor would be a great blend.
• Add a few additional aspects of crafting - Armorsmith and Weaponsmith would be great. Also make it where throughout the game you will collect 'patterns' so you can learn how to make more advanced and higher quality armor. Equipment dropped from bosses should however remain the most powerful items in the game.
• Continue giving us new quests after we've beaten the game. Maybe add a few high-level dungeons that can only be completed once you've beaten the game and require high level items to complete. Make them extremely challenging! These should be geared for those who have completed the game and obtained the most powerful items in the game, so they should be extremely difficult!
• Add stuff that gives us a reason to play the game more than once! As I said earlier, it's really hard for me to play through Dragon Age II more than once. If I want to relive the story, I can just read lore or books. I want a reason to do a second or third playthrough!

All In all I thoroughly enjoyed Dragon Age II and am looking forward to see what else BioWare does with DLC and what they come up with for Dragon Age III. I'm hoping you guys release at least a tailer or somehting at E3 in 2012!

(Please excuse the typos. My spell checker isn't working on this forum for some reason. >)

Good troll, it got me.

[Tuleron]

100% agree with Gaidax, you just read my mind buddy.
I don't have mutch time to give my overall of the game, but it'll be the same opinion that Gaidax.
Poor game to be a game from Bioware and a sequel from DA:O, really, i expected MUCH MORE.
The game didn't reflect the story of the game, it's like two separate things: you convert to Champion of KirkWall from what? Stop the invasion and killing a punch of Qunaris and their "Master"? And traveling on the "Deeps Roads" that was 3 caverns with some darkspawns?
Really, DA:O was a awesome game, so bad that you ruin like this making a so short game for casual players that just plays 2 or 3 hours and give up (like Nightmare mode that is just a poor difficult lvl compared to Nightmate from DA:O).
Rpg' games are not for casual players, stop triying to sell the game, stop doing what EA ask, pls.

Edit: Really, i love the story, it's freaking awesome, but i'm still thinking that you could make a GIANT game, but you didn't, i will wait for DA3 and "pray" that you come back on your steps and make a game like oldest time, like Baldur's Gate or Dragon Age who left a mark in the RPG's world.

Bye ppl.

Modifié par Tuleron, 23 novembre 2011 - 06:29 .

[AnnaBananaBamBamBoo]

Is there going to be a Dragon Age III? I'm playing Skyrim now and couldn't give a @%$ about the Dragon Age franchise any more after the compleat letdown of DA:2 and the compleat SUCCESS of Skyrim. Quit the linear storyline, open up the Sword Coast for free roam (what the heck is this stupid pathlike area that leads to monsters and views of a beautiful coast that you can't touch????), make the menus RPG-pleasing (what's this dumbed-down BS?), where's the huge labrynth-like area that was in DA:O's Dwarven underground? I can't believe the compleat failure of the Dragon Age franchise, it's been a compleat letdown altogether but I don't give a rat's **** because I got what I want in Skyrim, can't wait for the user mods!

[XAXRXCXLXIXGXHXTX]

As a long time fan of BG and IWD series this will be the last time i will be buying anything D&D wise from BioWare, they have moved away from what made BG and IWD so great it has become well....sad. I like BioWare, but it has become my fault thinking this new franchise of DA would be like BG and IWD, oh well.

[Shadow Warior]

Let me start by saying the game is world class, so congrats to all the devs who brought it to life, looking forward for more DAz.  I’m a pc player, played on nightmare as a mage, so I will be a little biased.

Graphics/art
So much color, I love it. I like how I can see throw the mini map, screen economy. The frame rate drops so low sometimes that the game crashes, not a big issue just saying I don’t like it. Re-used maps, I think you got the message. Saving some areas for each chapter would be great. I always knew where to go during a quest and I  love that.

Enemy archetypes
The only enemy a liked to play with was the ogre, because I could predict what his next move was, and when I failed I lived to tell the tale. I hate assassins, arcane horrors and blood mages; these are the kill or be killed types of enemies. I want to let them hit me see what they can do and fight back.

