1012 réponses à ce sujet

[Cavalier753]

I already posted on this forum earlier, but now that I've played through Dragon Age 2 in every way possible, I have more to say. Just to recap.

1. Combat system. Improved over Origins, but not too improved. The combat goes a lot quicker but this is not necessarily a good thing. The Warden actually used his/her weapon like a person really might. Hawke swings a greatsword like a rolling pin. I appreciate hat Bioware tried to do, but if they could slow it down a bit and make it a tad more realistic, I would be grateful.

2. Companions. A few stood out for me. Bethany and Varric. I liked them because I could connect with them most, but that's just me. Now, don't get me wrong, the other companions were decently written, but honestly, I could care less about Fenris being a broody stick-in-the-mud and not straying from his his basic line "I hate mages! I hate you all! I was a slave! I say I don't want help but I ask anyway! Broooood!" It pissed me off. Bethany, on the other hand, was about the sweetest thing ever. A: she stands by your side no matter what. B: She had a REAL plight, which was trying to escape persecution from the Templars simply for having magic. I could really get a feel for her character, and she actually MADE me want to protect her. C: What Bioware did to her was unfair. Carver too, but I could care less about him. Too much like Fenris. They essentially either KILLED her, or forced her into a life she didn't want.

3: Inventory and Armor. hated it. The old armor system worked fine. Honestly, a sword made out of dragonbone would probably do more damage than a iron sword. The star system was an oka idea, but it didn't work for me. I also do not appreciate what they did to companion armor. It's cool that they decide what to wear, but when they wear the same thing for 10 YEARS, it gets really annoying. And some of them didn't even wear armor! You think Isabella is going to wear that outfit for 10 years straight? I don't. The inventory screen was somewhat like Origins, and they did make one improvement, although I don't even know WHY they added it. The junk category. It is nice they put a category to put all your sell-only items, but do you think Hawke is going to waste his/her backpack space carrying around 12 tiger eyes, a broken longsword, frayed rope, two bottles of supposedly "rare" antivan brandy, which I can find on a generic slaver corpse. Which brings up another point. SLAVERS. But more on that later.

4: Story. Much better in Origins, I daresay. It was a good story I could immerse myself in, a story which drew me in and made me want to keep playing til' 4 in the morning, hacking apart some noble who looked at me funny. The characters were believable in what they stood for, who they were, and mostly, what they wanted. It seems in Thedas, no one can solve their own lives. What would they do without gamers? Dragon Age 2 story in comparison, was a steaming pile of mabari poo. Far too linear for a Bioware game, in my tastes. It basically told me, "You can choose option A, or option B. Which is it?" I pick option A. "Thank you for picking option A. Ending A will now happen." So I go back and pick option B. "Thank you for picking option B. Ending A will now happen." Which makes me go, WTF IZ DAT SHEET.

5: Enemies and Locations. For the love of god, how many slavers can you put into one game? Well, Bioware found that record, and shattered it like a shade frozen by a winter's grasp spell. I couldn't go for a pleasant stroll down the wounded coast without stumbling across 12 or so slaver raiding parties. And don't get me started on the ninja-like waves that kept jumping down from the tops of buildings. I walk into a room and go, " hey! Only a revenant and a couple skeleton archers!" But then BAM! I get flanked by half of the Fade. The Veil is really thin in Kirkwall, no? NO WAVES IN DRAGON AGE 3 , please. There, I asked nicely. Now for locations. What I'm about to say has been said dozens if not hundreds of times already. NO more copy and pasted dungeons! It's like thinking you can fix a retarded child by beating him over the head with a frying pan. Just when you think it can't possibly get any worse, he starts bleeding all over the carpet, and the police have shown up. For all intents and purposes, the frying pan is Dragon Age 2, and gamers are the retarded child. Bosses are a whole nother thing. The fight with Meredith made me want to . It got extremely repetetive when she sent wave after wave of slave statues at you. I honestly wanted to take that Lyrium Light-saber of hers and ram it down her throat.

6.Fetch Quests. I am going to quote Sten for this.        

No.

7. Glitches. Far too many for my liking. The occasional A.I. brainfart would be okay, but this it too much. I didn't even really want to import my Warden's story, because there were too many bugs in the story. Like how I saved both Amaranthine AND Vigil's Keep, yet the game told me everyone there died, including Nathaniel, Anders, and Oghren. Bull ****. That's not what really happened. I truly hope Bioware will fix this in a patch soon. Because no one really likes my Warden now because I went back and burned Amaranthine to the ground to save my Wardens.

To summarize my feelings on Dragon Age 2: 6 out of 10. It is essentially a good game if you are new to the series and haven't played Origins yet, but come on. From the words of another poster on this forum, "Is Bioware rewarding new players and punishing old ones?" Or it went something like that. Dragon Age 2: 6/10 Dragon Age:Origins: 9.8/10. Sorry if I was too harsh, but I've come to expect a lot from Bioware, and frankly, they let me down. Hopefully they learn from this and use this knowledge to make Dragon Age 3 utterly spectaculous.

[PheonRen]

Oh, and I also want to say something else that really made me angry. I had set up in my initial playthrough, for Carver to be my tank. I took him everywhere (despite his completely ugly and worthless personality) and he was my only tank. Then when I'd managed to make everyone else into perma-DPS... you ganked him from me. Honestly, that is infuriating. Why would you do such a thing? After you made the characters nigh on uncustomizable to begin with, and then you steal the tank (or conversely, if a person has set Bethany up as a healer)??

I forgot that major, major, major beef with the game, too.

Modifié par PheonRen, 13 juin 2011 - 01:32 .

[Tibiilicious]

You cant really blame that on Bioware, sure you can get frustrated if you make everyone in a DPS class and decide Carver is your only tank ..but really that's your own fault. There's 2 mages, 2 more extra warriors besides Carver, and whatever your class is, and you really taught speccing everyone besides Carver into a DPS class was a very smart move ?. Besides you can download the Black Emporium, it was released together with the game. You have these potions see, there called Makers Sigh, allows you to respec all your characters. You can respec hem as soon as you enter Kirkwall, So i dont see the need for complaint.

Modifié par Tibiilicious, 13 juin 2011 - 09:36 .

[PheonRen]

Tibiilicious wrote...

You cant really blame that on Bioware, sure you can get frustrated if you make everyone in a DPS class and decide Carver is your only tank ..but really that's your own fault. There's 2 mages, 2 more extra warriors besides Carver, and whatever your class is, and you really taught speccing everyone besides Carver into a DPS class was a very smart move ?. Besides you can download the Black Emporium, it was released together with the game. You have these potions see, there called Makers Sigh, allows you to respec all your characters. You can respec hem as soon as you enter Kirkwall, So i dont see the need for complaint.

I don't really see any point in arguing opinions with you.

I do not, to my knowledge, have the black emporium. I also would rather simply get my money back for the game rather than have to buy a DLC to fix something that shouldn't have been a forced game mechanic to begin with.

As far as your opinion of my gaming style, I'm certain that my opinin of yours would be equally low.  Nice of you to share it, though, I guess.

[The Other One]

I'm a huge fan of ME, ME2, and DA:O (also KOTOR, if you want to go back that far).

ME: About a dozen playthroughs.

ME2: At least a dozen playthroughs. Recently did several playthroughs specifically to build Shepards for import into ME3.

DA:O: Well over a dozen playthroughs (also about 4-5 playthroughs of Awakenings). Recently did a couple playthroughs specifically for import into DA:2.

DA:2: Just completed my 2nd playthrough. Not sure there will be many more. Maybe one more to snag remaining Achievements (should have gotten Supplier on my last playthrough, but it didn't unlock even though I maxed out all crafting resources).

Pros
The writing is excellent. The characters are well developed and have interesting personalities and back stories.

Graphics are greatly improved (Xbox 360). The facial expressions are amazing. My wife (who detests my gaming) remarked how fantastic the characters' eyes look.

The only way the graphics are going to look good is if you have great artwork. And the artwork is fantastic. The armor, weapons, creatures, and effects are amazing. Especially the re-envisioning of Flemeth (How did you make a centuries-old swamp witch look so old, and yet so hot?!?!). The horn-shaped hair, the spiked tiara, the armor, wow!

The voice acting is excellent. I really enjoy just listening to the voices and conversations. The character's emotions really come through in the dialog.

Merrill! I love her to death. Isabela's pet name for her is perfect. Small, cute, and cuddly, until she gets her Elvhen Pariah on, then watch out! I also love her "Romance" outfit. I like it a little too much though. On my 2nd playthrough I wanted to complete an Isabela romance, but in my desire to get Merrill's romance outfit I somehow ruined my Isabela romance. Eve Myles' voicing (?) is wonderful, I think she perfectly captures the character's personality, and as I already noted, I love the way it changes from timid little mouse to terrible blood-sorceress during battles.

Isabela is another excellent companion. I like her personality transformation during the course of the game. Similar to Morrigan's transformation in DA:O. Starts out a loner with no true friends, only some friendly acquaintances, trusting no one. Eventually warming to Hawke and several companions. I really like the way she becomes protective of Merrill, treating her like her kid sister, as well as the way she and Aveline end up respecting and I think, liking one another ("Prig!", "Slattern!" Priceless! ). Victoria Kruger's performance is excellent and makes the character completely believable, whether she's talking about her love of the sea, or regret at having put her greed above the well-being of others. One last note. Thank you for recognizing Isabela's "special" relationship with Sister Nightingale. I had to listen to Merrill's response several times (another priceless moment).

Warming to Varric. In the beginning I wasn't thrilled about having a random dwarf thrust upon me, but early in my 2nd playthrough I started warming to the character. I envision him publishing his stories in his Middle Earth version of Poor Richard's Almanac. I hope we eventually learn more about Bianca.

Tactics. Big improvement over DA:O. Obtaining tactics slots in DA:O was costly. In DA:2 we get plenty of slots, and many more options within them. I can really tailor my companion's behaviors so that battles automatically go pretty much the way they would if I were stopping after every attack and commanding each companion.

Cons
Conversations: At anytime in DA:O I could turn to a companion and start a conversation. Even if that conversation was sometimes, "That's something I'd rather discuss in private", it was still meaningful (anything to hear Leliana's voice). This does not exist in DA:2.

Companion Banter: There is much less Companion banter in DA:2 compared to DA:O. In DA:O I would spend hours running from one banter trigger to another with different companions just to listen in on the conversations.

Battle Pacing: I can't quite put my finger on it, but the battles seemed a little too frenetic. As though there was no time to think through how to attack a particular enemy, just hop from one to another taking a few hacks and slashes at each. The pacing of the battles in DA:O and ME2 "felt" more natural (not that I've ever been in any real battles). I sometimes added to this by using Arcane Poison and wanting to infect as many enemies as quickly as possible.

