3274 réponses à ce sujet

[Ystitans78]

Sylfschiffer wrote...

It's not mine, but this critic is 100% my thought: http://www.1up.com/d...try?bId=9074145
Don't mind the "Why all the hate" thing, it's not a critic saying that "omg it's so goooood" thing =)

I'm with you on this the critic is spot on in this article. I still don't get all the Dragon Age 2 hate and I think most of the people that hate DA 2 will hate DA 3 no matter how good or bad it is when it comes out

[bl0ww]

Ystitans78 wrote...

Sylfschiffer wrote...

It's not mine, but this critic is 100% my thought: http://www.1up.com/d...try?bId=9074145
Don't mind the "Why all the hate" thing, it's not a critic saying that "omg it's so goooood" thing =)

I'm with you on this the critic is spot on in this article. I still don't get all the Dragon Age 2 hate and I think most of the people that hate DA 2 will hate DA 3 no matter how good or bad it is when it comes out

Why is that so? DA2 is simply a more action based, DUMBED DOWN AS **** version of DA:O. I mean look at the ****ing user score of  DA2 on metacritic. People LOVED DA:O and i'm sure if those lazy ****ers at EA/ bioware notices the amount of hate for DA2, they'll definitely do something about it.

[Megaton_Hope]

I haven't played the whole game yet. I'm coming into it from Awakenings, which I felt was a step up from the base Origins game in most respects. I can't say that I'm particularly impressed with certain things.

I'll start with the positives, though. The battle is definitely more organic. I don't have to spend as much time shepherding my companions, which lets me spend more time picking targets for Hawke and planning strategy. I spend much less time pausing, which makes the whole thing more immersive.

The character designs are pretty impressive. The variety of character models seems to have improved since Origins, and many NPC designs are just interesting to look at.

I am, however, really annoyed that, first of all, I am stuck with so few options for customizing my main character. It's good that Hawke's responses are fully voiced, something I really enjoy with Shepherd. It's not so good that Hawke comes from a single background, basically, with class, sex, and cosmetic decisions being the extent of my options. In the first game, I could be either a commoner fleeing a death sentence or a noble bent on revenge against a treacherous rival. I could come from one of the last dwarven cities to survive the darkspawn taint, an elven settlement, the mages' tower, or my family's keep in Highever. This is a role-playing game; I'd like for the extent of my contribution to this process to be a little greater than deciding Hawke's haircut and wardrobe.

On that note, I don't know whether this holds true for the whole game, but it feels like I'm watching a movie or playing a "rail shooter" so far. There was a lot of flexibility in where to go and what to do in the first game, and in both Mass Effect games I've played, that seems to be lacking here.

I know that there are trade-offs. More options would mean more complexity, more cost, and more man-hours. But, especially with all the points of disconnection with the first game, it feels like I've sacrificed most of the good points of the first game to gain a pale imitation of it. (Which I felt to some degree with Mass Effect II as well, although there, I got to enjoy seeing my old Shepherd in a strange new situation, at least.)

[Bail_Darilar]

I definately didnt think DA2 was better than DAO but I think the game had some very interesting ideas and concepts that if given more development time would ahve produced a much better product.

I was generaly impressed with the story and how they tried to make it all the more personal to your character although I believe that their execution did fall flat in certain cases. Like for example within the first 15 mins *SPOILER* your sibling dies *SPOILER*. It is meant to be an emotional moment but it is ruined by the fact you have so little time to start caring for the characters which I think is funny because your Hawke's indifferent responses mirror your own. Later however this is rectified with the other members of your family where you have time to get to know them and to an extent feel emotion towards them but these scenes are too few and far between making you wish you had more. But that was essentially the problem when going through the story is that you just wished you had more making the game seem sparse at times especially your opening chapter. I mean once you get to Kirkwall you really want to start exploring the city and developing your character and their motivations for being in the city. But all you really do is the one quest which gives you entry to the city and then suddenly a year has passed and the Hawke family is already established in the city (albeit not in prominence yet). It just feels that alot was cut or skipped as the entryquest gave you the option of working with some mercenaries or some smugglers which would have really been an interesting topic to cover introducing the whole duality of the city and allowing you to get to know the Hawke's and some of the initial characters.

The kind of spills into my problems with the Hawke character. Generally my feelings about Hawke are a mixed bag but are overall positive. Its hard not to feel that your on a rollercoaster ride with your Hawke with no control of their direction. I mean the fact that your first seemingly major choice amounts to only a small forgettable side-quest later in the game really prevents you from feeling emotion towards him/her since they don't feel like your character. The character however is likeable in the fact that he she is alot more expressive than the mute wardens from DAO but then the 'type' of character that Hawke can be is essentially restricted to 3 personas (comes down to 3 types of responses) and you never feel like your given the choice of making a mixture of all 3 because they all seem to really contradict each other and thus you tend to pick the same kind of response over and over again. Like I said earlier inspite of how expressive Hawke is, he/she at times can feel very indifferent regardless of your response (apart form one or two scenes) to situations that directly affect him/her. It can be aabit off putting at times when you expect Hawke to show some emotion but ends out being rather flat. The indifference in attitude to the situations and general lack of direction of the character in terms of goals and motivations for being embroiled in the conflicts in Kirkwall are for me disappointing aprts of the character but I believe that Hawke's scripts are every well written and you end up generally liking Hawke and the character overall.

Speaking of characters your companions I feel were incredibly interesting. One thing I found is that in spiteof not being as varied as in DAO they had alot more depth to them than some of the characters in DAO and due to the combat system I never felt that I needed to keep a 'staple' team of characters whilst venturing and so didnt feel like I was 'focusing' on some more than others. For example my rogue in DAO kept Alistair, Wynne. and Lelianna/Morrigan as staple parts of the team and I never really used the others because I didn't feel thatthey complimented my team and combat strategy but then in DA2 since it mattered less about the composiiton of your team most of the time, I felt more encouraged to experimet and I felt more emotion to all ofthem. I especially enjoyed the motivations and backgrounds of each fthe characters in DA2 and felt that their sidequests were particularly well written . The problem however was that the story takes place over a long period of time and although your character progresses to an extent of the course of the story you never feel that they progress as characters with you as in Fenris still stays in his mansion brooding over being a slave and Isabella stays on the tavern thinking of ways to pay her debts etc (this excludes your sibling and Aveline). Although saying this the change and progression of your party members relationships with each other was a surprising and refreshing into the story for example if you don't romance Isabella she will gradually form a casual romantic relationship with Fenris or say Varric slowly becomes more and more attached to Merril forming a kind of older brother relationship with her.

I found the main story of the tensions between the mages and the templars a really interesting topic and was generally torn between the two sides, on one hand you have the mages who are fighting for their rights and freedom to practice magic unopposed but can be prone to being corrupted bringing chaos and destruction to the world. On the other hand you have the templars whos cause seem just where they are trying to regulate and control the mages preventing the aforementioned chaos and destruction but seem to abuse their jurisdiction and power also covering themes which draw parrallels with discrimination and prejudice. It all makes for a compelling story as these tensions gradually seem to intensify and build up through the acts and blow up in the finale (literally ).

