3274 réponses à ce sujet

[nightlordv]

MellowMackers0 wrote...

I truly enjoyed this game, more so than Origins, even. I try not to compare the two because, quite frankly, they are so different story-wise, but find that in the jump between the two, there were things I really liked and things I disliked:

Likes:
---The story seemed to be based on a much smaller scale, thus making it what I would consider more "personal". I felt far more invested in the nuances of the story this time around. I felt my choices held more weight against the direction of the story, which gave me a feeling of control and interest that far surpassed that of Origins.
---Hearing my Hawke's voice kept me more engaged in conversation and more attached to the dialogue in general. That being said, I also enjoyed the dialogue wheel. It was vague at times, but in a way I think that added to Hawke having a life of her own, which I enjoyed.
---The build of relationships between Hawke and her companions seemed more in depth.
---Better graphics. Enough said.
---Combat was... "flashier," I suppose, but I actually liked that. It seemed to fit in with the grand mood of the story. For instance, I loved playing as a mage in Origins, but actually watching my mage in combat was boring. "Oh, look, the mage is thrusting their staff forward. How exciting!" This actually was exciting. Same goes for warriors, rogues, and archers.
---The friend/rival system. Was more realistic as far as building relationships with characters. (Though sometimes I felt my companions had kind of "bipolar" reactions. I remember Aveline flipping on me a few times for what seemed like no reason, and my going "wtf?")

Dislikes:
---Reused dungeons, caverns, etc.
---Inability to customize the armor and weapons of our NPCs more. Companions seem less static if I can alter them in that way.
---The skill tree seemed so diluted.
---NPC conversation. In Origins, I loved that we could initite conversation whenever we felt like, and had so many more chances to build relationships.
---In general I was not a fan of the inventory system. All that junk drove me crazy.
---I wished it was longer. The shorter length in DA2 was understandable considering the time taken to make it, but still... It took me over a week of persistent game play to finish Origins the first time, which I was happy for. I had extra time set aside this week just for DA2 and found I was finished with time to spare : (
---The ending. I loved the story the whole way through, and was so invested in it. Then the ending just kind of... happened. It made sense and was written well, but I was unsatisfied. I was left hungering for more. Like, where the heck is my Hawke now? What are the seekers going to do? Of course, I will assume you've done this purposely to make way for a DA3 (If not I will have to shed some tears.)

My biggest qualm with DA2 was certainly the ending. All my other dislikes were more so annoyances that were far over-shadowed by my enjoyment and love for this game. Most of my praise will go to the story... good work, Bioware. I'd say 8.5/10.

You will find out what happens throughout the course of having to buy $7-$9 downloadable content. Then an expansion that will be probably be 10 hours long and be about 40 bucks.

[Saintthanksgiving]

Alright to keep it readable I'll do this in bullets:

The Pros

+The story is entertaining. This is pretty much standard for Bioware. With the exception of KOTOR 2 and Mass Effect 2, the storylines for Bioware games are usually top notch.
+The characters are well done. The companions are just as good as ever and provide humor and depth.
+The flashback/storytelling: I really dont see why people have an issue with this, This was an addition that could have made DA2 stand out from Origins, without feeling completely alien to it. I cant see how it takes anything away or is any more distracting than flashing to Denerim to listen in on Loghains conversations.

The bad:
+Combat: just... a mess, from the mob spamming, bandits jumping out of garbage cans, to everyone turning to red mush... just a complete fail. combat may have been slow in origins, but what is the point of randomly spawning a mob of raiders (who have no connection to the plot) just to kill the entire group with one swing of the sword? really really poorly done.
+Restricted character creation: This works in mass effect, and its fine, but I didnt buy mass effect. The different origin stories and open classes gave DAO replay value and tons of depth. I have no connection to Hawk... I feel like I SHOULD know the guy, because he is me, which makes it more distracting. It feels like picking your ninja turtle based on what weapon you want to see him swing for 50 hours... and thats about as deep as it goes.

+My biggest beef is the production value. The entire story happening in Kirkwall is not the end of the world. It could be done very well. The entire story happening in the same cave, warehouse, or street, is inexcusable and BORING. Why am I running around in circles doing these quests? meeting the same people? in the same places?

I dont know how the wheels fell off but did anyone read the interview with Eurogamer?

"the re-use of the levels is something we knew was a bit of a risk, but we wanted to make sure there was more content rather than less"

We included less content so that we could include... more... content?? Whaaa? They also said that they removed the Top-Down view because it allowed more detail in the environments. All three of them.

"Well it's hard to know exactly what's going on with scores that are really, really negative. One possible culprit could just be a change backlash, i.e. this isn't Origins and I wanted Origins 2."

Wait... you didnt anticipate backlash from the fanbase when the sequel to the game that they loved... WASNT... the sequel to the game they loved? When you throw a "2" at the end of something, it usually means it has something to do with the thing that required the "2." I'm not against telling the story of Kirkwall, but drastically changing the fundamental gameplay and character creation? why on earth would I want that in a sequel?

