1012 réponses à ce sujet

[Stradar87]

Theres another thing I want to bring up is the fight for Isabela the unfair duel quest. The fight happends in the chantry weird plot scene if you ask me why couldnt they have made it in a house or something. Alot of places that plots fights and scenes just did not fit right if you ask me. Bioware get your act together. To tell you the truth the whole story turned out more depressing and gave me some headaches sometimes I just felt like no matter what I did in the game it just got worse.

[KyleOrdrum]

I was a diehard fan of DA:O on the PS3 (which I understand had control problems), so the updated control scheme thrilled me. So much of the game felt like a step forward that during my first playthrough I couldn't put it down. Having finished the game within 3 days, I took a day off to let it all soak in, and then created a new character. And that's when it hit me...it was all the exact same. I played this character to the middle of act 2, and couldn't stand picking up the controller again.

Now, to make things clear, I was using a completely different character build, taking a different attitude, and using a different party. Still, it felt too much like I'd been there and done that. As I restarted the game with 3 more characters, never getting past act1, I found that it was nearly impossible to truly play a different type of character. That's when it hit me, that the fault was in the overly linear design.

To build this story as intended, a much more linear approach was necessary, to assure that certain events happened in a certain order. As some of these events evolved around the type of person Hawke is (such as impressing the Arishok), the player is forced to do certain actions in a certain way. As well, the outlooks of the companions almost forces you to take a certain approach on some situations.

A good example of this comes in the Aveline/Fenris debate. Both of these characters tend to favor handing mages over to the templars, which can make it hard to have either of them in the party if you want them to like you. I came to this rather annoying situation when I found that I couldn't run Fenris and Anders in the same party without constantly being badmouthed by someone.

As well, I found it a little disturbing that all of the NPC's seemed to be "Hawke-sexual", often ambushing me with this big emotional break their heart moment. This would've been less disturbing if I'd ever flirted with these characters, but I don't need Anders telling me how I make him feel 2 days after meeting him, when I've done nothing to show interest.

While I have to put this down to personal preference, I unfortunately found it frustrating that there's only one character I could possibly see any version of myself romancing in any sense, and her progression is bugged to play sections out of order.

I should note, that my replay view may be jaded due to the fact that I played through probably the most epic possible storyline in my first run (brother died in the deep roads, dueled the arishok with a bloody cqc mage and dropped him, executed anders, and had my 300 moment against the templars...or should I say "3" considering varric glitched out and wouldn't fight).

In essence, I feel that this was one of the greatest action games I've ever played, standing right beside MGS4, DMC1, and InFamous. Unfortunately, it never truly felt like an RPG. The sense of choice was gone, and I'm sad to say that after playing it, I've found myself again yearning for the kind of in depth, choice oriented, full of replay RPG that Origins delivered. While it felt amazing, it sadly always feels like you're playing Hawke, not a character of your choice.

[kichius]

Overall, another enjoyable product from Bioware. I would say about even with the MassEffect series. Mu personal preferences are for a more complex, singled character game--I still think Neverwinter Nights I and III were groundbreaking and best of class.

I liked DAO a lot. I liked DA2 a little less. First, the good things. The story was engaging, the characters were well crafted and made you feel like you were meeting people. Bioware hand down makes the best role playing games on the market. At first I was leery of the conversation icons, but I decided they were a good idea in the end, if for no other reason than what seems a conciliatory or engaging answer to one person does not necessarily seem so to another. The icons took the guess work out of dialogues. I love Kate Mulgrew–always a big plus.

Unlike some other posters, I did not hate anything--well actually I did hate one thing, more about that later. My biggest criticism is that the game was clearly dummied down. I started out on the "normal" setting and immediately switched to hard setting. Anyone who has actually played tactical war games, e.g., ASL, could not play on "normal." The spell and talent trees were another dummying feature. It makes it harder to have viable variations in characters. I much prefer the DAO system.

That brings me to the one thing I did hate: the rock wraith. Up to that point the game was so easy that I was only carrying three healing and stamina potions, and had not bothered with any healing skills. Then, out of the blue, there is this completely unbalanced scenario. I played that thing so many times I go sick of it. I figured out the tactical necessities very quickly, but just kept dying. Then I find out you need to load up on potions and have your characters developed in certain ways for that battle. There was no warning and no graduated curve, it was like going from zero to (as Spinal Tap would say) "Eleven." Rather than go back a play a large part of the first act over, I just set the difficulty to easy. Even then I had to play it several times and everyone died but the mage, who was almost dead. Given I had only six potions and no healing that was just fine with me. I was glad it was over. I played the rest of the game on hard with no real problems. Specific criticism: you can't have a game that is just lies down for first quarter, and then suddenly have something that makes no sense in context. Ideally, the scenarios should be more graduated so you know you have to develop healing. You also need to signal that you need to load up on potions. I thought that scenario was very poorly balanced.

Regardless, another fun game and I am looking forward to the add-on scenarios to fill up the time until the MassEffect 3 release.

Thanks!

[Shinclone]

It must be quite difficult for the guys who worked on this game to read this thread. many complaints of poor writing, over-use of the same dungeons and an end game where it doesn't matter whose side you picked you fight them both anyway, especially as it's all true. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed playing this game through but it was just missing the... epicness that Bioware games tend to have. There was no real inspiration to do any of the things you did. I'm pretty sure that if hawke spent all of chapter two in the Rose in an opium induced daze that someone else would have taken out the Arishok and the mages and templars would have had their fight regardless. The ending. We all know that there will be dlc but from the awful crap we got "bar awakenings) for origins I won't be getting any of it. But to leave it like that "The champion ran off and hasn't been seen since" was just... bad. Overall I'd say DA2 is an epic disappointment. I won't be pre-ordering DA3 six months in advance like I did with this one. Mass Effect 3 however...

[DA_GamerGal]

I pre-ordered the Signature Edition for PS3 and couldn't wait for it's arrival. On my 1st play I kept comparing evryhting to DA:O so I felt dissapointed with some of the content in DA2. For some reason I expected DA2 to go one step further in all the things I love about DA:O. I just started playing Bioware games in 2010 when I bought a used copy of DA:O at Games stop- and what a great introduction to Bioware. I absolutly love DA:O (  I have played through 12 times as just a female Warden). So I guess I expected a continuation of DA:O  with DA2, but with.... more- more of what I love in, and about, DA:O. Which is really a very unfair assumption to make on my part. After all, DA2 has a completely different storyline and Hawk is not a Grey Warden. DA2 should really have been called, "DA: Rise of a Champion".

So what do I like about DA2?  The very first thing that really struck me and made me happy, was that my character (Hawk) now had a voice that I could actually hear during those all important interactions and conversations with my fellow companions. I love that about ME2 and I was so happy that this change was added in DA2. Kudos to the Bioware team for this! Also liked the fact that Hawk had family members that were part of the storyline and even could be part of your group, if you so chose.

The graphics were a step up from DA:O, so I appreciate this upgrade. However, a few of the upgraded looks to some of my favorite characters from DA:O could use some more tweaking. Zevran lost most of his good looks with this "improvement".  The old version of Zevran is much more pleasing to the eye. Alistair also lost a little in looks in his upgrade, so I feel he needs a little adjustment as well. I was please with Isabella's revamped look. Now her looks match her personality. And I love the VA for her. I was very happy to see Cullen back. I always felt he should have had a bigger part in DA:O. Love his look and his VA.

Speaking of game characters... I really like all the new ones in DA2.  I love Varric. From his looks, to his voice, to his banter... I love it all.  I would love to see him and Oghren meet in a future DA game! Those two dwarfs together would be hilarious! Can you imagine the conversations and banter bewteen the two of them!

I was very happy to see Anders back from DA:Awakenings ( once I got past the new looks and voice change, that is). I loved him in Awakenings so he is a welcome addition to DA2. Having Anders and Justice merge made for a very interesting storyline. I just wish there had been cutscenes in Acts 1 and 2 that showed the progression of  Justice becoming less of the Spirit if Justice within Anders, and more a Spirit of Vengeance.... more scenes that showed Anders losing control and becoming something.... else. That something that drove him to blow up the Kirkwall Chantry and become such a radical mage ( not that he wasn't radical in Awakenings). His character really shows the struggle between the mages,templers and chantry.
 
But then so does Meredith. She had to be destroyed in the end, but you always felt her ... pain... and understood why she did what she did. You had to feel sorry for her even while sometimes hating her.. and admiring her.

And Fenris... what can I say. I love him. Another character that I hope lives on in another DA game. He would be a great addition to a future storyline that may involve the Tevintor Imperiun and those Magisters ... "cause you just know they want to take over the rest of Thedas and destroy the Chantry once and for all.  But not before all mages (even blood mages) have to unite with the rest of Thedas to fight the Qunari, who you know are going to invade Thedas and try to destroy the Chantry , chain up all mages, and try to convert everyone to the Qun.

Hmm... what else do I like... I like that the conversation wheel was brought over from ME2. I played ME2 after DA:O, so I had to get used to the wheel. At first I didn't like it, but I found out that it did make responding a liittle easier.. especially with the choice of the various tones that you can choose from. Although, sometimes what you thought you were choosing for  Hawk to say ( tone & content) , often turned out to be different in the conversation that followed. But I had that problem then and again in ME2 as well.

Loved that they kept in the option to have a romance ( or 2 or 3) with your companions. That was a must for me. I am all about the story and the relationships and interactions between the main character and companions. I felt that DA2 should have devoted more time to this. I really wanted to be able to have more conversations with my companions and LI throught the various acts and would have loved to initiate a conversation when I wanted to. I also wanted more cutscenes with my companions and LI. DA:O  did this so well, that iI was hoping that DA2 would have taken this aspect of the game even further than DA:O did (maybe in DA3? Please!?!?)

I liked the feel and look of Kirkwall... loved all the attention to the little details in the various places and scenery.  I would have liked less of the re-use of the same maps/places... it did get annoying after a while. Especially when you do numerous playt-hroughs like I do. Wasn't to fond of all the junk, but it was an easy way for Hawk to get money. I didn't like the fact that you couldn't get an items details/description before you placed it in your backpack. Not sure why that was changed from DA:O. I also didn't see the need to change the radial menu. As I said, I played DA:O on PS3 and I never had a problem with the old version of the menu. I didn't feel that Bioware had to "dummy-down "( or was it up?) anything for console players. But either way works for me.

The more I play DA2, the more it grows on me, despite having a few flaws. I appreciate all the work that the DA team put into this game and into the DA world as  whole. I do know that had EA given them more time and money, the game could have- and would have- been so much more. Buy I am enjoying the game for what it is and I certainly am getting my money's worth.  You turned out another good game, Bioware. Thank You.