Story
The story is great overall; I wish more games where as good.  A lot of people don’t like the bottleneck effect, not that I like it; I know why you did it, hope that future DAz benefit and it doesn’t become a habit. Party banter, keep it up, awesome. Characters are well written but they were single minded, I mean you couldn’t change their point of view, as a result some will become rivals and others friends if you don’t visit wiki. A tip on who to bring and the consequences of your choices will be nice. The game lacked adventure, more quests like the one at the end of act 1.

Talents/Spells
Let us pick the spell or talent when we start the game. Skill trees are good, I would prefer the witcher 2 style where you choose between a or b to get to c. I couldn´t pick half a tree because of the great bonuses for completing one. Blood magic could look better; make it more demonic, red smoldering eyes or somesuch. Arcane shield is distracting, needs some improvement; some spells are a must have like heal and rock armor, a substitute would be nice.

Combat
I like the fast combat, best part is when warriors charge. The cross class combos are good but I would like a different indicator for brittle, stagger and disoriented, not an icon overhead, something visual on enemies. Tactics are good, what a really liked is that I could have 2 conditions for the same tactic.

Animation
Facial animations are great, in too many games I saw that the only animation characters had is their mouth going up and down. There are some problems with necks, just saying so you can fix it.

Items/equipment
More sums it up. Not much choice when it comes to equipment; after a while armor repeats itself only has different stats, at the end of the game there’s only one choice when it comes to armor, it makes sense, since you have a limited time until release, I would suggest to allow us to upgrade armors by remaking them at a smith with a different metals that we find, change the texture/color for each metal let us chose not only the metal (metal color) but the stats which come with the metal, maybe chose the color of the fabric(limited colors). I’m not an artist but to my mind changing armor is faster than making a new one. Give us the option to add more armor (visually) by upgrading it and I’m happy. Or at least legendary equipment (purple) should improve with level up; that applies to rings and amulets as well. The star system was good at the beginning and then lost its charm, it’s a good system just needs some work.

Friendly fire
Make spells and talents friendlier to ff. For example if firestorm had less duration it could increases the chance to not run into it, if winters grasp had a separate upgrade to cause aoe and another to make enemies brittle, of course if you’re playing as Hawk you can pick anything because you can judge when to use it. FF made me chose spells and talents that don’t cause ff, not cool.   A cheap solution is to give as the option to turn ff on or off on any difficulty.

Modifié par Shadow Warior, 11 décembre 2011 - 08:10 .

[dragonavicious]

Let me start out by saying Bioware is my favorite game company and Dragon Age Origins is my favorite game of all time. I didn’t even know anything about it and bought it for my boyfriend when it came out but now, 2 years later, I’ve bought myself a copy and played through all the origins multiple times (sometimes the same character multiple times). To me it is like a favorite novel, even though the story never changes you can read it over and over and get different things out of it.

I was disappointed with DA2, it didn’t have the emotion, the depth of DAO. To me it just felt like a video game, easily lost in the sea of similar ones, not the epic novel like tale I was expecting. I’m just going to list my pro’s and con’s, hopefully that way someone will read them.


Good Things About DA2:

1) Better Graphics: The main character Graphics were considerably improved. That was obvious. I liked the new hairstyles as well.

2) Friends/Rivals – I liked that whether you became friends or rivals you’d unlock bonuses for your companions. I thought that was a good way to make sure people could still play the way they wanted without being penalized for it.

3) Family – I loved that you had a family that interacted with you. I loved this about DAO as well. You would meet up with a family member again and get to talk to them, it seemed realistic. It was just better fleshed out in DA2 because Bethany or Carver could be battle companions.

4) Character Specific Clothes - I liked that your companions had a specific style and that you didn't get to change their clothes every five seconds. However I would have liked to see a little bit more customization. It was supposed to take place over almost 10 years, they should have switched up their wardrobe a bit at the very least.



Bad Things About DA2:

1) Boring Title: I thought the Title, Dragon Age 2, when the first was Dragon Age: Origins, was uninspired. However that is just me nitpicking, and doesn't really reflect on the game.

2) Very Recycled: Recycled maps and bad graphics on background NPC characters. After I went through the third cave that was clearly identical I started to get really frustrated with the game.

3) Claustrophobic: It felt closed off being in one boring city the entire time. There wasn't really any sense of adventure or exploring. Now I don't want you to be open world like Skyrim or anything because thats not the type of games you do, but having different pathed places to visit would be nice.