"I think we would have seen just as much negativity if we just, as I used to joke, stapled two Archdemons together and called it a super blight"

Seriously? That was the attitude in the developer circles?? When you make a sequel to a movie it has to be BIGGER and BETTER than the original, otherwise why make it? If you did not feel that you could come up with anything more inventive than "a two headed archdemon super blight" why did you try? was dumping the game into this a cop-out?

overall its a good story with horrendous production value. It certainly wasnt worth 60 bucks and would have been better suited as a standalone DLC.

[OmegaBlue0231]

With the changes that were made my opinion of the series went up several notches.

My biggest problem with Origins was the fact the combat took long enough for me to leave and come back to find my party still fighting and not losing. By speeding up the combat they made it where it actually felt like combat and not a baseball game.

The graphic don't look that much better so I'm neutral on that matter.

The story was better. I'm glad it wasn't the same "your character gathers people and saves the world" story that I could get from just about every game out there. I was actually able to get into the mind of Hawke, the Warden could have been left out of Origins and the story wouldn't have really changed but Hawke was the focus of DA2 and it shows.

The dialog system from the ME games was upgraded and I loved it as much as I did in the ME games.

I didn't really like some of the area were used over and over but I'd take story and a likable main character over environment.

9.1 out of 10

[snidy]

Just beat the game and while a few aspects were stronger than DA:O it was a major dissapointment and after the second half of the game i switched to casual mode and found myself rushing through playing the game faster than the developers rushed through making it just so i could see how it ended and be done with it like a bad movie.

Likes

- faster combat
- loading screens were interesting to wait through
- every class seemed to play a role

dislikes (here we go)

- RECYCLING. my biggest problem with this game... holy cakes batman! i think they only used 6 level designs the WHOLE GAME. seriously bioware? I don't want to revisit the same place 5 times. Like changing the entrance or blocking off a certain part is going to make me believe its a new place. By the third act my eyes were bleeding because I was suffering from COPYPASTEMIA

- Not only were the level designs redundant but so were the enemies. IF I HAVE TO FIGHT ANYMORE GIANT SPIDERS IM GOING TO KILL MYSELF. it seems like they only added a couple new enemy models because 95% are from origins. Bioware please budget for more than 1 designer next time this was brutal.

- PLOT? im going to try to not spoil anything but. i think this game should be called errand age instead of dragon age. Most of your quests are random assignments from several different people that don't have anything to do with each other or a main story. most of the main plot quests don't even make sense. theres no central antagonist in the game. theres no purpose for hawke he just kind of becomes famous and protects the city a couple times. the end explains nothing. nothing from DA: origins had anything to do with this game even though your history can be imported. I felt very confused and unfufilled at the end. there was no resolution whatsoever like origins.

- DARKSPAWN WTF? When i say WTF i mean What the F and Where the F. What being; what the hell did they do to the darkspawn models. they are lightspawns now not darkspawns. what happend to genlocks? what happened to broodmothers? those enemies were so gruseome in origins. and Where; they did not play a major role in the game whatsoever. you fight them a couple times and thats it. Excuse me, the whole prequel to this game was about darkspawn and you are telling me there isn't even a darkspawn boss fight. WTF

- WAVES. Sometimes its fun like in boss fights or something but everytime i go through an alley or some dungeon its like "alright when is this going to be over" redundancy is the bane of this game.

- character wheel is fail. I don't know how my choices are going to impact the situation because i don't even know what the hell hawke is going to say. A lot of times i ****** off companions i like because i couldn't see what i was going to say.

- sustained abilities taking massive %s. so if my character has 3 sustained abilities going it takes like 70% of my willpower pool wtf.

- Decisions didn't mean much of anything. there was no choice in the game. Way too linear.

- I didn't care about the companions. can't armor them. bland relationship plot.

- DLC. I'm sorry i just bought the game for 60 bucks and now you want me to spend 15 more for something you could have just put in the game for release? this DLC is BS. not only am i paying for the ****ty rushed game but you want me to fork up loads more money? to me i think bioware should provide all content for free because they still "owe" me for the ****** poor quality i already wasted my money on.


OVERALL 6/10

Major dissapointment. Bioware is better than this and took advantage of consumer loyalty big time on this one. They took Dragon Age and raped it right in front of our eyes. the Recycled levels and enemies were an insult and really makes it seem like bioware did not care on this one.

[Treefez]

 Right, played through it once so far, and my general impression is positive, but still feels like it could use a lot more work. 
A lot of my "points" will be given by comparison to DA:O (Which is something you cant really blame me for considering this is a sequel to a great game)

Positives:

Combat: Faster paced, and overall a lot more enjoyable.

Graphics: An improvement, but yet has some "unfinnished" parts.

Story: Overall good, but could flow a bit smoother over the time jumps. I also enjoy the way the story is "told".

Negatives:

The Hero: To be honest, i dont feel even remotely as "heroic" as i did on my character in DA:O. I wanted to feel that my character actually evolved to something greater than a glorified errand boy.

