Apologies for the long read, but I figured you wanted a review, not a one-liner
As I came to write this review, I read over my glowing reviews for Mass Effect & Dragon Age Origins. I'd even downloaded & played out the Witch Hunt DLC to round out my DAO saved games before import into DA2 just as DA2 arrived. As such, I find myself comparing & constrasting these past & present games a fair bit. My review therefore reflects that, but then, it is an eagerly anticipated sequel - it's only fair to see what has changed from what was undoubtedly an excellent RPG. Time of writing is about 5-6 hours into the game, so longer term aspects of the game have yet to be explored.
In summary:
DA2 is a good RPG with a fair bit of the usual high quality Bioware writing & dialogue. It's let down by some terrible UI choices, technical issues, and a design that abandons significant parts of RPG concepts in favour of trying to somehow make a fantasy shooter, which just doesn't work.
GRAPHICS & SOUND:
Negatives:
Perhaps it's the change of style or engine, but I just can't help but look at DA2 and think 'something feels wrong' as I wander the streets of Kirkwall. I'm not sure whether it's the invasive popups that you have to turn on to figure out what anything is, talking to chests to shop instead of merchants, or the complete lack of real interaction with most NPCs compared to DAO, but Kirkwall feels more like a film set with extras wandering about rather than the bustle of Denerim or Orzammer. Given that you spend a significant amount of time there, that is a real problem.
The sound in places has been poorly edited. Your companions' banter can at times sound like one is in a tunnel or a well, whilst the other is booming next to your ear. Given that they are both mindlessly standing the same distance apart under almost all circumstances, and talk a lot, this is most off-putting. Accents can be just plain weird. Which American/Canadian decided that all elves should be a strange mix of Scottish & Welsh, exactly? For those of us across the pond, it just grates, because it's not some weird and foreign fantasy accent; it's like the people next door turned up in your fantasy game. I miss Tim Russ' melodious tones showing that elves are like normal people too.
Positives:
The character creation, the NPCs, the world generally looks gorgeous. In fact, given the Nvidia issue, it's quite possible we're not actually seeing DA2 at its best yet, so as cards & drivers improve and the game gets patched, it may get even better.
The combat graphics are nicely tight & never distract too much; in contrast to DAO there are fewer magic effects that blanket the area in swirling light, and more that produce sharp, quick, destructive effects. It's much easier to see what is going on. Rock armour, for example, has never looked so good, and fire is beautiful to behold.
Despite my complaints above, there is at least variety in the voice acting and generally it is of excellent quality. The sound effects are good, fit the theme, and, well it's hard to write more about a bunch of sword hitting shield type sounds other than to say it fits well. I must say I was particularly taken with the addition of screaming to this edition of Dragon Age - set an NPC on fire or electrocute them and they generally make their sentiments about this known. It fits well with the return of the refreshingly realistic 'blood gets everywhere' motif.
Critiquing DA2's music is a challenge. What's there is good, but the lilting music from DAO (I could stand at DAO's camp for hours just listening to that theme), the tumultuous battle themes; it's all muted in DA2 by comparison (in fact the best bit has been the menu music, and I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not). Perhaps it will pick up as one progresses.
RPG ELEMENTS:
Negatives:
I really don't know who has been designing recent RPGs, but it's like there is some trend to say 'well old RPGs didn't sell very well; we must make significant changes to core RPG concepts to sell games'. They couldn't be more wrong - it's not the core concepts that people have a problem with (a few million people in World of Warcraft adequately demonstrate that), it's the impenetrable levels of details some older RPGs contained that put people off. The summary would be that I think someone copy-pasted Mass Effect 2's design decisions over onto DA2's design document, without thinking as to whether they'd actually make sense in a fantasy world.
So what has DA2 cut? Top of the list is companion armour. Much like Mass Effect 2, your companions will be wearing the same tired, dumb-looking armour at the end of the game as when you started. If you come across a nice bit of armour that you can't wear, well, resign yourself to selling it, because your companions won't be sporting a new look. No instead, that armour that could barely stop a paper knife will mysteriously level up with you. An astonishing decision - this isn't a world that has shields & modular armour upgrades where you can explain this away.
Immersion is up next for the chop. Did you enjoy how Baldur's Gate managed to make every aspect of the game look like part of the game world? How in DAO, your journal really looked like a little book? Welcome to space-age DA2 where every aspect other than actually walking around in the game world is a full-screen immersion-jarring 'clean & minimal' menu, which also includes such items as options, saving the game, and so on. One unfortunate effect of the influence of MMOs is the prevalence of NPCs with icons above their heads (which unless I've edited it from my memory, even Mass Effect 2 didn't feel the need for). It looks terrible, and is just another example of 'we don't believe users can actually find NPCs when there's a minimap that points to them already'.
