I see a lot of complaints on the forums about this and some complaints are valid but I think a lot of others are off the mark.
I've played for about 15 hours so far and here's what I've seen:
* Difficulty is ok, you might not play on the same as last time (Hard for DA2, Normal for DAO) but it still works.
* Companions not having armor is a boon and a curse. On one hand they look the same the whole game, but on the other hand, it really does reduce inventory clutter and focus the experience on Hawke. I'm no longer comparing 3 choices for each of the 5 pieces of armor for something like 8 people which is nice. Saves on inventory space and lets me concentrate on my main character development. Overall I do sort of like not having to worry about companion armor, esp for companions I don't use a lot (I'm a rouge so Avaline [tank] and Anders [mage/healer] always travel with me so my other companions arent always going to have the right armor for their level otherwise (see: DA1 when you suddenly take a lesser used char like leiliana and she has gear way too crappy for her level)
* Gameplay is alright. Feels sort of WoWish with hotkeys and cooldowns. I have my control scheme set up like WoW which I played a lot years ago so not too bad. One thing to remember, set attack closest enemy to a convinent keyboard hotkey.
Clicking on enemies gets incredibly annoying since unlike in DA:O, the clicking area seems really weird. Trying to tell a char to attack an Arcane Horror? Too bad you're now walking to where it used to be since the click box is nowhere where his body is onscreen (tip: moving Shades cannot be attacked by clicking on their body AFAIK, you have to click on their feet where the circle is, incredibly annoying since it very hard to attack them when they move). I pause A LOT to click on targets so now I remap attack closest to "E" and it makes it better. Not a big fan of the controls though, mainly the clicking to attack.
*Missing skills are sort of cool, traps, poisons and all that BS were stupid skills anyways. Now you have to collect recipes and ingredients as well as gold to make things which streamlines it.
This is awesome. DA:O's talent system did not work because it made characters suboptimal fighters because you really needed to craft in harder difficulties. Te flip side is that in harder difficulties you also needed optimal fighters which meant that you had party members that were weaker than others because they had to invest in non combat talents, a liability in harder difficulties. In Planescape: Torment, it was no big deal to put 18 points in Charisma because you only had to fight once in the entire game, in DA:O, it doesn't work that way.
Now crafting depends on your exploration of the game world, disarming and unlocking uses the same skill points that a rouge would invest in anyways and conversation choices are no longer locked because of talents. This makes for a more focused game and more flexible characters. Before I wouldn't bring Leliana because she was weaker than Zevran. Now I can experience the missions with any character I want which helps story telling and choice.
*Speaking of storytelling, it is better now because you can pick any conversation choice instead of being locked out by an arbitrary paragon/renegade bar or missing talents. The previous ways made your character more one dimensional. Now I can play a character that is compassionate to mages while being a massive dick to the Quinari which helps the whole role playing part of RPG. How many people do you know practice the same amount of compassion or dickishness to every single person equally? Furthermore, why was the coercion talent even it DA:O? A blight killing warrior with magical top tier armor that has accomplished epic feats in combat can't frighten someone but once I put points in coercion to learn to speak in a slightly meaner voice and give a more refined evil eye people now listen? How does that even make sense? The new way is much improved.
*As for the storyline itself, eh, I haven't finished it yet so I cant say but it's not gripping me as well as Mass Effect 1 or DA:O since there doesn't seem to be as epic an enemy. It's more of a coming of age story or biography as far as I can tell.
*The new ability system is good, it's no longer linear so now you can pick up skills that you want without going down through a 4 column ability line and getting them all, allowing your character and playstyle to be more adapted to how you want to play. More branches and less synergies would be even nicer so you don't have to pick up some placeholder skills to get to the end of the ladder. (Like Rock and electricity mage skills both have to be picked up to get the skill that allows you to increase rock spell effectiveness? Why?)
*Performance is not very good. My PC can run Crysis 1 at 1920x1080 medium settings pretty well (With some things like textures on high). Dragon Age 2 runs about as quickly FPS wise as Crysis 1 does at 1920x1080 at medium without looking nearly as good. Also there should be some settings besides just Low/Medium/High. Why can't I adjust particle effects, shaders, shadows, textures and everything else without going neck deep in an ini file?
*Overall it's a good game that tries a more streamlined combat system that lets you focus on the combat while still allowing you to pursue crafting if you want to. It also improves in giving you the freedom to roleplay your character to really reflect what you want them to really say without arbitrary limitations. It's basically more focused while being more flexible, a pretty good design in my opinion.
It's not a hardcore RPG like Balder's Gate, Icewind Dale or Planescape Torment but it is still good. Just because the ideas are new don't mean they're bad, just different. DA:2 evaluated objectively as a game and not as some hardcore RPG is pretty good, I'd say 8.5-9/10 with points taken off for performance, lack of video settings, the controls and not having as interesting a storyline nor characters (Where's the Morrigan, Mordin, Legion, Wrex, analogue, the really interesting, unexpected truly awesome character?) so far.
I've played RPGs since Ultima 8 (1994) and I know it's disheartening to lose a hardcore RPG like DA:O used to be since there are so few being released nowadays, but honestly, DA2 while not a spiritual successor to Balder's Gate 2 like DA:O was to BG1 is still a good game. I don't think after I finish it I'll be blown away by the epicness of it like I was with Mass Effect 1 or Bioshock, but it's definitely still a quality, enjoyable title with some very good ideas.
Modifié par Mwmorph, 10 mars 2011 - 03:07 .
Retour en haut
....so saddening.
I can't customize my party or play style as mich c) I can't take advantage of gamepad control on the computer nor can I use the tactical advantages of a mouse and keyboard - are really ruining my DA2 experience.
