303 réponses à ce sujet

[jerpsych]

As a HUGE fan of both Mass Effect games and Dragon Age:Origins I was really quite excited about Dragon Age II. I was crushed when I wasn't able to pre-order DA2 like I did with Mass Effect 2 as I really wanted the bonus content of a signature edition (figuring it would be every bit as good as the bonus content I got with the collectors edition of ME2). When my roommate got DA2 I was so excited to play it that I couldn't wait to finish my most recent run through of DA:O so I could load that save into DA2. I had chosen to do the dark ritual with Morrigan after romancing her and, like many, I was interested the rumors that something might come of all of that in DA2.

The following options are as unbiased as I can make them and I like to think I'm a pretty reasonable person so, take them as you will.

The first thing I noticed was that the game didn't look nearly as good as the original. Origins looked as though you were playing the lord of the rings movies and was so atmospheric and really drew me in. DA2 seems artificial, and lost some of the charm of the first one. I also didn't like how cartoonish Varric looks or how the elves look (they all look like they have Waardenburg syndrome suddenly, wtf?) As I got into my tenth hour of play I was really disappointed by the botoxy lack of expression on so many of the toon's faces.

It's not all complaints visually though, as I was immediately impressed by the combat moves. The actual movements were impressive and cinematic. It was fun to see the mages actually look threatening in combat rather that just pointing their sticks at people. While it wasn't the slightly more realistic movements of the first game, it was fun to watch.

Combat...Well at first it seems pretty familiar, even some of the moves from the first game have carried over (though some only in name and spirit) and so I took to that pretty quickly. When the game started throwing hordes of darkspawn at me in the first few minutes of the game, I puckered a little. DA:O had taught me that large numbers of opponents meant "strategize or die!!!" Much to my surprise, all my careful planning was completely unnecessary. Granted, the difficulty is mostly the result of story elements so I'll give bioware that one, but then the difficulty only really increases the tiniest bit from that point forward. (Increased only as a result of having fewer attacks/spells.) I agree with a lot of people that the difficulty did/does overall feel a bit dumbed down. I have yet to be challenged like I was in DA:O and the fact that it's so easy to make potions makes healing pretty carefree. I found that most bosses that presented any kind of problem head on were easily beaten by running in circles until I could drink another potion. I don't remember this tactic EVER working in the first...

I think that Varric and Merrill are the saving graces of this game as far as companions go. Ander's I felt entirely indifferent towards, Isabella was fun I guess...the Male sibling seems a tad too emo for my tastes while the sister seemed agreeable until a plot point turns her into a turd...Fenris seemed like a good idea that just wasn't followed through with...I think that really sums up most of the characters though, good ideas with poor follow through. In DA:O I CARED about the characters and genuinely felt bad for them when bad things happened to them and thrilled when the good times came for them. I remember being genuinely mad about a plot point towards the end of the game with Zevran (trying so hard to avoid spoilers) as well as feeling bad for Alister during our first visit to Denerim.

Varric kept me entertained and seems to be one of the more useful characters (dialog option wise) that you can keep with you. In fact he proves himself so useful that I couldn't help but feel like this was pressure from the dev's for me to keep him in my team. Merrill had some of the most entertaining moments and was, despite her powers, delightfully and charmingly naive. She proves to be a fantastic replacement for Morrigan who was charismatic despite being so jaded. These are really the only two characters that I can bring myself to praise though...One disappointment came with the updating of the Qunari. Why go through all the trouble of revamping their look (which I was fine with and loved the new look) and then not bother to give us a Qunari companion?

The story I think gets a bad wrap. I was surprised when I first started up the game and found it running parallel with the early events of DA:O and liked the segway into Kirkwall. Kirkwall could have been a little more unique but overall I liked the plot. I felt like I was constantly busy running from one quest to the next and the quests were interesting enough to keep me going. It's hard to critique this section without too many spoilers but I will say that I have not finished the game yet and so I hesitate to bash certain elements too much. What I will complain about is the fact that I'm only 38 hrs into this game and already I'm on the third and final act of the game. The save game I imported for this run through had 119+ hours logged. While 40-50 hrs of game play is pretty good by a lot of game standards these days, it's a pretty lousy follow up to DA:O...It makes paying for DLC feel like I'm buying the rest of the game and not bonus content.

I'm not the least bit bothered by being forced to play a human. I know this burned a lot of people who were fans of DA:O but I get what bioware was going for and so I was willing to give it a shot. In this regard I wasn't let down, other than it might have been nice to have a bit more variety in the customization screen. It seemed like there were only an handful of hair styles and tattoos that meant that a lot of characters I've seen out there look suspiciously similar. Perhaps this is the old fuddy duddy in me, but why the obviously anime inspire hair styles in what is largely a western style rpg? The hipster style haircuts for the women were a source of a lot of laughs for my wife, roommate, friends, etc. It seems so terribly anachronistic...I don't entirely understand that creative choice but I suppose I don't have to.