Like I said before the game felt rushed and that extends to the level design where maps are reused time and time again and being the completionist I am I had to have explored every nook and cranny 6 times in total to get and see everything because the story is set into 2 chapters and kirkwall has both night and day maps it all ended up being incredibly frustrating and abit claustrophobic. It would ahve been easier to deal with if kirkwall actually changed throughout the story but since it doesnt it feels incredibly frustrating seeing the same locales for te umpteenth time.

I really enjoyed hte fast paced combat in DA2 but hated that it wasn't as tactical as the previous game, as mentioned before on normal and hard difficulties you can get away with having no strategy in your party composition. Although in my opinion it helps in other areas of th game it is abit of a downer for the combat.

[josen2006]

It nothing like the Dragon Age Origins. I think they created trash from the original. Why change everything when you had a winning game that made us all fans to make a look like Harry Potter child game


!http://www.herfree.com/track.php!

Modifié par josen2006, 14 janvier 2012 - 08:44 .

[batlin]

Well then.

Dragon Age 2 is a perfect example of how not to handle a sequel. DA:O was an unexpected hit; clearly there wasn't much confidence that it would be all that successful and certainly not successful enough to match their new hit Mass Effect franchise. Well lo and behold, it turns out that the classic RPG formula still worked. And why wouldn't it? Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic used systems derived from 2nd and 3rd editions of the Dungeons & Dragons rules, and those are easily BioWare's more successful and well-loved franchises. Origins was supposedly a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, and although the gameplay wasn't the same, the tactics, the style, and the overall magic was still there and it truly felt like a great classic RPG. So here BioWare had a promising new franchise, well-recieved by fans old and new alike. It was clear that the classic formula still worked and people loved returning to that in a sea of casual RPGs. So what did BioWare do in the sequel?

They turned it into a casual RPG. The story became episodic and tedious. The dialogue stilted and deceptive. The combat a mindless hack & slash-fest. Boring characters. Little equipment customization. Repeating maps. FETCH QUESTS, and horribly imbalanced feat trees. It baffles me just how far off the mark BioWare got this game; almost as if they despised everything that made Dragon Age Origins good and wanted to bring it into their cookie-cutter Mass Effect formula as punishment to the players who dared like a classic RPG more than their new premier franchise.

I'm engaging in quite a bit of hyperbole in regard to BioWare hating their fanbase of course, but that is frankly what it seemed like to me as I played this game for the first time. I can't really express just how depressing it is to feel the onset of extreme disappointment in a game that you were really, really excited to play for a long, long time. It was like playing Fable for the first time all over again, only this experience was more jarring as I had a prequel to directly compare it to. That's enough of my overall thoughts on this game; now I'll start talking about the story.

I'm really not sure why the decision was made to make this game's story into three mini plots, or have a seemingly untrustworthy framing device in Varric recounting the story of Hawke, but it created a poorly paced and tedious experience. The whole of the three plots supposedly lead up to this "big thing" that happens in act 3, but the problem is that because the majority of the focus of acts 1 and 2 are on their own primary plot, there's little to no buildup to the "big thing" so that when it happens it seems really out of place (and out of character for that certain person to commit) and as a result, act 3, the climax of the whole game, is easily the weakest of all three acts. Of course, all the acts suffer in their own way by only having a third of a game to develop and therefore progressing through them seems tedious because there doesn't feel like there's any weight behind what you're accomplishing, but most glaringly is how the event we're told about since the beginning just fizzles as a result of just coming out of nowhere.

I've presented the dialogue as a concern on this board, and I would say about half of the posters agreed with me while half didn't, but I was not the only one to complain about it and that is pretty significant considering I never once saw complaints about how dialogue was handled in, say, KotOR. I have the same problem with the dialogue in this game as I do with Mass Effect: the dialogue selections are vague and too often deceptive. I get that BioWare's precious dialogue wheel was a big hit with gaming magazines for whatever reason, but what exactly would be the downside of simply writing out what your character will say in each of the selections? It's not like there would be no room for them; Hawke rarely strings together two or more sentences per reply, so why instead opt to give four-word sentence fragments that make a player guess what is meant by each? The Witcher games got this right, so why insist on using that stupid wheel where it isn't necessary? ironically, those little "tone pictures" are far more accurate and honest indicators of what will be said than the WORDS are. Does that not seem backwards to you, oh BioWare representative who has to read these ineffectual pleas from fans and somehow present a coherent checklist of demands for some higher-up in the company?

The combat. Good GOD the combat. I remember a phrase from a BW PR guy that really stuck with me: that every time you press a button, something awesome should happen. Well, I guess he was just talking about a 2h warrior, because it's very clear that using any other class at harder difficulties is pure suicide. Before I get into that though, I'd like to say a bit about auto-attack. Auto-attack is good. It should be a given that if I as a player start hitting a guy, I won't want to stop for awhile. So why were we console users presented with this Dynasty Warriors hack & slash combat that meant we had to mash a single button constantly in combat just to deal basic damage? I should point out that up until the day of release we were told that auto-attack, while not in the demo of the game, WOULD be in the final game. It wasn't. Back to my earlier comment about classes: Clearly this game was designed with the player using a 2h warrior in mind. Sword and board? Useless. Shadow rogue? Useless. In fact, it's very clear since enemies now have such low health and how long the heal spell cooldown is (of which only one character in the whole game can do if you yourself didn't pick a healer), the ONLY feasible strategy in any encounter is to just go all-out DPS. Tank and spank does not work. Squishy mages are almost unusable thanks to enemies spawning from the edges of the map. Rogues are far better at getting threat than sword and shield warriors are, and that is an incredibly glaring design flaw. The camera is too close and too restrictive, the tactics are dumbed down "You can play the game fine without ever using the tactical menu, but we left it in there just in case you enjoy doing micromanagement that we ultimately made pointless anyway!"...I could go on all day about this but let's move on.

Equipment customization. Mass Effect 1 handled equipment badly because there were so many items to keep track of and there were too many equipment options, and equipment options FOR your equipment that it got cumbersome and one would have to spend 10 minutes turning 70 different assault rifles into omnigel. Mass Effect 2 handled equipmnt badly because it really didn't let you handle equipment at all. Dragon Age: Origins was a perfect middleman; your inventory never got so cumbersome that you would get lost in a sea of endless tiers of the same item, and you could equip all your party with any equipment that was suitable for their class. Dragon Age 2 opted for the Mass Effect 2 approach, for whatever reason. You can't let them use new armor, instead you need to look around every store for these upgrades to their current armor, and these upgrades can disappear if you don't find them in a certain part of the game. I would really like an explanation for why any of that makes sense, and why the game intentionally gimps your party unless you are resolute in checking every nook and cranny for some trinket that they can latch onto their clothes. The only thing that bothered me more about party equipment is how, no matter what, no character can use any weapon other than one specific type. Isabella can never use a bow. Fenris can never use a shield. varric can never use a dagger. But what is the BIG problem with this? The only party member that can use a bow is only available through DLC. Unless you yourself happen to be a rogue archer, you are s*** out of luck if you want to put some use to your max tier bow that dropped. This is a shockingly bad design flaw and a perfect example of how stripping content that was originally in the vanilla game is a horrible decision. There is an entire class of weapon held hostage from the player because BioWare and EA wanted to squeeze out an extra $10 from people who already bought this rushed tripe that we so hoped would live up to our expectations. This? This is sickening. It's because of this I vowed not to buy any more DLC from BioWare until I saw a game from them that actually warranted it. I have yet to find one.

