87 réponses à ce sujet

[errant_knight]

-I hated all the running back and forth between locations. And having every cavern/bsmt/alley look exactly the same. That, and the utter sameness of all of the battles got extremely tedious. I won't bother going into the over the top combat and ninja moves--all been said, but c'mon, medieval enemies jumping or rappelling down every building/cliff in Kirkwall? Give me a break.

-Pacing. This was a real problem. The first act just felt like pointless errand running. The second was quite good and I even got to have a little victory. It was still a bit bleak, but a victory, nonetheless, and the pacing built nicely to the end of the act. The third threw that all away and went back to square one again in terms of building tension.

-The conversation system. Origins just worked better. The cinematic conversations took took them out of the moment. Watching Hawke talk made them completely third person. I dislike the dialogue wheel greatly, but it could work better if they kept it in Hawke's point of view, but they almost never did. I never felt anything like as close to these companions, although I sure came to appreciate Varric. Everyone else was humorless or deeply problematic in one way or another. I really hated having to run all over the place to talk to them.

-Speaking of humor, boy, was I ever glad to see Alistair! Sure did point out how completely humorless and unfun this game was, though. Yes, it was a pretty good story, but I think I would have rather read about something this grim in a codex than lived it. I know I'll never play this game more than the once. I'd planned to go through again with Bethany rather than Carver, but no way! I wanted a toolset, but now I don't care all that much. I'd only use it to take out models/dialogues/animations to use in Origins mods.

-The graphics. I just hated it. I hated the human/creature models, especially the elves. I hated the armor. I REALLY hated what they did to our companions. And why the heck was Alistair so beta version? His armor looked like it was made of lead and OMG he was so not himself. Ah well, ath least he was there, and provided the only real fun in the game.

-Completely unreplayable. There really wouldn't be a point. That, and why would I want to slog through all that grim misery again?

-Another non-ending ending, like Awakening. I get why they did that, and it's probably the least of my issues, but it didn't help with the feeling of pointlessness, and no win.

Modifié par errant_knight, 14 mars 2011 - 08:11 .

[CG50]

i really liked the game too and i dont get the hate, there where some areas i didn't like though such as the way you only could talk to companions when it was a quest. Also when i finished merrills new path quest and got attacked by everyone it didnt seem to have... closure? like in other quests you talk about what happened etc this one was like "oh, i really wish i wore shoes with soles now".

Apart from that i liked the ending, didn't care there wasn't much of a story running through the game as it was about Hawke and his decisions which i reckon are made more for DA3 than DA2. Liked the ending though.

Although they could change the inventory a bit, like have your character at the side when buying stuff and when you scroll through weapons and armor it shows up on your character so you can see what it looks like before you buy it.

Just my opinion though.

[maxbarton]

boraxalmighty wrote...

Mages survived the annulment. That is a bigger blow to the templars than you think. The rite is absolute. never before has a mage survived the rite and yet here not only are there more than a few surviving mages but the knight-commander was killed. Meredith was a legend among the templars and mages who had never even met her feared her name. This tension that you speak of was unique to Kirkwall. Not all Circles were this oppressive. If you remember Cullen from DA:O then you know how bad the Circle is that he is slightly sympathetic for the mages in Kirkwall. Blowing up the Chantry would have moved extremists to action. But swift and absolute retribution from the templars would dissuade the majority. The templars failed to exact that retribution and lost their champion in the process. They can't write off that big of a failure no matter how hard they try especially since the surviving mages are spreading the word of the Champion's victory.

But other than Hawke they did exact that retribution, the only difference is that Meredith died.  From my understanding some mages escape no matter if the templars were winning or not.  That's not surprising, I'd probably have ducked into an alley and got out of there (especially with all the blood mages going demonic).

Of course I'll admit, my argument is 'technically' nothing but speculation.  I can't definitively prove that if Hawke weren't there the rebellion would have happened, but things were already lining up that way.

The tension is in most circles.  Kirkwall just had a much larger group that wanted to rebel which made it the 'best' place for it all to start.  I don't see the survival of Meredith being the difference between the rebellion happening or not.  This starts getting into assumptions for both my argument and yours against mine.  We only get a small sampling of the world and we don't know which circles are more likely to rebel and which ones have it pretty easy going.

Either way, we both have our takes on the events, and I'm willing to leave it at that.  DA2 was still a fun game to play and I still plan on probably going through it 3 times... that is if starting tomorrow I can tear myself away from Shogun Total War 2.