Equipping Companions: In DA:O everyone was gathered round the campfire at night, and you could rotate through them equipping and unequipping them fairly painlessly. It would have been better if there were a Storage Chest in camp. But it got worse in DA:2. You can never equip more than just your "active" companions. This forces many trips in and out of the Hawke estate with different companions just to properly equip them. I felt like a "Loot Goon", lugging a half dozen two-handed weapons and another half-dozen Bows around Kirkwall tracking down Fenris and Seb to see which ones they wanted to use. Hopefully in DA:3 whenever the main character is at either the Storage Chest, or a Store, all companions' equipment will be equippable/unequippable.

Thin-skinned Companions: I like for everyone to get along. In real life, and in my videogames. Especially if we're "companions". But I can't even take my mages out for a good apostate rescue without one of them getting upset that I helped the wrong kind of mage, or that I told a little white lie about my feelings for abominations. And my male Hawke gets +10 rivalry for trying to let Fenris down gently? In real life friends get upset at one another, and part ways. So I can see how we would want to reflect that in a videogame. But in real life friends also understand that we sometimes bend the truth outside our cliques to avoid conflict. Aveline (among others) seems to get this with respect to other party members. She looks the other way with Fenris' squatting in Hightown, and when Anders accuses her of locking up mages she replies something like, "And here I am putting up with a whiny abomination" (which is a priceless "Pro" to the excellent writing).

Lockpicking: Not specific to DA:2. In both DA titles I almost always play a Rogue because if you're not a Rogue you have to switch to your Rogue in order to pick locks. Can't we do something about this? Maybe create a Tactic that tells a Rogue to pick all nearby locks? Or make lockpicking a "squad" ability, a la ME2? The currently-controlled character inherits the highest lockpicking ability among all active companions?

I'm sure there are other pros and cons I could think of given more time. But I've been at this for over two hours and it's nearly bed time.

Thanks for reading....

Modifié par The Other One, 14 juin 2011 - 03:13 .

[dragonflight288]

Okay, I'm not the nostalgia critic...he does old movies, but I'll remember my name so you don't have too.

Now I'm moving onto my review of the game, first one I've ever written.

Please keep in mind that I'm a console player, so I'm reviewing from the xbox 360.

Initial advertising: When I first saw it, I was incredibly hyped up to play this game. A refugee, rising up from nothing in a city-state full of templars. Think like a general, fight like a spartan and all that. I was really excited. Then I got the game.

Storyline: Okay...where do I begin.

I suppose the pros of this story is that it's a very personal story of one man or woman that the player creates. Starting off at the age of roughly 19-21, me and my family are trying to escape the blight, reclaim the family estate, become a champion, and be the heart of a major catastrophe that put the world on the brink of war and the chantry falling to pieces.

I actually somewhat liked the frame narrative as it gave Varic room to exaggerate to Cassandra. You would never know when you're playing the game if Varic was actually telling the truth about it or not. His exaggerations were incredibly amusing and made for excellent comic relief. I only wanted more of them.

The time skipping however, could have been done better. I mean I served with the red irons, I was taking down criminal gang after gang after gang. I was doing side quests up the whazoo. The least that could have happened was those side quests, at the beginning of a new time area, show a very distinct difference in the city.

Say for example, if you help the Red Irons kill Lord Heriman in Act 1, in Act 2 and 3 be able to hire them at a discount price to mess with the other nobles or even the templars and mages if we so desired. Or have the Ferelden refugees get hired by the champion to form a small private army within the walls of Kirkwall after doing so many quests. I wanted a good reward that may not have been apparent in the act you did the quest. Had that happened, then the time skips would be better.

Another flaw with the storyline is the family members deaths. We gamers aren't given enough time to get to know them better on our first playthrough's in order to feel the most emotional impact from their deaths. Take Leandra's death. We had a conversation before that quest about her finding Hawke a wife, maybe the daugher of the Reinharts. Why not have her playing matchmaker with the Champion, allowing us to interact with the other nobles with Leandra? Do something to develop her character beyond Act 1 and Gamlen.

The ending was rushed. If a player is a mage and sides with the mages, why the heck would Thrask's men even think the Champion was working for Meredith? If Thrask and the Champion work together to kill Kerras, why would Thrask feel the need to kidnap one of the champions companions? Then there's Orsino going nuts if you support the mages. Absolutely horrid. Maybe if we were fighting the templars, finished off a wave. Then we look out a window and see an army landing in the gallows so we're outnumbered five to one. That would have made sense. Not what actually happened.

And Meredith with the idol, that felt slightly more rushed than Orsino if you support the mages. Beyond picking it up in the deep roads, Bartrand going nuts, and Varic getting a small piece of the idol, we don't really see much of it, so it essentially comes out of nowhere to several gamers. We should have seen more hints of of it in Acts 2 and 3. Instead, it's kind of jammed in our faces.

Music: I actually loved the music in the game. I especially liked the score playing when Hawke lost a family member or was in his/her home.

Combat: I think...as a console player, the combat was vastly improved from origins. However, there weren't any cool finishers, like twirling around and decapitating a genlock's head. Instead I get explosions of gore. Umm...no. I would like the combat slowed down. I was promised to think like a general, not blow everyone up and get on with my day. I actually want to step back and think things over. Can Sebastian go to a high ground? Can a shield shatter (may be cool if hit hard enough by a mace), I think slowing down the combat just a little to provide more tactical thinking would perfect the system.

Visuals: Spell effects are absolutely awesome and fun to watch. The Varic narratives with Cassandra are my favorite to watch as the background fades away gradually. But the darkspawn? Who redesigned them? They are far too teddy bearish for me to take seriously. And whatever happened to the genlocks and shrieks? It's only Hurlocks and Ogre's? Really cute hurlocks and ogres? Please, bring back the darkspawn of Origins!!!

Those character redesigns worked for some characters, but completely butchered others. Did Alistair's face start swelling like crazy or something? Is he allergic to his own taint? Zevran lose a lot of weight in that cave? *bangs head against a wall* It just doesn't work.

Items: Okay...this would have to be my biggest complaint. I can't equip my companions with armor, so I can't customize their looks. When I pick up loot, I never get anything useful. I have to junk every piece of armor that doesn't match my fighting class because I'll never be able to use it. Was this also rushed? I honestly can't think of any reason for that kind of system.

Codex entries and Quests: Gotta say, I loved a lot of those quests. I had a lot of fun doing them. I also like how it's easy to mark a quest as the active one. But in the codex entries, on the console, can't it be easier to collapse the category (lore, characters, creatures, items) without scrolling all the way up to the name in order to collapse it?

Dialogue: My favorite part of the game, the thing that truly made it. Having Hawke take on the personality of whatever is chosen most. So even when we don't choose what to say, or even in companion banter, we get to see Hawke's diplomatic, sarcastic, or aggressive personality at play. It works well and that gives the game the most replayability.

The companion banter is also engaging and fun. I simply wish there was more of it.

Speaking with the companions can be enlightening, but why can't I talk to them whenever I want? In origins, I could ask Leliana to tell me about whatever place I was in, Morrigan about growing up in the wilds, Zevran about his adventures as an assassin. Why can't I ask Anders about being a Warden, Merrill about life among the Dalish, Fenris about the Qunari in Seheron? A little extra conversation options would be a lot of fun and greatly appreciated.

Overall, great story...just rushed. Great music, great companions, great dialogue, lousy item system, good combat. I rate this game on the xbox 360 7.8 out of 10.

[KaiLyn]

I am not at all pleased with many of the choices in this game - I also feel that there is no focused reason in this game. In DAO, although my Warden had to run around the countryside, the purpose was clear - we have to get rid of the darkspawn and ultimately the Archedemon. It just isn't clear what purpose the quests in DA2 are attempting to resolve - so my focus wavers quickly.
There are several plusses to DA2: the combat system is better; the graphics smoother (although there was a certain engaging charm to those of DAO that I miss - I still REALLY hate the darkspawn redesigns) and the dialogue itself.
Overall, I keep telling myself I'm going to finish but I haven't yet which is telling in itself, as I spend 2-3 hours a day on gameplay.

[SqueayGibson]

I just played DA2 for the first (and probably only) time. I can't say anything that hasn't been said a thousand times about the mechanics and the gameplay, but I would like to express my frustrations with the story.

I generally found that the story - when it finally took off - forced me into frustrating and annoying moral dilemmas where both choices sucked. I know it's what Bioware do! I know it's the whole point! But the game was relentlessly depressing in the way it kept presenting "Horrible choice you can't morally support #1" or "Horrible choice you can't morally support #2".

Act 1 had no plot or focus besides building the funds for the Deep Roads expedition, but the Deep Roads are my least fond memory of playing DA:O -- a long boring grind I wouldn't want to repeat twice. So this wasn't very much motivation to play Act 1!
Act 2 is also mostly plotless, until we have to wade into the political situation with the Qunari. Trouble is, I absolutely thought the Qunari had a right to stay in the city, and people had the freedom to convert to the Qun religion, and it was a rather racist presumption to think the Qunari would slaughter their way through the streets and take over Kirkwall. So I was on their side. Until they slaughtered their way through the streets to take over Kirkwall... *sigh*
Act 3 is where I really had a problem. I hate mages AND templars. They can both go to hell. They are locked in a vicious cycle: templars think mages will turn evil and use blood magic if they are not kept under strict imprisonment, but keeping mages under strict imprisonment makes them turn evil and use blood magic.

I can't in all honesty side with apostate mages, because nearly every single one I encountered in the game went crazy, used blood magic, and let a bunch of demons into the world. Just like the templars think of them.
I can't in all honesty side with the templars, because they prove themselves to be an inhumane culture of hateful fascists. Just like the apostate mages think of them.

Merrill seems designed to confuse the player's opinions. She's a practicing maleficar who is utterly sweet and adorable and wouldn't harm a fly, causing the player to question their anti-mage opinions. But she's the only one! She's the only blood mage in the game who DOESN'T go crazy and turn into a demon (and even then, good people die because of her mess with that mirror).

So I can't support blood mages, but I also can't support a system that takes their imprisonment to a **** extreme. So I hoped Hawke could fix this corrupt Circle... make it work as well as the Circle in Ferelden (which is by no means perfect, but at least no templars fantasise about a "tranquil solution" and hardly any mages become maleficar terrorists). I wanted to mediate. But instead the climax of the game makes Hawke say either: "All mages should die" or "All templars should die". Very unsatisfying.

Then you have to kill Orsino and Meredith anyway. That's right, I sided with the mages (I basically tossed a coin, and felt dirty for my decision... after all, my mage friend had just committed 9/11 in our home city). But what does the First Enchanter do? Just at the point where I'm winning his battle and everything is looking pretty good for him? That's right -- he uses blood magic and turns into A HUGE DEMON. Just like all the mages do. I mean WTF?

They can all go to hell. If I was truly roleplaying my character, I would have walked away from Orsino and Meredith, got on a ship with Isabela, sailed half a mile out of shore, and had sex with her all night long as we watched Kirkwall's boring square architecture burn to the ground.