As I mentioned earlier a huge reason that I started playing this game was to find out more about Morrigan's baby as I was very much under the impression that this story would reveal much in that regard...38 hours in, act III and I still haven't seen or heard squat about this baby. It's a let down for sure, not only for myself but for a large number of other people I've seen on the web.

It seems that a lot of things were borrowed from Mass Effect. The dialog wheel didn't bother me nearly as much as some other posters here and elsewhere. The only problem I had was that my decisions didn't feel nearly as important. Instead it simply felt like I was choosing between a warm response, funny response, or a cold response with the end results remaining the same. The fully voiced main character was a nice touch but I can't help but feel like it came at the cost of dialog from everyone else. I felt like I couldn't interact with my companions nearly as much as I could in either DA:O or even as much as I could in the Mass Effect games.

Look people, I'll say this...is the game fun? Yes. Is it interesting enough for me to want to finish it? Yes.

However, does it fall miles short of DA:O? Yes.

While I've had fun playing my roommate's copy, I've decided that it's highly unlikely that I'll but a copy of my own for future play throughs. This is in contrast to DA:O which I started playing at another friends house and made it 40 hours in and couldn't wait to get my own copy.

I don't know if my thoughts will be appreciated or not, but they are what they are. I think that I'm done with DA2 and I'll simply bide my time until ME3 comes out.

[DragonAgeFanatiiic]

How to fix Dragon Age 3 ? Produce a genuine RPG! Origins is easily the greatest fantasy RPG in gaming history, it is a veteran. Dragon Age II is not only an unworthy sequel but quite embarrassing on BioWare's behalf.

It is truly beyond my comprehension that BioWare, who have so much to be proud of and have accomplished so much in the past could produce such rubbish and expect us to eat it up.

I too have no problem playing a human, although a friend of mine invested hours upon hours of codex findings and specific side quests relating to the Dwarfs and Orzammar as he played a Dwarven Noble and was utterly intrigued with the whole experience from start to finish - she played the DA:II demo, died once and switched off the game. 200 hours invested into DA:O and about 10 minutes into DA:II.

Combat is actually pretty slick but what's the point in having this improved combat system when as you said yourself, all you face are waves of brainless enemies.


The story is mediocre, the scale of the events feel pityful in comparison to Origins.. I have to say though, the ending and the hours that led up to it was quite intriguing but on par with Origins ? Jesus Christ, no.

Characters are so dry and imo are the greatest let down in BioWare's history. The personal quests are so forced.. =( You couldn't bond or feel compassion for these character's if you tried. How could BioWare even think for a moment that these companions even slightly compare to our Wardens ?? I agree with Merill and Varric being remotely interesting, but a saving grace, hardly. They are the best of a bad bunch.

The game would have been successful if; our Warden had been imported/voiced.. It involved an interesting story with new, well developed characters, perhaps retaining a handful of the old cast depending on your decisions - reuniting your love interest, discovering new love interest for new players ect. The polished graphs and combat are all well and good. But this game fails in every other category. Jesus i haven't even mentioned the inventory (or lack of). We can only hope and pray this is the case for DA:3 a few years down the road.

[Ermac88]

Ya i feel same way like Da2 was rushed or too much geared for console it lost it's depth.

A fail try at making something "more fun" they newbiefied it. What a waste.

[xXCHRISofDESTXx]

I think you guys are to hard on the game and you expected too much from the sequel they can still make this an awesome trilogy they just need to go back to the origins story and they can keep hawk we have to remember its a big world and there is more than one country like going to the tevinter or orlie or antiva there is so many ways they could go with the next story either way dragon age is the best game ever both of them keep it up bioware

[RandomGoodman]

I'm VERY dissapointed with DA2. It's total sh...t even if you never played DA:O. It's just a making money at popular name., Mindless, boring slasher with copy-paste locations. No any story. No any choose. R.I.P., sweet DA:O.

P. S. Mass Effect 3 i firstly will download from torrents because now i'm suspicious to Bioware production.

[orbit991]

I'm pretty sure the only thing they will change in DA3 is there wont be as many waves and the environments wont get recycled as much. Other then that they already made their bed with the new look and mechanics. So don't expect much difference in these new short development cycles.

[cpmd4]

Speak for yourself. I LOVE the changes made from Origins. Just because you are unhappy, does not mean everyone is.

If you think it's just mindless clicking, why not play on a higher difficulty that requires you to organize you teams and their tactics? Not to mention auto-attack exists...