4) Linear Story: The story was way too linear. It felt like it was on rails like a FPS, not an RPG.

5) Dialogue Options: They were lacking. I would have been willing to give up the voiced protagonist if we could just have more Dialogue Options. You only got to pick, Good, Bad or Snarky.... those aren't really representative of most personalities. I liked the wide options in DAO

6) No Other Races: I guess I understand not having Origins (although I felt it was original and fresh), not having race choice was difficult. I think you should bring it back.

7) Ugly Elves: I understand wanting to make everything more stylized. Upgrading the Qunari made sense, redoing  the Elves didn’t. And they ended up so ugly. I kept wondering why they were always referred to as beautiful by the humans. It made me wonder what they did to my poor elf Warden.

8) No Choices: DAO had a million main choices. Templars/Mages, Werewolves/Elves, Anora/Alistair, Ritual/Sacrifice… it just went on and on. DA2 had only 2 main choices… Templars or Mages, and how do you want to get rid of the Qunari. But no matter what the end was the same. Qunari are gone, Templars and mages are at war. It felt like you were telling me the story, not give me the tools to create my own.

9) Hawke Was Unimportant: I still don’t get at all why Hawke was important. She did some merc jobs around Kirkwall, made some money, but I never got why anything was up to her/him. In DAO it made sense because there was a Blight and Wardens are a special order of warriors. Leaving the special order behind was fine but you also left behind why this was Hawke’s story. And even ignoring why she got to decide the outcome of things, nothing she did really mattered. Honestly I couldn’t for the life of me understand why the Seekers were looking for her, or why she was so darn important. She was pretty much just a sellsword who was at the right place at the right time.

10) Boring Companions: This is probably due to the lack of dialogue but your friends were just so boring. They barely talked, their personalities were very superficial. I liked in DA where you could have long conversations with your companions, who would slowly warm up to you. It felt natural the friendship progression and I think DA2 tried to rush through it a bit.

11) Less Mature: I thought the storyline was much less mature then DA. Everything just was a bit cartoonish. Besides the ridiculously bloody exploding enemies, I would have guessed the game was T not M. Focus more on a properly adult (don’t mean adult as in erotic) story, since no one over 17 is supposed to buy it anyway.

12) Romances: I felt the romances were severely lacking. Three conversations and suddenly its over. The relationships is an extra thing in Bioware games that I think makes them unique. All good stories need a dash of love in them (or lust), it keep things interesting because it shows another aspect of humanity. Yes they are darkspawn killing machines but they’ve also got a tenderside. It felt like the relationships progressed slower and more naturally in the last game. You got to know them, decided you liked them a lot, got intimate with them (or backwards if you went with Zevran). Lastly about the relationships I felt everyone being bisexual was odd, just because what gender you like is a part of your characteristics and saying everyone liked both genders seemed like a rush job. Having 1 heterosexual, 1 bisexual, and 1 homosexual companion for each gender seems ideal but I get that you can’t do that so please go back to how it was. 2 straight and 2 bi, or maybe 1 straight 2 bi and 1 gay…. Or 2 bi and 2 gay…. Just please don’t take the easy route and make them all bisexual.

I love Bioware, Mass Effect and Dragon Age are my favorite games of all time! I really want to buy DA3 so please take everyone’s opinions under advisement.

Modifié par dragonavicious, 27 novembre 2011 - 08:40 .

[bateluer]

dragonavicious wrote...

Let me start out by saying Bioware is my favorite game company and Dragon Age Origins is my favorite game of all time. I didn’t even know anything about it and bought it for my boyfriend when it came out but now, 2 years later, I’ve bought myself a copy and played through all the origins multiple times (sometimes the same character multiple times). To me it is like a favorite novel, even though the story never changes you can read it over and over and get different things out of it.

I was disappointed with DA2, it didn’t have the emotion, the depth of DAO. To me it just felt like a video game, easily lost in the sea of similar ones, not the epic novel like tale I was expecting. I’m just going to list my pro’s and con’s, hopefully that way someone will read them.


Good Things About DA2:

1) Better Graphics: The main character Graphics were considerably improved. That was obvious. I liked the new hairstyles as well.