[jpzgoku]

I just finished Dragon Age 2 and thought it was a good game. I would give it a 7.5 out of 10. In contrast, Dragon Age Origins is one of my top 5 favorite games of this generation and I would give it a 9.5 out of 10.

One of the biggest problems I had with DA2, and this might sound weird, is the mass effect style diolauge tree and the voice acting as Hawke. I much prefer the DA:O diolouge tree for a couple of reasons. In DA:O I felt like my character was really myself and I felt much more connected to him. I was able to say exactly what I meant and wanted to say because every sentence was spelled out before me. In DA2 Hawke talks and you only get to veer him in the direction of your choice. There were many many times where I would pick something to say and Hawke would reply with something much different than what I thought I was saying. There were many times where I would pick the sarcastic option and Hawke would say something completley stupid istead of what I thought he was going to say. This made me dislike how my Hawke turned out. I felt like he was a goofy douchebag, while in DA:O I felt like my character was a complete badass.

Another example of the weakness of the DA2 dilouge system was when I was mad at Isabella for betraying me in the fade. When Morrigan betrayed me in DA:O when I refused to go along with the dark ritual, i got to choose exactly what I meant to say: "You are an ungrateful ****, after all I've done for you!" I meant to say something along those lines to Isabella but instead Hawke said something like: "why did you do that, it hurt my feelings." Not what I meast to say at all.

The dilouge and interaction between the characters was one of the biggest weaknesses of DA2, while it was possibly the best aspect of DA:O. Bottom line: I felt like my character in DA:O was myself and was exactly how I meant him to be. In DA2: I didn't feel like I was Hawke, and often ended up saying something I didn't mean to say.
Also, the DA:O diolouge tree maked the game much deeper, and required less voice acting. I liked being able to pick from three different races and genders and shaping what my character looked like. 

As for the combat I felt like it was overall improved in DA2. The upgrading spells and abilities was possibly the biggest improvement IMO. In DA:O I played as a Mage and in DA2 I played as a rouge, so I can't say if the mage improved for sure, but one of the biggest problems in DA:O was that there were so many spells and sustained abilities that I had to pause the game and scroll through the radial menu for the spells that I wanted many times evey enemy encounter. In DA2 there was much less pauseing for that reason. It was a good Idea to include many more passive abilities and upgrades to abilities in the skill tree. Another reason why this was good was in DA:O I eventually had so many spells that I could easily deal with almost every situation deal at the end of the game, and espicially in Awakenings. This made it become much easier as it went on because to the plethera of spells and the ability to deal with every situation with multiple spells. I felt like the beginning of DA:O was very hard and as the game went on it became easier and easier. This was not as much of a problem in DA2. Also I felt like there were some very overpowered spells in DA:O ( Blood Wound and espicially Mana Clash for example), while i didn't really notice any in DA2, accept for maybe Entropic Cloud. I like that the ally characters didn't have the same specilizations and Hawke, they had their own unique skill trees. This made them unique, which is a good thing. Though, a bad thing about the specilizations was that they were automatically availiable to you in DA2, I liked that you had to obtain these specilizations in DA:O One of the best parts of the game was when I made a though decision to deal with the demon within the fade in order to become a Blood Mage. I was also ectited when I found was able to become a Arcane Warrior. And I decided to destroy the Urn of Sacred Ashes in order to obtail the Reaver Specilization. There were some the the best parts of the game and led to some difficult and meaningful choices, these were things that DA2 lacked.

That brings up my next complaint with DA2... there were very few difficult and meaningful choices. This was probably the best thing about DA:O. In DA2 it felt like none of the decisions mattered accept at the very end. Also in DA:O there were real sensible reasons for making good and/or evil choices. For Example, I choose to let Branka keep the Anvil of the Void because Morrigan convinced me that i could be of use for making golems for the fight against the Darkspawn. This is probably considered to be the evil decision, but there was a clear purpose for making this decision. In other games, like Fable, there almost never any real sensible reasons for picking an evil choice, other than you felt like being a bad guy, or a good choice, other than you felt like being a hero. This was a great aspect of DA:O that was missing from DA2. 

Allied characters also influenced me a lot more in DA:O than they did in DA2. In DA:O most of the characters had strong personalities with clear values and objectives. If your party members didn't like what the Warden was doing they would give their opionions and could either turn on the Warden or leave the camp if they disliked him. This was not the case in DA2. No matter how much someone didn't like you they stayed with you the entire game, accept at the very end of the mages and templars conflict. Anders and Fenris were the only characters with strong opinions and stances in the game, but no matter what i did they stayed with me up untill the end conflict. This was one aspect that made DA:O a better game to me than ME2 was, but sadly this strength of DA:O did not make a return for DA2.

The setting was also a huge problem in DA2. In DA:O all the settings were unique and the threat of the Blight felt epic and daunting. In DA2 most of the game felt like Hawke was just messing around in the same city of Kirkwall. The entire first third of the game was collecting money to go on the Deep Roads Expedition. There wasn't really a threat and it felt like the game was mostly meaningless sidequests.
My character in DA:O had to travel all over Ferelden and went on many epic quests in order to make an army to fight the darkapawn and stop the blight. Hawke spent 6 or 7 years in Kirkwall and the surrounding area without anyting epic happening, accept for the Deep Roads Expedition, the Duel with the Arishok, and the fight against the templars and mages. None of these missions were as exciting as the typical missions in DA:O. 

Another superior aspect of DA:O was that it felt like a dark fantasy game, while DA2 was much more cartoony. My Warden ended up doing some pretty evil things, but I felt like it was complely necessary inorder to defeat the great threat of the darkspawn. I didn't set out to be a bad guy in DA:O, I actually make mostly paragon choices in other games, but it was necessary to make some of these evil decisions because of the dark tone of the game and the sense of dread that the darkspawn and the archdemond created. In DA2 there was no sense of dread, no threat, no nothing. I felt like goofy Hawke was just messing around. There was no need, or even worse, there were no opportunities to make tough posssibly evil decisions in DA2.

Also in DA:O blood magic was a very rare thing and people spoke of it with fear. When you saw blood magic it defenitally seemed evil. When watching Jowan use blood magic it definetially seemed very evil and very powerful. Blood magic and blood mages were to be feared. Completely not the case in DA2. Blood mages seemed to be everywhere. There wasn't a sense of power or evil that came along with it. Anders, Meridith, Fenris, ect. were constantly talking about how evil it was, but we never got to see why it was so evil. In DA:O I probably came across 5 -10 blood mages throughout the entire game, and all of them were threatening. In DA2 it seemed like almost every mage in the circle ended up becomeing a blood mage or an abonimation, and almost all of them took little effort to kill. This is an example of how DA:O's dark tone was ruined in DA2. Blood magic went from being something very powerful and evil in DA:O, to being a form of magic that almost every mage used in DA2. It was said to be evil and powerful, but we never got to see why it was so powerful or evil. 

Character interactions and romances were much worse in DA2, in part because of the new ME style diolouge tree. This made the game feel much more shallow.

Thanks for reading my opinions and please get rid of the new diolouge tree for DA3. By the way, I am much more interested in playing as my character from DA:O than I am as playing as Hawke.

*Edit- added more comments

I almost forgot; every game that has a mini-map needs the option to disable it. please include this game in your future releases.

Modifié par jpzgoku, 19 juin 2011 - 12:12 .

[jpzgoku]

Here some sections of a review that i almost completley agree with, especially the "writing' and "conversation wheel" sections of the review. 

Azzlee wrote...

Where do I start? I guess the good points really.

Negatives...

Voice

Returning voice overs were wonderful (Flemeth <3 Kate Mulgrew, Zevran, Alistair, Bodahn and what little of Leliana there was). This does not include either Anders, Isabella or Sandal (who was this new person as it wasn't the same), both of whom were lackluster along with the rest of the cast. If you truly insisted on making the main character talk, why didn't you spend some money on a far better lead voice actor? The same goes for the actors that play your immediate family, all of which convey about as much emotion from me as I would get from staring at a plank of unpainted wood. Whoever allowed such poor, unemotional voice acting through to this game should consider a career in hiring hypnotherapists, where a one tone voice is actually somewhat useful, or just become a benefit claimant. The main character should have been silent.

Writing - I'm looking at you here Mr Gaider. I struggle to believe you were lead writer on both of these games. Are the credits wrong? The stark contrast in quality is quite jarring. You and your team, in my opinion, are the best in the industry with no equals. The writing from Dragon Age Origins was quite simply outstanding. Every character writen was marvelous and I actually had genuine emotion towards video game characters that I had never had before. Not just one of them, but all of the recruitable team members. Even Loghain and Anora! This time though, no connection. At all. Not to a single one of these characters, not even my own. Non of these characters had any reason for being with me bar Carver/Bethany. Not even Varric joining up was really a good enough reason to stumble off on an adventure bar the deep roads. The DA2 characters were simply poorly fleshed out. Character banter popped up when events had/hadn't transpired and did not fit in chronologically. Character romance was weak and emotionless. "I love you Merril, move in with me" after the first and only time we had any sort of emotional "connection". It felt tacked on loosly with blu-tac. As for the story, I felt the weekest section of DA:O was the Circle of Magi section, simly becuase I wasn't hot on the Fade part of it. However I still enjoyed it. I had my Origin story > Ostagar > Army Build > Landsmeet > Final Battle. It was fluid, excellenty written, knew what I had to do, where to go and why I was doing it at all times. In DA2, most of the time, I had no idea who I was really siding with, I got the acheivement for siding with the mages by suprise, more times than I can remember I had to look at my journal to see what was going on, I had no idea why I was going and doing certain things. The quest that comes to mind immediately is the gem for your uncle. I didn't even know I had to look at the alienage tree until i read it in the journal, and I still didn't know why until I got there and a cutscene kicked in. It lacked any sort of epic OR personal feel. This doesn't help when you don't care about anyone in the game. The barebones of the Story is Mage rebellion against years of Chantry/Templar control. This is a good premise. Was never going to be as epic as DA:O but if it had the same sort of love DA:O received, it could have come almost close. The story jumps around too much, I was talking to characters I had never even met in game yet personally as a player as if I knew them.

Conversation wheel - This is not poorly implemented, but should not have been implemented in the first place. Leave this back with Mass Effect. The original DA system was more real and personal and wasn't broken. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

Rehashed environment - You got stick over this for ME. When you get burnt first time, you don't put your hand back in the fire. This choice here is beyond me.