Repeating maps. I don't really have to go into this.

The classic RPG is not a dead art, but Dragon Age II is trying to make it so. If I seem harsh here, it's not because this game is bad, in fact had it been a stand-alone title by any other developer I would have said it was ok, but compared to what Origins was, this was just a massive disappointment. I'm glad that BioWare had someone make a topic to listen to reviews (though I'm not entirely sure why, I saw lots of honest sentiment all over the forums soon after this game came out), but forgive me if I don't hold my breath that this input from fans won't change BioWare's current trend in their casual RPG strategy.

Modifié par batlin, 18 janvier 2012 - 11:07 .

[killswitchengagex]

now ive signed up for this forum just to say this
bioware i respect u guys i liked every game u made from mass effect neverwinter night kotor jade empire and dragon age 1 but dragon age 2 IS A DISASTER
the worst most hideous dull stupid game dam ugly game in years , rocks in polygons ?? wtff i didnt see that in years (half life 1 et drakon for ex which are massive games) DA 2 SUX worst graphic ever no light effect no shadows no textures , and no joy to play dull annoying childish like i wasted my money for nothing i am furious guys wtf is this , and plz next time dont make games in a short period of time and no hoes in black leather trying to fool us to buy ur games sorry for my words

[monstertrucks]

Honestly, I liked that the main character gets his/her own voice. Even the combat was interesting since it was more fast-paced. It's just the storyline and character interaction that I was disappointed with. I liked the challenge of saying the right things to romance another party member. Overall, the storyline was mundane and it was no where as epic as the first game. Also, character customisation was bad. I felt I was being forced to use the default Hawke so I wouldn't puke at my customised Hawke's ugly looks. Maybe they need to use the same graphics as the first game. Perhaps my biggest disappointment was how this "sequel" felt completely detached from DA:O. It feels as if the decisions I made in the first game count for nothing. 

DA:O was much better in terms of depth and challenge. As a Bioware fan, I'm sorry to say DA2 felt like a commercialised OTT action game that dumbed down every characteristic of an RPG. Everything was just too easy. I hope Bioware does a proper job with the next game, there's nothing wrong with the formula used in DA:O. This isn't supposed to be a mass effect game so please don't make it so.

Modifié par monstertrucks, 27 janvier 2012 - 01:39 .

[Wulfsten]

I thought DA2 was in almost all respects a MASSIVE improvement over DAO.

If anyone involved in the making of DA3 is reading this, please, please, PLEASE don't think that people who liked DA2 more only preferred it because it was more accessible or because the combat was "more intense". That absolutely isn't the case. Here's what I thought was better about DA2, listed as bullet points so it doesn't get TL;DR:
The things I loved: 

• Much better, more subtle story, less "saving the world GAH" and more the saga of a family and a city. Much lighter touch, and much more affecting.
• Better character interaction. The party members had their own lives outside of adventuring (Aveline, Anders) and had much more significant arcs in terms of their relationship with Hawke.
• Much better evolution of the protagonist. The fact that Hawke's speech patterns started changing the more you adhered to one end of the Good/Funny/Evil spectrum really blew me away. It made me feel MUCH closer to the protagonist, and the Hawke family in general.
• GREAT reinvention of the Qunari mythology. Love the new look, makes them look more alien, which fits into their narrative quality as well. The moral quandaries they present were shown with much more force and eloquence in DA2, as well. A brilliant move.
• A story that's time-based, not location-based. The use of Kirkwall, with its alien aesthetic and architecture, really broke the tired sword and sorcery mould of DAO. The fact that it was all based in Kirkwall and its environs may have irked some, but it really made you feel like you inhabited that city. Especially as your character settled in over time there.
• Conversations between members of your party. One of the best parts of the Bioware games I've loved since BG2 is the fact that your party members don't just relate to you, they relate to each other. DA2 was vastly superior to DAO in this respect, both in terms of wit and depth.

These factors are what made me love DA2. Please, more of this! I can tell there's a lot of discussion in the offices about minor quibbles like armor customisation and crafting systems and skill trees, but trust me, these issues are trivial compared to the tone and arc of the story, and the depth of the characters in it. Combat feel and a sense of meaningful progression (i.e. XP and items) are also important to the RPG experience, but the thing that sets it apart is a dedication to story and characterisation, and the player's role within the story and character relationships. 

The factors I didn't like :

• Repeated environments, obviously
• Equipment flavour text. It existed in DAO, and it just gave the game more feeling. It doesn't cost anything (fansource it!), so it felt cheap when it was removed.
• Combat was a bit floaty and felt a bit too superhero-esque, with all the rushing about. I'm of two minds on the combat though, so it's not a big deal.
• Isabela's body shape was massively condescending to your audience, and was distracting and borderline offensive. I'm sure you've gotten enough criticism for this already, but I will say this:
• Don't be afraid to sexualise the female characters, it's obviously something that will garner fans. But sexualise them by making them witty, flirty and interesting, not by baring their pixelated thighs and giving them 48DD breasts. It just isn't appealing, and I doubt it was even to 12-year olds, beyond the "GOSH boobs!" Bioware has made a lot of money by treating its fans like intelligent adults. Don't stop now.
• Armour became obsolete far too quickly. This is just a balance issue, so it's not hugely important.

Please, keep your focus on subtle storytelling and deep character development in DA3, even if you do decide to fall in with the fans who claim to have preferred DAO! 

Modifié par Wulfsten, 28 janvier 2012 - 08:02 .

[Uccio]

Good things:
- Voice acting.

Bad things:
- Anime characters (lookin at you Fenris) and weapons, who the hell can vield a sword which is twice your size and has a handle thick as arm? Or, a dagger which looks like a question mark and has also handle thick as a arm?
- Choise and consequence, lack of. This is the biggest point for me.
- Restricted discussion. It worked in DAO so why the hell it had to be changed? Some discussions can be story released but there has to be a general possibility to engage dialogue with team mates and npc`s. Equally big issue with the previous one.
- Character customization, lack of. What is the point of putting up shops for weapons and armors if you cannot use them to equip your companions (iconic look, is simply put lazyness)? Expecially if you get item packs which hold leveling weapons. For what do you use your money then? Major issue to me.
- discussion wheel. And now there is a way to tell childred what attitude to take when talking with your character. Nice, but I am older than 10 years and CAN decide what answers to use.

The connection with Mass Effect is obvious, I don´t like that. Mass Effect works on it own but Dragon Effect doesn´t.

I did like the game at some level, it just wasn´t DA level.

Modifié par Ukki, 28 janvier 2012 - 04:38 .

[Jimmyson3]

This is going to be longish. First up, we'll start with good stuff. I like the new combat, its alot more active and tactical then in origins and every class has a chance to do some damage and make an impact on a fight, rather then stocking up on as many mages as you can fit in the party. Rogues were a bit flimsy and still can't really be left alone unless they have a bow (the way I played it anyway) but apart from that a fairly decent balance. Being able to conveniently create bombs, posions and runes is nice as well, leaving that up to chance was always a bit irritating, collecting resources isn't a bad idea either. Would have liked to be able to make weapons and armour or something with it but there we go.