Lenght: I feel that the lenght of the main story is too short, as i played through this rather quickly compared to the first game, and i would like there to be more than 3 acts. This is something i enjoyed in DA:O. It took quite a bit of time playing through even the main story, whereas here i felt like i had been robbed of half a game.

Puzzles: A severe lack of puzzles compared to DA:O

Companions: I do enjoy the companions, but the customisation of their gear is something that i was outright angry with when i first started playing. I hate the fact that my companions want to wear the same rags as earlier, and this makes me skip out on loot that dosent affect my own character. When i first started playing, and i looted a decent set of armor, i thought to myself immediately "Oh, Aveline could probably use this". But then i remembered "riight, she cant, cause shes too into her guardsman armor set".
Also the conversation options with your companions is HEAVILY lacking depth and options. The conversations with your allies happen so rarely, and not being able to talk to them whenever i pleased during the game annoyed me so much. (This is one of my major problems with the game).

Skill trees: They somewhat seem lazy compared to DA:O, and in my opinion lacks diversity. I wish that more work was put into the skill trees, and that you had some more options rather than this.

Dungeons: Recycling the same areas over and over again, just placing the entrance and exit elsewhere and closing off some areas without changing the map. Is just lazy. You REALLY messed that part up. The dungeons and areas in DA:O felt a LOT larger. 

Overall this game seems rushed and unfinnished. A LOT more work should have been put into the sequel to an epic game such as DA:O. The game itself is decent, but needs a lot more stuffing for it to be a full release. Its good, yet im dissappointed in how "little" this game has to offer when compared to the original. Sure it has some slight redeeming factors, but not NEARLY enough for it to live up to its "little brother". 

This game is lacking majorly, and i feel like playing DA:O again just to simply fill the gap from DA2.
It just seems lazy, and i know you can do a lot better than this, which you should when you release this as a major title. Id consider this a half eaten apple compared to the watermelon DA:O was.

[scpulley]

I will flat out say this story was amazing, really, probably the best possible story I've seen in a bioware game. HOWEVER, you guys were jerks with it at the end! Seriously, leaving it THAT open made me a wee bit upset Overall, the gameplay was fun, the characters worked well, and I liked that it actually was a challenge to keep everyone happy, you had to make a lot of hard choices in the game that definately were going to effect your companions and the world around you at the end. I really wish there had been a less black or white option at the end in terms of how you sided with different opposing groups, especially given how that choice actually played out. it was more you were just there than it actually mattering what you chose, it felt the same either way.

The only real complaint I'd have is there was a total lack of varied maps for the missions. Literally every map felt far to generic, you had ONE map for every inside building mission in kirkwall? Were the city planners just lazy? Anyway, next time maybe at least have 2 or 3 other maps so it doesn't feel like I'm going back to the same place 10 times over the course of the game. Other than that, great job!

[Rattleface]

I'm replacing my previous BAD rating of the game with a high rating.
I was unimpressed when I played the demo - then just as unimpressed when I got the game and started trucking through the quests in the first act.

The quests, dialogue, characters - everything in the first act was a turnoff.

However, after playing DA2 religiously for the past few days and beating it on my pro-templar, I've got to say it's 10x better than Origins.
The dialogue wheel works.
The quests starting getting better (avoiding spoilers).
The characters got cool.

It got interesting, and how the game progressed wasn't bland; each segment up until the end was fun and kept me hooked, unlike Origins, where you essentially ran around, completing one huge dungeon map at a time to progress the plot.

There's at least 500 quests it felt like, and all of them were good.  Up until the end I was kept playing and it didn't feel like a snoozefest like Origins was, where the point A to point B quest style was tiring.

I'm srsly looking forward to DA3 now and HOPE bioware does it, because these bad ratings are, in my opinion, stupid.  It's just like Mass Effect 2.  Better than the first in every way but had a bad run coming straight out the door because it wasn't a carbon copy of the prequel.
The writing wasn't as novelbook as in Origins, and it felt more like a game than a story, but this was a good thing for the IP.

pls make da3 bioware illsukuoff

[eskapekid]

 If this game wasn't labled Dragon Age, I would say meh its pretty good.
But all the hard work put into the original that just gets pissed on in this "sequal" is a shame.

The basics, Your inventory management and character developement through inventrory gets destroyed.

Tactical Gameplay, you have to play on hard or nightmare it doesnt exisist otherwise.

Character developement....... the gift system is gone, the dialogue wheel quite frankly doesnt work as intended. You say things you dont mean to that greatly effect your relationship with your companions.

Graphics, Yeah they are nice, but honestly I cant recall a game where pretty pictures made me think oh my, THIS TOTALLY FIXES THE SHORT COMINGS I SAW!!! Also when I backstab someone I dont need to see a cloud of blood for no reason.

Story: My biggest gripe, Bioware typically shines here. The story should have been EPIC. Origans was. Sadly this is un engaging linear crap, the reused maps were a disaster. and you have major issues feeling like your in the story as opposed to watching it unfold. Witch butchers how you feel for your companions. IMO this is where the 2 year dev time really shows.