In closing, I would like to say, and I direct this at Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk that up until last thursday I ranked you number 1 developer in the world. I adore ME, ME2 , DA:O and DA:O Awakenings, but this is virtually unforgiveable. I should have seen this coming after the lack of love that was put in to Witch Hunt and the DA2 demo but I foolishly told myself that it would be ok, that I would get used to it, and i'd love it as much as I did DA:O. I have, for a long time since I worked for them for 1 day, been a staunch hater of EA and the direction they are taking. DA:O was for the most part made outside of the buyout, as was ME. The difference EA have made to your games and the direction they want you to take is staggering. I understand that companies need to make as much profit as possible, I understand people need to make money to feed themselves and their families, but allowing the devil himself to buy you out was one of the worst decisions Ray and Greg could possibly have made for their fans. I can only assume that EA wanting to ride the cash cow has been responsible for not only the quick development time (and it shows badly) but the approach that more fighting is better than everything are the reason DA2 was both not only allowed to be realeased now, but even made in this way in the first place.

Change is not always good or needed. Four of the most critically loved games of the current generation, Halo, CoD, GoW, and GTA are all virtually the same as before except the stories and with things added. I don't even know who many millions and millions of copies combined these have sold. If you pull loads of people in on your first stab at a game, it worked, you did it right, do a sequel, with a new story. Don't skin it, throw away the scraps, and expect all those that you pulled in first time to gobble it up and enjoy it. It would have been like Sega giving Sonic a gun and making Sonic 2 a FPS back in the Megadrive days.

My message to you EA, if you want to pull the CoD and Halo players to a Bioware product, make an a FPS not an RPG. Your target player base for a Bioware product is the mmorpg or the WRPG player. You may even have heard of this mildly successful MMO called World Of Warcraft. The only people to have touched such a large group of peeps is Mark Zuckerberg and God if you believe in him.

 

Btw I liked Witch Hunt and disagree with the reviewer on this point. Morrigan is by far my favorite DA character and I felt very connected to her and cared what she said and did. I thought that having my Warden leave through the mirror with her was the perfect ending for my story. . . so thats why I liked WH.

There were not any characters in DA2 that i cared about anywhere near as much for as i did Morrigan, which really hurt the game. Also the diologe wheel did not help this at all. I'm sure that it was hard to sum up what Hawke was going to say with a 2 or 3 word phrase for every line of diolouge because it was hard to guess what he was going to say a lot of the time. Also the new diolouge wheel was much more limiting in terms of respones for Hawke. It made every choice of diolouge seems superficial for me to choose it because it wasn't me saying it, it was Hawke saying it and i only had the option of veering him in the direction of my choice.

I hate the new diolouge wheel.

[Hexoduen]

First of, thank you for an official thread

Now, overall I enjoyed DA2, I had a great time and felt I got my moneys worth with an entertaining and lengthy campaign. However, it is nearly impossible not to compare the game to any previous games you've released, and even though it is a great game in itself it falls short when you compare it to Baldur's Gate, KotOR, Mass Effect or DA:O. That being said, there are numerous improvements in DA2 which I like.

What I liked, pros:

[*]Soundtrack was great; whenever a battle became really difficult and your team members lay unconcious at your feet an eerie music began, and when you revived them to continue the fight the music changed accordingly, brilliant. Oh and thumbs up for "Florence & The Machine" during credits.
[*]Awesome voice-acting . Not only because the individual voice actors did a great job, but also because you had a lot of voice actors which makes the NPCs feel more unique.
[*]Lengthy and entertaining campaign. I had roughly 60 hours of gameplay time during my first playthrough, all thumbs up for that.
[*]Inventory management was easy and fast and the abilities screen was more accessible since you had a greater overview of the different "schools" and their categories of activated, passive and sustained abilities.
[*]Custom tactics. I loved this introduction in DA:O, so glad to see it in DA2 also, saves me the trouble of writing scripts as in Baldur's Gate.
[*]Qunari are more way interesting, not only because of the story but also because of the changed looks from DA:O.
[*]The party members were well written and had interesting stories. Lots of quests specific to companions. Varric's comments were fun, Merril's likewise.
[*]Option to import story from DA:O, the story matters, this is why I love you Bioware!
[*]Items that level up with your character, me like.
[*]Companion's home bases, this was a good idea that I enjoyed a lot.
[*]You did a great job with the difficulty I had to turn it down from Nightmare to Hard, and I must say this is one of the most important things for me in a game: That it is difficult, or at least has an option to make it so. This part of the game was great Bioware!
[*]Graphics and animations were I especially enjoyed the combat animations, there was a great impact feeling when someone got overpowered by physical force, and the standard attack sequences looked very much alive and engaging. I especially liked the changes to the mages standard attack compared to DA:O [/list]What I disliked, cons:

[*]Repetitive areas. Visiting the Wounded Coast the first time was "interesting", second time was "a welcome return", third time was "hmmm", fourth time was "wtf!?", fifth time was "sigh, not again" and so forth. Please please don't do this in the future with your games, it takes out all the fun of exploring this great world you've created with Dragon Age.
[*]Repetitive quests, for example the bandits . The quest where you in the beginning randomly kill bandits in Lowtown during nightfall and then at some point find their base and kill their leader is a fun quest. But to have it repeated in Hightown as well, and then again later in the game in both Hightown and Lowtown was very boring indeed. Also the quests where you find "stuff" belonging to random NPC's was fun in the beginning, but to keep finding these things and returning them to their rightful owners became boring at some point.
[*]Mini map Speaking of exploring, an option to toggle the mini map off as we could in DA:O is much needed. First off the mini map takes up some of the gorgeous visuals, secondly I find myself constantly looking at it (even though I don't want to). This is a step back, I don't understand why you didn't include this feature.
[*]Companion armor unchangeable.
[*]Junk. You might as well have deleted all the junk in the game and just replaced it with gold.
[*]Too much hack 'n' slash, not enough conversations or puzzles This is my own personal preference, but I like a game which is deep and challenging in more ways than just combat. Don't get me wrong though, the combat in DA2 was great since positioning companions and giving them orders really mattered in tough fight, but more dialogue as in Baldur's Gate 2, and more puzzles as in KoTOR would've been nice.[/list]
There you have it; all in all a great game that sucks you in and makes you want to play it more, although with some flaws and strange design decisions. Overall I had a great time with Dragon Age 2 and I am happy to have it as part of my games collection. 8/10

Regards from Denmark
 

Modifié par Hexoduen, 18 juin 2011 - 10:15 .

[lampak]

1. combat - I feared it would be too simplified and hack-and-slashish but it wasn't - there was still quite a lot of tactics involved. The improvement in dynamics of battles is huge. I realised it especially after I launched Origins for a moment (just to check how Merill looked like back then) and was surprised how slowly were characters running and how lazily they were waving their swords. Although DA2 has a big problem with...

2. difficulty level - the game on "normal" was waaaay too easy, to the point of being unenjoyable. Everything you click dies, your companions' AI can win a battle without your help, so what's the point of playing? Luckily, there was a difficulty option in the menu so I switched it for "hard" and stayed on this level for most of the game. Some bosses, however, where unbeatable on this level so I kept switching to "normal" when things became too tough. DA2 failed to achieve the sweet point between "too easy" and "too hard" - something which Origins was good at. In DA:O every single battle could end with a game over screen but could be won with a little extra trying - a clear regression here.

3. characters - OK, distinct, well-defined characters, nothing to complain about. Although it would be nice if BioWare invented some new mechanism to interact with them, as talk-to-me-and-complete-my-quest-and-I-will-like-you model is beginning to wear out slightly. I don't have any ideas myself, though.

4. story - I didn't like the gather-army, kill-the-dragon simplified main plot of DA:O and hoped that making the story a bit more linear and dividing it into acts would improve it. I was disappointed. I expected a plot like in a novel - long, twisted, multi-threaded but consistent. What I got was still more like a collection of short stories. Chronologically connected but still separate. Not much improvement, especially I liked those in DA:O much more.

The original way of telling the story as past events was also promising. Another disappointment. Varric from the future appeared only a few times between acts and was not fully exploited. He could appear more often, make more teasing spoilers about the future events etc. - but unfortunately his only good appearance was the one in his own side quest.

final score: 8/10. Not perfect but I had a great fun anyway.

edit: oh, yes, I will also add my complaints about excessive location reusage. At the end I felt a bit constrained by the Kirwall (nomen omen) walls and fed up with the Wounded Coast and felt familiar in any catacomb I bumped into. Was there any location, outside the prologue and the epilogue, designed specifically for a single quest, even in the main plot? Was DA2 so short on budget?

Modifié par lampak, 19 juin 2011 - 06:56 .

[Rascality]

Great Wall of Text ahead. I tried to break it down into something vaguely readable, but I'm not sure I succeeded.

Starting 'In Medias Res'
I'm going to start with this because it was the first thing I noticed: There really isn't enough grounding at the start of the game. I get thrown headlong into the flight from Lothering, which makes sense as where Varric would opt to start his narrative... but when Cassandra requests the whole story, we should have been pulled back a little further. The Hero's Journey is supposed to start with a taste of ordinary life for a reason; it lets us get to know our hero and their world so that we care when that status quo is disturbed. As an added bonus, this would also make us care more about whichever sibling doesn't survive the prologue. We don't know them for more than a few minutes before they're gone, and there isn't enough interaction to get attached. I want to be engaged in the story and care about the characters, but the only thing I felt in my first playthrough when Bethany died was annoyed that one of my DPS characters was gone.
An example of somewhere I think you did this right: The City Elf origin in DA:O. I got a little glimpse of normal life, got to know my family, and then Vaughan entered stage left and smashed normalcy all to pieces. It felt threatening, and when Shianni was hurt – even though I hadn't known her any longer than I knew Bethany – I cared about it. The Human Noble origin did something similar. My Cousland had to be dragged away, because I'd gotten attached to her parents.
Fleeing Lothering is divorced from actually living in Lothering; we don’t see the latter, and without it, the former has very little impact.

The Power of Cutscene Compels You
There are a lot of things I can't change in an RPG unless I'm in a pen and paper campaign with a particularly flexible dungeon master and they're putting up with my nonsense. I accept that. When you have this many cutscenes, though, I really want to either be able to interact with them (a-la ME2's interrupt system) or otherwise influence how events turn out. I know sometimes a character needs to die for story reasons, but it should not always be the case that I can't do anything about it. One (possibly both) of my siblings, my mother, Neesa, Pol, Marethari... at least one of these should have been a death I could conceivably prevent. As it is, the only story deaths I can stop are the sibling that goes into the Deep Roads or Varania's. The first probably usually comes about either by accident or metagaming. Playing a spirit healer, for example, Hawke probably would not have taken Anders with her into the Deep Roads if I hadn't wanted the story to come out a particular way. Varania surviving the encounter doesn't really make me feel like I changed anything because she immediately leaves. We never hear from her again, and the only difference I noticed is in a banter between Fenris and Merrill, later. Give me situations where I can notice things in advance and change an outcome or two! They don't have to be vital story NPCs, but it would make me feel less like a useless lump.
Neesa is actually the one that irked me most, because it seemed like my Hawke should have just said, 'okay, I'll wait here' instead of 'I'll come back later to check up on you.' Or, heck, had her stay with Merrill for a bit. Merrill's blood magic could eat Huon for breakfast. I'd just like my character to occasionally be on the ball.