2) Friends/Rivals – I liked that whether you became friends or rivals you’d unlock bonuses for your companions. I thought that was a good way to make sure people could still play the way they wanted without being penalized for it.

3) Family – I loved that you had a family that interacted with you. I loved this about DAO as well. You would meet up with a family member again and get to talk to them, it seemed realistic. It was just better fleshed out in DA2 because Bethany or Carver could be battle companions.

4) Character Specific Clothes - I liked that your companions had a specific style and that you didn't get to change their clothes every five seconds. However I would have liked to see a little bit more customization. It was supposed to take place over almost 10 years, they should have switched up their wardrobe a bit at the very least.



Bad Things About DA2:

1) Boring Title: I thought the Title, Dragon Age 2, when the first was Dragon Age: Origins, was uninspired. However that is just me nitpicking, and doesn't really reflect on the game.

2) Very Recycled: Recycled maps and bad graphics on background NPC characters. After I went through the third cave that was clearly identical I started to get really frustrated with the game.

3) Claustrophobic: It felt closed off being in one boring city the entire time. There wasn't really any sense of adventure or exploring. Now I don't want you to be open world like Skyrim or anything because thats not the type of games you do, but having different pathed places to visit would be nice.

4) Linear Story: The story was way too linear. It felt like it was on rails like a FPS, not an RPG.

5) Dialogue Options: They were lacking. I would have been willing to give up the voiced protagonist if we could just have more Dialogue Options. You only got to pick, Good, Bad or Snarky.... those aren't really representative of most personalities. I liked the wide options in DAO

6) No Other Races: I guess I understand not having Origins (although I felt it was original and fresh), not having race choice was difficult. I think you should bring it back.

7) Ugly Elves: I understand wanting to make everything more stylized. Upgrading the Qunari made sense, redoing  the Elves didn’t. And they ended up so ugly. I kept wondering why they were always referred to as beautiful by the humans. It made me wonder what they did to my poor elf Warden.

8) No Choices: DAO had a million main choices. Templars/Mages, Werewolves/Elves, Anora/Alistair, Ritual/Sacrifice… it just went on and on. DA2 had only 2 main choices… Templars or Mages, and how do you want to get rid of the Qunari. But no matter what the end was the same. Qunari are gone, Templars and mages are at war. It felt like you were telling me the story, not give me the tools to create my own.

9) Hawke Was Unimportant: I still don’t get at all why Hawke was important. She did some merc jobs around Kirkwall, made some money, but I never got why anything was up to her/him. In DAO it made sense because there was a Blight and Wardens are a special order of warriors. Leaving the special order behind was fine but you also left behind why this was Hawke’s story. And even ignoring why she got to decide the outcome of things, nothing she did really mattered. Honestly I couldn’t for the life of me understand why the Seekers were looking for her, or why she was so darn important. She was pretty much just a sellsword who was at the right place at the right time.

10) Boring Companions: This is probably due to the lack of dialogue but your friends were just so boring. They barely talked, their personalities were very superficial. I liked in DA where you could have long conversations with your companions, who would slowly warm up to you. It felt natural the friendship progression and I think DA2 tried to rush through it a bit.

11) Less Mature: I thought the storyline was much less mature then DA. Everything just was a bit cartoonish. Besides the ridiculously bloody exploding enemies, I would have guessed the game was T not M. Focus more on a properly adult (don’t mean adult as in erotic) story, since no one over 17 is supposed to buy it anyway.

12) Romances: I felt the romances were severely lacking. Three conversations and suddenly its over. The relationships is an extra thing in Bioware games that I think makes them unique. All good stories need a dash of love in them (or lust), it keep things interesting because it shows another aspect of humanity. Yes they are darkspawn killing machines but they’ve also got a tenderside. It felt like the relationships progressed slower and more naturally in the last game. You got to know them, decided you liked them a lot, got intimate with them (or backwards if you went with Zevran). Lastly about the relationships I felt everyone being bisexual was odd, just because what gender you like is a part of your characteristics and saying everyone liked both genders seemed like a rush job. Having 1 heterosexual, 1 bisexual, and 1 homosexual companion for each gender seems ideal but I get that you can’t do that so please go back to how it was. 2 straight and 2 bi, or maybe 1 straight 2 bi and 1 gay…. Or 2 bi and 2 gay…. Just please don’t take the easy route and make them all bisexual.