I truly HOPE EA does'nt butcher your game developement, but this was not a promising showing. I won't touch a bioware product until I read player reviews. 

I'm happy the gaming journalist find this game so promising it shows ALOT about there credentials. Wich apparently are none or they didnt play the original.

its a shame I liked bioware, I didnt want to lump them with EA, but I have no choice after this title.

oh yeah and I imported a saved game, for what reason I do not know, the game didnt feel at all like my import had any effect.

Modifié par eskapekid, 13 mars 2011 - 01:07 .

[Dramcus]

Well i am dissapointed.

Dragon Age Origins was great but it has its flaws so id give it a 9.5/10
But DA 2 was just plain out dissapointed.
The graphics were good and with some descent music to come along.
The animation made the battles so much more enjoyable and so was the spell animations.

But

There were to many battles and they quickly became incredibly repetitive and annoying.
The second end boss was a dick move to pull off.
I didn't come to like any of the characters the same way it did in Origins although, except the younger brother (mage) although it was nice to see some of the old.

The game was way too short, the prelude game me many ideas on how i could turn out epecially with the main characters brother but after short we dont see him for a short time untill near the end and the the end (If you want to come in good terms with him) I managede on normal to complete the game within 9 hours with all the companions and side quests (Not a speed run or anything that how i normally play)

The main story had great potential but it wasnt presented right and too short, I was expecting lots more seeing as how well developed the story in DA Origins was. 

The final end boss was way too easy. I nearly one-shotted her minions and she just had to much health and barely did any damage to me.

This can and hopefully will be patched but in the prelude if you try to save, it will loop forever and you wont be able to continue, thank fully it fixed itself when you get past the prelude with out saving.
Second it happend randomly that you cant open door activat stuff, i cant be fixed it you switch party member back and forth or activate a spell if your mage.

Overall its a way too short game, feels incomplete with a very annoying glitch but descent graphics music and animation

Its a 4/10 very dissapointed
Bioware you can do much better that that.

[lillegraa]

oh god it's sunday already
Anyway! I just finished the game, think I did all the sidequests bar a few I forgot to do before it was too late :b
So onwards to my review that I estimate just about 0 people will read, but I will write it anyway because I'm feeling just a bit hyper and I've nothing else to do!

I really enjoyed the game and was very entertained, but there were a few things that bugged me:

- How you had to be in your companions house (or bar or clinic : in order to converse with them. One of the things I liked about Origins was that you got to have completely random conversations with your companions, whereas here it seemed more like you needed an agenda.
- No mouth width adjust...option...thing... aaahhh displeasure! D:
- Sometimes the conversation wheel thingie was a bit too far off in its description of what you were about to say :b I would like to bring an example but the one I have in mind would be a wee bit spoilerish.
- It would have been nice with a few more complete troll conversation option things, like we had in Origins. I know we have the sarcastic one we can pick every time, but once in a while you just want to say something outrageous and stupid
- Companions left too easily! D: I lost a certain companion by accident, and it would have been nice if there had been a quest to search for them or something... (maybe there was and I missed it??)

And to even it out a bit, I'll write some of the things that I liked!

- Conversation flowed much, much better! Sometimes in Origins there would be some awkward stops from when two pieces of conversation had been like... put together, you know? (am I making sense?) I didn't notice any of that at all, so that was definitely lovely.
- The combat was prettier to look at and faster, too.
- Merrill was so god damn adorable I just wanted to hug her silly.
- I didn't think I'd grow keen on the interface thingie, but it turned out to be just fine, so I'm putting that here also 8)
- I rather liked the story. It was different from Origins and pretty exciting
- I liked the companion quests. This way of doing them was very exciting! I don't want to spoil so let's just leave it at that, lol :b

so yeah, overall I really liked it and I would buy it again... if I were for whatever reason taken back to the past... :S
Oh! And I liked the appearances from my Origins companions! Moar of those! (and one of my warden...just sayin :

[NeoGuardian86]

Having finished Dragon Age 2 on PS3 as a male warrior, i got done in about 45 hours.

Here are my thoughts.


Good:

Story - quite honostly, after DA:O dealt with the Blight, and ended it. Basically doing what Mass Effect trilogy has been doing over the course 3 games. Dragon Age did that sort of story arch in ONE game. So i didn't know where Dragon Age was going to go. The scale is smaller, and yet at the end the - without spoiling anything - deals with a major facet of the DA universe.  A story where the parents and siblings are not all dead, nice, it helps avoid the video game clich of hero without parents or family, and the cliche of a hero with amnesia. Frankly people complain about the story not being focused. I think that was the point. look the story is refugee to champion (not a spoiler, if it's in the advertisments), your quests in and around Kirkwall is about you rising to the top. Your exploring Kirkwall and finding hidden mysteries.

Dialog Wheel - I like the Mass Effect style, I don't need to/want to read 5 seperate sentences to make each dialog choice, and i think it would of been worse if i chose a sentence only to have it sputtered out by the main character. I already read that. I like sort of choosing from several choices that get the essence of what i want to say.