Party NPCs

• Home Bases
  This worked really well for some scenes, because characters could be in the middle of something (which I like – it implies life outside of Hawke), and interact with their environment in a way they couldn't if I randomly started talking to them in a dungeon. On the other hand, this divorces conversation from gameplay in a very weird way. I'd have liked, maybe, for there to be character progression conversations at their home base at certain levels of friendship or rivalry, and to be able to talk to them elsewhere, too. Basically, your characters are so awesome that I want to talk to them all of the time. You're doing something right.
• Life Outside of Hawke
  You did SUCH a good job on this. Aveline and Isabela and their mutually antagonistic friendship was one of my favorite things in the game (not because the game wasn't great, but because this was so excellent). Seeing it progress was lovely. Other things I loved: Varric watching out for everyone else, Fenris playing cards with Donnick, walking into someone's base to find them talking with one of my other companions. This was amazing.
  On the other hand, given how often everyone mentioned hanging out at the Hanged Man (for drinks or wicked grace or what-have-you), I'm very sad we didn't get to see it at least once. It could have been a bit of a tribute to the old party camp, with everyone in one place. I'd have liked to see Anders getting his butt kicked at diamondback, Varric drinking Carver under the table, Isabela fleecing everyone at cards...
• Distinctive Design
  I seem to be in the minority on this, but I liked that they picked out their own clothes. It made them more iconic, and I don't think any of my real-life friends would let me go, 'no, no, you should wear this. Because I said so.' The only thing I'd change is giving Isabela a pair of trousers, and there are mods for that.
• Gift-Giving
  I like the idea of having fewer gifts, but I would have liked them to be more in-depth. What comes to mind for me are Morrigan's grimoire quests and looking for Sten's sword; they talked about them and then I went hunting. There were multiple conversations and a sidequest rather than just having me trip over something and then get a journal entry that said 'so-and-so might like this.' A little more interaction would have been nice, since we really only get one or two gifts per character, depending on how carefully we scour the world. (I feel like Conrad Verner. 'Sometimes I dig through crates looking for spare credits.')
• Banter
  My unending love for the banter in this series. I'd stop whatever I was doing to listen to them talking to or sniping at each other, just to make sure I didn't inadvertently interrupt it.
• Romances
  I liked the romances, liked that they played out differently depending on whether you were in a rivalry or friendship and that everyone had a different scene that suited their personality. Also, they were tastefully done (efinitely an improvement over Origins in that respect).
  That said, I really would have liked to be able to kiss or flirt with or... somehow interact with my LI. I'm still not sure how the whole party found out my Hawke had slept with Fenris when it only happened once and they were incredibly awkward for three years after and there were apparently no PDAs at any point.
  Another thing I liked was that Isabela and Anders would both initiate flirting, depending on what the player said to them. I've heard some people getting really freaked out over this, but I liked it. There wasn't any pressure from either of them, really, since Isabela is just flirty by nature and Anders goes, 'but that would be a horrible idea,' and it never goes any farther with either of them if you don't flirt back, so there's no pressure on Hawke or the player (I wish this happened in real life!).
  I do think that there should have been a little more branching or leeway on setting romance flags – I missed Fenris's flag in one playthrough and had to backtrack just because I was opting for friendly instead of flirty. Getting friendzoned for that when she'd have had years in which to continue flirting intermittently kind of broke immersion for me (this may partly be due to real life experience Being A Girl where being friendly and being flirty are frequently taken as the same thing).
  A possible fix: Having a short conversation where, if you've flirted a little, the NPC calls you on it and just asks if Hawke is serious which could then set the flag even if you don't take every opportunity to flirt.
• The Exiled Prince DLC
  I like Sebastian, but I'm sad he wasn't included in the base game. His arc shows some things that are very relevant to the main storyline – how demons interact with non-mages and what's going on in the Chantry, specifically – and really fleshed out Grand Cleric Elthina's character.
• Aveline
  Aveline gets her own heading because she is just that awesome. She's the best female character I think I've ever seen. She's also the character who felt most like she had a life off-screen; she wasn't Hawkesexual, she has an important job and (potentially) a marriage that really have nothing to do with my character. I LOVED that.

Setting
I'm definitely in the minority on this, but I loved Kirkwall. DA:O sometimes felt a bit schizophrenic to me because my character kept scampering back and forth across the whole country. I got to know Kirkwall much better than any of the locations in Origins, and I liked that familiarity. One thing I would have liked to see is the march of years. Cities change in that amount of time, even when they aren't subject to a minor incursion of Qunari; I find it hard to believe that the only thing that changed was one shop moving a few doors down.
Milieu is so important in this game that the city needed to live and breathe, and it didn't always do that. It had personality and history (I loved the inclusion of the Kirkwall Enigmas and would have loved to see more, maybe find directions to one of those hidden Tevinter caches when I got the Archaeologist achievement), but it sometimes felt very static and empty. I didn't feel like I could change anything, even after my character was powerful and wealthy enough to be helping fellow Ferelden refugees or running a bit of the mage underground through the estate's wine cellars.

Design, Style & Visuals

• Flemeth:
  So awesome.
• Races:
  I like that the races are all very distinctive now, but I have mixed feelings about how that was handled. The Qunari are awesome, and I like the dwarves, too. I wish the female elves looked less like anorexic preteens, though. Their bodies are so slim that I'm not sure their necks could support their heads, and I'm not sure where they're keeping muscles to lift things on arms that skinny. The fangirl in me has to admit that the guys are hot, though, no complaints there.
• Kirkwall:
  Kirkwall is distinctive, interesting, and conveys its history quite well. I like the design of the city, but particularly the Gallows and the alienage.
• Mage Equipment:
  I would have liked for mage armor (at least the low-level sets, for when Hawke is theoretically trying to blend in) to be mostly like the default set after the prologue; trousers, boots and light leather armor. Maybe a hauberk. Something sensible, anyway, when one is on the run from the templars.
  Making most mage staffs into pole-arms was a stroke of genius. It felt less like a giant neon 'APOSTATE' sign on Hawke's back, and I loved the look of some of them.
• Dialog Wheel:
  Occasionally a little inconsistent in placement of options, but I really appreciated knowing what kind of tone the line would take before Hawke said it! Having instant visual indicators for 'this will get more information' versus 'this will move the conversation along' versus 'I'm going to tear out your kidneys' was nice.
• Non-Party NPCs
  I hate to say this, but a few of the bit players were kind of... odd looking, and not in a 'this character is supposed to be unattractive' kind of way. If nothing else, I really want to know why Huon had a dwarven casteless brand/tattoo.

Story

• Scale:
  The smaller scale of this versus Origins really worked for me. It felt like it was more about people than a country; this scale has the potential to be a lot more meaningful than epic quests to save the world.
• Playing a Mage:
  It seems like Hawke being a mage ought to have had a bit more story impact. As it was, it was barely acknowledged by anyone except Meredith, and even she only said something when my mage!Hawke was being particularly intractable and Meredith was waist-deep in crazy.
• Linearity:
  I felt like the story was on rails for some portions of the game. Sometimes that was a good thing; Hawke gets caught up in things, and that sense of being unable to stop the wave sometimes added to my immersion. Other times, it just felt like there wasn't enough in the world, and that made me sad. I suppose it's mostly a matter of the sidequests tying into the story; some of them seem irrelevant, and in some, Hawke's involvement didn't seem to matter one way or another. Feynriel and Arianni wound up being two of my favorite characters just because things do change so much depending on how you handle their problems (Feynriel saving the silly nit who was kidnapped by bandits, for example, absolutely delighted me because I'd never have seen it coming).
• Templars:
  I saw a lot of them on sidequests, but I would have liked to see a few templars actually doing their jobs in Kirkwall itself. Protecting the city from psychotic maleficarum instead of waiting for me to go do all of their legwork/killing for them. Thrask and Emeric are the only ones I saw doing much, and Hawke still had to do most of the heavy lifting. Where is the rest of the Order? They were present for the entire game, but they didn't seem to actually do anything until the third act.
• Family:
  Leandra was wonderful, and I can see why she would be a story-mandated death. That was poignant (and well-staged; the pieta moment was heartbreaking).
  I really would have liked to be able to interact with my surviving sibling more, though. Taking away Hawke's entire family leaves the player character a bit adrift, especially if their sibling goes to the Wardens. In the templars or the Circle, they're at least tied to the main plot, but shipping them off with the Wardens smacks of 'Hawke's life needs more tragedy, take more family away.' This gambit works better if you don't overuse it.
• Letters:
  I loved getting letters from people that showed me how my actions had affected things in the slightly-longer term. This works even better in the Dragon Age universe than in Mass Effect, because this really feels like a world where people would write to each other.

Mechanics & Gameplay

• Combat:
  It flows well and the animations are pretty; I play games on casual so I get back to the story more quickly. I hear a lot of people griping that mages got nerfed, but on casual I am still raining fiery death down on all and sundry, which is quite enjoyable.
• Friendship/Rivalry System:
  I like the idea, but it winds up feeling very 'game-y.' Because the two cancel each other out, I wound up playing with the wiki open in a browser window so I could metagame and plan out who I'd take on what mission. That really shouldn't happen; I should be too busy enjoying the game to worry about whether or not I'll be able to max out friendship or rivalry. This wouldn't have been so bad, except that unlike in Origins, I couldn't persuade my companions that I was being reasonable (or unreasonable, I suppose, if I was pursuing a rivalry) in whatever action I was taking. I know rivalry is intended as an alternate path, but because it's along a continuum, I felt like I had to manage it very carefully to make sure I didn't leave anyone in the grey 'apathetic' area.
  I did some things that I know companions must have heard about while they were all boozing it up at the Hanged Man later, and that I know they'd have disapproved of. I would have liked them to call me on it like Alistair did with Connor and Isolde, even if he wasn't present, or at least for them to speak up when they disagreed and give me a chance to try and persuade them. It might work better with two scales, the way you broke down Paragon and Renegade points in Mass Effect 2. I'm not sure friendship and rivalry are mutually exclusive; it seems more like it ought to be along a continuum of intimacy versus apathy and then there are two metrics that can upgrade the relationship. I would have liked the opportunity to change at least one character's view on things, rather than just maxing out a bar and then never having them disagree with me again.
• The Star Rating System
  Isn't this what item stats are for?
• Cooldowns + Mana
  I really would prefer if you picked one or the other; either my abilities should cost mana, or they should have cooldowns, but they really shouldn't have both. It slows things down when I have to sit and wait for things to recharge. By the end of the game, my mana pool was large enough that I could cast every spell I had... and then had to use default attacks until something was off cooldown even though I still had the mana to cast more. The AI isn't going to cry foul if I never stop casting, it's just going to die faster and in a more impressive fireworks display (or explosion of gore, for the melee classes).

Conclusions
8/10
Too much mandatory metagaming breaks my immersion, but it's got good bones under there and the fact that I still (after getting three characters through the campaign) want to play it again says a lot.