I love Bioware, Mass Effect and Dragon Age are my favorite games of all time! I really want to buy DA3 so please take everyone’s opinions under advisement.

I finished DA2 yesterday morning, and was basically going to type up almost exactly what you posted here. I've played through DAO 3 times, and I just started a 4th. I played through DA2 once, and once is it. There's positive aspects to it, which you listed, but the long list of negatives remove all the replay value. 

[BomberJR]

 Am I the only person who didn't like the graphics?

I get the need to update the look, but I can't understand why they went so cartoonish. They had a great opportunity to go for a very realistic look like they brought with Mass Effect, but instead we get poorly drawn characters.

The elves look absurd (my girlfriend walked by while I was playing and asked if it was the new Zelda game!), and there is absolutely no life in the eyes of the characters.

Perhaps they are victims of their own success. I go back to Mass Effect again for the pure realistic environments and gorgeous characters. I guess this made me expect the same level of quality for this game.

I am also trying to understand why they felt the need to turn the combat system into a button mashing affair. The system in Origins worked just fine IMO.

It may seem like I have nothing good to say about the game, but I did enjoy it overall. I just feel like the designers looked at everything that worked well in Origins and said "let's change all that". 

My 2 cents.

[rondolf]

Only one area Da:o is inferior. Buggy as hell. I do not know if others have the same problem but this game will crash doing almost anything. I have some other memory eating games that do not give me any problems, including DA2. Everything else about Da:o is far better than two, do not want to reiterate previous very well made points, but damn does origins crash a lot.

[Tuleron]

Is your game, reinstall it, i almost never got a crash.

[Zilare]

Hey guys I'm new to the game and I am playing a Elf mage. I am almost level 10 and I just noticed why I am always out of mana. It is because there is a 195 points of my mana on reserve. Has anyone had this problem before and able to help me?

[ColGali]

Exactly! I couldn't agree more. How many love talks did we have with Jaheira in Baldur's Gate 2? Around 70!! How much do we have now?...

Gaidax wrote...

[*]   Romance options - really badly done, honestly! The whole romancing part of the wheel should be redesigned for future game - not only the "heart" option seems to be a fireproof way to eventually bed your LI no matter how ridiculous it sounds or how unappropriate it is for the conversation at hand (like let's say Anders talking about his plight with Justice and your female Hawke out of blue starts to sprout some absolutely ridiculous lines that fall several centimiters short of "Screw your plight and agony, just bang me now, I'm in heat and that's all I care about!" and what's even worse is that it actually works in a long run. Honestly, this heart thing should be removed for good or at the very least appear only after you made enough initial progress to lead to the more intimate conversation - Origins did it right.

[puppy maclove]

rboluyt wrote...

dragonavicious wrote...

Let me start out by saying Bioware is my favorite game company and Dragon Age Origins is my favorite game of all time. I didn’t even know anything about it and bought it for my boyfriend when it came out but now, 2 years later, I’ve bought myself a copy and played through all the origins multiple times (sometimes the same character multiple times). To me it is like a favorite novel, even though the story never changes you can read it over and over and get different things out of it.

I was disappointed with DA2, it didn’t have the emotion, the depth of DAO. To me it just felt like a video game, easily lost in the sea of similar ones, not the epic novel like tale I was expecting. I’m just going to list my pro’s and con’s, hopefully that way someone will read them.


Good Things About DA2:

1) Better Graphics: The main character Graphics were considerably improved. That was obvious. I liked the new hairstyles as well.

2) Friends/Rivals – I liked that whether you became friends or rivals you’d unlock bonuses for your companions. I thought that was a good way to make sure people could still play the way they wanted without being penalized for it.

3) Family – I loved that you had a family that interacted with you. I loved this about DAO as well. You would meet up with a family member again and get to talk to them, it seemed realistic. It was just better fleshed out in DA2 because Bethany or Carver could be battle companions.

4) Character Specific Clothes - I liked that your companions had a specific style and that you didn't get to change their clothes every five seconds. However I would have liked to see a little bit more customization. It was supposed to take place over almost 10 years, they should have switched up their wardrobe a bit at the very least.