Talking Main Character - The thing that consistently pulled me out of the game in DA:O was a non-talking character. Based on my own preference, i like to see games do it one of two ways.
First person mode (does not talk) and pick the sentences you want to say (Fallout 3/ Fallout New Vegas style)
Third person mode (does talk) and merely pick the essence of the message you want to convey (Mass Effect style).

Skill Tree - I liked how your abilities were grouped under a certain style of play. It was still much like DA:O, but asthetically and navigation wise, i thought was much cleaner and nicer. for those complaining about it, if you wanted the Nightmare ability you still had to unlock two more skills to reach it, regardless.

Combat -  I found combat on DA:O on PS3 was boring - bettering on the tolerable and interesting side when i could use the abilities. i've played combat on the PC version, but essentially to try to not make it boring you gotta turn into an isometric tactics game - which is what i'm not interested in. Despite having to spam the 'x' button to do a basic attack. I rarely could do that well further into the game just by doing that. Either i did not have the right weapon, or was not at the right level, or the game difficulty decided to spike. and often times, i'd just switch to my fellow characters, manuever them use abilities and play as them for a bit through the fight. but the basic attack seemed like a very easy task. Seeing how the combat was essentially the same, the PC people could of gotten their style of play over with. Despite fanboys trying to prove otherwise, could of made a fun enjoyable and deep game for all platforms.

Music: A few local tunes kinda stuck in my head, most notably the Wounded Coast and taverin's ambient music. but really nothing super awesome or anything.

Art Direction - I liked the art direction of it, simply put, aside from one key aspect which i discuess in the 'bad' section, everything was very nice. I'm still though confused as to why the change of art style. There was nothing wrong in my opinion of DA:O real-world look.

Memorable Charcters: don't/can't spoil it but i liked most of the characters in DA2, both your companions and a few of the non-companions.

Bad:

Dialog Wheel - seems odd i'd put it on here, but there was one aspect of the dialog wheel that annoyed me. It was a bit too obvious that one was a good, one was humor, and one was harsh. Others' was a mere statement, or a love itnerest choice. making a marking made it incredibly over-simplified, even though it goes along with what i like about the Dialog wheel.

NPC Companions - in Mass Effect and DA:O NPC companions could talk to you and could have actually conversations. in ME2 there lot less companion conversations but still there. in DA2 there is even less of it. In the case of Dragon Age 2, the world, graphically and other things that were either outright taken out or simplified in one way or another (good and bad way). So why is audio cut down severely.

Darkspawn - look like saturday morning cartoon versions of the DA:O version. DA:O the Hurlock looked menacing as hell. the Ogre's looked alien and frightning. in DA2 they don't look frightnning at all.

Inventory - I get that inventory simplified, but it still rather irked me that the armor sets were basically ALL just for the one main character, everything else was just upgrades for your companions. Equally annoying was that the upgrades merely changed the stats of your heros, they didn't change their look at all. It would be extremely nice to see at the bare minimum that the upgrades changed your NPC's look (and the option to change their looks without changing their new stats). But very quickly i was swamped with armor - for one person, that i didn't need and money never become an issue.

The End - didn't like it ( i liked the ending event), but don't nickle and dime us in important content.

Dialog Talk:  I'm talking about the technical issues. Every three lines of dialog the characters (main or other) the audio would drop out, the animation of talking continues. 9 times out of 10 it would 'reset' the animation and pick up the audio where it dropped off. That is terrible and unacceptable. That isn't even a hardware issue. Patch that out as soon as possible.

Recycled Dungeons - That is lame, Here's a way to fix that. make certain rooms look similar, have different skins and different variations, then link the rooms to each other to some more variance. You didn't have to go so far as to literally copy and paste the exact same tunnel/dungeon/sewer again and again.

Modifié par NeoGuardian86, 13 mars 2011 - 04:24 .

[Frenrihr]

Lack of Customization - Why on earth was the ability to customize companion armor removed?  The only justification I've seen behind it is that the player doesn't need to shop around for the best gear for them.  Uhh, in my many playthroughs of DA:O, I found that armor was the easiest thing to keep track of.  It was rings and amulets that I found myself challenged to remember what every companion was wearing.  Lack of armor customization is pretty stupid in my book, and it just streamlines an experience.

Armor - I HATE HATE HATE how every single armor piece in the game essentially tells you exactly what stats you should be maxing for your character.  Its utterly stupid.  What if I want to do my blood mage build from DA:O in which I would max magic and constitution, leaving my mana to maintain sustained abilities, while using my abundance of life for spells?  OOPS I guess I can't wear robes anymore in DA2 since apparently I need to devote nearly all of my points among magic and willpower.  Same goes for warriors and rogues, streamlining what armor you are able to wear and effectively locking everything else out, and essentially telling you what builds you are able to do...which is completely stupid.

Skill Trees - Extremely dumbed down.  There is nothing else to really say about this, other than the fact that they are extremely dumbed down from DA:O.  While its nice that some of them promote synergy between other classes to prosper, the overall trees themselves are atrotious.