Characters having individual upgradable armour, this was a pretty good idea but not fully implemented methinks, why not weapons? We give away these fancy sounding swords and staves as soon as we get the character, don't they mean anything to these people? And if they really are the bottom of the barrel why are they keeping them? Why not just pick up the first stick they find on the street? That's usually better. Being able to upgrade them from your home rather then finding things and gluing them onto the armour would be better, and being able to have a choice of routes with the upgrades like the abilities would be an idea as well. It always was a bit stupid.

The graphics are nicer. don't really care about those though, so moving on.

The character stories are varied and give you a nice view of the world around you, you get a fair amount of depth and knowledge about the character which is quite nice. I'll come back to bad points later.

I liked the ending, didn't really see that sword coming and I Iiked the time skips, I like being able to the see the consequences of my actions, even if not much else changed about from where you lived and what you got called.

Okay, bad stuff now.

Why are the characters we have such bloody radicals? Wizard hater, templar hater, demon lover. They are all equally irritating and stupid. Despite the obvious "not all of them are good/bad" they persist in being retarded through the whole game. Especially the demon one. I really really hated her. The rest were fine but at least two of th3e annoying ones were pretty damn useful to have round, so you had to bear with them. The guard, and the two rogues were half way smart but didn't really have much to say on anything that was going on most of the time. We had so many wizard and templar missions it was stupid.  Are there no problems in the city that can't be related to one or the other or both?

I didn't like how we had a million waves of enemies as well, it kind of makes sense that reinforcements would arrive to some battles but it just got plain annoying sometimes. Enemy mages had ridiculous powers as well, the enemy aoe could rape you in 5 seconds or under usually. I probably should have runed up more but still, the difference in spell power was huge.

Did you really have to make the conversation follow set paths? Good, bad and sarcy aren't bad routes but they are a bit extreme. We never really got a neutral route that often.

Why does every quest purely involve fighting until the very end? We used to have to use our brains a bit here and there in origins, but here? Hack and slash your way to victory ( excepting the fade, which was probably the best mission ). In some conversations you could be smart, and fight less people here and there, but you usally got an extra fight for your trouble later on.

And WHY, WHY for the love of god does every cornered mage think "Hmm, i'm suspected of being a blood mage, i'm not, but now i'm in a corner i'll do what they least expect.... blood magic. Genius!." Were mages always this stupid? 

Why do we have to run everyones errands as well? Why can't people keep track of their stuff? Or put something on a board saying "lost this, want it back", how do we know its theirs? Later on we are fairly important but still picking up people's lost shoes, skeletons and wine. Bit weird.

Would have liked a few more quests based around your status later on, your a important person but seem to make all your money off roaming the streets and doing odd jobs. Shouldn't we be doing something else to secure our estate? We didn't seem to know many other people on the same level as us, not many NPC's that really showed up more often than once for any decent reason or to not start a fight.

Bit of a a lack of variety in enemies as well. Not much new from origins, would have thought they new area would have bought some new kinds of monsters or something. But nope. Qunari are kind of new I guess, didn't see much of them before.

I want a few more grey decisions as well, for the most part the game was pretty black and white for me, I never really had to stop and think what was good or bad, the mages were a bit of a grey area but the templars were continuous ****s in my playthrough so picking sides wasn't hard.

I thought this game was fine, not that good or bad. I thought origins had alot more good areas and quests. The fade, mage tower, deep roads were all stand out and memorable. But here there wasn't much variety and no long quests. We needed less brains and the characters never really collided or confronted you about decisions you made, you could just pick some up for the right missions and you could max everyone's friendship no problemo. Make our attributes or talents usable in conversation as well, so we can get the drop on people/ manipulate people/ talk our way out of fights stuff like that. I liked the talents we used to have in origins, meant some quests could only be done by characters with the right abilities. Not really true anymore.

There was probably more good and bad stuff but I can't remember anymore. Better luck next time, 7/10.

Modifié par Jimmyson3, 28 janvier 2012 - 08:20 .

[vocyrus]

For my part, I really enjoyed the game as far as story and characters go. In fact I LOVED it. Those two things are the best part of any game for me, and DAII delivered on that aspect very well. There were companions I loved: Isabela, Varric, Avaline; and companions I hated: Anders, Merrill, Sebastian. That is great in both cases as it shows BW got me INVOLVED. I love that.

However, as many people have noted, the repetitive maps were excurciating! Much more variety was needed! Also, a little more of an "open world" feeling would have been nice. I'm not talking about a giant "sandbox". Just a little bit of exploration would have been nice.

The RPG elements have been covered ad nauseam, so I won't go into that, except to say that more armor and wepon customization would have been nice. I hated when I would get an item that only one certian character could carry and it was already - or quickley became - usless. Very annoying.

Finally, toward the end, you are faced with a decision as to what to do with a certian character. If you choose the most severe coarse of action the cut seen that follows is SO anticlimactic I laughed out loud. There's not even a sound effect! That was such an intense moment and it fell completely flat! Hope that wasn't too spoilerish...

[vocyrus]

Oh, I also loved the Hawke actually TALKED! A la Sheperd in ME

[Uccio]

batlin wrote...

Well then.

Dragon Age 2 is a perfect example of how not to handle a sequel. DA:O was an unexpected hit; clearly there wasn't much confidence that it would be all that successful and certainly not successful enough to match their new hit Mass Effect franchise. Well lo and behold, it turns out that the classic RPG formula still worked. And why wouldn't it? Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic used systems derived from 2nd and 3rd editions of the Dungeons & Dragons rules, and those are easily BioWare's more successful and well-loved franchises. Origins was supposedly a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, and although the gameplay wasn't the same, the tactics, the style, and the overall magic was still there and it truly felt like a great classic RPG. So here BioWare had a promising new franchise, well-recieved by fans old and new alike. It was clear that the classic formula still worked and people loved returning to that in a sea of casual RPGs. So what did BioWare do in the sequel?

They turned it into a casual RPG. The story became episodic and tedious. The dialogue stilted and deceptive. The combat a mindless hack & slash-fest. Boring characters. Little equipment customization. Repeating maps. FETCH QUESTS, and horribly imbalanced feat trees. It baffles me just how far off the mark BioWare got this game; almost as if they despised everything that made Dragon Age Origins good and wanted to bring it into their cookie-cutter Mass Effect formula as punishment to the players who dared like a classic RPG more than their new premier franchise.

I'm engaging in quite a bit of hyperbole in regard to BioWare hating their fanbase of course, but that is frankly what it seemed like to me as I played this game for the first time. I can't really express just how depressing it is to feel the onset of extreme disappointment in a game that you were really, really excited to play for a long, long time. It was like playing Fable for the first time all over again, only this experience was more jarring as I had a prequel to directly compare it to. That's enough of my overall thoughts on this game; now I'll start talking about the story.