[Niten Ryu]

 If EA will think that Dragon Age 2 didn't meet the sales goal, it might be better to kill the brand. We don't know the real numbers untill EA's next financial quater report, but opportunity cost alone might be too high to save Dragon Age brand.

If Dragon Age 2 sales are well bellow the target, Dragon Age 3 will have a up hill battle ahead of it. No matter the quality. First Dragon Age 3 have to do is to get better metacritic score and then won over at least some of the original Dragon Age fans or gain significantly more new fans. Both are difficult after Dragon Age 2, that got really poor metacritic score as well as user score.

Personally I'd kill Dragon Age brand (if sales of the Dragon Age 2 are poor) and try to save Bioware brand with new IP. Bioware can probably survive at least 3 turkeys in the row but at some point they'll get to the chopping block too like Origin, Westwood and others.

[cloud39472]

you know I hate it when people say it has less game play that is not true I have been playing it for 50 hours now and I have only just made it too the end of the game when I played dragon age origins I completed it in 37 hours and that's with all the dlc and I wasn't rushing either.

people were expecting an dragon age origins 2 not dragon age 2 that's what pissed people off the most but so what, it doesn't stop this game from being one of the best games I have played since final fantasy 7, in my opinion.

[Jcski]

It's quite entertaining why threads like this pops out after a similar thread was closed..

anyways..DA 2 ONE of the best RPG's not THE best RPG and I think some would agree to that..
it's quite disappointing..yes..that's because its unfinished..Im sure Bioware is trying their best to make up for their mistakes,,but know we just had to wait for DLC's and Patches then give the final verdict for this game..

and one more thing calling DA 2 a garbage is too much,,even if you said it didn't met your demands for DA 2 they put some effort to it..don't mean to offend ..just saying:blush:

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

cloud39472 wrote...

you know I hate it when people say it has less game play that is not true I have been playing it for 50 hours now and I have only just made it too the end of the game when I played dragon age origins I completed it in 37 hours and that's with all the dlc and I wasn't rushing either.

people were expecting an dragon age origins 2 not dragon age 2 that's what pissed people off the most but so what, it doesn't stop this game from being one of the best games I have played since final fantasy 7, in my opinion.

Sorry, but I just have to laugh at this line. DA 2 could be GOTY for all I care but that is just ridiculous.

It's a sequel. Most people expect a sequel to be sequel.

It's a reasonable expectation. Because it's a sequel.

Modifié par mrcrusty, 11 avril 2011 - 01:48 .

[Monica83]

DA2 its not an RPG... For this reason:Don't have enought roleplay elements.. Only combat

[Monica83]

DA2 its too much streamlined too much action based too much jrpg influenced...

Its a cute game per se... But a garbage sequel

[cloud39472]

look at the final fantasy series 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 its never had the same characters its different characters, different combat,different worlds and no one said its a garbage sequel its the same for dragon age and like jcski said wait for the patches and dlcs before you make the final verdict for this game.

also how is it not an rpg (role playing game) role playing means you play the role of a main character, you have freedom of choice, freedom to go anywhere you want, free to talk to anyone you want all of which is in dragon age 2.

Modifié par cloud39472, 11 avril 2011 - 03:17 .

[Teredan]

cloud39472 wrote...

look at the final fantasy series 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 its never had the same characters its different characters, different combat,different worlds and no one said its a garbage sequel its the same for dragon age and like jcski said wait for the patches and dlcs before you make the final verdict for this game.

also how is it not an rpg (role playing game) role playing means you play the role of a main character, you have freedom of choice, freedom to go anywhere you want, free to talk to anyone you want all of which is in dragon age 2.

In defense these games always had a definite conclusion so they didn't need to bring characters back.
It doesn't leave you hanging at the end like DA2.

I agree that denying that DA2 is a RPG is kind of silly... albeit I felt it didn't had the depht of its predecessor.

[cloud39472]

i see what everyones saying and everyone is entitled to thier own opinion but i just think sum people are judging this game too harshly thats all im saying...

[Romantiq]

Fair is fair.

[Monica83]

Teredan wrote...

cloud39472 wrote...

look at the final fantasy series 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 its never had the same characters its different characters, different combat,different worlds and no one said its a garbage sequel its the same for dragon age and like jcski said wait for the patches and dlcs before you make the final verdict for this game.

also how is it not an rpg (role playing game) role playing means you play the role of a main character, you have freedom of choice, freedom to go anywhere you want, free to talk to anyone you want all of which is in dragon age 2.

In defense these games always had a definite conclusion so they didn't need to bring characters back.
It doesn't leave you hanging at the end like DA2.

I agree that denying that DA2 is a RPG is kind of silly... albeit I felt it didn't had the depht of its predecessor.

