Okay, so... this post got really long. Hopefully it's not too tl;dr.
Platform: PC
Difficulty: Hard
Character: Female Mage Hawke
Gameplay time: ~5 hours (so a lot of my impressions are very tentative at the moment!)
I played a shortened version of the demo at San Diego Comic Con where the developers explained some of their design decisions, so the changes that people were complaining about after the demo was released were not a surprise to me. I'm honestly baffled that people are saying this isn't a "true" sequel. Recently I played through Fable 3 and was ultimately disappointed in it for various reasons, including the fact that it was pretty much just Fable 2 just slightly different. If I wanted to play more DA:O, I can always just replay it or play a mod. When a sequel comes out, I expect the gameplay to be improved, and I think that's just what Bioware did. Is it perfect? No. But it's pretty damn awesome. Is it an old school RPG? Not really. But does that mean it's inherently bad? Not at all. I love old school RPGs but that doesn't mean I can't love new ones too.
Anyway, if you are still disappointed that it's a different game than DA:O, maybe you should try to play it without thinking of it as a sequel and maybe you'll find you like it better when you don't frame it in that light.
Anyway, my review:
Likes:
+The game feels more brutal and darker. People complained when the demo came out that the setting wasn't "interesting" but I think the starkness of a world ravaged by the Blight is fascinating.
+I love the friendship/rival bar. I hated having to sit on my hands and play nice with characters on DA:O when I didn't agree with what they wanted me to do, and now I don't have to. I'm having fun being a dick to Carver
I'm still playing Hawke a lot nicer than I ever played Shepard though, lol. I'm interested to see how certain relationships may actually be better as rival relationships (if that makes any sense). Like, before, it only benefitted me to be friends with everyone, but in some cases, I think in order to do push another character to do the "right" thing, I will have to be rivals with them. Not knowing how my interactions with characters or decisions will affect the rest of the game is exciting--I like it when things aren't so clear cut.
+While I acknowledge that Bioware didn't have to listen to fan's "demands" about romance options, I'm absolutely thrilled that all 4 major romance options are bisexual. As a bisexual chick, that makes my life a lot easier
Going into DA:O without any spoilers and not realizing that I could hit on Morrigan as a chick was a huge disappointment lol. It's nice to know that the developers are trying to be more inclusive with their game design choices. (Now, could we get some more characters that aren't white?!)
+I'm loving the framed narrative. I love trying to figure out what elements of the story Varric has most likely changed (lol Bethany's bust size).
+The characterization is great. I feel like no more needs to be said on that--Bioware lived up to my usual expectations in this department
+This is the first game ever that's made me decide to have my first run through be as a mage. Just normally it's not my thing and I prefer to hack and slash. But playing a mage is *so much fun* in this game.
+I really like that you can tell what your character is trying to express when you pick a dialogue option. A lot of the time, I would accidentally say that wrong thing in DA:O because I misunderstood what the dialogue option was implying.
+I actually like that the game was more streamlined. Just as I liked that ME2 was more streamlined. I guess I can understand that people are upset but I think it's kind of a superficial thing to complain about. I don't really see a *downside* to streamlining, except that supposedly it makes the game less complicated. Seeing as a lot of the interaction dynamics are more sophisticated and I feel like the combat is even more fun than the first one (which was already really fun), there are no complaints here.
On a less serious level:
+ Anders is back! And a romanceable Anders at that. I was pretty disappointed that you could only flirt with him in Awakening
+Isabella
+MORE GORE
I am having fun brutally slaying people. Maybe people who are upset about that shouldn't be playing a Mature rated game…
Neutral things:
*The game seems easier. I know a lot of people complained that DA:O was too difficult, so I guess for those people the toning down of difficult in DA2 is a good thing. I decided not to make the same mistake I made with ME2 (which was playing it on normal) so I just started DA2 on hard, although I'm tempted to go up to nightmare since I'm not actually having any problems with it. I'm pretty sure hard would actually be hard without the DLC equipment, though.
*Although I was initially disappointed that I couldn't make my own character, I've grown to like Hawke. Ultimately, I can more or less make ~my own~ character since I can control Hawke's appearance and personality. By having Hawke be the main character, I feel like it allows the story to have a stronger narrative, although I'm not that far into the game yet so I can't say for certain.
*I'm indifferent about the graphics. I probably should have installed the game on my desktop instead of my laptop, but as it stands, I can't play the game on very high quality settings on my laptop anyway, so it's kind of irrelevant to me that the graphics be amazingly better. I do like the racial redesigns though (maybe not so much elves, but I've never really been a fan of elves anyway…) I'm not someone who is wildly concerned about graphics though, seeing as I regularly play SNES games and interactive fiction games…
*Still making my mind up about the talent tree, but I think I like it.
Negative things:
-I'm not too far yet in the game, but so far it feels like the choices I made in DA:O haven't really impacted the game all that much. Granted, there wasn't that much impact from ME to ME2 either, but I feel like there was a bit more. It's not a huge deal, but I had to replay some DLC in order to have a save that had the DLC in the right order, so I was kind of hoping that time investment would have payed off a little more.
-Not digging the inventory and companion equipment management. (Although the "junk" function is kind of nice). It seems needlessly restrictive.
-I'd be nice to be able to talk to the companions more. :/
Now, I realize this review is kind of lopsided, and I'm sure I'll find more negative things as I go along. I haven't had a real chance yet to see how repetitive the dungeons are, so I haven't commented on that yet.
Also, with regards to romance: I don't think it's that silly that people are focusing on it. Part of what people expect from Bioware games are dynamic, interesting characters that you wish were real and that you knew in real life. Seeing as a romantic relationship is arguably one of the deepest connection you can have with someone, it doesn't seem unreasonable to find that to be an exciting part of the game. It also helps make Hawke feel more like a real person. If you don't like romance in your RPGs, then just keep Hawke celibate, problem solved.
Modifié par frocutio, 10 mars 2011 - 12:42 .
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