Still would have liked to have seen a short epilogue of my character sailing off with Isabella.  Blast it, I want to be a pirate-mage!

[errant_knight]

Oh, I forgot the inventory, crafting, and shopping. All were pretty much pointless. Why have items that are just junk? The inventory was no fun at all and I really hated not being able to get new thing for my companions. Runes weren't worth much and were quite boring. There was nothing to buy, so I ended up with a ton of cash. It got to the point that I only looted for the potions. Crafting... I just never did it. It was a pain in the ass. OMG, that crafting message when you found stuff. How utterly unnecessary.

[Boss Fog]

errant_knight wrote...

-I hated all the running back and forth between locations. And having every cavern/bsmt/alley look exactly the same. That, and the utter sameness of all of the battles got extremely tedious. I won't bother going into the over the top combat and ninja moves--all been said, but c'mon, medieval enemies jumping or rappelling down every building/cliff in Kirkwall? Give me a break.

-Pacing. This was a real problem. The first act just felt like pointless errand running. The second was quite good and I even got to have a little victory. It was still a bit bleak, but a victory, nonetheless, and the pacing built nicely to the end of the act. The third threw that all away and went back to square one again in terms of building tension.

-The conversation system. Origins just worked better. The cinematic conversations took took them out of the moment. Watching Hawke talk made them completely third person. I dislike the dialogue wheel greatly, but it could work better if they kept it in Hawke's point of view, but they almost never did. I never felt anything like as close to these companions, although I sure came to appreciate Varric. Everyone else was humorless or deeply problematic in one way or another. I really hated having to run all over the place to talk to them.

-Speaking of humor, boy, was I ever glad to see Alistair! Sure did point out how completely humorless and unfun this game was, though. Yes, it was a pretty good story, but I think I would have rather read about something this grim in a codex than lived it. I know I'll never play this game more than the once. I'd planned to go through again with Bethany rather than Carver, but no way! I wanted a toolset, but now I don't care all that much. I'd only use it to take out models/dialogues/animations to use in Origins mods.

-The graphics. I just hated it. I hated the human/creature models, especially the elves. I hated the armor. I REALLY hated what they did to our companions. And why the heck was Alistair so beta version? His armor looked like it was made of lead and OMG he was so not himself. Ah well, ath least he was there, and provided the only real fun in the game.

-Completely unreplayable. There really wouldn't be a point. That, and why would I want to slog through all that grim misery again?

-Another non-ending ending, like Awakening. I get why they did that, and it's probably the least of my issues, but it didn't help with the feeling of pointlessness, and no win.

Please explain how Alistair wasn't himself?  He was pretty much the exact same character I remember him being in Origins after his hardening.  Everything else you said is completely subjective obviously which I don't agree with but I don't understand how you think that Alistair wasn't acting like himself... 

[errant_knight]

I meant physically. There was nothing wrong with the dialogue. It was probably my favorite part of the game. Animation-wise, too. All the faces are quite unexpressive, especially around the eyes, and Alistair was particularly expressive in Origins, making botox-Alistair look even more odd.

Modifié par errant_knight, 14 mars 2011 - 08:38 .

[Boss Fog]

errant_knight wrote...

I meant physically. There was nothing wrong with the dialogue. It was probably my favorite part of the game. Animation-wise, too. All the faces are quite unexpressive, especially around the eyes, and Alistair was particularly expressive in Origins, making botox-Alistair look even more odd.

Ok I do kind of agree with you there about Alistair, his face looked swollen!  His armor really stood out too... it looked so out of place.

[errant_knight]

TelvanniWarlord wrote...

errant_knight wrote...

I meant physically. There was nothing wrong with the dialogue. It was probably my favorite part of the game. Animation-wise, too. All the faces are quite unexpressive, especially around the eyes, and Alistair was particularly expressive in Origins, making botox-Alistair look even more odd.

Ok I do kind of agree with you there about Alistair, his face looked swollen!  His armor really stood out too... it looked so out of place.

My only problem with the armor was the lack of any kind of specular reflection and color, especially when compared to Meredith's armor. It looked like he found it in a dumpster. I thought it was the right style for him.

[Asch Lavigne]

Like any other game DA2 had its good and bad points. I can understand not liking the game, I did like it and yes there were plenty of things to put in the negative column. What I don't get is all the violent hate filled comments towards Bioware and EA. So you didn't like DA2, that doesn't mean you have to attack people. It's just a game.

[errant_knight]

Asch Lavigne wrote...