[Wivvix]

I've completed DA2 twice, once as Mage and once as Warrior. My lengthy review is below.

Tedious, linear, repetitive level/environment/dungeon design.
The re-use of dungeons absolutely destroys all immersion. It is the main reason I really struggled with a second play through; the environments are just so boring.

You can be in chapter 1 or 3, and the dungeon will be exactly the same. You can be in totally different
zones/areas on the "outside city of Kirkwall" map, and encounter the exact same dungeon. The dungeons themselves are boring. There are less than 10 items of interest in a given dungeon, and at most two routes of
exploration, which invariably means one becomes redundant or becomes a dead end, occasionally even with nothing at the end.

The actual dungeons themselves are aesthetically bland. Walls are uniformally textured, almost all of the dungeons are very well lit, and generally they lack atmosphere, character, and defining features.

Outdoors environmental design suffers from the same issues as dungeon design. The re-use of the same environments throughout the chapters all but destroys any sense of progression. The environments are bland, lack atmosphere, and are almost always very well lit. As with dungeons, in a given outdoors environment there are at most, less than 10 interactive items of interest. Outdoors environments also suffer with regards to
linearity of level design. At most there are 3 routes you can choose in a given outdoors environment, and all roads lead to Rome, apparently.  The environments almost completely lack signs of life apart from
humanoids. You don't see or hear any other animals or even insects in the environment. Immersive...... definitely not. Exploration? Non-existent.

The city of Kirkwall is cold and poorly populated. A city which by all rights should be bustling with activity even at
night, is all but dead save for encounters with vagabonds. The trip to the deep roads lacked any significantly dwarven architecture, one of the major atmospheric contributors to Origins. The Dalish camp offered very
little to do at all, and really might as well have only consisted of two individuals.

There were no puzzles, no riddles, and no mini-games employed in the level design. It lacked variety and the kind
of depth you'd expect from a Bioware title.


Minimal, homogenous enemies.
This is one of my other major complaints with DA2.

There were no Genlock's.
Hurlock's, Skeletons, Shades, Abominations and Dragons all look identical.
There were no new fauna/enemies indigenous to the Free Marches encountered, except for "varterral" and "pride demons".
The only variation in enemy strength was arbitrarily greater health, occasional elite units, and boss units. In most cases however, elite and boss units were merely scaled up versions of the other units with some unique abilities.

Characterisation, companions and story.
Most of the characters in DA2 lack polish. Most are cookie cutter archetypes; rival sibling Carver, passive and reserved Bethany, smarmy and occasionally witty Varric, overly zealous anders, s-l-u-t-t-y mc-s-l-u-t isabela, prudish butch aveline and the socially awkward Merrill. None of the characters are quirky or interesting, they merely try very hard to represent a wide audience. There is little or no intrigue, no real development of character, hardly even much real exploration of character, from beginning to end.

I won't even broach the issue of romances. They were so comprehensively poor, they genuinely appear to have been a complete afterthought.

The story is sadly much the same. The story is merely an interwoven series of loosely or altogether unrelated events, which limp along sluggishly in anticipation of core storyline development, which actually only entails
about 20% of the story. The framed narrative is employed desperately to try and give connectedness to the disjointed combobulation of quests, but ultimately is used far too predictably and limitedly to achieve
this. The short scenes of framed narrative between Varric and his host all but gloss over the details of almost an entire chapter in mere seconds, before quickly settling back into another tedious round of grinding through the same 5 maps and dungeons again for, purportedly, different reasons.

Combat, animations, skills, attributes and itemisation.
Combat in DA2 is a mixed bag. On the one hand, certain spell effects have been improved and cross-class combo's make for more intricate strategies. I would however like to see the return of combinable spell effects for
mages as in Dragon Age Origins. The pace of combat in DA2 is fine. The issue is really with the animations. The warrior and rogue animations, at least for some abilities are, sadly, laughable. I'm referring to scythe and rush. Combat is otherwise very repetitive however, and the wave mechanics, dropping enemies out of the sky onto the field...... really? The only way this could have been less immersive, is if they warped in sci-fi style, or materialised out of thin air. oh wait.......
The difficulty of combat seems to have been dialed back also, making it virtually mandatory to play on Hard to encounter any sort of challenge.

At first glance the skills available in DA2 seem extensive and varied. Unfortunately this proves to be false as you progress half way through the game. Certainly as a mage, it is inevitable that one will invest in multiple skill trees, which unfortunately means having to diversify into two types of spell damage, and thereby reducing the efficacy in one spec or the other by virtue of limited itemisation. The depth, or rather lack thereof, of skill trees, is therein prohibitive to developing a character sub-class, which greatly erodes the replayability of a given class.

Derived statistics from attributes in DA2 left me scratching my head somewhat. A weapon and shield warrior must invest in Cunning in order to improve their defense stat. In my opinion, Dexterity is a more appropriate attribute to tie defense or armor to, as the ability to manouvre quickly could make the difference between a blow received to the head, or a blow received square on a shield. Whereas Cunning makes more sense as an attribute that enables one to identify a weak point on enemy armor, and thus attack that point, dealing more damage.

Itemisation was a major issue for me in DA2. Gear was homogenous, with very little diversity of stats or derivatives. The limitations of party itemisation significantly reduced the player's ability to influence derived statistics, damage spec customisation, and the appearance of companions. Also disappointing was the lack of variety and exotic weapons.

Dialogue, morality, friends & rivals, and the conversation wheel.
I'm impartial to a voiced protagonist. Personally I prefer the main character is not voiced, as this character can then assume whatever voice I give them, which invariably is more attuned to my perception of the character than a voice actor interpreting script. I otherwise can't fault much about dialogue per se.

Morality in DA2 is shambolic. Far too often it is born out of a dialogue option, somewhat confused with the horrible conversation wheel, further still by ambiguous paraphrasing, and then turned into a wedge issue between two or more companions competing to be your "friend" or "rival". /golfclap
Where is the option to tell all 3 of your party companions to ****** off? No really.....

The problem with morality, friends and rivals, is in so much that rivals and friends tend not to party or group together, certainly not in the circumstances presented in this particular tale. This leads to the abomination of morality which presents in DA2, which is really actually the moral consequence of actions on relationships, rather than actually being accountable for moral decisions. One way or another, in DA2 the companions will still either be a friend or rival, and that's just not how morality or relationships work. Not even close.

The conversation wheel really has no place in a fantasy RPG. I hope if Bioware resolves only 1 other thing apart from the horrendous re-use of maps in this game, it's that they get rid of the conversation wheel from Dragon Age. I literally lost count of the number of times I chose a paraphrased option based on what it said, rather than the icon, and heard the protagonist deliver a line completely at odds with the tone of the paraphrasing. I don't think i've ever quick-loaded more times in a single game play-through in my entire life, and it could have so easily been avoided.

The other noticeably lacking aspect of dialogue in DA2 was the often dark, dry, mature, double-entendre rich, witty banter that ensued from companion interaction, as in Dragon Age Origins. In stead it has been replaced with cheap jabs between two companions, very occasionally humourous and far short of witty, and sometimes of
questionable intent. No, even frolicking elves can't redeem a conversation between Varric and Isabela.

Summary.
DA2 had the potential to be a good game, even a great one. Unfortunately it missed the mark by a lot. It wasn't due to sequel expectations, but a significant drop in the quality of product. I'm certain even Bioware is not so far removed from reality, as to have been aware they were not releasing an AAA sequel to Dragon Age Origins. It's unfortunate that they did, because they could have extended the release cycle by 2-3 years and actually delivered a quality product.

I gave Dragon Age Origins 9.4/10
I gave Dragon Age Awakening 8.8/10
I give Dragon Age 2 7.5/10

Modifié par Wivvix, 08 avril 2011 - 07:41 .

[jaybee93]

I wrote a review a while ago but after replaying DA2 a few times something has occurred to me.

There's slavery in DAO (Unrest in the Alienage) but it really didn't impact on me. Probably because it was so near the end of the game, and I was so concerned with who was going to be kind/queen/etc and winning the landsmeet, it's almost a flash. I pretty much didn't care. But the slavery present and suggested in DA2 was absolutely different. Seeing Fenris' situation, having the slavers around, and just more info on the Magisters etc was really fascinating and made the slavery issue very present. Finally I was thinking about it, and affected by it. In this way I think it was a very successful theme in DA2.

[hrotsurz]

I unlike many others , I liked or didnt mind how the game turned out to be with the exception of one thing .... the lack of a proper ending to the story , I mean you give raise to many questions only to end in the same point as the beginning examples Why the seekers want Hawke? What happens to Hawke after the final battle? To the surviving companions? What does Leliana wants? So what was the point to give the main character a personality only to not do anything with it? So whats is the importance of the champion post - Kirkwall? And now you want to force me to buy a third DA game to have this questions answered THAT SHOULD BEEN ANSWERED DURING THIS GAME!!!!!!!!!!!! Not in a third , forth or whatever many games you want to milk us for ..... an RPG MUST have an ending!!!!!

[BY-TOR STORMDRAGON]

 Loved it...characters rendered nicely, LOVED the graphics but got sick of Kirkwall and repeated locations. Please keep the theme as far away from Mass Effect as possible, as Mass Effect is NOT a true RPG like the masterpiece Origins was.
 The game was short. With only ostagar and the tower in DA:O I had 130 hours!!! With Witch Hunt and Awakenings- it was 150. This game, and trust me I killed every thing that walked, crawled or was hidden- was about 60 hours.

 Controls were easy, slick and modernized. But let's keep the 'Dark Ages' feeling IN THE GAME.
Loved it...want another disc of content.

[BY-TOR STORMDRAGON]

hrotsurz wrote...

I unlike many others , I liked or didnt mind how the game turned out to be with the exception of one thing .... the lack of a proper ending to the story , I mean you give raise to many questions only to end in the same point as the beginning examples Why the seekers want Hawke? What happens to Hawke after the final battle? To the surviving companions? What does Leliana wants? So what was the point to give the main character a personality only to not do anything with it? So whats is the importance of the champion post - Kirkwall? And now you want to force me to buy a third DA game to have this questions answered THAT SHOULD BEEN ANSWERED DURING THIS GAME!!!!!!!!!!!! Not in a third , forth or whatever many games you want to milk us for ..... an RPG MUST have an ending!!!!!

 Great points, but this cannot be finished in a DA:3. Hawkes story must be concluded in DLC. This seemed like a Prologue, to be honest. Unfinished, left wide open.