Sorry but what kind of roleplay elements have da2?
NO social skill
Lot of combat
An ICON based dialogue
Linear as hell
A weak storyline

Modifié par Monica83, 11 avril 2011 - 04:45 .

[Funkjoker]

return to make games pc only. ported games are inacceptable and I'm not going to buy anymore of them. aah... including your precious failed product called DA2.

remember DAO? that was a great game.

[Any0day]

Jcski wrote...
anyways..DA 2 ONE of the best RPG's not THE best RPG and I think some would agree to that..
it's quite disappointing..yes..that's because its unfinished..Im sure Bioware is trying their best to make up for their mistakes,,but know we just had to wait for DLC's and Patches then give the final verdict for this game..

This has to be the single most asinine thing I've ever read in my entire life.

----------
You: Hey, I just bought a car for 60k... It looks shiny and awesome on the outside, but you gave me a bad engine and two flat tires!
Dealer: Oh, dude --- I'm sorry about that, just go ahead and pay us some more money and we'll get that fixed for you
You: Oh okay, cool. ... How much?
Dealer: Uhh, around 10% of the original cost, that'll be 6k.
You: Awesome deal -- thanks man.. Just wanna say, this is probably the best car I've ever bought!
----------

Modifié par Any0day, 11 avril 2011 - 05:04 .

[Funkjoker]

lol, so true, Any0day

[Edhriano]

Aoow now now guys don't be like that 
Is playing DA2 an Enjoyable experience? , sure ! 

I had fun not be able to equip my companion because 'hawke restriction' on every armor.
I had fun visiting recycled copy paste maps here and there.
I had fun always getting attack when trying to cross the streets at night.
I had fun making ' your choice does not matter ' choice most of the time.
I also had fun getting back stab by my companion ( which I kill later anyway.. )

So yeah, it was fun. Really no need to fix this :innocent: .

ps.
Oh btw FYI just letting you know all that was a sarcasm, I was being sarcastic ... <_<
I really wish I had waited and ask opinion from friends who actually played DA2 instead of being
suckered punch by review from ' give this game good rating or else kiss adds goodbye ' magazine.

Modifié par Edhriano, 11 avril 2011 - 05:11 .

[randName]

The lack of exploration, both worldly, but also in the case of character and companion exploration.

We are given notes in our journal when we are to speak to companions, and this is the only time we can really speak to them, we are given quests as if we are handed a check list, often getting the quest without having to look for it, or explore. We are given horrible small side quests by simply stumbling over an item, directly knowing to whom it belongs.

We run down the same beaches and streets, in a static world that never changes year after year, in the same caves and dungeons, repeated again and again.

The whole game just screams at you "Don't explore, don't look for anything"

Sometimes it sticks out and doesn't, like when you bring Anders and Carver/Bethany with you down the deep-roads, but mostly there is no room, no place, for experimentation, its almost unwanted. No longer do I hope that I can pry anything out of my companions, no longer do I feel any need to try to talk to people, to do anything.

And then you get railroaded through almost every plot in the game, with a small knot of choices at the end that will land some coins or/and friendship/rivalry points on you.

I actually started liking people such as Gamlen, as he will actually talk to you without having a large arrow over his head most of the time.

Even the combat, that this game focuses so much upon is the same, as there is rarely anything but enemies dropping down around you, from clear blue skies, or solid rock.
And no longer can you scout ahead and plan, instead you are just to run with it, like everything in the game - as if they fear that not everything is handed to you, you won't have motivation to continue.

When I tried to sneak up to a meeting that asked for stealth I was faced with a cut-scene despite being hidden from plain sight, and this constant feeling that there is nothing at all for me to do but to run run run, pick my choice of mannerism despite everything, and you will be fine, you will land the lass you want, you'll get the bad guys, and everything will be all right, what ever you do, just don't try to think, don't try to do anything, just press A for Awesome and see the game flash before your eyes.

[AlanC9]

I was OK with the lack of exploration. Exploration in an RPG always takes me out of the role-playing, since I'm walking around looking to see what the level designers have hidden for me to find. I think BG1 soured me on this forever.

As for not triggering conversations with the companions at will, I can kind of understand the thinking in DA2. In DAO I'm always trying to decide how fast I want to use up the companions' dialog trees, which isn't really something I want to be thinking about.

Something like this issue came up before, though not in an RPG unless your definition is very loose. Wing Commander 3 made players run around TCS Victory to see if any of the crew had something new to say (much more annoying than walking around the DAO camp, of course). In WC4 they changed the system so the map would indicate who had a new conversation, though you could still walk around the ship at will.

[Serpieri Nei]

Purple People Eater wrote...

How this thread failed - the OP is a broken record.

Are you aware of irony?