Bad Things About DA2:

1) Boring Title: I thought the Title, Dragon Age 2, when the first was Dragon Age: Origins, was uninspired. However that is just me nitpicking, and doesn't really reflect on the game.

2) Very Recycled: Recycled maps and bad graphics on background NPC characters. After I went through the third cave that was clearly identical I started to get really frustrated with the game.

3) Claustrophobic: It felt closed off being in one boring city the entire time. There wasn't really any sense of adventure or exploring. Now I don't want you to be open world like Skyrim or anything because thats not the type of games you do, but having different pathed places to visit would be nice.

4) Linear Story: The story was way too linear. It felt like it was on rails like a FPS, not an RPG.

5) Dialogue Options: They were lacking. I would have been willing to give up the voiced protagonist if we could just have more Dialogue Options. You only got to pick, Good, Bad or Snarky.... those aren't really representative of most personalities. I liked the wide options in DAO

6) No Other Races: I guess I understand not having Origins (although I felt it was original and fresh), not having race choice was difficult. I think you should bring it back.

7) Ugly Elves: I understand wanting to make everything more stylized. Upgrading the Qunari made sense, redoing  the Elves didn’t. And they ended up so ugly. I kept wondering why they were always referred to as beautiful by the humans. It made me wonder what they did to my poor elf Warden.

8) No Choices: DAO had a million main choices. Templars/Mages, Werewolves/Elves, Anora/Alistair, Ritual/Sacrifice… it just went on and on. DA2 had only 2 main choices… Templars or Mages, and how do you want to get rid of the Qunari. But no matter what the end was the same. Qunari are gone, Templars and mages are at war. It felt like you were telling me the story, not give me the tools to create my own.

9) Hawke Was Unimportant: I still don’t get at all why Hawke was important. She did some merc jobs around Kirkwall, made some money, but I never got why anything was up to her/him. In DAO it made sense because there was a Blight and Wardens are a special order of warriors. Leaving the special order behind was fine but you also left behind why this was Hawke’s story. And even ignoring why she got to decide the outcome of things, nothing she did really mattered. Honestly I couldn’t for the life of me understand why the Seekers were looking for her, or why she was so darn important. She was pretty much just a sellsword who was at the right place at the right time.

10) Boring Companions: This is probably due to the lack of dialogue but your friends were just so boring. They barely talked, their personalities were very superficial. I liked in DA where you could have long conversations with your companions, who would slowly warm up to you. It felt natural the friendship progression and I think DA2 tried to rush through it a bit.

11) Less Mature: I thought the storyline was much less mature then DA. Everything just was a bit cartoonish. Besides the ridiculously bloody exploding enemies, I would have guessed the game was T not M. Focus more on a properly adult (don’t mean adult as in erotic) story, since no one over 17 is supposed to buy it anyway.

12) Romances: I felt the romances were severely lacking. Three conversations and suddenly its over. The relationships is an extra thing in Bioware games that I think makes them unique. All good stories need a dash of love in them (or lust), it keep things interesting because it shows another aspect of humanity. Yes they are darkspawn killing machines but they’ve also got a tenderside. It felt like the relationships progressed slower and more naturally in the last game. You got to know them, decided you liked them a lot, got intimate with them (or backwards if you went with Zevran). Lastly about the relationships I felt everyone being bisexual was odd, just because what gender you like is a part of your characteristics and saying everyone liked both genders seemed like a rush job. Having 1 heterosexual, 1 bisexual, and 1 homosexual companion for each gender seems ideal but I get that you can’t do that so please go back to how it was. 2 straight and 2 bi, or maybe 1 straight 2 bi and 1 gay…. Or 2 bi and 2 gay…. Just please don’t take the easy route and make them all bisexual.

I love Bioware, Mass Effect and Dragon Age are my favorite games of all time! I really want to buy DA3 so please take everyone’s opinions under advisement.

I finished DA2 yesterday morning, and was basically going to type up almost exactly what you posted here. I've played through DAO 3 times, and I just started a 4th. I played through DA2 once, and once is it. There's positive aspects to it, which you listed, but the long list of negatives remove all the replay value. 

Same here, mostly agree.. except I dont like the new art style. Too cartoony.

DA2 = 6 / 10