[RbtLewis]

I’ve been an enthusiastic fan of BioWare since the days of Baldur’s Gate. IMHO Baldur’s Gate II (in quality of story concept, depth, and execution, along with NPC and villain characterization/presentation) set the standards for CRPGs. And BioWare applied those same lofty standards to its own fantasy world creation in Dragon Age. For the second installment of the Dragon Age saga, BioWare begins with a story that is dramatic, intense, provocative, compelling, and immersive; then only halfway tells it. In this case, story execution takes place on a gallows of mindless, repetitive (to the point of becoming redundant) action. While random encounters have a place (just not every place), mindless hack-n-slash, hurts storytelling. And what this approach fails to injure, an infestation of bugs completes the overall decline.
 
By the time you reach Act 3, it becomes painfully obvious that your choices in the game have become all but meaningless. In more than a few cases all choice is removed in order to manipulate yet another slaughter fest; with the player character killing the very groups that might have helped prevent the illogical conclusion presented in the story, while still allowing the events necessary for DA3. As it is, the only real choice in the available conclusion is, in which order you start killing. If you side with the Templars, nearly all the Circle become Blood Mages or Abominations and you help the Templars kill them on your way to the final two confrontations. If you side with the Mages, nearly all the Circle still become Blood Mages or Abominations and you have to kill them along with the Templars. Neither choice makes an actual difference to how the sequence of events plays out. At the very end, whether your PC becomes Viscount of Kirkwall, or heads for the hills may have a major effect on DA3, but it is so anticlimactic in this game that it comes across as meaningless.
 
I’m on my third playthrough, near the conclusion of Act 3, and a combination of the bugs, the preordained no-choice choices, and senseless hack-n-slash interruptions to the story flow, have killed any desire to continue. Will the bugs in the game get patched? I’m sure that they will; BioWare has always been good about that. The problem is I’m past the point of caring about a patch. Dragon Age 2 was marketed as a game where the player’s decisions had an actual impact on the story. In DAO, the player’s decisions did have an influence on the outcome of several events. In DA2 the only thing the player has an impact on, especially after Act 2, is the body count.
 
What makes the above more depressing is that BioWare began DA2 with a story concept that was, at the least, as deep and compelling as in Origins (Shadows of Amn and Planescape Torment come to mind, too) combined with outstanding NPC characterization. All the members of the PC’s party have their own individual personality, interest (which they seek to further), and goal (which they work to achieve). They (as well as nonparty NPCs) also develop as the story progresses; actually acting and interacting outside the circle of the main character. They are viable elements contributing to, and enriching the story. The problem is, the story gets truncated and made subservient to a flashy new combat system that in the end, offers little more than action for the sake of action. Template and formula replaces creativity, until encounters become studies in monotony: third time through, the overused kung Fu moviesque leap into the scene that heralded yet another wave of whatever, caused more harm to story immersion than it did to the intended target.
 
My major complaint about DA2 is that it took a first rate story idea and gave it a third rate treatment. Too much truncating and short-cutting was employed; clearly, the game was rushed, with an over-emphasis placed on redesigning the visual look and combat. And while the look of the game has improved, combat now looks like Street Fighter in Fantasyland. And these changes come at the expense of storytelling and encounter variety.
 
Ironically, I can go back and replay BG2 and still enjoy it, the same with Neverwinter Nights; I can do the same with DAO, as well. But looking at the final phase of Act 3, my third time round on DA2, the thought of again wading through a series of pop-up/drop-in battles just to fight Orsino’s sumo zombie and Meredith’s sisterhood of tinwoodsmen while stumbling through the contrived rut of a storyline to its unsatisfying conclusion for the sake of pure mindless action, is something that I have no desire to do: And this is the first time that I’ve experienced a replay disinclination with a BioWare game.
 
 In all honesty, if all I wanted was to watch my character dash forward and swing a ridiculously over-sized sword at some target (What target? Who cares? Don’t I look great swinging this ridiculously over-sized sword; oh, and watch the moves I can make!), I could get that playing any one of my kid’s ‘Final Fantasy’s: where the swords are the size of trees and the characters/storylines are just as wooden. BioWare has always been different; it created quality CRPGs that were superior to anything on the market. I can understand BioWare’s desire to widen its base, but if that comes at the expense of everything that made BioWare great, then it’ll become just another mill churning out action games. I will wait for Dragon Age 3, but I will not pre-order it. If it turns out to be another action game masquerading as an RPG, I won’t clutter my hard drive with it either.

[AnimeAngel90]

I just finished writing a really long awesome rambling about what I liked and didn't like and then the damn bioware forums logged me out as it seems to do every 3rd page I click on or something

So, to wrap it up again: I really liked DA2. Yeah, I'm going against what seems to be the general consensus, but nyeh to all of you 
 
It was fun, it really sucked me into this world, and Hawke is awesome. I seemed to avoid all the bugs everyone complains so much about, and so I had a rather smooth playthrough too (other than my mage's tendency to die, but that's a me fault since all my PCs in every RPG have a rather large tendency to die at inopportune moments in combat).

Things I loved:
*Anders. Sure he wasn't the same, and he was rather far from sane in Act III, but my Hawke still loved him and I still fangirled him like you wouldn't believe. His voice-acting was good, I loved most of his romance dialogue (especially unexpected sweet moments like him being worried about you after the Qunari attack you and Aveline at the end of Act II), and the angst regarding Justice seemed to just make me love him more (my Hawke definitely has a "saving people" problem)

*New specialisation trees. More options, more chances to specialise in certain skills, and way more awesome spells. Companion-specific skills were good too, even I didn't use most of them (the top-left tree got maxed out like woah though, haha).

*Combat - prettier animations, faster, combat dialogue (Isabela telling me if I killed people I'd get their stuff made me crack up)

*Companions in general. I play RPGs for the stories and the dialogue (good thing too, since I suck at the combat), and DA2s team did not disappoint. I maxed out friendship for all of them (because I'm crazy like that) and did not regret it. Companion quests were the first things I did once they became available, and I loved all the conversations and extra things they had to say all the time. I wouldn't say no to even more conversations though The only part I disliked was that I was limited to three people in a conversation with an NPC - made me sad that I got used a certain team setup and thus missed everyone else's dialogue, haha.

*Act II. It was huge and so much fun - people complain Hawke had no real goal at this point, but my Hawke was just having fun running around and helping people and ooh look, Qunari stuff! Also I hadn't read spoilers for most of that stuff, so it was all a surprise and just fun to run around exploring and doing every quest I could find!

*Hawke. F!Hawke's voice acting was just so awesome and I loved Hawke. Everyone seems to whine about how the player's choices really didn't impact the game or the plot - but Hawke herself did manage to change everything. Sure, no matter what she did the **** often hit the fan, but in each individual playthrough, Hawke is ridiculously awesome and manages to change the world.

*Dialogue wheel. I would have preferred a few more options, and sometimes Hawke said some very odd things (mostly because of the order of the conversation I believe), but I did enjoy being surprised with what she said. You didn't know what was going to happen when you picked the paraphrased options, which was kinda the same as the text-based choices in origins where you didn't know the tone. This time you know the tone but not what she's going to say. It was quite fun!

*Companion armour. Oh I loved not having to fuss over everyone's armour. Especially good for quests where you hadn't used anyone for awhile and then had them locked into your party - you didn't need to keep good armour around for that. Plus, I knew I could sell everything my Hawke couldn't use, so more money, hooray! It was nice how they did their own thing - one less thing to worry about in combat. All I had to do was buy the upgrades!


Things I disliked:
*Sidequest maps. I tend to be one of those players that explores every inch of a place before moving on to the quest icon, and it was quite annoying for me to try to explore into a different direction of the map, thinking that there might be treasure that way, only to realise it was the map for a different quest and thus inaccessible at the time. Perhaps if the map only showed the areas you could actually get to, rather than the map of the whole cave? It just got quite frustrating sometimes.

*Act III. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed this Act, but after Act II I was a little disappointed. I think it was partly because the whole mage vs templar thing was hardly new to the story, and Act III never seemed as big or as engaging as Act II. I just wanted to get to the end of it all to see what crazy things my Hawke had gotten herself involved in this time! I even skipped a few sidequests to just get to the final battle so I could tell Meredith to get stuffed, haha.


There were a few other things I disliked (perhaps I shall add them in later as I think of them), but that was all personal rather than any fault of the game or writing staff. Yes some characters and some plot points really made me angry, but not in a "I hate this game!" way, more of a "I'm way too involved in this game and starting to think like Hawke must be right now" way


All in all - loved Hawke, loved this game, and would definitely approve of seeing more adventures regarding Hawke or any of her companions in the future. Definitely wouldn't say no to a DA3 either

Here, have some waffles - freshly baked by Sebastian! 

[ForeignPatriot]

 This is a hard game to review, for me.

I really, REALLY liked DAII... for my first play-through.

I guess my first problem is that this game felt more like Mass Effect: Medieval than a sequel of Origins. What drew me so close to Origins was that I could truly play my character every way I wanted. Both from a story and gameplay perspective.



First, let me address the gameplay. My biggest beef with this game comes from the new talent trees and attributes. Gone are the days where you could allocate points where you wanted to suit your purpose. The weapon/armor requirements make it so that you pretty much HAVE to spend a certain amount of points in specific attributes which completely kills the possibility of creating different character types (unless you want to play Casual only). Not to mention that this ruins the point of Blood Magic since, spending points in Con instead of Will will ruin your chances of wearing some pieces of armor.

The new abilities I also found very lacking. Certain spells in the mage trees are just redundant in their functions but, I still feel like they are missing something. I would have preferred to have different schools of magic act entirely different rather than "Area of effect, cone, single target" spells that behave very similar to one another in different trees.

One of the things that made Origins so much fun to replay, for me, was that I could play a completely different character every time. I'm talking about 2h rogues, tanking mages, damage focused s&s warriors, etc.

As for the new "visceral" gameplay? Meh... I think its probably a good thing that the developers tried to make the game feel a little faster. However, I think the combat system still needs a lot of refinement. And maybe I am simply judging it this way because this game is a sequel to DA:O. One of the great things about Origen's combat system was that it was heavily involved in tactics. In DAII, you can get away with Running & Gunning while abusing the absurd amount of damage you can dish out from CCC. Its not like class combos are hard to achieve, there really isn't much to think about there, no matter where you are, you do the exact same thing in most encounters and you'll likely come out on top. 