I'm really not sure why the decision was made to make this game's story into three mini plots, or have a seemingly untrustworthy framing device in Varric recounting the story of Hawke, but it created a poorly paced and tedious experience. The whole of the three plots supposedly lead up to this "big thing" that happens in act 3, but the problem is that because the majority of the focus of acts 1 and 2 are on their own primary plot, there's little to no buildup to the "big thing" so that when it happens it seems really out of place (and out of character for that certain person to commit) and as a result, act 3, the climax of the whole game, is easily the weakest of all three acts. Of course, all the acts suffer in their own way by only having a third of a game to develop and therefore progressing through them seems tedious because there doesn't feel like there's any weight behind what you're accomplishing, but most glaringly is how the event we're told about since the beginning just fizzles as a result of just coming out of nowhere.

I've presented the dialogue as a concern on this board, and I would say about half of the posters agreed with me while half didn't, but I was not the only one to complain about it and that is pretty significant considering I never once saw complaints about how dialogue was handled in, say, KotOR. I have the same problem with the dialogue in this game as I do with Mass Effect: the dialogue selections are vague and too often deceptive. I get that BioWare's precious dialogue wheel was a big hit with gaming magazines for whatever reason, but what exactly would be the downside of simply writing out what your character will say in each of the selections? It's not like there would be no room for them; Hawke rarely strings together two or more sentences per reply, so why instead opt to give four-word sentence fragments that make a player guess what is meant by each? The Witcher games got this right, so why insist on using that stupid wheel where it isn't necessary? ironically, those little "tone pictures" are far more accurate and honest indicators of what will be said than the WORDS are. Does that not seem backwards to you, oh BioWare representative who has to read these ineffectual pleas from fans and somehow present a coherent checklist of demands for some higher-up in the company?

The combat. Good GOD the combat. I remember a phrase from a BW PR guy that really stuck with me: that every time you press a button, something awesome should happen. Well, I guess he was just talking about a 2h warrior, because it's very clear that using any other class at harder difficulties is pure suicide. Before I get into that though, I'd like to say a bit about auto-attack. Auto-attack is good. It should be a given that if I as a player start hitting a guy, I won't want to stop for awhile. So why were we console users presented with this Dynasty Warriors hack & slash combat that meant we had to mash a single button constantly in combat just to deal basic damage? I should point out that up until the day of release we were told that auto-attack, while not in the demo of the game, WOULD be in the final game. It wasn't. Back to my earlier comment about classes: Clearly this game was designed with the player using a 2h warrior in mind. Sword and board? Useless. Shadow rogue? Useless. In fact, it's very clear since enemies now have such low health and how long the heal spell cooldown is (of which only one character in the whole game can do if you yourself didn't pick a healer), the ONLY feasible strategy in any encounter is to just go all-out DPS. Tank and spank does not work. Squishy mages are almost unusable thanks to enemies spawning from the edges of the map. Rogues are far better at getting threat than sword and shield warriors are, and that is an incredibly glaring design flaw. The camera is too close and too restrictive, the tactics are dumbed down "You can play the game fine without ever using the tactical menu, but we left it in there just in case you enjoy doing micromanagement that we ultimately made pointless anyway!"...I could go on all day about this but let's move on.

Equipment customization. Mass Effect 1 handled equipment badly because there were so many items to keep track of and there were too many equipment options, and equipment options FOR your equipment that it got cumbersome and one would have to spend 10 minutes turning 70 different assault rifles into omnigel. Mass Effect 2 handled equipmnt badly because it really didn't let you handle equipment at all. Dragon Age: Origins was a perfect middleman; your inventory never got so cumbersome that you would get lost in a sea of endless tiers of the same item, and you could equip all your party with any equipment that was suitable for their class. Dragon Age 2 opted for the Mass Effect 2 approach, for whatever reason. You can't let them use new armor, instead you need to look around every store for these upgrades to their current armor, and these upgrades can disappear if you don't find them in a certain part of the game. I would really like an explanation for why any of that makes sense, and why the game intentionally gimps your party unless you are resolute in checking every nook and cranny for some trinket that they can latch onto their clothes. The only thing that bothered me more about party equipment is how, no matter what, no character can use any weapon other than one specific type. Isabella can never use a bow. Fenris can never use a shield. varric can never use a dagger. But what is the BIG problem with this? The only party member that can use a bow is only available through DLC. Unless you yourself happen to be a rogue archer, you are s*** out of luck if you want to put some use to your max tier bow that dropped. This is a shockingly bad design flaw and a perfect example of how stripping content that was originally in the vanilla game is a horrible decision. There is an entire class of weapon held hostage from the player because BioWare and EA wanted to squeeze out an extra $10 from people who already bought this rushed tripe that we so hoped would live up to our expectations. This? This is sickening. It's because of this I vowed not to buy any more DLC from BioWare until I saw a game from them that actually warranted it. I have yet to find one.

Repeating maps. I don't really have to go into this.

The classic RPG is not a dead art, but Dragon Age II is trying to make it so. If I seem harsh here, it's not because this game is bad, in fact had it been a stand-alone title by any other developer I would have said it was ok, but compared to what Origins was, this was just a massive disappointment. I'm glad that BioWare had someone make a topic to listen to reviews (though I'm not entirely sure why, I saw lots of honest sentiment all over the forums soon after this game came out), but forgive me if I don't hold my breath that this input from fans won't change BioWare's current trend in their casual RPG strategy.

I have to quote this for just being so dam right.

[Deano1981]

In all honesty all I really liked about DA 2 was the ability to see if you were attempting a romantic , peacekeeping or comical response in conversation, the increased attack speed (Auto attack mainly, that I really REALLY liked) of the characters and the method of which mages behaved in combat. (How they fired shots from their staff in a full-on battle style) Nothing else stood out for me. If they had had these things in DAO, it would have been a perfect game in my view.

[zyntifox]

batlin wrote...

Well then.

Dragon Age 2 is a perfect example of how not to handle a sequel. DA:O was an unexpected hit; clearly there wasn't much confidence that it would be all that successful and certainly not successful enough to match their new hit Mass Effect franchise. Well lo and behold, it turns out that the classic RPG formula still worked. And why wouldn't it? Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic used systems derived from 2nd and 3rd editions of the Dungeons & Dragons rules, and those are easily BioWare's more successful and well-loved franchises. Origins was supposedly a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, and although the gameplay wasn't the same, the tactics, the style, and the overall magic was still there and it truly felt like a great classic RPG. So here BioWare had a promising new franchise, well-recieved by fans old and new alike. It was clear that the classic formula still worked and people loved returning to that in a sea of casual RPGs. So what did BioWare do in the sequel?

They turned it into a casual RPG. The story became episodic and tedious. The dialogue stilted and deceptive. The combat a mindless hack & slash-fest. Boring characters. Little equipment customization. Repeating maps. FETCH QUESTS, and horribly imbalanced feat trees. It baffles me just how far off the mark BioWare got this game; almost as if they despised everything that made Dragon Age Origins good and wanted to bring it into their cookie-cutter Mass Effect formula as punishment to the players who dared like a classic RPG more than their new premier franchise.

