13 réponses à ce sujet

[BiowarEA]

After finishing DA2, I look back and appreciate that monsters are actually set pieces and they don't spawn like ninjas. A common occurance in DA2 is to walk down one alley and sigh because 12 random buffoons would pop up out of nowhere and start a fight. This in a city mind you, the first year it made sense, but by the time I was Champion, common thugs still dared to attack me. Makes no ****ing sense to me. 

Unique maps are rare in DA2 as well. Recycled warehouse, caves, dungeons, even WILDERNESS. I felt this is damning evidence of a rushed product. Just look at DA 1 locales and you can see loads of difference. The Circle of Magi in Dragon Age 1 alone cannot be beat by any content in the sequel. Where was the spark of creativity that created DA1's Fade segment? Yet another proof of a rushed product. 

In short this is what Dragon Age Origins got right:

1. Their origins.
DAO created reasonably good looking RPGesque experience where you could create a character from scratch and watch it grow into an invulnerable tank through repetitive game-play, all the while the world responding to it according to how you started the game -> Yes. The Origins. In my opinion it was a unique experiment that went rather well! Even when the origins were quite limited (there being only 6 origins), they offered distinct game-plays which reflected upon your character nicely and gave a conclusively enriched and evolving story.It gave me a chance to experience the game differently. Albeit slight. Not so much in DA2. 

2. Flexible and much deeper inventory system.
Archer Warriors, Arcane Warriors, Dual Wield Warriors. All these EXISTED. It wasn't optimal, but it's there. I could make Zhevran wear heavy plate. Whyne could make a good Mage in Plate armor. This is gone in Sequel. COMPLETELY gone.

3. Somewhat good setting and party ditch mechanics.
Politics of Orzammar. The Sacred Ashes quest. The quest with the kid and blood magic. That one guy having a legitimate reason for backstabbing everyone at the Ostgar battle. He was the most realistic character in the entire game, really, with the slimy Dwarven politicians a close second. I thought most of the characters were pretty well done. Battles were challenging on Nightmare.. And the fact you could kill several followers upon meeting them was a nice touch. 

4. The Ending and Presentation
DA:O had at least explanations of what happened to each party members at the end. Speaking with them in the throne room at the end of the game, facing them as the new King of Ferelden...was a nice touch. There was nothing resolved by the end of DA2. The champion simply walked away after killing both factions, and his party split apart to god knows where. Another EA rush job.
 

[Nathan Redgrave]

...Ah, no, the lack of explanation for where the characters went was not part of any "rush job." It was simply the story not bothering to explain it. It isn't important. At all. You just want to hear it because you think it is, which it's not. Not that it would have made any sense for Varric to get into it, and he says at the beginning "I don't know where he is now!", doesn't he? That was kind of an important point.

And yes, you could do clucking retarded things with your inventory. Nobody cares. That sucks and the only people who miss it are people who are looking for things to complain about.

Otherwise, you make legitimate points. Especially the lack of unique environments; that was immensely annoying.

I do miss the origins, but I didn't think DA2 actually lost anything for their absence. If anything, the six origin stories were trying to be something they didn't really measure up to, and it was a bit overly ambitious to really succeed in the first place.

[Algus]

As far as I'm concerned, DA2's only problem is that it was rushed. I've seen lists of "missing" things and I can't help but think they would have either gotten put in or not mattered if Bioware had enough time to finish the game the way it deserved to be finished.

[lanmao]

I miss being able to interact with my party whenever I want to. I had like 2-3 conversations with any given party member throughout the entire game.

[astranger_90]

Y'know, when I first read the reviews, I wanted to believe so badly that the reuse of maps wasn't as bad as they were saying.

Christ, if I have to run through the single cave they have in the game one more time, I am going to scream.

[Tarisln]

Aside from the recycled set pieces (which bugged me to no end in ME1 as well), I don't really have anything I liked better about the first game. Sure, there were things the first game did magnificently well (Orzammar, Sacred Ashes, the Dwarf Noble origin, etc), but overall I found 2 to be a vastly stronger game with a much higher sense of agency and wonderfully detailed characters. I do wish I could have interacted with them a bit more often, though.

[UltiPup]

I'll agree with you right off the bat that enemies spawned too quickly. But hey, you have the option to deal with it. Fight enough of them and you could eradicate the problem. At least we could stop the same enemies from appearing over and over. Then again, I got a lot of levels and gold from them. So, eh, it has its ups and downs.

As for backgrounds? Eh, I never really cared. So little dungeons and caves were the same. Made it easier to transverse. There is only so much a cave can be different from another. A bit more effort yes.

I was off put that I couldn't be my own character at first, but really, I believed Hawke was my own character too. I made her personality, her voice, her appearance, how she interacted with people, her beliefs, her passions, everything. I molded her very existence. Was she funny? Serious? Cruel? I made her what she is.

I've always played Rogue so I never really got the whole specialization thing. As long as I was kicking butt and looking good, I never really cared.

You must be kidding. DA2 had such deeper choices, such thrilling characters. I can honestly say I am more attached to my party in DA2 than in Origins. I kinda hated some of the choices in Origins. Always forcing myself to go with one choice or the other solely because I want that party's help in the final battle. I could never go against the Dalish or werewolves. In DA2, I feel like I can honestly make different choices and still feel like I am doing good.

Are you forgetting that DA2's story is being told in flashback? That Varric is telling Cassandra how everything happened? Why would she care what happened to everyone? Cassandra only cares about the Champion. So, Varric only tells her what happened. What happened to everyone matters to us but not to the real audience.

[ISpeakTheTruth]

I love Origins but this has to be said. Its story was very simple and was completely predictable. You were the Warden and you were going to kill the Archedemon. They set that up in the first 10 minutes of the game. In DA2 you are only given a brief idea of what your character does and they you find out what you did by playing the game. The ending is actually a suprise. Unlike Origins which you already knew was going to happen.