But talking about the tactical aspects, enemies spawn in truly random areas. I guess it might look cool to have bandits dropping from rooftops randomly but, this effectively ruins any point to battlefield movement and/or positioning. You might arrange your party in an amazing way but, as soon as that particular wave is dead, a bunch of enemies will just "appear" behind your lines and jump your mages/archers. Now, I'm not saying there shouldn't be flanking but, it would be more fun, in my opinion, to be able to see the flank coming and adjust your tactics accordingly while you deal with the enemies you're already engaging. 


Now, about the story. I think the origin stories were a big deal. Being able to chose who you are in the game world (and having it affect how people react to you) is what separated DA:O from any other "epic" fantasy RPG. I mean, the "plot" of Origins is pretty standard stuff if you strip it down to essentials. Hero saves the world from a looming threat of evil. However, there was so much there that made it a special quest. The world of Thedas, the different factions and characters you encountered and your relationship to them is what made DA:O so special.

In DAII, there's Kirkwall, that's it. While the whole 10 year story was cool and all, I really started feeling claustrophobic (and not only because of the recycled maps/architecture). Seeing as you have 10 years, I think it wouldn't have been to hard to expand the story deeper into the Free Marches. I mean, there are periods of time in the game where we assume Hawk is just "hanging out" for three years? Why are there no quests that involve going to Starkhaven or Tantervale? Clearly, the events taking place in Kirkwall affect more than just the city, you wouldn't even have to create the other locales in their entirety, but expanding what we see of Thedas and the Free Marches would have helped to make the story more compelling, in my opinion.

Choices. This is a topic I am sure most people are tired to hear about. However, there's only one big choice in this game. In Origins, you could decide the fate of the circle, decide if you wanted the werewolves or the Dalish, wether to keep or destroy the Anvil of the Void, who became the new king of Orzammar, who became the new ruler of Ferelden, recover the Urn of Sacred Ashes or defile it, etc. This combined with the origin stories and the different characters you could create gave the game a TON of replay value.

In DAII, the only big choice you make is which side to fight on at the end. However, this has no effect on the way things unfold (Orsino still becomes a meat bag and Meredith is still crazy). And, of course, some might argue that not all games need to be about choices, the story is pretty good in its own merit. But to that I say, this was marketed as a sequel for DA:O. The game is even called Dragon Age 2. If this was Dragon Age: The Champion of Kirkwall and clearly differentiated from the other game, I would't have a problem.

Its not like they couldn't have added a big choice per act. For example, there could have been two endings for the issue with the Arishok (other than superficial options that only change wether you duel him, fight him or let him go). There could have been a choice to side with the Qunari or fight them. Now, not necessarily selling the city to them but, wouldn't have it been awesome if you could somehow prove to the Arishok that there is still hope for Kirkwall? Instead of trying to take the city they could have left believing that it was in good hands. 

By eliminating the big choices (because minor ones could be overlooked and are probably not imported to the sequels) plus getting rid of the origin stories, they have taken a step away from what Dragon Age: Origins was about. Like I said before, the story was alright but that's not the only factor to consider. I compared DAII to Mass Effect before because they are both games with great stories about single great characters that after I beat I had little incentive to replay. 




I also had a bit of an issue with the new art direction. I loved the dark mise en scene of Origins. It gave the game a gritty feel that was amazing. Now, even though Kirkwall is not Ferelden, everything is a tad too bright. Even the undercity, which is supposed to be the nastiest, poorest part of the city looks fairly nice. I dislike the new Ogre models. They look like a goofy ripoff of their DA:O counterparts. And the new darkspawn look like the Putty Patrol (the bad guys from the Power Rangers). At first I thought they looked this bad because we would only see them while escaping from Lothering but, they were used enough to justify a better job. The DA:O darkspawn looked amazing, I honestly found it a little insulting that they were changed to THAT.




Now for some final notes:

I really like the new Friendship/Rivalry path system. I just with it had a little more of an effect on your companion's interaction with you but, overall is was a great upgrade to the all friendship bar, imo.

I do miss being able to chat with my companions, their personal quests very greatly improved but, getting to know your friends was a great part of origins.

I found it very odd that not even your class selection had an appropriate effect on the game world. Wether you're a mage or your sister is/was, I think that there should be consequences in game. You can have Bethany blasting away at the Gallows and no Templar notices. I understand why this is but, I think there was potential here to make the story way more engaging.

If you're going to recycle a level, please at least bother cropping the map. It just makes me feel like you guys got lazy.

And that's about it. I realize this might sound very negative but, I truly enjoyed the game. I think maybe I sound this negative because all the things that were well done, don't need explaining. I am finding it extremely hard to beat the game a third time. In fact, I went back and beat Origins for like the 20th time before I even got a third character to Act 3 .

[LarryDavid]

A. Loved

(1) TAB-button. The range is restricted to smaller areas which makes it necessary to go look behind the corners and hence makes finding certain hidden things more satisfactary
(2) R-button. Regarding looting, the combination with the TAB button hit a perfect balance and made looting a more enjoyable experience alltogether. During easier fights, it came in handy too.
(3) The fact that experience was only added until the fight was over is a good thing. After a satisfying fight, it gave me the feeling of overlooking the battle field and making up the balance of the encounter
(4) The redesign of the qunari and elves.
(5) The way crafting/runes/traps/chest is handled is perfect.
(6) The third person narrator, but (C. 34).
(7) The amount of gold is perfect. In origins I could buy whatever I want and still end up with hunderds of gold, whereas in DA II buying stuff was really a trade-of
(8) The core of the story. Origins was an epic journey, which was perfectly suited to introduce the world and all its aspects on a basic level. DA II zoomed in on the unstable equilibrium between chantry/templar/circle which was i.m.o intristicly more interesting.
(9) The way the companions are connected with the main story. It felt like they were part of the story just as I was, whereas in Origins it felt like they were just following me (nothing wrong with that)
(10) The graphics! I played on the highest settings (PC) and was realy realy impressed. Later on I discovered the 1 Gb High Resolution Texture Pack and went totaly wooooot
(11) The combat: animations, reactivity, abilities, ability-tree, splashing of enemies instead of finishing moves, ... the whole package, but (D 52)
(12) The cross-class combinations. I didn't used them that often nor build my characters to exploit the different combinations, but I think this is an excellent game-mechanism and I would like to see this to return in future games
(13) The party banter is amazing!! It was also better distributed in time as compared to origins
(14) The personal quests are very good, both quality as quantity.
(15) The compagnions. It wanted to know each character and their personal story whereas there were a few compagnions in origins I didn't care for. I found Merrill to be unrivalable, so a lot of Kudos for the writer who wrote her.
(16) The usage of coarse words is very well balanced and gave the game a more realistic twist as compared to origins.
(17) The ability of the rage demons to disappear.
(18) I experienced the side quests to be a lot better than in origins
(19) I loved the way the cooldown on potions is handled as potion spamming is something that can break the balance of a fight
(20) I can't really explain it, maybe because the story evolved in time and not in space, but I felt that everything is better connected than in origins; the story is more a whole
(21) The fact that each compagnion had his own house, the camp in origins always seemed a little bit weird
(22) Voiced Hawke. I have been playing origins non-stop from its release to the release of DA II. I only took a break of a few weeks to play ME1 and 2 a few times. When returning to origins the non-voiced character start bothering me alot. The only downside for me is (C 45)



B. Liked

(23) The balance between the different classes were better.
(24) The non-explicit s-e-x scenes ... but see (D. 46)
(25) The redesign of the hurlocks (but C. 32 and 33) and ogres
(26) The mini-map, also the fact that plot pointers are provided
(27) Kirkwall was very nice done. All the quests in Kirkwall never felt as recycling the same maps. The story is situated in Kirkwall so it is logical that a lot of time is spend there
(28) Contrasting to origins, the ability an enemie is going to use isn't displayed anymore.
(29) The rogue far distance closing-in jumps where always nice to see although (C. 39)
(30) Smaller hands and feminine female bodyshapes (especially shoulders). It didn't bothered me at all during origins but it was nice to see that it was changed for the better
(31) The idea of finding lost stuff and returning them to the owners is a logical thing to do. In origins a few board quests consisted of finding lost items, the fact that you find these items always seemed odd to me. So this implemantation is the way to go



C. Disliked a little bitty

(32) The way hurlocks run is hilarious. It would be better if the have a more humanoid way of moving
(33) I didn't like the height and body of the emissaries although I loved the concept art. A smaller gap between these two had been nicer.
(34) More Varric - Cassandra conversations. Now it doesnt completely feel like he is telling the story.
(35) It would be better to let Varric, during the Cassandra conversations, give information about the activities of the companions during the time jumps. Instead of the I-know-what-you-did-last-three-summers, but please recapitulate conversations at the beginning of each act, it would be possible to have a conversation related to these activities and your involvement in it.
(36) In my opinion there were a lot (absolutly not relativly) of conversations where the option to be sarcastic should have been replaced with a more neutral one.
(37) I noted that the purple diamand reguraly results in a neutral reply, but for those lines I would suggest an other Icon
(38) The number of shouts each companion has during fights is too limited.
(39) The standard fighting moves of the DW rogue were a lot better in origins.
(40) The rival/friend-bar changes always with multiples of 5. It would be better if compagnions react more frequently on thing you do/say and smaller numbers can be utilized in those situations.
(41) The desire demons are badly done as they don't pose a big threat as opposed to origins
(42) Upon meeting a new character, It had been better if it was possible to aks a small amount of questions at their homes. This way you get to know the character a little bit better before dragging them along
(43) It would be less black-white if not all mages resort to blood magic when cornered and if blood magic doesn't always have a price taged on it
(44) At the end of origins the fate of a lot of characters was given by means of text. I think the same, but with cinematics, should have been provided
(45) The downside of a voiced character is that I associate the voice with the default face. As a result I can't change the default face.