I'm engaging in quite a bit of hyperbole in regard to BioWare hating their fanbase of course, but that is frankly what it seemed like to me as I played this game for the first time. I can't really express just how depressing it is to feel the onset of extreme disappointment in a game that you were really, really excited to play for a long, long time. It was like playing Fable for the first time all over again, only this experience was more jarring as I had a prequel to directly compare it to. That's enough of my overall thoughts on this game; now I'll start talking about the story.

I'm really not sure why the decision was made to make this game's story into three mini plots, or have a seemingly untrustworthy framing device in Varric recounting the story of Hawke, but it created a poorly paced and tedious experience. The whole of the three plots supposedly lead up to this "big thing" that happens in act 3, but the problem is that because the majority of the focus of acts 1 and 2 are on their own primary plot, there's little to no buildup to the "big thing" so that when it happens it seems really out of place (and out of character for that certain person to commit) and as a result, act 3, the climax of the whole game, is easily the weakest of all three acts. Of course, all the acts suffer in their own way by only having a third of a game to develop and therefore progressing through them seems tedious because there doesn't feel like there's any weight behind what you're accomplishing, but most glaringly is how the event we're told about since the beginning just fizzles as a result of just coming out of nowhere.

I've presented the dialogue as a concern on this board, and I would say about half of the posters agreed with me while half didn't, but I was not the only one to complain about it and that is pretty significant considering I never once saw complaints about how dialogue was handled in, say, KotOR. I have the same problem with the dialogue in this game as I do with Mass Effect: the dialogue selections are vague and too often deceptive. I get that BioWare's precious dialogue wheel was a big hit with gaming magazines for whatever reason, but what exactly would be the downside of simply writing out what your character will say in each of the selections? It's not like there would be no room for them; Hawke rarely strings together two or more sentences per reply, so why instead opt to give four-word sentence fragments that make a player guess what is meant by each? The Witcher games got this right, so why insist on using that stupid wheel where it isn't necessary? ironically, those little "tone pictures" are far more accurate and honest indicators of what will be said than the WORDS are. Does that not seem backwards to you, oh BioWare representative who has to read these ineffectual pleas from fans and somehow present a coherent checklist of demands for some higher-up in the company?

The combat. Good GOD the combat. I remember a phrase from a BW PR guy that really stuck with me: that every time you press a button, something awesome should happen. Well, I guess he was just talking about a 2h warrior, because it's very clear that using any other class at harder difficulties is pure suicide. Before I get into that though, I'd like to say a bit about auto-attack. Auto-attack is good. It should be a given that if I as a player start hitting a guy, I won't want to stop for awhile. So why were we console users presented with this Dynasty Warriors hack & slash combat that meant we had to mash a single button constantly in combat just to deal basic damage? I should point out that up until the day of release we were told that auto-attack, while not in the demo of the game, WOULD be in the final game. It wasn't. Back to my earlier comment about classes: Clearly this game was designed with the player using a 2h warrior in mind. Sword and board? Useless. Shadow rogue? Useless. In fact, it's very clear since enemies now have such low health and how long the heal spell cooldown is (of which only one character in the whole game can do if you yourself didn't pick a healer), the ONLY feasible strategy in any encounter is to just go all-out DPS. Tank and spank does not work. Squishy mages are almost unusable thanks to enemies spawning from the edges of the map. Rogues are far better at getting threat than sword and shield warriors are, and that is an incredibly glaring design flaw. The camera is too close and too restrictive, the tactics are dumbed down "You can play the game fine without ever using the tactical menu, but we left it in there just in case you enjoy doing micromanagement that we ultimately made pointless anyway!"...I could go on all day about this but let's move on.

Equipment customization. Mass Effect 1 handled equipment badly because there were so many items to keep track of and there were too many equipment options, and equipment options FOR your equipment that it got cumbersome and one would have to spend 10 minutes turning 70 different assault rifles into omnigel. Mass Effect 2 handled equipmnt badly because it really didn't let you handle equipment at all. Dragon Age: Origins was a perfect middleman; your inventory never got so cumbersome that you would get lost in a sea of endless tiers of the same item, and you could equip all your party with any equipment that was suitable for their class. Dragon Age 2 opted for the Mass Effect 2 approach, for whatever reason. You can't let them use new armor, instead you need to look around every store for these upgrades to their current armor, and these upgrades can disappear if you don't find them in a certain part of the game. I would really like an explanation for why any of that makes sense, and why the game intentionally gimps your party unless you are resolute in checking every nook and cranny for some trinket that they can latch onto their clothes. The only thing that bothered me more about party equipment is how, no matter what, no character can use any weapon other than one specific type. Isabella can never use a bow. Fenris can never use a shield. varric can never use a dagger. But what is the BIG problem with this? The only party member that can use a bow is only available through DLC. Unless you yourself happen to be a rogue archer, you are s*** out of luck if you want to put some use to your max tier bow that dropped. This is a shockingly bad design flaw and a perfect example of how stripping content that was originally in the vanilla game is a horrible decision. There is an entire class of weapon held hostage from the player because BioWare and EA wanted to squeeze out an extra $10 from people who already bought this rushed tripe that we so hoped would live up to our expectations. This? This is sickening. It's because of this I vowed not to buy any more DLC from BioWare until I saw a game from them that actually warranted it. I have yet to find one.

Repeating maps. I don't really have to go into this.

The classic RPG is not a dead art, but Dragon Age II is trying to make it so. If I seem harsh here, it's not because this game is bad, in fact had it been a stand-alone title by any other developer I would have said it was ok, but compared to what Origins was, this was just a massive disappointment. I'm glad that BioWare had someone make a topic to listen to reviews (though I'm not entirely sure why, I saw lots of honest sentiment all over the forums soon after this game came out), but forgive me if I don't hold my breath that this input from fans won't change BioWare's current trend in their casual RPG strategy.

Thank you Batlin for writing such a long indept review of the game that reflects exacly what i feel about it. The only thing i would add to this is use of voiced protagonists in RPGS. Now don't get me wrong voiced protagonist can work very well in a RPG game. But i do not think it works in a cRPG where you can customize you're look to the extent which you can in this game. And this feature, the voiced protagonist, also takes away the potential of using multiple races which is something i believe is one of the fundamental functions you want in a cRPG.

[hunterxx1xx]

batlin wrote...

Well then.

Dragon Age 2 is a perfect example of how not to handle a sequel. DA:O was an unexpected hit; clearly there wasn't much confidence that it would be all that successful and certainly not successful enough to match their new hit Mass Effect franchise. Well lo and behold, it turns out that the classic RPG formula still worked. And why wouldn't it? Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic used systems derived from 2nd and 3rd editions of the Dungeons & Dragons rules, and those are easily BioWare's more successful and well-loved franchises. Origins was supposedly a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, and although the gameplay wasn't the same, the tactics, the style, and the overall magic was still there and it truly felt like a great classic RPG. So here BioWare had a promising new franchise, well-recieved by fans old and new alike. It was clear that the classic formula still worked and people loved returning to that in a sea of casual RPGs. So what did BioWare do in the sequel?