Somewhat inexplicably, the most useful UI feature in DAO, that of the top-down classic RPG view, has been cut, presumably because the Mass Effect 2 engine didn't need it. It is thus much harder to define just where that AoE spell is going to end up - but don't worry, it won't matter, because friendly fire is gone too. You can now merrily cast a fireball at your companions and they'll brush it off, no problem. As an amusing aside, basic electrical spells have now been re-branded as sky, but apparently it didn't occur to anyone that a significant amount of the game is spent indoors, or underground... Even Baldur's Gate had spells that didn't work indoors.
Origin stories? Different races? Yeah... cut. You're a human, and by default with a stupid bloody (that's as in blood, not swearing) line across your nose. Why? No-one is saying, because the character editor lets you almost immediately dispense with such idiocy and as such it never gets mentioned in the storyline. Perhaps someone had been watching too much Braveheart.
Positives:
It's taken many years, but finally someone has figured out that it'd be really handy to have direct visual feedback as what happens to your character when you increase arbitrary points in Constitution or Willpower at your arbitrary levelling point. The rest of the UI may be overly minimal & space-age, but it does at least tell you precisely what is going on, and does it well. It's just unfortunate that it could have retained immersion and still done so.
RPGs are all about progression, both power & story, and both are certainly present & correct in DA2. In fact, power progression is disturbingly fast in some cases - barely an hour into the game and my mages are busily casting AoE spells that were the reserve of high-level characters in DAO. It will be interesting to see how this balances out as one progresses further. Speaking of progression, I am very pleased that you can import your DAO saved game and thus have the game be influenced by your Warden's decisions, all of which impact the subsequent story.
As for the continuing story - well, the day Bioware can't do a good story, they should close down. The non-linear and hugely varying story given to you is genuinely epic, and right off the docks presents you with different paths and conflicts to pick from. They have definitely excelled themselves in allowing you to create your own personal interpretation of the Thedas world & its future.
The dialogue system is very good. It presents your choices clearly (from diplomatic, to humour, to combatative) and also, thanks be to Andraste, indicates quite clearly when an option is flirting! Nevertheless there are times my character is far more forward, or humourous, or dirty, than I was expecting from the option given, but so far it's more made me laugh than cringe. I am particularly impressed with the evolving personality system, whereby your dialogue choices stack and adjust the typical dialogue and combat banter of Hawke to match the personality you are giving them. Being able to read text before I say it and wish I hadn't would be nice.
COMBAT:
Negatives:
NPCs will pop up from the most unlikely places, teleporting into completely empty areas, including places where you just cleared enemies or walked through. Words can't describe how stupid this looks. Spiders out of caves, assassins out of stealth, enemies out of uncleared rooms - all fine - teleporting in from nowhere - not in a fantasy game. Even ME2 had the good graces to have enemies come from around corners.
I think there's a bit much in the way of over-the-top waving of weapons around. My mage goes absolutely nuts with a staff, and I think would be far more likely to put an eye out or injure someone with the giant spike on the end of it than actually hurt the enemy. Reining that in a bit wouldn't hurt - it doesn't mix too well with the relatively realistic blood usage and all that. Stylised realism, you know?
Positives:
Combat generally is more snappy & fun to watch. It is very definitely a case of 'press button, do awesome thing'. Magic in particular has really cleaned up from the murky layered effects of DAO - it's just unfortunate that we're not playing a shooter, or these kinds of things would really fit well, or justify the considerable expenditure in resources that must have gone into to creating these things instead of RPG features.
DRM:
Whilst Mass Effect 2 sold without any DRM at all and broke sales records, the chaps at EA clearly felt DA2 needed some kind of DRM to annoy legitimate customers with, and to present a small challenge to pirates for a day or so. Nonetheless, this DRM isn't so bad.
Final thoughts:
DA2 represents on the one hand a pinnacle of story telling & lush graphics, but also a worrying trend in modern RPGs, that of removing as much of the RPG as possible in favour of shoot-em-up style (or in this case, slash-em-up), along with little or no thought of how to create menus & UI that work both stylistically, immersively AND intuitively. Game developers need to go back and replay games like Oblivion, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Fallout 3 (yes even that relatively modern RPG did it better) and remind themselves what an RPG actually is supposed to be about. We've come a long way since Minsc & Boo. Not all of it has been an improvement.
Two-liner (because the forums aren't very wide):
Mass Effect 2 dispensed with a lot because it can get away with being a shooter. DA2 needed to show that Bioware haven't forgotten their roots. Unlike DAO, it didn't. 3/5 for implementation. 5/5 for a fun game on its own merits.
Modifié par Grammarye, 13 mars 2011 - 12:04 .
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