D. Disliked

(46) akward s-e-x scenes. I did Isabela and Merrill and they both had strange moments. When jumping on the bed with Isabela, the scene had to stop there instead of repeating the same sequence of strange robot like movements. With merrill the after scene was horrible. It looked like you were rubbing your hand in her arm and both Merrill as Hawke looked more 2D then 3D as related to the bed. Suggestion in (G 56)
(47) Anders final action isn't handled well I think. If one doesn't help Anders a small explossion killing the grand cleric would be logical. If you help him the big explotion should happen. This way it looks like the decission to side with him had influence
(48) Spawning of enemies in battles is a good thing. But I think it is best that the majority of fights are like in origins
(49) Length of the game.
(50) The haert symbols takes away the idea of romancing someone. When the option is given to flirt, I would be better to have a few lines with a haert symbol, and only the line which works for the character should have influence (I wouldn't even give an idication of the flirting was succesful)
(51) I didn't liked the influence of the Idol on the ending as it would be believable if Merridiths obsession drove her to insanitty. Intrinsically I liked the influence of the Idol but it should have ended with the haunted house.
(52) I understand why the camera angle is changed, but I would like the possibility that you can zoom out just a little further
(53) I don't mind the reuse of environments at all, but if a cave is reused don't block off other tunnels with a concrete wall and show the map of the cave accordingly to the accesable areas



E. Unforgivable screwup

(54) No kiss-breakup conversations. In origins you could always have a conversation wich includes the option to kiss your LI or to break up with him/her. I Think it is important that you can break up with your LI at any time (at their home/ hangout) and kiss as a check-up that the relation is still going on.



F. General suggestions

(55) Introducing random consequences: e.g. during origins it was possible to save both conner and his morther by going to the circle. I would like that there is a probability on a catastrophical outcome in such cases (e.g. village destroyed and mother dead). For instance a fatal result probability of 65%, which reduces to 30% if the circle is already cleanced  
(56) I know that physical interactions between 2 persons, especialy during s-e-x scenes, are hard to implement but unless all the movements are very smoothly and natural, go for more static scenes
(57) When moving your mouse on the friend/rival pointer it would be handy if some other information is provided. This can add some more depth to the relation indicator; for instance high rivalary can be caused by a competitive relation or by for instance hate

[IncendiarySheep]

This could best be described as a limited review. It's limited because there is only one thing I disliked.

I loved the game. Not as much as DAO or ME2, but they were such masterpieces that I wouldn’t expect to. I loved the revamped combat. I loved the talent tree. I loved the tactics. I loved the multiple mobs. I loved Kirkwall. I loved dog. I loved all the characters (well, except Fenris, but I think that was because he looked too Final Fantasy for me). I loved the new look Quinari. I love it so much I've played through 3 times already, despite having a more than full time job and a thesis to finish!

However, for all that love, I HATED the blowing up of the Chantry.

HATED it in an almost game-breaking way.

When it happened I stopped playing and tried to work out what possessed Bioware to do something so ... lame.
Were they trying to make a political statement? Trying to be shocking? Just plain short of ideas? I still don’t get it.

On the one hand, I find it hard to believe any direct paralells to real world events were intended. What about the circumstances in Kirkwall is in any way comparable to the complexities of real world, let alone 9/11 (or any other large scale civilian bombing – London, Bali)? Such comparisons are quite impossible. But then I think, of all the available storytelling tools, why go with a bombing with such strong 9/11 imagery parallels if not to make a political statement? And just contemplating the possible 'messages’ that could be suggested by this makes me feel a little queasy. But then I wonder, what if there was no political message? In that case, a real, tragic event was evoked for nothing more than shock value. I'm not sure what's worse.

Now, I'm all for adopting themes from the real world – terrorism, slavery, freedom, greed, family, whatever.  Real world themes lead to emotional involvement. But direct comparisons to tragic real world events, complete with disturbingly similar imagery? That’s too much for me.

Even putting the political stuff aside, that mechanism felt rushed. The game spent alot of time building up the characters of Meredith, Orsino, Cullen et al, and fleshing out their mechanations, and then made it all pointless with some kind of anti-deus ex mechina that made it all irrelevant in the end. Heck, it also kind of made Hawke irrelevant as well! To me, it almost felt like the writers were running out of time and ideas, and just threw this dumb big explosion in in order to skip all the hard work of plotting and brings things to a head in the most shocking and rapid matter possible. It just felt rushed. Rushed and cheap.

Plus, the kind of magic behind the blowing up of the chantry is total world buster. Why would anyone bother laying siege to a city again? Just use the Anders Orbital laser to demolish everything in sight.

Now, I was romancing Anders, and I'll admit I was probably particuarly peeved that the explosion potentially ruined a wonderful romance and a great character.  Prehaps there may be no small amount of 'why did my romance get singled out for this crap' influencing my thinking (although I have since rationalised away my problem and decided I love the character even more   ... hence meaning I can continue to read fanfic and replay the romance without feeling dirty).  However, I can also confirm that my husband – who was definitely not romancing Anders! – had the same disgusted reaction that I did. He turned off the game and stated his relationship with Bioware was at an end. He’s since gotten over it a bit, but not enough to really love the game. I doubt we're the only ones.

So, seriously guys, great game, and I love your work. But please don’t pull something like the Chantry explosion again. A big, stupid explosion is never a substitute for character development and great story telling

Modifié par IncendiarySheep, 10 avril 2011 - 10:52 .

[We Tigers]

IncendiarySheep wrote...
So, seriously guys, great game, and I love your work. But please don’t pull something like the Chantry explosion again. A big, stupid explosion is never a substitute for character development and great story telling

I actually found the destruction of the chantry to be one of the most incredible and insane moments in any game I've played, and a tremendous piece of character development and storytelling.  Frankly, it's the culmination of Anders' arc, and what ultimately defines him as a character.  It was one of the least stupid explosions I've seen in a game, absolutely horrifying and surely a huge moment for any player who was close to Anders throughout the game, despite the warning signs and/or attempts to help him.

Reading through a few pages of this thread, I find the different perspectives players bring to the game fascinating.  You've got people going into paragraphs of detail about why the love scenes and romances weren't good enough for them, people saying the story was too depressing, people loving the characters but hating the combat, people loving the gameplay but hating the characters, etc.  Many different strokes for many different folks. 

[Girl on a Rock]

We Tigers wrote...

I actually found the destruction of the chantry to be one of the most incredible and insane moments in any game I've played, and a tremendous piece of character development and storytelling.  Frankly, it's the culmination of Anders' arc, and what ultimately defines him as a character.  It was one of the least stupid explosions I've seen in a game, absolutely horrifying and surely a huge moment for any player who was close to Anders throughout the game, despite the warning signs and/or attempts to help him.

This.

One thing I will say for this game is that there were moments of sheer genius as far as drawing me into the story, especially the characters, were concerned. I literally made the D face ( D: ) when the Anders nuked the Chantry; despite knowing Something Big was coming, that came completely out of left field for me and it struck me hard and fast.

Losing Bethany in the Deep Roads in my first playthrough broke my little heart, as did losing Leandra later on. There were actually a lot of moments where I felt emotionally invested in this story and the characters, and I have to say despite certain initial impulses, I don't dislike any of the characters, and in fact, avidly like them. I've found  that in the playthroughs, I've found the plot quests and side quests to be really boring (more on that later), but I've been absolutely living for the companion quests. Each playthrough has revealed something different to me about different characters, and I've come through two and a half feeling like I have a richer and more nuanced understanding of them. To me, the characters make this game.

However...

you really have to work to get to know these characters. The game doesn't make it easy, and there are times, especially in my first playthrough, where the cliches were really getting to me. You really have to pay attention, and honestly, have characters in your party, to truly get to know them. For example, there are elements of Merrill's perspective that make her seem much more thoughtful and well-informed that are revealed only through the banter that occurs between her and other characters while you're just walking around with your party. I'd given up on Merrill as a naive twit, but hearing this dialogue adjusted my opinion of her, and I actually think the way the writers did this was quite clever. However, it would have been nice to find those things out before my third playthrough. The same is true of viewing Isabela strictly as a raunchy, promiscuous human mattress, or Fenris as just a sullen, cranky antihero, or Anders as a high-strung, overemotional drama queen - there are elements of truth to all of these impressions, but I honestly thing the developers did put more in - you really just have to be patient enough to find it (and also, you have to be open to it. If you're going to hate on Isabela no matter what because she's slept with more people than you have, then you're just going to hate on her, and nothing will change that).

But I can forgive the character stuff - I mean, I've never had to work that kind of thing around game mechanics and player choice, so I'm just glad it's there at all.

However, the setup of mage v. templar could use some work, too. The opposition between these two parties, and the attempt to make it look as though choosing either of them had equal moral weight, just didn't work for me. The templars and the Chantry represent systemic discrimination, oppression, dehumanization, and in many cases, abuse (there was more than one moment during which sexual abuse of mages was implied). Mages represent a group of people of whom some do bad things. Kind of like every single other group of people in the history of ever. Can blood mages and abominations do more harm than your average farmer? Probably (though that could be argued). Can they do more damage than your average trained warrior/rogue? Not really, as has been proven when my mage, Anders, and Varric ended up having to go up against Fenris in the Night Terrors quest. That was a total ****show that I had to play like, five times just to get through. So I'm not really buying this "I don't know who to choose! OMG hard decisions are hard!" thing Bioware is trying to sell me.

The biggest problem, though, was definitely the repeated dungeons, mansions, warehouses, and pretty much any floorplan in Kirkwall. Enough has been said on this, but you know, Bioware - you know?  I'm not a rich person. I live on a shoestring grad student budget, I could have five babies and sell them on the black market and still not make enough to pay off all my school loans (well, I guess that depends on the going rate for babies on the black market - anyway, I owe a lot in school loans), and playing video games is one of my small indulgences. But $60 to me is still a large chunk of change that involves me sacrificing having other things I might want. I'm not saying it needs to walk on stilts and bring me my coffee in the morning, but honestly, is it that much to ask for more than one dungeon map? For you not to try to trick me into thinking a floorplan is different by not letting my character open some doors on one quest, and other doors on another? I mean Jesus, seriously, who does that? 

I'm curious whose decision it was to take only one year to make this game.  Because it's a good game. Obviously I like the game. But I would have gladly waited another six months to a year if it would have meant a few more locations and more original maps.

Jeez, guys. Come on.

[evilbob65535]

Wow - there are a lot of people responding passionately to this game! Must be a good sign for BioWare, eh? Even though I know there's pretty much zero chance this will be read by anyone - much less anyone at BioWare - I will join my voice to the tumultuous fray.

Most importantly, I enjoyed the game. I sunk over 50 hours into my playthrough and while I was glad to be finished when I did, it was a good time. I didn't like it quite as much as the first game, even though there were several improvements, and I believe the primary reason was the storyline. In the first game, I felt like I was telling -my- story. -I- drove the actions; the world hung on my decisions! In this game, I was playing through -Hawke's- story. The world was smaller and I had a smaller effect on it through a few key decisions; I didn't really shape the world. It was a small distinction, but I felt less immersed. I think having Hawke speak was actually a negative for this reason - I am watching, not -shaping- the action. Another big difference for me was the development of the companion characters. At the end of the first game, I KNEW these people. These fully-developed, complex people were my friends (or not, as the case may be). Somehow the companions in the second game were less developed; their lives weren't as rich. Also, having each companion have his or her own place actually made them feel less like a "party", or a collection of friends, and more like a group of people who knew each other. Again: very slight distinction, but it made me a little less emotionally invested.