They turned it into a casual RPG. The story became episodic and tedious. The dialogue stilted and deceptive. The combat a mindless hack & slash-fest. Boring characters. Little equipment customization. Repeating maps. FETCH QUESTS, and horribly imbalanced feat trees. It baffles me just how far off the mark BioWare got this game; almost as if they despised everything that made Dragon Age Origins good and wanted to bring it into their cookie-cutter Mass Effect formula as punishment to the players who dared like a classic RPG more than their new premier franchise.

I'm engaging in quite a bit of hyperbole in regard to BioWare hating their fanbase of course, but that is frankly what it seemed like to me as I played this game for the first time. I can't really express just how depressing it is to feel the onset of extreme disappointment in a game that you were really, really excited to play for a long, long time. It was like playing Fable for the first time all over again, only this experience was more jarring as I had a prequel to directly compare it to. That's enough of my overall thoughts on this game; now I'll start talking about the story.

I'm really not sure why the decision was made to make this game's story into three mini plots, or have a seemingly untrustworthy framing device in Varric recounting the story of Hawke, but it created a poorly paced and tedious experience. The whole of the three plots supposedly lead up to this "big thing" that happens in act 3, but the problem is that because the majority of the focus of acts 1 and 2 are on their own primary plot, there's little to no buildup to the "big thing" so that when it happens it seems really out of place (and out of character for that certain person to commit) and as a result, act 3, the climax of the whole game, is easily the weakest of all three acts. Of course, all the acts suffer in their own way by only having a third of a game to develop and therefore progressing through them seems tedious because there doesn't feel like there's any weight behind what you're accomplishing, but most glaringly is how the event we're told about since the beginning just fizzles as a result of just coming out of nowhere.

I've presented the dialogue as a concern on this board, and I would say about half of the posters agreed with me while half didn't, but I was not the only one to complain about it and that is pretty significant considering I never once saw complaints about how dialogue was handled in, say, KotOR. I have the same problem with the dialogue in this game as I do with Mass Effect: the dialogue selections are vague and too often deceptive. I get that BioWare's precious dialogue wheel was a big hit with gaming magazines for whatever reason, but what exactly would be the downside of simply writing out what your character will say in each of the selections? It's not like there would be no room for them; Hawke rarely strings together two or more sentences per reply, so why instead opt to give four-word sentence fragments that make a player guess what is meant by each? The Witcher games got this right, so why insist on using that stupid wheel where it isn't necessary? ironically, those little "tone pictures" are far more accurate and honest indicators of what will be said than the WORDS are. Does that not seem backwards to you, oh BioWare representative who has to read these ineffectual pleas from fans and somehow present a coherent checklist of demands for some higher-up in the company?

The combat. Good GOD the combat. I remember a phrase from a BW PR guy that really stuck with me: that every time you press a button, something awesome should happen. Well, I guess he was just talking about a 2h warrior, because it's very clear that using any other class at harder difficulties is pure suicide. Before I get into that though, I'd like to say a bit about auto-attack. Auto-attack is good. It should be a given that if I as a player start hitting a guy, I won't want to stop for awhile. So why were we console users presented with this Dynasty Warriors hack & slash combat that meant we had to mash a single button constantly in combat just to deal basic damage? I should point out that up until the day of release we were told that auto-attack, while not in the demo of the game, WOULD be in the final game. It wasn't. Back to my earlier comment about classes: Clearly this game was designed with the player using a 2h warrior in mind. Sword and board? Useless. Shadow rogue? Useless. In fact, it's very clear since enemies now have such low health and how long the heal spell cooldown is (of which only one character in the whole game can do if you yourself didn't pick a healer), the ONLY feasible strategy in any encounter is to just go all-out DPS. Tank and spank does not work. Squishy mages are almost unusable thanks to enemies spawning from the edges of the map. Rogues are far better at getting threat than sword and shield warriors are, and that is an incredibly glaring design flaw. The camera is too close and too restrictive, the tactics are dumbed down "You can play the game fine without ever using the tactical menu, but we left it in there just in case you enjoy doing micromanagement that we ultimately made pointless anyway!"...I could go on all day about this but let's move on.

Equipment customization. Mass Effect 1 handled equipment badly because there were so many items to keep track of and there were too many equipment options, and equipment options FOR your equipment that it got cumbersome and one would have to spend 10 minutes turning 70 different assault rifles into omnigel. Mass Effect 2 handled equipmnt badly because it really didn't let you handle equipment at all. Dragon Age: Origins was a perfect middleman; your inventory never got so cumbersome that you would get lost in a sea of endless tiers of the same item, and you could equip all your party with any equipment that was suitable for their class. Dragon Age 2 opted for the Mass Effect 2 approach, for whatever reason. You can't let them use new armor, instead you need to look around every store for these upgrades to their current armor, and these upgrades can disappear if you don't find them in a certain part of the game. I would really like an explanation for why any of that makes sense, and why the game intentionally gimps your party unless you are resolute in checking every nook and cranny for some trinket that they can latch onto their clothes. The only thing that bothered me more about party equipment is how, no matter what, no character can use any weapon other than one specific type. Isabella can never use a bow. Fenris can never use a shield. varric can never use a dagger. But what is the BIG problem with this? The only party member that can use a bow is only available through DLC. Unless you yourself happen to be a rogue archer, you are s*** out of luck if you want to put some use to your max tier bow that dropped. This is a shockingly bad design flaw and a perfect example of how stripping content that was originally in the vanilla game is a horrible decision. There is an entire class of weapon held hostage from the player because BioWare and EA wanted to squeeze out an extra $10 from people who already bought this rushed tripe that we so hoped would live up to our expectations. This? This is sickening. It's because of this I vowed not to buy any more DLC from BioWare until I saw a game from them that actually warranted it. I have yet to find one.

Repeating maps. I don't really have to go into this.

The classic RPG is not a dead art, but Dragon Age II is trying to make it so. If I seem harsh here, it's not because this game is bad, in fact had it been a stand-alone title by any other developer I would have said it was ok, but compared to what Origins was, this was just a massive disappointment. I'm glad that BioWare had someone make a topic to listen to reviews (though I'm not entirely sure why, I saw lots of honest sentiment all over the forums soon after this game came out), but forgive me if I don't hold my breath that this input from fans won't change BioWare's current trend in their casual RPG strategy.

Please read Bioware! This guy is on top of it!

[hunterxx1xx]

[Taeran88]

Wulfsten wrote...

I thought DA2 was in almost all respects a MASSIVE improvement over DAO.

If anyone involved in the making of DA3 is reading this, please, please, PLEASE don't think that people who liked DA2 more only preferred it because it was more accessible or because the combat was "more intense". That absolutely isn't the case. Here's what I thought was better about DA2, listed as bullet points so it doesn't get TL;DR:
The things I loved: 

• Much better, more subtle story, less "saving the world GAH" and more the saga of a family and a city. Much lighter touch, and much more affecting.
• Better character interaction. The party members had their own lives outside of adventuring (Aveline, Anders) and had much more significant arcs in terms of their relationship with Hawke.
• Much better evolution of the protagonist. The fact that Hawke's speech patterns started changing the more you adhered to one end of the Good/Funny/Evil spectrum really blew me away. It made me feel MUCH closer to the protagonist, and the Hawke family in general.
• GREAT reinvention of the Qunari mythology. Love the new look, makes them look more alien, which fits into their narrative quality as well. The moral quandaries they present were shown with much more force and eloquence in DA2, as well. A brilliant move.
• A story that's time-based, not location-based. The use of Kirkwall, with its alien aesthetic and architecture, really broke the tired sword and sorcery mould of DAO. The fact that it was all based in Kirkwall and its environs may have irked some, but it really made you feel like you inhabited that city. Especially as your character settled in over time there.
• Conversations between members of your party. One of the best parts of the Bioware games I've loved since BG2 is the fact that your party members don't just relate to you, they relate to each other. DA2 was vastly superior to DAO in this respect, both in terms of wit and depth.