Modifié par Rascality, 21 juin 2011 - 12:36 .

[Amon Saito]

Introduction:

I like most of us have been a fan of bioware’s games for
many years. For me it all started with KOTOR. I felt so immersed in the story
that I actually found it difficult to replay as a different character because
the first was so special. Then onto Jade Empire, which in my mind was a
brilliant game however I remember feeling it was much too short. Mass Effect
was next and again I found it to be a different experience whilst remaining
true to bioware’s signature strengths, new universe, story, interesting
characters and a fun style of gameplay. However.. then came Dragon Age origins.

Dragon Age Origins started slow for me, I went the mage path.
After a few hours once I’d met Duncan I was totally hooked. The Story just
gripped me like no other bioware game, it felt epic with story elements being
dropped that slowly lead to the strong underpinning story line. Then I met
Alistair.. I think it was partly the writing and partly due to his excellent
voice actor but I instantly took a likening to him. It felt like we were two
guys, thrust into this world of darkness, with no get out clause, we had to
relay on each other. Once we had Morrigan in the party the banter began, it was
like some kind of dysfunctional brother and sister thing, it just made them so
real. Jumping ahead the characters just felt so well written and acted, it
really enhanced the story and the experience. I always remember near the end of
the game

When I had helped Alistair become king, we were in the
castle and he reminisced about the travels and times we had gone through
together. I remember thinking “yes I do remember that…” The crazy thing was
that after 95 + hours I felt like we had been through this epic tale, missions,
experiences we had shared, he was my brother by the end of the game. Once the
end credits rolled and I read the epilogue I felt a bit choked up inside.. for
a guy it takes a lot to stir real emotions in me from a game but DAO did, I
felt sad it was over but happy at the result. No game had ever made me feel
like that before, it was like I was saying farewell to my companions and
friends.

The story was brilliant with some faults, perhaps not the
most original but the characters and world enhanced it beyond its natural
level.

Companions were excellently written and acted especially
Alistair (should have won a VA award), Morrigan and Leliana.

Side Quest variation had some flaws but there were some very
memorable ones too.

Locations were varied and were interesting, all very
different from each other.

Character customisation perhaps a little restrictive and
mage talents.. I found that I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount (I
pre-planned my build which all changed when I discovered the arcane warrior
quest).

Visuals some consider it to have been bland, I believe they
were good with nice art direction with the engine they had. It suited the
world. Maybe a little too grey but I still loved it.

Animation was a little clunky especially the lock-on auto
walk for rogues… hahaaha

Music was epic.


The Review: DA2

The above is to provide contrast.

Pre-release:
I had pre-ordered DA2 as soon as it was announce for
pre-order. Bioware games had become a staple of mine since KOTOR up to DAO and
ME2.

The announcement of the signature bonus boosted excitement
for the game. It finally arrived a few days before release, I installed it and
away I went. Having been a mage in DAO I wanted to try a different class so I
went rogue (I never play as them) and I went default FemHawke (I found the
customise options just didn’t look as good as the default).

First impressions:
So I played for maybe 4-5 hours. Started out ok, saw flemeth
thought the effects were nice, although I did notice the real time combat
started to annoy me (as a rogue) A A A A A special special AAAAA special AAAA
etc. Still it was not to bad. I got to the city and got inside. I checked me
quest log as I found there wasn’t much verbal direction as to why I was there
apart from running away from darkspawn. Eventually the main quest pointed me to
the deep roads but I had to make (was it 60 gold?) I thought it was fine,
I’ll do it in no time at all then onto the good stuff.

I WAS WRONG… so wrong. I think this took me about 5-6 hours
of basically being forced to do side quests that were basically fetch quests or
kill 10 of these etc… You want to immerse and hook your players into your game
at the beginning.. not push them away, there was no driving force other than we
have to go to the mines to find our fortune for a better life.. It just seemed
hollow.

I eventually got to the deep roads and thought it must get
better and it did! I loved the deep roads section it was a bit of everything,
darkspawn, demon supernatural crazies… However then it was back to the city and
more side quests. Then a few more main quest points but they just seemed
non-connected to each other, just big side quests. This pretty much continued
for the remainder of the game.

I was very disappointed in how the game started, I had to
force myself to keep playing to just get to the deep roads..


Music:
Seemed ok, not as memorable as DAO (I liked the tavern
music) It did the job but didn’t stand out (maybe that is what they went for)

Locations:
I found the locations to be re-used way too much, they just
didn’t bother. I saw some re-use in DAO but it was artfully done and never made
me feel it was a rush job. This had one cave, one hide out (yeah all rival
gangs live in the same hidden lair and just concrete up their doors when not
in).

Character customisation:
I found it to be an improvement over DAO visually much
better. I went with default FemHawke as I wanted her hair style and it wasn’t
available for the customs… VA for Hawke was pretty good, i prefered the female voice instantly. To bo honest i didn't mind having no voice in DAO it made it a bit more personal. I was fine with the voice though.

Visuals:
An improvement over DAO as much as I loved DAO it was quite
muddy at times. DA2 had a more colourful style and much better animation
both lip sync and movement (apart from the dwarf walk.. looked like a
munchkin). Also the female run was a bit.. too over the top. Aveline’s was the
same as the male run and was better. Effects were way better and my hat goes
off to the effect guys/girls. Overall much improved.

classes:
They seemed balance. I thought that it was more focused
especially for mages, which assisted with the sheer overwhelming amount of
talents seen in DAO. However this could also be considered a reduction in
personal mage specialisation as there were less spells to use/choose. Double
edged sword.

The rogue seemed ok, but the real time combat became
repetitive.. later in the game I mainly controlled Aveline and Anders while the
game controlled my rogue.

Warriors seemed like fun but only played as aveline.

Side Quests:
Too many generic quests. I’d prefer less, more unique
quality quests. However there were some pretty good ones mixed in here.

Level design/enemies:
This was one of the biggest disappointments. An example, I
was on a quest to hunt a band of thugs, I found the hideout (yes the same cave
they are all in) and I fought them to the end, then more randomly appeared from
the ceiling. Massacred them all! Then it happened… GIANT F”ing SPIDERs yes
they it turns out they were working with the thugs, must have had a
pre-arranged agreement. Now if the thugs were using them as mounts fare enough
but no we gave them two waves of humans… hell throw some giant spider action at
them!… Or the brilliant grave yard area the one where yes.. GIANT F”ing
SPIDERs gossema down from the sky!!! Then more come from the sky.. flying giant
spiders.. Finally the room.. the sacred room where the level designer asked
“What assets do we have… throw them all in!!!” “everything!”. Sloppy work.

Characters:
The character/party members were.. pretty wooden, I don’t
know how players can prefer them to DAO. The only one to really stand out for
me was Merrill at the start but she got annoying and to be honest I didn’t care
about the fate of any of them.

Anders was ok but I preferred his original VA, I kind of
gave a damn about his quest for mage rights not because of him but because I
was a mage in DAO. I enjoyed his personal quest and spared his life because I
believed in the cause.

Averlene was one of the strongest, I liked having
a strong female character for a change. Her personal quest was quite unique, I
thought it was interesting she had a relationship of her own but I thought the
flirty quest lines were a bit silly considering her personality, she would have
gone head on not all girly giggles - tell him for me.

Isabela was a massively missed opportunity.. she needed to
be more piratey than posh. She sounded like a spoiled child not a pirate. She
should have had a serious rum addiction with slurred speech. How cool would it
have been to have her own boat, kicking back getting the whole party drunk
on-board telling drunken tales of plunder and sexy seductive manipulation.
Imagine everyone drinking laughing listening to her tales and suddenly a
drunken anders starts casting mini drunken spells while singing songs of
freedom for mages.. Sets the bloody boat on fire and you have a side quest
right there putting out the flames but in a warped drunken haze crazy camera
work and party members falling all over the place. Hell the boat could have
been in harbour docked and used as the party camp. Finally if you fail to put
it out in time you all stand on the side of the harbour as Varric says “Sooo
you sunk the bloody boat can this day get any worse?” Anders replays “..not
for the boat hic” Her personal quest.. well she buggered off after I said she
could keep the damned thing.. and she went if I said she should give it back.
Not sure if I did something wrong. Didn’t see her for the rest of the game…

Merrill was good at the start, she stood out for me but the
whole mirror thing just never got going. Again came to the end and choice
didn’t matter.. same result. Anti climax “by the dread wolf”… I wanted to fire
ball her by the end.Hell I didn’t even meet Fernis because I refused to help a
smuggler in a side quest (didn’t know until I was hours from that point).

Varric was alright but too full of himself. His personal
quest was one of the best parts of the game and my favourite.

Bethany was a but boring. Too sweet must have had an evil
plan. Again she disappears either way but I suppose at least she comes back
later if (possible). Didn’t feel she was my sister. Carver.. never got to know
him.

Sebastian was all righteous and doing the maker’s will. To
be honest I was glad when he left after I spared Anders… there was hope that
Anders would fry his ass but alas it didn’t happen. 

Fundamentally I need to connect with the characters as it is
just as important as overall story, the two go hand in hand if one is here
without the other.. it just isn’t as engaging.

They just never got interesting, all too flirty, not enough depth
and having to wait for them to initiate conversations was terribly restrictive. I like to talk to them when I want, to dig deeper into their past/present/future.
I just felt the writing was off, not enough depth. The actors umm were ok but no real standouts like Alistair, Morrigan etc.

On a side note to the above I suppose it was nice to have
the cameo’s.. I loved hearing them again but it felt hollow, as soon as
Alistair was on-screen I would have given anything to dump my whole party and
just have him back again. It just made me realise how shallow the new
characters were compared to DAO.

The story:
Was.. I don’t really know what it was. I understand Hawke
arrived as a refuge and evolved into some kind of respected character but
nothing I did seemed to make a difference. The first two acts seemed to be very
slow, main quests didn’t really seem to gel together, some hinted at what was
coming in act 3 but it was very weak. From the start there was no driving story
line, just some stuff with the viscount and arashock. At first I thought ahh
clever Sten did hint in DAO that a storm might be coming from the Quanari but
he would not look for me on the battlefield, I thought its the invasion he was
talking about… alas no. It was an object they were hunting for.. then that was
over and lead to the mage vs templar scuffle. It was basically a number of
short stories bunched together with only act 3 leading on from 2 as a
consequence.

I felt act 2 was probably the strongest, 3 had potential but
was too short and not developed for long enough. I would have liked more of a
connected undertone or have stories interlaced to arrive at act 3.

Choice:
Was limited. If I sided with the mages then I kill the head
mage who turns into an abomination even though we were winning. Then I kill the
head templar. Or if I chose to go with her it’s the same but opposite. My
choice didn’t make much difference.

I finished it in about 60 hours (a lot of pause time I
hope). I felt bored more than often, but I kept playing in case it found its
feet.