This is why this game is anti stupids.

[Jackal904]

It's a good game relative to most games out there, but I expected more from a BioWare game. Don't get me wrong, I definitely enjoyed it and I plan on replaying it, but it didn't grab me the way that other BioWare titles have.

Cons:

The main problem, which I know many people have mentioned already, is the lack of environments. You spend an overwhelming majority of the game within the city, and you revisit the same areas over and over. It gets repetitive rather quickly, and you have to deal with it for the entire game. That issue alone severely degrades the overall enjoyment of the game. I would have loved to explore new areas as I progress through the game, versus being stuck in the same city and the same few areas and dungeons.

While the story was interesting, it lacked a sense of overall purpose. I understand the story was to see how a Fereldan refugee becomes the champion of Kirkwall, but it ends up feeling like a story that can't decide what direction it wants to take.

The characters were interesting, but there appeared to be a significant reduction in conversations with party members compared to DA:O. I very much enjoyed the large amount of dialogue and conversations that you could have with each party member in DA:O. And while I still enjoyed the conversations with party members in DA2, I was dissapointed in the lack of conversations for each party member.

A relatively smaller gripe I had was the lack of tanking characters. If you are not a tank yourself, you are pretty much forced to use Aveline throughout the entire game because she is your only party member that can use a sword and a shield. I thought Aveline was a good character, but sometimes I wanted to try using different party members, unfortunately I had to keep Aveline with me the whole time because I was a rogue and I needed someone to tank.

Pros:

I absolutely loved the combat. The combat in DA2 is light-years ahead of DA:O. I could not wait to encounter the next group of enemies because the combat was just so much fun. I really liked the large amount of abilities available. I found myself respecing my character several times because I wanted to try out different abilities with different strategies. I also found it very enjoyable playing the game as both an action rpg and strategically where I pause the game and queue up moves. I found most bosses to be very challenging, yet enjoyable. Boss battles required that you play more strategically, often pausing the game and queueing up moves, which I think is how it should be. That method of combat against difficult bosses gives you a great sense of accomplishment once you defeat them.

My other favorite aspect of this game was the inter-party banter and conversations. I loved how often your squadmates would talk to each other, even often having brief conversations when you visited them in their homes. It made your party feel more alive and believable. The Mass Effect team could learn a lesson from that. I really hope BioWare maintains this aspect of DA2 in future titles.

I very much enjoyed the characters in DA2. My favorite characters were Isabella and Varric, they're very funny and great to bring along simply to hear the things they say. I will say I missed Anders personality from Awakening. He was such a happy and funny guy in Awakening, and in DA2 he's so serious. Fenris is pretty cool and I can appreciate his character, but he's a bit too broody for my tastes. I liked Bethany a lot. You do quickly feel a closer connection to her than other party members, which I think is appropriate considering she's your sister and all. Merill is the most adorable companion ever. And I love the irony with her character, in that she has such an innocent personality, yet she is a blood mage. I thought Aveline was a good character, although she was a bit "too normal" for me. She had my favorite sidequest though. I liked Sebastion but I didn't really use him much.

Other things I enjoyed in DA2 were the fact that my character speaks (I much prefer that than the silent hero in DA:O), the menus are a lot better and friendlier, the cinematic aspects of the game, and the dialogue system.

TLDR Version:

I thought the game was good, but I expected more from a BioWare title. Combat was very fun and the dialogue and characters were enjoyable, but the static environments and scattered story significantly degrade what could have been an amazing game.

Modifié par Jackal904, 13 mars 2011 - 01:59 .

[Tessaeva]

Well what can i say , in general i do like the game, but was very disappointed in that your companions cant be outfitted,also i thought that the romance part was kinda cold ,very little interaction in that part. In my opinion they could of done a little better. I hope that they do some kinda expansion that improves these factors. Still i give it and overall rating, in a scale of 1 to 10, a score of 6

[Lord Orgasmatron]

 Ok, having just finished the game, here I go:

Pros:
-The Story. Somehow, I like this one more. In Origins, I always knew what was going to happen, where here, I can always be surprised. And here, I feel like I AM someone, an unique figure who's action shapes the world, not just a mute manequinn who saves the world ...
-The Characters: Yeah, yeah people aren't gonna agree with me, but I like these characters more ... save for Anders, that fanatical backstabbing bastard. But I love Merril, she's just so cute 
-The Combat: Being more of a hack n slash DMC fan, I like the combat. I feel like I'm more than human, like I'm some kind of beast!
-The armor customisation: I like that the characters have their own armor, kinda gives them a sense of identity and makes them stand out.
-The Companion/Side quests
-The Qunari/Chantry
-The Music
-The Art Design: Yeah, I appreciate the "relistic" style of DAO, but I prefer ... I dunno, a more creative fantasy style
-The Dialogue wheel: I like that I know what I'm going to say ... but it's not always executed well. Oh and I like Hawke's voice.