These factors are what made me love DA2. Please, more of this! I can tell there's a lot of discussion in the offices about minor quibbles like armor customisation and crafting systems and skill trees, but trust me, these issues are trivial compared to the tone and arc of the story, and the depth of the characters in it. Combat feel and a sense of meaningful progression (i.e. XP and items) are also important to the RPG experience, but the thing that sets it apart is a dedication to story and characterisation, and the player's role within the story and character relationships. 

The factors I didn't like :

• Repeated environments, obviously
• Equipment flavour text. It existed in DAO, and it just gave the game more feeling. It doesn't cost anything (fansource it!), so it felt cheap when it was removed.
• Combat was a bit floaty and felt a bit too superhero-esque, with all the rushing about. I'm of two minds on the combat though, so it's not a big deal.
• Isabela's body shape was massively condescending to your audience, and was distracting and borderline offensive. I'm sure you've gotten enough criticism for this already, but I will say this:
• Don't be afraid to sexualise the female characters, it's obviously something that will garner fans. But sexualise them by making them witty, flirty and interesting, not by baring their pixelated thighs and giving them 48DD breasts. It just isn't appealing, and I doubt it was even to 12-year olds, beyond the "GOSH boobs!" Bioware has made a lot of money by treating its fans like intelligent adults. Don't stop now.
• Armour became obsolete far too quickly. This is just a balance issue, so it's not hugely important.

Please, keep your focus on subtle storytelling and deep character development in DA3, even if you do decide to fall in with the fans who claim to have preferred DAO! 

One of the best reviews imo. I loved DA:O and I loved DA2. Both games are different and I had fun with both (hell, I still play both from time to time).  

[batlin]

Don't be afraid to sexualise the female characters, it's obviously something that will garner fans. But sexualise them by making them witty, flirty and interesting, not by baring their pixelated thighs and giving them 48DD breasts. It just isn't appealing, and I doubt it was even to 12-year olds, beyond the "GOSH boobs!" Bioware has made a lot of money by treating its fans like intelligent adults. Don't stop now.

Ironically, Isabella is easily the most interesting and three-dimensional character in the entire party. But since she has a sexy outfit and model physique I guess that doesn't matter...

Modifié par batlin, 24 février 2012 - 03:29 .

[PicassoBlue]

 A year has passed since Dragon Age 2 was released, so I think it’s finally time for me to review it (I’m sure everyone has been waiting with bated breath for my opinion). I still remember how excited I was about this game. I had logged over 500 hours playing Origins, and I couldn’t wait for more. I was disappointed when Best Buy botched my pre-order and didn’t have a copy of the Signature Edition for me, but I was so eager to play that I just dived into the game.

I took the day off from work and spent about 10 hours playing on release day. The game certainly had a different feel, but it was still basically Dragon Age, and pulling into Kirkwall was a stunning experience.  I enjoyed exploring the different areas around town. The idea of making difficult and dangerous choices to help my refugee family escape from poverty also appealed to my roleplaying tastes. 

But then everything started to go terribly wrong. I picked up some interesting equipment that Hawke couldn’t use and found that my companions couldn’t use it either. I was so sure that this was a bug that I paused the game and searched for a solution, only to find out the truth about this bizarre design decision. The areas that I found interesting during my first visit started to get really old when I returned with a new quest moments later and found new enemies guarding the same old treasure chests. And what a letdown it was to be rewarded for my conquests with items that were literally categorized as “junk.” 

And what can I say about the combat? What a shock it was to arrange my party with their backs to the wall and facing the only door into a room, only to have waves of enemies materialize out of thin air beside them. So much for tactics. And then Act 1 concluded with an MMO-style boss battle that was an exercise in grinding tedium.

Early in Act 2, I opened my journal and found a long list of pointless fetch quests staring me in the face. I decided to skip them and continue my main quest, but then I realized that I didn’t care about the Qunari either. I didn’t care about my companions, and I couldn’t identify with Hawke because I couldn’t make him say what I wanted him to say. Nothing I did made any difference in the world. Even the passage of years didn’t affect anything. I ejected the game DVD and threw it in the trash. 

What makes me really angry about the whole Dragon Age 2 fiasco is the demo. In the demo my character’s equipment was completely locked, so there was no way to tell that gear wasn’t transferrable. As I recall, all combat also took place in large, open areas where it made sense that the party could be attacked from all sides by waves of enemies. Conversation was also kept to a minimum. This signals to me that someone at a high level knew that they had made bad design decisions and ultimately a poor game, but they were trying to make the best of it. I guess I can’t blame them for trying to do that, but I feel like EA/BioWare essentially stole my money by pretending that this was a sequel to the game I loved. 

I won’t be pre-ordering Dragon Age 3. I won’t rule out buying it, but I’ll definitely solicit comments from Origins fans
first. I’ll never understand why such a great game had to be completely blown up. I’d understand it if the game had flopped, but it was a success commercially, with critics, and with the players. I don’t understand.

Modifié par PicassoBlue, 06 mars 2012 - 01:40 .

[Dr. Freud]

www.youtube.com/watch

Modifié par Dr. Freud, 09 mars 2012 - 04:22 .

[Realmzmaster]

Dr. Freud wrote...

www.youtube.com/watch

What is your point? The same youtuber (benzaie) also has 5 second videos for most of the AAA games from Skyrim to Portal. All of which poke fun at the game.

[karushna5]

Well, I loved the game, obviously you heard most of my complaints from others, mostly that the scenery got repetitive very fast although we know it is like that when you visit the same place over and over it will...look the same.

I absolutely adore that you can decide your character's personality. Still on third playthrough with angry Hawke. I know most people hated it so, it probably won't be in the next one but I found the third choice of sarcastic a beautiful addition to the normally good or evil.

The other stuff is minor. A couple glitches like not letting the Architect live, and the not so minor Zevran flirting with my Hawke. Wonderful game in the end. A little off at times that is hard to explain but wonderful none the less. No chance of a dwarf romance sometime? Always loved dwarves and Varric proved Bioware could make an unstereotypical dwarf which made me very happy.

Also I loved the characters and that the conversations with them were drawn out. It is terrible to talk to a character as much as you can just for them to go silent in the first act. Happened in ME1 and DAO and I liked that changed.

[Kavatica]

As a female player, I will say that Isabella's body doesn't offend me. I think she is sexy and strong and hilarious and given her personality, the outfit suits her. In fact, I wish my fem Hawke could run around in some skimpier outfits. I miss some of the more feminine armor/robes I was able to put my fem warden into in DAO. What can I say, I like playing as a strong sexy warrior.