My favorite improvement: companions get to 100% (or -100%) and STAY there! YAY! Finally, I can focus on the story I want instead of trying to cull favor! I also loved the companion armor - great job getting them visually distinct. And although I enjoyed the streamlined inventory system and it saved me a lot of time, it stopped short of its logical conclusion. Why did I even pick up a "cracked opal" when I literally never even see the thing? It just goes in the junk pile which gets auto-sold. Why not just give me money and cut out the extra button presses? What are you trying to save by telling me I found a "broken longbow"? I didn't understand that decision.

My only major complaint is actually the pacing. I spent nearly 50% of my playthrough in Act 1, and Act 1 had no substantive over-arching story. The main point of Act 1 was: I am going to go on an adventure. Guys, I'm playing a fantasy role-playing game: you can assume I'm already up for it! I know Act 1 spent a lot of time introducing characters and subtle plot points, but they were -so- subtle I didn't really connect them. They were too disjointed (especially for someone like me who does EVERYTHING) so in the end, it didn't really come together. By contrast Act 2 was great! In fact, when it was over I wondered why the game was still going. Act 3 seemed to just tie up a few loose ends from Act 1 and then throw some bosses your way. It was too short to develop the main plot (which didn't really get put together in Act 1). Overall, I wish Act 1 would have been about 1/2 or 1/3rd as long, and Act 3 would have included some of the extra Act 1 content. That would have helped the pacing tremendously and given more weight to the Act 3 content DURING Act 3 (as opposed to 30 hours earlier). Don't get me wrong: I love foreshadowing, too. But it's not foreshadowing if I don't remember it.

Finally, I was a bit disappointed in the ending. I had two main complaints here: first, it was entirely too short! (I'm talking about everything after the final boss had been defeated.) There's a quick wrap-up and then the whole "flashback narrative" (never a good choice, guys) comes to a close. I never figured out who the woman was who was interrogating Varric or why (or why there was a cameo from the first game), or why she just spent 50 hours having Varric explain something when she really only wanted to know if the Champion was dead. Lady: you have horrible time-management skills. Watching it a second time helped a little, but far too much was withheld - especially given that it was supposed to be the main vehicle for the story! Second, I found the actual final two bosses to be ...difficult to believe. I played through both endings, and having Meredith turn on you after you supported her seemed a bit weak, story-wise. It felt like a last attempt to tie the first Act with the final one - or that the game designers felt you just needed another boss. It was annoying and a bit expected, but it was nothing like having Orsino turn all blood-mage on you when you supported him! That was actually so jarring it completely shattered my suspension of disbelief. The idea that he effectively proved everything Meredith had ever said (not to mention supporting a serial killer) was so antithetical to his character I just rejected it outright.

Overall, I'd echo all the other reviews in saying that Dragon Age 2 is a very good game. Not a great game, but a very good one, and certainly fun. I'm not sure if this setting can soak another sequel (although we've not heard from the Tevinter mages yet...) but if it can, I will definitely give it a shot.

[evilbob65535]

Quick afterthought:
In the first game, -I- was driving the action. In this game, the action drove -me-. My decisions were just reactions to situations I didn't cause, and my choices were based on my experiences and prejudices. In the first game, I made the world into what it was based on who I was and what I believed. It's an important distinction, and part of the reason I liked "Origins" better.

[Dangerfoot]

I wrote a ridiculously long review about DA2 if anyone has a couple years to read it, or you can just skim the nice little formatted titles I guess. It may come off as a bit negative, but my negativity comes mostly from a place of frustration that Bioware makes such flawed games that I see so much potential in.

grudheap.blogspot.com/2011/04/dragon-age-2.html

[AzureAether]

I posted in here earlier, but I would like to say that I have finally figured out what bothered me about this game; the lack of direction.

The tension between the templars and the mages feels very forced, and very much like 'oh... we're a video game. We should have some sort of... battle. Or... something... cause we need an epic final battle... yeah...'. To me, the mages were whiny, and idiotic and dear Maker have you ever seen more people that freak out and attack you on the spot even though they KNOW you saved the city? The only play through I made it was very obvious that I was all for the mages, mostly because where the mages came across as whiny, the Templars came across as stuck up jerks who couldn't think for themselves most of the time. But despite this, I got attacked by more mages then I could count.

Then at the very end, you HAVE to make a choice. Mages or Templars, one or the other. Why? By the end of the game I have aquired a team of people who can apparently take on armies all on their own, and outside of a certain possessed mage in the group that sets everything in motion, I'm not really bound to either cause. Why if you try to say that you aren't taking sides you get forced to? Clearly with the Templars fighting the mages and the reverse, they are going to be pretty busy; it isn't like they are going to set aside their hatred of each other to focus solely on me and my merry little band. Can't I work to stop them both, or to my own ends?

And just when everything seems to be getting good (I ended up fighting for the mages) and the game starts to come to a close, we see a huge character shift in the First Enchanter. He gives this lovely speech before hand about fighting to the end, not giving in, and then he goes.... a little bit crazy. All through the game he has been pretty level headed, trying to protect the mages, and then he becomes, SUPRISE, another blood mage! Because apparently all the blood mages that ran from the Blight ended up in Kirkwall. It made no sense; it was a very clear change of character, and over all made fighting for the mages pointless. Sure, I freed you, but hey your leader became a huge fleshy blood mage demon puppet, so... yeah. Sorry about that. It almost came across as 'well... we had this huge creature thing in a preview somewhere so we should put it in the game.... here!'

They there was the Knight Commander and that little fancy idol thing. The irk here? We see that thing towards the start of the game, we realize it is a huge danger due to the dwarf going nuts, and yet we don't poor more work in to finding it? We can hunt down slave masters, we can hunt down people trying to kill us, we can go destroy an entire clan over a mirror, we can find anyone, follow anything but... the one more important item that we come across we just shrug off. Hey, the person who bought it can deal with the side effects. Not to mention, how did one tiny idol become a giant sword? If my dear character hadn't said 'is that the idol!?' I never would have known. There is no explination at all in any of that. What is driving the Knight Commander? She was against mages before she got the idol. Was the thing alive? Did it swap form? Was it some relation to Justice, because both the sword and him seemed to like to blow stuff up. It felt as though this nifty plot device was tossed in to a corner and forgotten about and then shoved in to the end just to bring it to a close. This was a real let down; in the collector's edition guide, there is a picture of the idol towards the end of the book and lets just say.... I was expecting some sort of epic battle with some thing that had been long lost (go find the picture, the idol looks unreal). Heck, the way the Seeker made it sound it was something much worse than a blasty-sword.

The main point here is that the plot took too long to develop and was just too weak to stand on its own; it needed stability, but the game had in some ways so many things going on (Witch of the Wilds? Idol? The Wardens appearing? The evil mirror of doom?) that it didn't know what it wanted to be when it grew up, so it settled for a petty argument that really makes little sense when you start thinking about it. I have no doubt that we will see DLC for this game; we can't NOT. But to me, for a game like this, any DLC released will just be a way of saying 'hey look! we got that main plot thread finally wrapped up! Here, pay ten more bucks for the new polished version!'.

Bioware has a vast selection of amazing titles; I'm a long time fan of them, so I don't mean to knock them. They really do do mind blowing work. My personal opinion is that things have changed since EA and all that, and if DA2 reflects the new arrangements then I think they are going to have some issues. And I think it shows the company more than anything the huge fanbase it has and that we WANT them to do good; else we wouldn't bother saying what we hated in such numbers.

[CaveTown]

1.0/5.0

If Dragon Age 2 had been slightly rewritten it could have been a lot better.

Rid of the pointless side quests (which CAUSED the recycled locations), make the characters have their own personal thoughts (more than just the big picture...) instead of being slaves of Hawke, make any quests that are left as bug free as possible and make sure that they actually relate to the main story instead of being random things to do on the side.


My Full Review:

http://carterbalesga...eview-1050.html

[BlueMew]

 Well, I'm not planning to create a wall of text, but here's my two cents.




- Customization. Yes, I know that it was in Origins too, but the degree has become even greater. 
- Rich, deep characters and a better way of keeping 'score' of your relationship with them. No more arse-kissing required!
- Despite the fully voiced main character, different 'personalities'. I can be just the sarcastic bastard I always wanted to be...
- Breaking the molds. The one and only Varric, Merrill the cute blood mage, bisexual romances. Thumbs up.
- Continuity. At least a few of the Origins choices matter and have impact on the world. Even I feel special now
- An epic look and feel, a dramatic storyline without the component of some super villain trying to blow up the world. It truly makes you care for your protagonist.
- FINALLY a cd/dvd for Mac players!
- Anders. Shouldn't have taken away the kitten though...



- Dialogue system. Not knowing what you're going to say can be awkward -- although I am aware this is a side effect from the full voicing and the lesser of several evils.
- That bloody Arishok battle. I for one am not an experienced MMORPG player, and less well-versed in things like  positioning and kiting. It took me half a day, half of which on casual difficulty.
- Some weird bugs. Quests not playing out correctly, people without arms or torsos...
- The randomness of importing certain Origins choices. I mean, importing my Warden/Alistair romance would have been much nicer than whether Cailian's body was burned, right?
- Shades of grey. What I missed in DA2 compared to Origins was having the option to take a middle ground. For instance, you cannot say to Anders "I can't kill you, and I feel for you, but I really want to punch you in the face." Rather the options are "You're absolutely right" or "I'm going to stab you."

Modifié par BlueMew, 12 avril 2011 - 01:40 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Hey guys!

Just wanted to start out by saying I have been a huge fan of Bioware and all that you do for over a decade. I love that you all take an interest is the gamers feedback, as it shows you all are committed to creating great games.

I thought I would say what I like/dislike about Combat, Leveling, Interface and Plot/Narrative, then give an overview of my feelings in general. The plot areas are likely to Spoiler heavy, for anyone who may have wandered here accidentally.

Likes

     Combat - The new combat system was a lot more active, which was great for me. The combat of Origins was very "ho-hum," with very little to keep me sucked in, even on Nightmare. At early levels, the simple attacks are great, but can get a little boring. But a few more levels, and you are unlocking new skills, which bring the action level right up again. But the real kicker was the cross-class combos.
     This gem made every aspect of combat in later areas of the game crucial. If you are looking for one area of the battle portion of the game that should make a combat and be implemented more, it would be this feature. For everyone who claimed the new combat system was all flash, but no strategy, it was because they failed to utilize this.