I know this was a long review but I felt I had to at least try
to explain my feelings of disappointment. It had some nice elements, the
visuals seemed nice, I didn’t mind the combat but still would like the option
of auto attack and the classes seemed quite fun. It just didn’t do enough to
continue the legacy left by DAO (in my mind one of my favourite games of all
time – possibly my favourite).            

As for DA3 I won’t be getting my hopes up. If they
return to the Warden then I’ll possibly check it out but more of Hawke.. I just
don’t know where they could take it now. I’m already worried about ME3 with all
the talk of multiplayer and shooting gameplay, I fear bioware is loosing touch
with why we fell in-love with their games from the beginning, story, characters
you care about and connect with and choice that affects the rich and detailed
worlds/characters they create.

Modifié par Amon Saito, 22 juin 2011 - 12:07 .

[Todd23]

Please no more complaining about glitches, this game probably had thousands of glitches, that is less then 1% what Origins had, so be happy. I felt what was wrong with it's story was that their was no main goal. Nothing to drive the character from the start to the end. Every main plot mission felt like a side mission.

[Chairon de Celeste]

Well, Abadir over at Deviant Art has created what sums up my review in one cartoon page (click me),
so I spare you my blabbering

Modifié par Chairon de Celeste, 23 juin 2011 - 11:46 .

[Quyk Sylvyr]

DA2 was a good game.  I think the most frustrating thing for me was that it had the potential to be a great game.  I could see the outline there but there were some things that held the game back.

NEGATIVES

Environmental Re-use

I know a lot of people have stressed this.  I will say I wouldn't have minded some re-use if it hadn't been so obvious.  For example, limit each map so that it only exposes the rooms that could be used.  In addition, give each rendition a slightly different flavor with different coloring and slightly different decorations.  Most importantly, we shouldn't be able to see the doors that didn't lead anywhere.  Also, make sure there are some unique models between the re-use.  I think Act 1 was the only act where there were a couple unique layouts.

Act 3 Storyline

I generally played as a pro-mage character in Act 3, and the storyline always seemed so muddled in Act 3.  Honestly, I get this feeling that they created the storyline for the pro-templar character and never had time to create an alternative storyline that fit someone playing a pro-mage character.  I wouldn't have minded if the eventual ending was the same, but several decisions made by NPCs made no sense including the fighting when Hawke met the rebel mages and Orsino suddenly turning into the Harvester.

Decisions did not matter

 I don't mind the main storyline ending the same way.  I realize that it makes it easier to make a DA3.  However, just about every mage I could have saved throughout the storyline turned into a demon no matter my decision.  I found it very frustrating no matter what I did as a character, NOTHING changed. 

The waves of monsters

I don't mind waves in some fights where it made sense.  For example, if I stepped into a thieves' lair, I would expect more and more of them to be coming from side rooms.  However, that shouldn't happen with every single fight in the game.  Personally, I believe it made combat very monotonous.

No sense of time change 

The game is supposed to span several years, but it never really does feel like it spans any time.  I think this could have been alleviated by optional discussion between Varric and Cassandra between acts.  I think users should have been given a speech wheel allowing Cassandra to ask about various things that happened between the acts.  This would have allowed Varric to tell Cassandra what different companions had been up to, etc. 

POSITIVES

For all of the things wrong with DA2, there were some amazing parts to DA2.

Companion Interactions

The developers did an amazing job with character interaction throughout the game.  I really loved the character interactions while running around.  I think these interactions helped the companions to come alive.  Even the short scenes between the different companions when Hawke went to visit were amazing.

Hawke's personality

I loved how Hawke responded differently based on his overall personality (and by personality I mean how Hawke generally responded in situations).  I think this really helped to personalize Hawke.  It also increasing the replayability of DA2 since each Hawke can respond with different dialogue in the same situation.

Varric's quests

I don't know which developers did Varric's quests in Act 2 and 3, but kudos to whoever designed them.  In Act 2, I loved the scene with Varric and then the discussion between Varric and Cassandra.  And the haunted house in Act3?  I think that will always be one of my favorite quests in any game.  The atmosphere was amazing.

Modifié par Quyk Sylvyr, 25 juin 2011 - 11:44 .

[Puravis]

I hope in the next one they give it a more satisfying ending; that
literally was the worst disappointment for me in this game and by
consequence of that I don’t consider the game to be that impressive.

I remember when I finished playing DAO I felt that it was so
different from other RPGs that perhaps if they improved their graphics
among various other things in their sequels perhaps they may even rival
Final Fantasy and other popular JRPGs which have in my view put the
western RPG market to shame as pertains to quality. DAO and DA2 had good
voice acting, innovative dialogue options that are unlike anything else
presented in other RPGs, both games had enjoyable battle systems in my
opinion,and yet I myself cannot consider either one impressive.

They had a great deal of opportunities to do that in DA2 and I’ll
just type a few things that if were done well would have made this game
top class in my estimation.

1. The re usage of the same exact maps in different places is not
at all classy and gamers who’ve played RPGs in which the maps are fully
varied will perceive DA2′s re usage of maps as low class I’m sure;
moreover many RPGs on the PS1 and PS2 did’nt even make that mistake yet
DA2 did.

2.The character motions were reused from the first game in some
instances. The most identifiable instance is in the battle system most
enemies are not as fast as your characters and also from battle stances
with weapons and even attacks they seem to a great degree to fully mimic
the weapon motions of DAO; this makes the battle system seem quite
strange since your characters are a great deal faster than enemies and
utilize different weapon motions and yet seem to take less damage than
enemies per hit. If one compares NPC motions from DAO to DA2 a great
deal has been recycled.

3. Lack of Major changes caused by the gamer. In DAO you could make a
variety of choices that affected the game in a major way; some examples
would be: becoming king,becoming queen,killing Loghain,not killing
Loghain,getting aid against the Archdemon from the werewolves,
sacrificing the elves in the alienage, among many other things that
would noticeably affect the game even in ending.

DA2 did not allow the player to make such major decisions and
focused mainly on interpersonal relationships between each of the
characters but in actually affecting the society in a major way one
chosen by the player from a selection of options was not presented in
DA2 at least I don’t consider them major they were all minor decisions
that didn’t satisfy me as much as the choices you were given in DAO.

4 The ending was not satisfying. The ending perplexed me a great deal
it didn’t seem like an end and I don’t truly consider it an ending; I
think they did that purposely to build anticipation for downloadable
content.

I understand from a business perspective obviously their main
incentive in doing it that way was profit but if it’s simply looked at
from the perspective of the gamer who having put in I assume a
considerable deal of time,money, and effort to buy,create a character
and ultimately complete the game it seems incredibly inconsiderate of
the people involved in creating this ending to have it so that the
ending is so brief and unsatisfying; the characters literally are just
saluted by the Templars if you side with the Templars,or they if you
sided with the mages are not saluted by the Templars and your
characters just simply walk out of the Gallows which of course is the
last you will see of them during the ending except for Varric the
narrator and Cassandra with Leliana.

The ending in DAO was not incredibly glamorous but it gave the main
character a chance to say his or her final goodbyes and it also showed
the effects of the player’s choices in Ferelden. DAO’s ending actually
felt like an ending to me and I felt satisfied when I completed DAO
even though I had noticed a great deal of glitches and graphical
inferiority in comparision with many other RPGs.


Those are the 4 main faliures I think this game has if it could at
least fix these problems in DA3 and keep their strengths such as good
voice acting, good dialogue choices, and an enjoyable battle system I
believe the Dragon Age series could bring a great deal prestige to the
western RPG market.

Modifié par Puravis, 28 juin 2011 - 04:06 .

[Todd23]

... I miss my epilogues.

[Areksu]

       I'm on my third playthrough. As far as game mechanics go, the combat is both tactical and visually interesting. The only downfall is the lack of overhead tactical view that was present in the first game. I can't tell you how many times I lay down a rain of fire, pause, and can't see through all the effects to the target I want to click on.

       The continuous reuse of the same dungeons has been mentioned to death already, but its hard not to mention it, considering how it impacts the game. The dungeons they have made are visually interesting. Yet that is no excuse to use the same maps over and over again for completely different locations.

        As for storyline, not so great. It starts out alright, as Hawke is a refuge caught up in the storm that was the Fereldan blight. The first act is composed of Hawke working to gain some standing in the city while picking up his companions. I do have a beef with the first act's main story. There should be an option to kill sister Patrice when you return from her assigned suicide mission and go up an alternative timeline. Instead, we are given a pointless dialogue that ends in the same way no matter how you respond. This marks the beginning of a trend where the player is forced into the passenger seat instead of being the force steering the story. The problem is almost unnoticeable in the second chapter as Hawke is still on his rise to power and the best way to do that is to work for the Viscount. For better or worse, the second act stands out as the best of the three acts available in the game. The Arishok makes for an excellent villain. The problems the Arishok faces are ones that the player can sympathize with, and he appears as an honorable character, if a bit ruthless. That being said, there really isn't anything else that sticks out about this act, as the player continues to be on a train ride through Kirkwall.

        By the third chapter, the problem is very obvious from the start. During the conversation between Orsino and Meredith, if you proceed to question them, Meredith will bring up the death of Hawke's mother in a plea to emotions in order to garner support from the crowd. Instead of giving you an option to refute the claim, Bioware gives you three responses which can be characterized as: 1) whine, 2) whine creatively, or 3) agree with her. If that doesn't make you want to toss a brick out a window I don't know what will. So this means you can choose not to work for her and do something else, right? Wrong. In order to complete the game you are stuck running errands for the person who just used the tragic death of Hawke's mother in an insulting and nonsensical plea to get people to agree with her. Other storyline problems accrue, such as side characters acting in ways that make no sense. For instance, the player saves a templar recruit, Karen, from blood mages trying to put demons into hapless young recruits to turn them into abominations (like his friend Wilmod). In the third act, he is not only sympathizing with blood mages, he is literally working for them! Here is another one. The templar Thrask, who sympathizes with mages, will participate in the kidnapping of Hawke's brother or sister, claiming that he thought Hawke was supporting Meredith even if you proved sympathetic to mages on all accounts through the last two acts and sided with Orsino in the public debate. Not only do Hawke's actions have little storyline impact, the storyline in the third act has people acting in ways that make no sense given their backgrounds. I could keep going on about the story, but I feel that I'd be here all day if I did that.

       Dragon Age 2 is an RPG that tries to make the player ignore a mediocre storyline and copy-pasta dungeons by keeping the player on a non-stop killing frenzy using a plethora of flashy spells and abilities. For the most part, it succeeds, until the end.

       This isn't much of a review, but it gets a 3 out of 5 stars in my book. The characters are memorable, and the sound effects, voice acting, and music are excellent given the game's scope. I'm taking one star off for copy-pasta locations, and another star off for the one track story. While the above problems make me want to tear my hair out, the combat that is a mix of team tactics and hack-and-slash does keep the game interesting. At least until the next disappointing dialogue of little impact.