Also Origins although it had good story points like the Circle, Orzammar, and the Urn all of those story points felt like stand alones like they didn't have anything to do with one another because nothing you did in one place affected anything that happened in the next. With DA2 everything that was in the story was conected and everything felt like it was part of the same world unlike Origins.

[VettoRyouzou]

For me companions Ya they were weak compared to say mass effect but they were a hell of allot better then DA2 crew

[iLark xD]

-Well I hate that you stay in kirkwall for like 75% of the game (DA2)
-I hate that Plate armors are now restricted to different classes
-What I really hate is that my companions are restricted to use, useful armor/weapons because
of "restriction: BlahBlah Hawke"
I hate that it wasnt really a sequal, it was based on a different character
What I also hate is that the bastard blood mage makes your mom an ugly troll >_<
The only thing I loved from DA2 was Combat system<3

Oh and p.s. I hate that Sandals enchantments dont make your weapons look enchanted, it looks so dull :/

[NRO TYN]

Im sorry but im gonna have to rob you of your sig =)

[Mmw04014]

The way companions were handled was a lot better in Origins. I actually cared about them and felt like we we're all a team. They had opinions that made sense and not every conversation you had with them was about some super important issue they were dealing with. You could just have lighthearted interaction as well. It was through these conversations that you found out more about your companions. That made them feel like more than just talking heads that represent one viewpoint.

Yes, the system had it's flaws. You could spam them with gifts and they instantly loved you no matter what you did. You could end up exhausting all the dialogue options before the halfway point of the game and then you have nothing left to talk about. These things could easily be fixed by the player though. Just refrain from giving companions tons of gifts and on later playthroughs, I was able to spread every companions dialogue out over the game by only picking one dialogue options every times I visited camp.

I think DA2 saw all these (in my view) minor issues and took them too far to the extreme. Now, new dialogue usually shows up after you've moved along the main story and while this sounds like a good idea, it was poorly executed. Companions don't seem like they have very much to say on anything other than the viewpoint they are supposed to represent. Romances also felt awkward because it seemed that every time a flirt option would come up, it was when the companion was talking about some heavy issue. They weren't natural at all to me because no normal conversation was ever had. Also, I don't like that I have to wait for our companions to have something to say. Sometimes, I want to just go visit them to talk about something and it should be my fault if I end up exhausting all the dialogue. Gaider said that there was as much dialogue for the companions as there was in Origins and I believe him, it just didn't feel like it.

So that's really my biggest complaint. I could excuse all the other problems this games suffers from if the companions had been as good as Origins. It's a shame really, because I find some of these character to be really interesting. It's too bad that I just don't feel as connected to them as I did with the Origins companions.

[Vandicus]

ISpeakTheTruth wrote...

I love Origins but this has to be said. Its story was very simple and was completely predictable. You were the Warden and you were going to kill the Archedemon. They set that up in the first 10 minutes of the game. In DA2 you are only given a brief idea of what your character does and they you find out what you did by playing the game. The ending is actually a suprise. Unlike Origins which you already knew was going to happen.

Also Origins although it had good story points like the Circle, Orzammar, and the Urn all of those story points felt like stand alones like they didn't have anything to do with one another because nothing you did in one place affected anything that happened in the next. With DA2 everything that was in the story was conected and everything felt like it was part of the same world unlike Origins.

Exactly this. I have to say I was very disappointed that Dragon Age Origins was advertisde as a dark fantasy game, but the game completely lacks tragic elements unless the player actively seeks to have people to die. There isn't anything at all compared to the impact of Leandra's death in DA:O and everything had an optimal everyone goes home happy ending. The choices were always straightforward and obvious in DA:O, good or evil. DA:O was a great fantasy game, but it stuck with the standard fairy tale hero format. DA2 did something else, they did dark fantasy, and they did it better than I ever could've imagined. The content was much more solid in DA2 and did not have random lyrium smuggling, wolf killing, collecting random stolen goods, for side quests, it generally had side quests where the player had a number of choices that would eventually impact them. The story is a paragon in terms of tragedy, to those of you who know what the word means in literature.

In terms of solid content, I think DA2 had more than DA:O. A lot of DA:O on repeat run throughs seemed like filler work, such as fighting random thugs in an arena so I could get coin for some random item I wanted. Didn't feel that way in DA2.

[BiowarEA]

ISpeakTheTruth wrote...

 With DA2 everything that was in the story was conected and everything felt like it was part of the same world unlike Origins.

Did we even play the same game? DA2s plot is a jumbled mess with no coherent factor to carry you forward except to see how AWESOME Hawke gets after the next awful timeskip. Really it's like the slice-of-life anime of videogames. From the trailers it seemed like there was some big plot with Flemeth and Morrigan or the Qunari, but NO, these are all saved for the DLC! There's always a short-term goal for every section between the timeskips, but the problems and characters that are involved in these mini stories are almost always introduced in the very same gameplay section, so you never feel really involved in these tasks.

In short, the main quests feel and play like side quests and the whole game seems like a skeleton ready for the meat that is DLC. Then there's of course the removal of any moral ambiguity and gray area choices. Every person Hawke faces is either good or bad except until the very end when the devs decided that there simply wasn't enough EPIC BOSS BATTLE in the finale and decided to go full retard with the first enchanter too. Any problems that arise can be solved by turning the offending party to strawberry jam by poking them with knives. A few good moments in the game, like Varric's personal quest, but they're hardly enough to stop the inanity of everything else.

II That Burn In Ya Ass II wrote...

Im sorry but im gonna have to rob you of your sig =)

Be my guest!