      Leveling - The new leveling system was a  bit daunting at first, but was also great in its new features. I loved that not everyone had the same cookie cutter skills, and how almost every skill had an upgrade or two that took the ability to a completely different level. There were many skills that looked pretty pedestrian when they were unlocked, but became game-changers when their upgrades were done. Also, the use of cross-class combos made every level up a complete planning session, as your party's other skills were taken into consideration.
      The new leveling system favors a mix of all classes, which is good for variety, equipment and plot reasons. In Origins, it was easy to play as a mage, bring Wynna and Morrigan, and a random other character and completely destroy everyone on Nightmare with a combination of Haste, Heroic Aura, Frost, Flame and Telekenitic weapons and the Arcane Warrior specialization.DA2 does a lot to prevent Uber-leveling to make the game a breeze.

     Interface - The converstaion skill wheel is nice. In Origins, I loved being able to read through all possible choices of what my character would say, but at the same time sometimes when I started a conversation with a major character or a companion, I felt the same kind of "Well, its time to read for about fifteen minutes straight." The wheel allows things to flow down and dirty and makes conversation feel more natural. Making the "further information" responses on the left, while "conversation advancers" on the right (for the most part) makes it easy to tell find out what you want to say and not accidentally skip information (for those dialogue entusiasts, such as myself).
      I am also a big fan of the crafting/brewing/enchanting setup and the use of crafting sources. Not requiring just gold for these items, but also not requiring I pick up every piece of lint I come across in hopes that I could use it to forge an awesome rune, gives a nice balance of collecting versus just having a potion store in your house. Quests were fairly easy to find using the map and appropriate map markers, not forcing me to flip through random codex entries every time I wanted to find out where I was supposed to go next with the 5 different quest threads I would usually have going on.

     Plot - Conversations in this game were much more fluid and organic, this time around, making it feel like an actual conversation was taking place instead of an in-game monologue. AS done in ME2, the conversation wheel was used to gather information, prompt a response, move onto the next subject, gather more information, prompt a response, etc. In Origins, all options were laid out from the start with any option choosable from the get go. The new way of handling made conversations feel like they had layers and were going somewhere.
      Also, the voice acting and scripting was excellent, and the interaction between companions was top notch, with the cut scenes and the in-game dialogue pretty priceless and true to each character. The Friendship/Rivalry mechanism takes a great spin on choosing responses based on how you actually feel, not how you THINK you should act in regards to a companion. In addition, making Hawke fully voiced and having responses not specifically picked based on the personality type I have played as makes for a fully fleshed character that I enjoyed playing.

And... now for the painful part...

Dislikes
   
     Combat - The game was advertised as "as strategic as a player wants to be" with statements that you would only need to go to the Tactics screen for a "deeper" feeling of combat. However, if I am enjoying flipping around the screen with my rogue or raining hell upon my enemies with my mage, I don't want to have to keep flipping back and forth between each character every time they get hit to use a potion. So going into the Tactics screen and creating a Custom profile for each of my characters to use a potion, then to have to update that Custom profile every time they unlocked a new skill, while not overly burdensome for someone like me, definitely would be initimidating to someone who is afraid to muck around and make changes. Also, setting up cross-class combos almost requires specific commands be set up in the Tactics screen as well, in pretty much the same fashion as listed above. Speaking of cross-class combos, I feel like this feature was glazed over for how important it became in later, hard battles. There is no tutorial for it, no in game prompt that you've done it (aside from a one-time Achievement on 360), heck, even the instruction booklet only had a brief 1 page explanation on it. Not only was its focus not emphasized, but it was also fairly hard to do. The signs above enemies heads to indicate Brittle, Disoriented or Staggered were all way too similar looking to distinctly tell in the middle of battle what was what. I usually had Tactics set up for all my companions to perform the combos while I set them up, since it was hard for me to pinpoint exactly what skills to use in what situation because the enemy was halfway across the room. A color-coordinated system may be more helpful instead of the non-descript signs.
      And my next big gripe about combat is the difficulty of it. While I love a challenge and am not intimidated by a boss that sends me to the Load Screen a few times, there were many aspects of combat that I felt were a little cheap. Too often I would be setting up attacks, manuevering my ranged attackers while aggroing with my tank... when enemies would just fall from the sky. While somewhat understandable when fighting, say, giant spiders, it becomes a little tedious when it happens with almost every fight scene. There's fifteen shady looking thieves huddled around each other on the dock. Shocker... its a fight! But wait... there's about forty more thieves just hanging out in the shadows until a certain amount of their buddies get killed? While it does a good job of making combat more engaging by constantly shifting, it also devalues the enemies. When a fight with the above mentioned thieves becomes just as hard as facing a room with rage, hunger, desire and pride demons, then you begin to realize it is the combat itself which is difficult, not the actual opponents. In addition, often there would be a boss fight that would absolutely hand your boots to you. But, instead of having the option of going somewhere else and seeking new quipment, supplies or even levels, you would have no choice but to just keep pushing though until you beat it by sheer luck or by changing the difficulty level (i.e. the Rock Wraith boss at the end of Act 1). I like having bosses be a true test of your skill as a player... but I also like to have the ability to beef up if I'm having problems. If I am stuck in a fight I keep losing, it makes me feel like I've either leveled myself into a rut or I've squandered supplies, both things I try very hard not to do in a game.
     Also, all too often, I am running around as the sole survivor. My companions have all dropped dead, I'm booking it as far away as possible with enemies close behind. So instead of the fight lasting two or three minutes, it is now protracted out into a twenty minute affair, where I am whittling away, one tiny measly hit at a time, against three or four enemies that seemed to crumble when I had my full party mearly minutes ago. I get that making skills feel really powerful means you had to nerf normal attacks, but if I have no stamina, no companions, only five healing potions and three demons are heading my way, I pretty much knew that I would likely survive if I didn't have anything to do in the real world in the next half and hour where I could nitpick and run over and over again. Which I guess I can trace back to the fact that the companions AI just does not seem to mind getting hurt. In Tactics, if they are surrounded, they might use a skill to get the enemy off of their back for three seconds, but more often than not, the enemies are right back and my companion just sits there, getting wailed on. Or standing in a magic area of effect that just pummels their health. Or is a ranged fighter, but just sits there when a Big Bad saunters up and makes things nice and personal. And it also seems like I am the only one who can see that Rage demon pop up out of the ground right before they do the backstab attack and avoid it, as it seems to one-hit kill so many others in my party. I'm not sure if I have a clear cut solution to the sole survivor scenario that seems to happen a few times too often, but it is frustrating that the only person in my party who seems to survive these things is the one I am directly controlling.

     Leveling - In many games, when I see that Level Up screen that shows I have filled up the Exp bar, I get all excited. It means my character is now stronger and the world just became a little safer for me to poke my head in some of its dark corners. But in DA2, I did not feel this. Getting a new skill point was the highlight, but adding my stats in just felt like a way of stemming the tide, not making my characters more powerful. Level adjusting enemies works best when you are fighting a small number of them. But when you fight endless waves of them in most encounters, you begin to feel like the fraction of stats you just increased for your four man squad pales in comparrison to the overall levels of the 10-20 enemies you are fighting in any given room. When you go up, you get an extra three stat points for four people, 12 points in all. When you level up, your enemies also power up, giving three extra stat points over ten enemies, 30 points in all. While I am sure this is not the actual math, it more than feels that way. Unlocking heavy damaging and cross-combo skills is the best part of leveling up, but it all too often feels like running in place.
     Also, three other quick things.Firstly, In Origins, having two Specialization trees, with only four skills a piece, was doable. This time around, each skill tree has around six or so skills and many of the skills useful. The second specialization tree looks to be mostly just for the stat boost associated with unlocking one Specialization versus another, as there are simply not enough levels and skill points to fully flesh this out. While not a fatal flaw, I found myself wishing there was a way I could level up more, or at least earn more skill points, to flesh out all the trees I wanted to to make my characters the best they could be. Also, the game seems a little funky in that Cunning represents defense instead of a more usual suspect, like Dexterity. In fact, it is almost mandatory that every level, every class type put a point into Cunning in order to avoid being made into swiss cheese. While I don't have any problem with making defense a priority when leveling up, maybe a flag to those who would assume that Cunning would only be useful to rogues (like Magic is only useful to mages) that they may want to give the stat another look. Thirdly... blood magic. Its supposed to be this forbidden art that is super dangerous, corruptive and powerful, but it just doesn't bring much "Umph" to the table. I can make a build with Merril that allows her to focus on Constitution instead of Willpower and gives her an unlimited amount of mana, if coupled with her healing/damaging aura... but it is basically the exact same as if I set her up in Tactics to chug Mana Potions which I can buy at a fairly cheap price. So blood magic basically becomes a thrifty cost saver, instead of a evil path to unheard of dark power.

Interface -  My interface list is a bit random, so be warned I'll just be jumping from one topic to the next. Doing shops via a chest and shopkeepers having no dialogue feels odd. I know it saves on cut scenes, voice acting, animation, etc. But it feels odd. Equipment is fairly generic, both in its name and its use. The Star system for rating equipment is also a little wonky (a 5 star piece of equipment and a 2 star piece of equipment both have the same name and stat bonus, for example). Junk is junk. I know that seems obvious, but it really has no value or purpose, even when its name seems to indicate otherwise. Why would a large gold bar NOT be something I want to pick up? Because its only worth one silver piece. Yeah... THAT makes sense.
      Also, a suggestion for consoles... I know it was suggested that console owners install the game on their hard drive to lower load screens. I heard many people complaining about load screens because they were ignorant of this suggestion. How about suggesting they install the game to shorten load screen times... on the load screen? If people see it enough and hate staring at it enough, chances are they might do something about it.
     I'm sure you all have heard enough about the glitches that made it to final product. It wasn't game-breaking, but the animation glitching makes me roll my eyes and have contempt that a major plot scene that everyone would have to play somehow made it past testing. Also (although this shouldn't be nested next to glitches, its just where I am putting it) I think the potion cooldown was way too long, and the healing spells were way too few. Its sad that I want to level up Dispel's Upgrade simply because it gives my "Healer" mage a whopping TWO spells that can heal an individual. While I realize that you all tried to get away from a potion chugging contest that could be fights in DAO, the handicapping of healing may have gone just a might bit too far.
     Lastly, I did not mind being in Kirkwall the entire game. Often, I did not feel too claustaphobic, as each map was fairly expansive. However, given the fact that we spent 10 years in one city, it did not change in the slightest. There were no upgrades to be done to the manor, no actions I could have done to improve Dark Town, no effect on taking out the roving gangs at night... heck, I would have been happy with planting a seedling in Act 1 and getting an apple in Act 3, ten years later. But the only changes we saw were the removal of the Quanari (which basically just closed an area, and the construction of a gender and class neutral statue at the docks. This was a wasted opportunity to show things over the passage of time in the city and could be concrete evidence of choices that were taken.