The Cons:
The armor customisation: Yeah um ... not the smartest choice
Dialogue wheel: I don't like the Mass Effect 3-way only option ... and the sarcasm is really out of place sometimes
The Enemies: I think they coud've done better 
The Ending: The endgame boss fights were awesome ... but dammit I wanna know what happened afterwards :happy:
The combat: Frequently respawning hordes can get very annoying at times

Overall: It's a great game. I like it better than the first. It may not be as technical and complex, but to quote South Park  "Just because something is overly complex doesn't mean it's cool". In the end, I was pleasantly entertained, and that's what video games are all about.

Score:8/10

[krogen117]

I am going to review a half finished game, because not only did i not finish it but da2 was clearly not finished either. I am normally not very active on these forums but after playing that rushed piece of garbage i feel that i must get this of my chest and i hope that bioware reads this because it seems to be the general consensus of many of us and just perhaps they will take everybody’s arguments to heart and maybe redeem themselves with da3. Sorry if this sounds like a rant but i just feel so angry and betrayed right now, bioware you have been my favourite rpg company since baldurs gate i placed you on a pedestal so high i thought you could never be pushed off. Clearly i was wrong, EA obviously has the throwing power to hit you fair between the eyes and if you have the power i suggest you pack up and run as far away from them as you can and get back to making quality rpg’s, i live in hope anyway. EA’s influence is starting to destroy you i first noticed it with mass effect 2 and let me say that i am not surprised by the outcome of da2 i sensed it from the begging but never the less i believed in you and thought that i would not be disappointed. This stumble of biowares is not enough to make me abandon them i am steel looking forward to me3 and i do believe that bioware themselves know they made a mistake with da2 and will try to rectify there wrongs with da3. Sorry for long intro here is the review.
Gameplay
I will admit that the new combat system is fun if a little over the top for my liking, i played on pc and i can’t understand some of the design choices that they made for this game. Why no tactical camera? The devs spued a load of nonsense about how they removed it because apparently they can create more interesting and graphically rich environments, this argument is flawed, the environments in da2 are just as plain and boxy looking as the first, even less in fact at least there was variety, a tactical cam could easily be implemented in this game. Which brings me to the next big complaint, the copy paste dungeons. i understand that EA rushed bioware on this game and therefore i don’t blame them for taking shortcuts but it is just too noticeable moving a few crates around here and there does not artfully make the same dungeon look different. The new levelling system i do like it is much more complex and really requires you to plan you party from the beginning but we could have used a few more abilities. Enemies falling from the air wtf. Why the lack of dialogue. Total lack of atmosphere the city feels empty not enough decent ambient sound i find this strange as this is usually is one of biowares strongest game elements. Lack of Customisation, i know that they want inject more personality in to there characters but that can steel be accomplished by finding armour sets that only certain characters can ware.
This post is getting too long so am going to cut it down a bit sorry guys i just have a lot to say.
Grpahpics
Much better than the first however i do not think that they put quite enough work in to the environments’ as they usually do, why is it when your at the top of a mountain with strong wind and there is, because you can hear it, are there no swaying trees?
Sound
Where is the music in this game? Apart from the absolutely horrible battle music there is a distinct lack of lovely ambient music that bioware normally has in there games. Worst soundtrack in a bioware game yet. I do like the sound effects in battle however.
Story
Quite frankly lacklustre in comparison to other bioware games but still quite good and i did like the framed narrative it was a nice touch to make things feel fresh.
So that is it my overall score is a 6 out of 10.
Bioware please i am begging you stand your ground and don’t let the big scary EA push you around, make us all proud to be bioware fans once again.

[ArCaNeH]

the story is entertaining and stuff yea but i liked being a warden that wat dragon age was about i thought but im wrong btw
does anybody else experience any kind of lag when playing Dragon age II on their xbox 360 i get alot of lag idk y though i rest my game and everything

[Frenrihr]

Bioware get rid of EA NOW or you will suck so bad... you are already sucking it... but you can stop now before they go to the deepthroat...

[Frenrihr]

Bioware get rid of EA NOW or you will suck so bad... you are already sucking it... but you can stop now before they go to the deepthroat...

[WarlordDM]

First I would like to point out that I took DA:O seriously, and debated with myself over some huge decisions in the game. the expansion, and the DLC. To see non of my previous choices matter with the exception of who I chose to rule, and who I let become a Grey Warden in Awakening, seriously let me down.

I also miss having no closure on at the end of DA2. No epilogue, just an assumption of what everyone is doing. I certainly hope they release an expansion of sorts that ties everything together.

In DA:O I had fun being a Grey Warden leading an army against the blight, and more fun being awarded a whole area to lord over. It was sad to see my super human move on to a new life with Morrigan, and I would like to see where he is now.

In DA2 I seriously enjoyed playing a "normal" man whose only concern was improving his quality of life. With that being said, all the work I did with Hawke had no closure, and as a result of that, everything I did had no purpose.....

[WarlordDM]

Double post, sorry.

Modifié par WarlordDM, 14 mars 2011 - 10:05 .

[EffectedByTheMasses]

Reading all of these reviews makes me quite, worried about Mass Effect 3, very worried indeed.