Modifié par Areksu, 29 juin 2011 - 12:21 .

[Hatchetman77]

As you can probably tell I'm more of a story focused player.  I'll let people talk about waves spawning out of nowhere and dropping right on top of your mages and killing them (I hated that too, but my MAJOR gripes are with story elements).  I will list the one combat element I liked though.

Likes

1) Combat system is sorta in the right direction.  It was faster paced and smooth.  Not nearly as clunky as Origins.  I played a sword and board warrior and I loved the combat animations, especially the shield bashes, but it wasen't so over the top that I wasen't doing backflips like an 80's ninja movie reject (unlike other classes).  If we can figue out how to make it more tactical with minimal impact on it's fluidity then we're rocking.

2) Hawke having different personalities depending on which dialouge options he favors.  I liked it.  I think it should be expanded upon as well, where Hawke can have a religious persoanlity if he picks statements like "go with the maker" and such.  Also it would be nice if this system discriminated between individuals, so I don't tell Isabella to **** off when all my interactions with her have been sarcastic but I've been rude to every NPC in the game.  

Dislikes

1) Story.  I mean.....damn.  It was a mess of Phantom Menace proportions.  The story just felt that it was all about getting us to the destination and forgetting about the journey. It's primary concern was to get us to the starting point of the next game and not to provide a setting where interesting things could happen to provide a fun game in THIS game. 

First off, show don't tell.  Character arcs shouldn't be done off camera.  Also, focus the story more.  You had three different stories going on.  Pick one and expand upon it. I personally think that the story should just have been about Hawke's rise to power, where he gets to pick different paths, such as becomming a criminal and taking out all the other criminals to become the grande fromage of the Kirkwall criminal underworld or becomming a Robin Hood type character who helps the Feraldin refugees (either way you're targeting criminals and corrupt nobles who are either preventing you from gaining power or hharming or exploiting the Feraldin refufees).  Hawke could have been introduced into the other conflicts in Kirkwall on his turms, and not seem like an observer in his own story. Either Criminal or Robin Hood Hawke may have opportunities to capture apostates and sell them to Tevinter slavers (if he's really evil), turn them over to the Templars for rewards or help them escape (for either ideological reasons or for profit).   

The Qunari and Deep Roads could have been added as expansions.  The final Mage vs. Templar conflict could have been in an Awakenings type expansion, where the point of the main game was to introduce Hawke and show his rise to prominance in Kirkwall and gets him involved in one way or another with the different factions of the city.  In the expansion those decisions become important when all hell breaks loose when everything in Kirkwall falls apart. 
  
2)  Kirkwall. If we're going to be here for the whole game make it less boring.  Perhaps introduce some NPC's that are affected by our choices, such as a shopkeeper who either thrives or goes out of business based on decisions we make, or even sections of the city changing fortunes over time.  Perhaps if you choose quests to help the Feraldins then Darktown may change over time to show that it's not such a slum but actually improving economically. 

3) Longer quest chains instead of so many small individual quests.  I can't keep track of all these NPS's I saved or wronged that become significant later.  Make their stories longer so I do remember them.

4) Don't lock us into a relationship with someone just for picking the flirty option once.  I like roleplaying a ****tease.   

5) Origin story was badly needed.  You can jump into the action if you already know the character or if the game is not story driven.  You could have started the game the same way with Verric's story, but afterwards have him go back further to Lothering and tell what happened there (and not just replay the same scene back to back).  We need to know who Hawke and his family is.  We need to know what they lost.  we need to know his dad so we can miss him too. 

6) Cameos.  If they're not adding to the story don't use them.  If you do use them then there is no reason for them to exposit all the infromation we know about them in the first 30 seconds of meeting them.  In Origins all characters had a backstory that you had to talk to them several times to get.  Just imagine that the cameo character is a completly new character and that the events in Origins are part of the character's backstory.  In Origins Sten never came right out and said "I'm Sten, I killed the family cause I lost my sword and I can't go back to my people until I find it".  You had to work for that info and earn that character's trust to get it.  Yes, I know the players already know the info that they are working for, but remember that this is NOT the player but a different character.  It would be nice if the returning Origins character offered their particular perspective on the events of Origins, expressing regrets (and mabey even disagreeing with the warden's actions if appropriate).  So you're not working to get the exposition, but that character's perspective and the exposition comes with it.  And seriously, is "I ****ed the Hero of Feraldin" really what you would expect someone to say to you when you first meet them in a bar.  It makes them sound like a groupie.   

[Areksu]

I just want to clarify on my gripe with the story of da2. My complaint of it's mediocrity is in reference to it's linearity. I'm not saying that it is b movie quality (that I reserve for games like ff13).

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Time to bring up something that's been bugging for a while now, after three playthroughs.

It's dialogue and story related, since those are the things I focus on most in my RPGs

Hidden PC Motive

In a nutshell, this is us not knowing where our own character stands until she opens her mouth. We have our own ideas of what her motives are, but DA2 takes liberties. And if there's anything RPers don't like, it's having their characters hijacked.

Here is a prime example:

Dimplomatic Hawke has sided with the mages. She has helped both templars and mages throughout the game, choosing her side based on each situation and determining which is the best course rather than a belief templars or mages are always the side to pick. She sided with the mages in the Last Straw for a couple of reasons...First, that Bethany is alive and in the Circle and she wanted to protect her sister. Second, she does not believe all the mages deserve to be slaughtered due to the actions of one rebel, meaning she could not in good conscience side with Meredith.

In t he final conversation with Anders where he thanks you for sparing him and helping the mages, Diplomatic Hawke is given this dialogue option:

<diplomatic paraphrase> "It's the right thing to do."
<actual spoken phrase> "Mages deserve their freedom."

And...that's where I reload. Because my Hawke never believed that--not to the extent Anders does and Hawke is saying. She believes it's right to side with the mages in this case, yes, but not because she thinks all mages should be free. In fact, having refused to help Anders in the second half of his Justice quest where he goes on about this being the way to save all mages, it's even more jarring.

It isn't the only case of Character Motive being hidden by the paraphrase system, and situations like this, I think, are a result of:

a) Having paraphrases instead of full sentences (or disallowing full disclosure of PC text);
Reliance on the personality system to determine PC response;
c) Presumption on the part of the writers.

I think everyone who's played the game has run into paraphrases that give them a response they seriously weren't expecting, and this is something Bioware have said they're aware of and will try to refine. But it's not always going to be easy. Full text is always going to be my preference for fear of paraphrases effectively back-seat driving my characters, and extra dialogue options...yeah, it always comes back to more, I'm afraid. Three ways to say 'I agree with you completely and we'll win' isn't roleplaying.

If we're stuck with paraphrases, motive has to be more clearly defined. The game can't simply assume what a PC believes.

"It's the right thing to do."

It = what?

"Mages deserve their freedom" vs "Mages don't deserve the Right of Annulment." vs "All mages don't deserve to suffer for the sins of a few." vs "Meredith has gone too far and I'd rather defend mages now than help her kill them."

I know there's only so many options dialogue can provide, but the game should never assume it knows the PC's motives to that level of depth--that's what the Player should be dictating and it's a major stepping on toes to swap that control around.

Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 02 juillet 2011 - 02:58 .

[Blessed Silence]

ADD:  I've read through alot of other player's comments mainly about dialog and story.

Yes, the dialog tree options sometimes really did not portray what I was going to say.  Honestly, I don't care if the whole sentence is read again after I clicked it, it's happened before in games.  But three words don't portray what I wanted to say (beating dead horse I know).  I do hope that get's refined somehow.

As for story?  In all honesty I liked it.  The ending seemed a bit .. abrupt though and did give me a few WTFmoments.  Killing the Knight Commander .. wasn't very satisfying the way it went.  Though I did enjoy how your options through the game mattered on what characters made an appearance (for me it was Carver as a Templar, Donnic, Cullen, and Zevran).

I loved the companions quests (though admittedly I miss the banter whenever I wanted in DAO) but just that insight got me attached.  Heck when Sebestian fell in battle I squealed.  I wanted to hug Varric alot and when Hawke's mother died I cried.  The writing was well done, and contrary to my solid belief before the game came out, Aveline is and will always be a strongly made character.  When you do her stories and see how she changes, I liked it alot.

Okay, just finished my second playthrough of DA2, and now noticed a few things that I would like to point out.

1.  I was very disappointed there was no special ending when I got my romance with Sebastian (2nd play) like I did with Anders (1st play) in the narritave that Varric does.  It was really difficult to get Sebby up to 100%, not flirt with anyone else, etc.  And I got bupkis.  Granted he was DLC but still, he takes part is other things!

2.  Nitpick, but for some reason Carver went from a tanned black haired guy (defalt look) to a black skinned, white haired Templar at the end of the game ... WTF?  Game bug?  Dunno but he didn't look like that in cutscenes!

3.  Nitpick/continuity - Family Matter.  I killed Bartrand, yet in Varric's 3rd Act companion quest Haunted, he wants to use the shard to heal his brother??  Uh ... problem he's DEAD.

4.  Nitpick/continuity - I told Anders to leave Kirkwall and he shows up in a cutscene with Varric.  Oops ...

5.  Nitpick - When confronting Keran during Best Served Cold, I shouted at him to let my brother go, and Keran still said something about my friend. No ... no .. he should have said brother.  Derrr ...

6.  Nitpick - Why can't we make Stamina, Health, and Mana potions?  There is a cap on how many drop from corpses depending on the difficulty you choose.  Was very annoying near end game.  Recipies to make at least Stamina potions would be nice!

7.  MAJOR nitpick - Why can't we remove runes?  We did so in DAO!  Now I have to destroy a perfectly good rune to replace it with another?!?  No no no.  Please ... please let us remove runes like DAO!

ADD2:

8.  MAJOR nitpik:  What is up with weapons and shields disappearing and reappearing constantly in a cutscene??  I'm wearing my staff one second, then next poofs off, then back again.  VERY jarring.  Mainly happens during companion cutscene dialog.

9.  MAJOR continuity:  When helping Keran from those mages, he asked not to speak about it to the Templars, and even Anders said to downplay it.  So I go to Cullen, and what is the FIRST THING my Hawke says?  You guessed it ... blood magic.  I had NO CHOICE in the matter, the nitwit blurted it out.  Guys if you ask us not to say it PLEASE give us the choice!!

10. Nitpick: Kind of an immersion breaker when I'm having a no holds battle with someone as NPCs are casually WALKING through my battle! Seriously .. even in Oblivion they got the heck outta there when poo starts to hit the fan. I don't remember if DA2 was supposed to be a world with dynamic NPCs but if so, this might wanna get looked at. Or every NPC in the Docks has charred hair and arrows in them.

These really stood out as glaring the second time I played through.  Other than that, I'm having a grand time.  Almost have all the achievements though.

Modifié par Blessed Silence, 03 juillet 2011 - 09:06 .