     Plot - A week before Dragon Age 2 came out, if you had told me that one of my biggest complaints about the experience wouldn't be the combat, the graphics, the location or the new characters, but the actual plot itself, from a Bioware company who did such an amazing job with the creation of the Dragon Age series, I would have slapped you in the mouth. But sadly, it was. 
      I had a weird feeling when the end of Act 1 happened after I got back from the Deep Roads. I happened to know at the time the game was divided into three Acts, so I thought... wait. I am a third of the way through the game and so far, my overall point in life... was money? That's all Act 1 was. Do enough quests to fund the expedition into the Deep Roads, where I would go... to find more treasure and money. I get that my family was in poverty and I need to restore the family name... but to what end? I liked all of my Hawke's through the game, but it seems like he never really did that much of importance.
     I understand that the point of this game was to avoid doing the "same old" save the world thing and instead to delve deeper into the politics of the world. But our Hawke didn't really do that either. He did odd tasks to go to the Deep Roads, got out with enough treasure to fill his coffers and buy a new house, wound up fighitng a minor Quanari rebellion (after all, their numbers were only a few hundred), witnessing a mage rebellion and taking a side. That, in a nutshell, is what the main plot encompassed. There were great side quests and good characters throughout the way... but if I didn't look at the Codex and see that the Codex CALLED them Plot Quests, I wouldn't have known the difference. Sure, they resulted in some random NPCs helping you out in the final battle, but given the fact that it took my brain a while to strain and remember who the heck these random people even were, it didn't give me much satisfaction.
     I could make a ridiculously long post about the plot things I didn't enjoy or that didn't live up to their potential, but I'll try to keep it short. First, you squandered a lot of opportunities to use stuff both from DAO and its DLC. We never even heard a twitch on Morrigan and what she is doing at the end of Witch Hunt, or what she left for the Warden. We never got to see any of the Golems of Amrgagmggagmg (obvious spelling error... there's only one gagmg in the real word...) except for Orsino, who was kind of a copout. What about Flemeth, who Morrigan stated wasn't entirely human OR an abomination at the end of Witch Hunt? We just see her fly off into the distance not long into Act 1, never to be heard from again. Our choices in DAO only result in one conversation/cutscene a piece which, is understandably hard to do, given so many choices and outcomes that could happen in previous games. But still, it felt like when you completed Origins that you had a real impact on how things played out... only to find the world is pretty much the same, regardless of your actions.
      But all previous games aside... you then put TONS of in-game stuff that could have been great, but which you never touched on. The Band of Three writings made it seem like there was some secret ulterior to the city of Kirkwall, with some dark power sealed in its underbelly, with even the streets themselves being spells of unknown intent. Sundermount seemed like a place of great interest and power, with the Tevinter marching to take it for its hidden power. The Bone Pit even seemed to be dragon catnip... but for no discernable reason. All things that would have been very cool to delve into, things you teased the player by having and doing nothing with. Also, you have the Quanari. One of the most powerful military forces in all of Thedas, with the Chantry at its throat after being threatened by their rise in the number of converts... and all we get is the fights in the end of Act 2. What I would have liked to see? Anders' bombing in Act 3 caused a conflict to break out between the mages and templars... but it turns out that it unearthed the dark power underneath Kirkwall, or perhaps disturbed the wards that the streets of Kirkwall were originally built for. Perhaps even ripped the veil in Sundermount, with disaster storming down the mountain. Or perhaps the Quanari's defeat at the end of Act 2 sparked an international religious war, with the Northern Quanari armies marching down south and the Chantry-led Orlesian forces rising to stop them, with Kirkwall being the battleground. That would have been pretty epic. All of this could be done while still doing the Templar/Mage conflict. I understand that freeing the mages from the Circle and inspiring mages all over to revolt as well sounds like a cool thing... but I was less than impressed. And I'm even a pro-mage, anti-circle kinda guy.
     But, all plot decisions aside, my main gripe was the serious lack of impact I had on the world. I disliked Fallout 3 because, at the end, you were almost locked into one or two decisions. And the ending reflected that... and little else. You spent hours upon hours doing quests, picking sides, saving lives or ending them... you only had one cutscene and two lines of dialogue difference. In Fallout: New Vegas, this is changed, where the ending gives you how your choices affected others and where they wound up, for good, bad or indifferent. You all did the exact opposite... you had Origins give an ending where the world you were in and the choices you made be given life with their endings, which could sometimes have unexpected or unusual consequences, which would then make you want to turn around and play it again... but DA2 show a generic "well, even though you were given all of these choices and had all of this impact, the world looks the exact same no matter what you do." I get that "becoming the character and using my imagination" is what some RPGer's love to do... but I could grab a stick and play imaginary warrior in a nearby park. I pay money for a game to tell a story I wouldn't have thought up on my own... and to not get stared at by scared kids in the park.

Overall Impression
     This game was fun and entertaining my first playthrough. I was going through and enjoying the gameplay, and the dialogue and interesting plot kept me distracted enough for me to ignore those thoughts in the back of my head that I had no idea where the overall direction of the plot was going. I loved getting to know my characters (although it seemed that I didn't get to talk to them as much as I would like) and completing the quests given to me. However, it felt a little like I was going through a To Do list... a fun and entertaing To Do list, but a list nonetheless. That I was just checking things off until I got to the REALLY good part. And everytime I got to what I thought would be the good part at the end of each Act, it felt very anti-climactic. And then, when ACt 3 began rolling to the end game, I realized what the showdown would be and felt depressed. Like finishing the game was now going to be a chore. Templars vs. Mages? My choice is to perform an Annulment or save the mages? If I wanted to, I could do that in DAO within the first 10 hours of gameplay. 
     Usually, when one realizes the final showdown and endgame, it brings a sense of awe... that things are happening and The Time Is Now. But when I saw Anders blow up the Chantry, I just thought... "Dangit, Anders. What in the world did you do that for?" I never once felt like I was changing the world and the people in it, although the end scene told me different. I had a feeling Orsino and Meredith would force me to choose a side, but I didn't think it would be a big enough deal to be the whole kit-and-kaboodle. But okay, so that's what we are doing. I'm going to strap down, buckle in and finish the ride. And then the end happened, with no mention to anything I'd done outside of that one choice and, even then, the world was the same regardless. The Circles rebelled, I am in hiding. So the ending didn't give me a play by play of how the individual actions I had done had affected the lives of those around me, which is what I was expecting based on DAO.
      Again, as I said above, I realize that it is very hard to not only craft endings and tie ins to choices made in previous games and even in the current one, that it is much easier, quicker and cheaper to make a cookie-cutter ending that can become canon fairly easily... but that's never been Bioware's style before. You all thrive on telling a great narrative by also doing what no story book can... give the player a choice to determine where the story is going. You all made great leaps and strides with the system for this go around... now for any future titles or DLC, focus on telling the story. Its what most RPGers are in it for.
    Let me wrap up by saying that I love you all as a Developer and will 9.9999 times out of 10 buy any game you all make. I am greatly looking forward to Mass Effect 3 coming out, as well as an DLC. You all strive and work very hard to make the games that you do, and I don't think anyone can honestly state otherwise. But in the end, this game felt incomplete. Like a piece was missing, a purpose was lacking, and a little bit of soul was not where it was supposed to be. Which is fine. No game is perfect, which is a standard many hold Bioware up to. But try and remember the aspects of the game which sucked us in and made DAO Game of the Year in 2009... even with muddy graphics, slow-paced combat, expositionary dialogue and a complicated inventory system... it was the plot, and the feeling that you were on a quest to DO something and then seeing where the choices you made to complete that task left you and the world around you. That's what Bioware has always done best. And it is what we appreciate you all for.

Thanks!

[Corker]

Demographics
Tech geek, female, mid-thirties.  Before Dragon Age: Origins, the only computer games I played were Solitaire or simple puzzle games.  No desire to play FPS or Civ-style strategy, tried husband's Diablo and got bored.  I got pulled into DAO by watching over his shoulder.

So I have no basis of comparison to other games.  On the other hand, good job at recruiting new customers.

Liked
Companions and dialogue, as always.

Urban setting.  I did not at all mind that there were five main zones to Kirkwall.  Liked the day/night division.

More limited story scope.  We already saved the world once.

Attention obviously paid to presenting the mage/templar conflict with some nuance.

Did Not Like
Narrative structure.  Act 1 did not grab; evil crazymaking idol was an awful shortcut.  Act 3 finale forces a choice that is entirely lacking in the nuance shown previously.  Mages demanding freedom vs. templars who would not grant it would have been a difficult, compelling choice.  Supporting an obvious abuse of power against innocents, not as much.  (Or rather, it makes supporting the templars a harder choice, but makes supporting the mages trivially easy.)  There was no clarity as to where it was all going or what it all meant - a chance for Hawke to declare her intentions for Kirkwall's future, post-battle, would have gone a long way to making it feel like we fought the battle to some purpose.  (Much like, post-Coronation in DA:O, we could declare what we intended to do next, and select a boon to shape future events.)

Companions felt about 1-2 dialogues short.  Romances felt about 2-3 dialogues short.

Voiced protagonist, for the usual reasons.

Trivia
Like any good fan, I have a few dozen details I could squee over or rage about.  For color and clarity, I'll give just one of each.

The Shield of the Knight Herself (the gift for Aveline) was of Dalish design.  I love it when the small details of the lore are remembered and implemented.

The closing sequence with its sketch of the Champion of Kirkwall who was, unaccountably, male.  I've heard that there is an alternate slide with a female Champion shown instead.  So, points for having the content created.  But it's a poke in the eye to spend that many hours on a game and get that message that Garrett Hawke is the *real* Champion, the *iconic* Hawke, and Marion is just, you know... an option.

So Don't Care
The combat system.  I started Origins on Easy, have ended up played at Hard (PC); played DA2 on Normal.  There were some fights.  Some were annoying slogs, some were kind of pointless, many were filler, a few were actually really fun.  Same was true for DAO.  I don't play the game for the fights; as long as there's an Easy setting I can get to where things aren't really frustrating, I'm happy.