[RelentlessRob]

My personal opinion

Story Good Overall
Graphics much better I'm happy, though combat blood felt over the top
Music- Average, lack of ambient music, battle music got old
Sound great, good voice acting, side conversations, loved that main player is voiced. Some sync issues though with conversations, could probably be bug fixed.
Lasting appeal, low I think with all the repeated areas, while I appreciated gangs to keep combat up, I was bored of it especially in the middle of quest when you had to fight a stupid street gang.

Likes
1. Overall story was good no complaints other than abrupt end
2. Liked the narrative
3. Liked visiting characters in their home it added to the feeling of living in the city
4. New skill tree
5. The graphics were much better than DA:O
6. I thought all the companions were quite unique good stories good companion quests, I suffered from disconnect due to friendship - rivalry and trying to keep friendship with them all.

Dislikes
Major Issues
1. A lack of armor customization of companion my biggest complaint for the game, all these items with little use at all, as if I care about high stat robes when I am a warrior, stupidity.
2. Conversation wheel often misrepresented responses
3. I'm a friendship based player and it felt like I was walking on eggshells with companions, it led to many reloads for conversation and several companions not being used very much at all. I also find your influence as very little impact on companions and they basically do what they like regardless, if you've played it you know who.
4. Lack of dark spawn, they are there but...

Minor issues
4. DA:O to DA2 inconsistencies
- One character had voice and accent change
- Romantic relationships, there is a bias conversationally with a couple of characters towards the homosexual side much easier to be gay than straight in dragon age. Felt over the top, I don't care if its in their but it wasn't balanced at all.
- Sten from DAO obviously isn't Qunari if that's how they look in DA2.

5. Lock picking is a pain in the but and has a massive drain on attribute points often with little reward Master lock = Cunning of 40 What did I get = 12 silver fail

Bug issues,

Some texture issues with characters, weapons disappear in to clothes etc
Installed on 360, regions bugged out only work when it was uninstalled
Voice sync issues, starting sentences missed from side conversations
Volume leveling, playing on a 5.1 system game play is fine volume wise till battle then it gets ridiculously loud, every fight had me reaching for volume. This was across the board for sound dialogue and music.

I liked the game overall, not as epic as DA:O but maybe that was the idea, you can't please everyone but if you gave companion customization back and stopped the environment reuse I think a whole lot of people will be much happier. The game was divided in to Acts making it a two disc game would of solved the quality over quantity for the consoles.

Overall rating would be around the 7-7.5 mark.

[thedrakeslayer]

I've just finished the game. Here's what I think:

Pros

The combat was better. Lining up for attacks in Origins was pretty lame, and despite what the so called purists say, I found i still had to be tactical in battles. I couldn't just fling bolts at enemies and hope for the best all the time.

I loved fem Hawke!!

I loved the dialogue wheel and how this affected cut scenes.

Companions were pretty good. Varric, Merril and Aveline were my favourites.

I liked the story - more the Origins. I played as a mage and having to deal with that and peoples attitudes toward me was great. There was good on both sides, so it gave me a lot to think about.

I like reading the codex's for all the lore when I want a break from battles. I'm amazed at how much there is.

Cons:

Disliked going to go to the same environments so many times. It made the game boring at times and made the developers look lazy.

I had so much gear and I couldn't put any of it on my companions. There should be more armour in stores that you can buy specifically for your characters. Also, I only found one backpack, which was annoying, so I was being constantly being told I couldn't pick up any more stuff.

I wish for some decisions you could have different outcomes. You become champion, but that could have been done in several ways without being difficult. I could have been known as (SPOLIER) the guy that sent the Qunarri force home, not the girl that fought them if I had awesome diplomatic skills. It would have cut the next battle bit out, but I wouldn't have minded. I wanted the choice.

Needed to be a few more different enemies. I'd fought most of them before.




Anyway, I'm off to play again. Looking forward to Dragon Age 3.

[jusho]

i enjoyed the game.

i thought the combat was well done aside from some minor points.  (stop standing in the bad stuff on the ground melee, having to tell you several times each fight gets boring)

i thoroughly enjoyed the story and am looking forward to how it will effect the dragon age world on the whole (and i like how DAO was also tied into this).  although, there were certian companion side plots that i felt were not concluded well (mainly merrils(, but perhaps you are saving that for DLC

the manner in which the story was told was also very enjoyable and i think it worked really well.  the graphics and the zones looked really good,

i did not mind the reusing of content (whether it be zones or enemy models), it didnt take me out of the story at all (even if you had made all the zones completely different it would have all began to look the same anyway). 

the chat worked pretty well also, no major complaints about that either (though in the future it would be nice to have more than "good guy" "bad guy" or "smart ass" choices for dialogue).

the only thing i disliked about the game was the romances.  i like the climax romance scenes of DAO and also how you had to choose who you ended up with as well.  aside from a meaningless threat from isabela no real conflict emerged.  i did however like the rep system with companions (and the companions in general)

overall 9/10 after my first play through with a few more planned.