Like any other game DA2 had its good and bad points. I can understand not liking the game, I did like it and yes there were plenty of things to put in the negative column. What I don't get is all the violent hate filled comments towards Bioware and EA. So you didn't like DA2, that doesn't mean you have to attack people. It's just a game.

Agreed. I disliked much more than I liked, but making it personal is over the line. As are all the zeros and tens in the user reviews at Metacritic. They're useless and skew the data to the point of being useless to anyone thinking of buying the game.

[Loc'n'lol]

errant_knight wrote...

Oh, I forgot the inventory, crafting, and shopping. All were pretty much pointless. Why have items that are just junk? The inventory was no fun at all and I really hated not being able to get new thing for my companions. Runes weren't worth much and were quite boring. There was nothing to buy, so I ended up with a ton of cash. It got to the point that I only looted for the potions. Crafting... I just never did it. It was a pain in the ass. OMG, that crafting message when you found stuff. How utterly unnecessary.

I don't want to know what you thought about DAO's crafting system, inventory and enchantments, then...

[Shadow Raziel]

I thought DA II was a good game. I went in kind of tabula rasa. and accepted the game for what it is, as opposed to expecting it to be like DAO. I do understand how people can feel let down by the game however, because more than likely they had a certain expectation that it would be much like DAO. But overall I enjoyed the story and the characters. They made the world bigger than just darkspawn and Grey Wardens... Personally I feel like that is a good thing. I look forward to the future dlc's for the game. and future releases of the title.XD

[darkrose]

DoubleOhSolo wrote...

ExiledMimic wrote...

I think DA2 would have been a good expansion, but it sits so far into Origin's shadow it's silly. I didn't like the button mashing combat much. I missed the strategy of Origins in a fight. I also hated how my choices made 0 difference in the world. I get that they wanted X ending, but I would have liked to have seen my choices have some affect on the way there.

The ending... well for the story it wasn't bad. I would have liked just a little more to shave the edges off, but I'll deal with it. My major issue is that with all the repetitive areas, meaningless choice options that don't affect the world and linear game-play I really don't believe I can even manage a second play-through. I blame all of this on it being released far too soon.

I don't understand how people say your choices didn't mean anything. Throughout the entire story you could see [though admittedly at times it would be subtle] the impact of decisions you made earlier on. Remember those apostates in the caves near the coast? Kill their leader, let them live, the leader's lady friend comes back to kill you.

That's impact. 


Anyway doe. I have to say, I LOVED this game. From the minute I entered Kirkwall, I was hooked. My first playthrough clocked in at 50 hours, and I still skipped a few quests during Act One. In those hours I can honestly say I forged a connection with not only my Hawke, but the world that he was in. I think that's the biggest strength DA: II has. That personal feeling that Origins lacked. I felt as if Dragon Age Two was far more personal, from companion quests, to the main story. 

I'm having the opposite experience. I don't feel any particular connection to Hawke. The dialogue options are all about trying to guess what's going to make him sound the least like a jerk. Female Hawle is worse, because every time she opens her mouth I think, "Ew. She shouldn't sound like that." 

In contrast, by the end of the Tabris origin story, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. I'd been hit with a no-win scenario in the first hour of the game, trying to decide whether to let Vaughan live or kill him and leave my people to face the inevitable fallout. I cared so much more about Shianni than I did when Bethany died, which felt more like a Darwin Award moment than anything else. 

There's no immersion for me. I realize that if you want to set up the conflict as mages vs. templars, you'll have to handwave some things in order for a mage PC to be possible. However, when Hawke walked into the Gallows in his robe, carrying a big, obvious staff, and started chatting with a group of templars--and the only thing any of them said was, "Well, I guess you're not a templar", my suspension of disbelief kind of shattered. This is a sharp contrast with the moment in Origins when my Warden was told that she "didn't sound like an elf through the door," and I thought, "Yes! Exactly!" because I've had that conversation many, many times in the past.

There are some things I like. The idea that my companions have their own lives is cool, although I wish I didn't have to go traipsing across the city every time I want to talk to them, only to find out that I've had the one available conversation. And a couple of the NPC party members have surprised me; I went in expecting to hate Fenris, and now I'm trying to get him to hook up with my mage. And I'm definitely one of those people who appreciates removing the gender restrictions on most of the romance options; Bioware gets massive props for that from me.

Things may change if I ever get through with the endless fetch and carry and kill quests of Act 1, so I'm not making any final judgements. But so far, it's a good game that just isn't grabbing me as much as Origins.