I just finished my first game of Dragon Age 2, and I have to say I was extremely unimpressed. This is going to be somewhat meandering just because the problems are all interwoven and compound upon one another.
I'll also get what I thought was good out of the way:
-Elf and Qunari design changes
-Voice of Female Hawke (but not male) and all the voice actors of companions
-Game dramatically less defective in terms of bugs compared to Origins (which crashed non-stop), at least after one patch. This of course, could be due to the lack of content/decision paths that could easily go buggy...
-The sort of Art Deco cutout-ish designs within the storytelling narratives.
So here's a bit of what I disliked.
- Reused levels. Though it is said time and time again, it needs reiteration until something is done about it. Obviously this would be more difficult now that the game is released, but it's their own fault; the chance to diversify the maps, dungeons, houses, and so on was there when creating it. There's never any point to rushing a game out, and that is the only reasonable explanation for the wholesale recycling of maps.
As it stands, if I see that goddamn mansion layout/cave system/rickety warehouse one more time...apart from knowing that the chest will be behind the bookshelf every time, this recycling is simply grating on every level. It destroys the atmosphere of the game when apparently every last person in Kirkwall has the same house as well.
A subcategory of this recycling is that the game has all the events happen in the exact same places on the exact same maps. Even if a new cave is suddenly available, it's the same as the old caves in layout. There was perhaps nothing more drudging than scouring the same maps by day, then by night, and then doing it all over again and again and again when the plot advances. Again invoking the RP element to this, surely people would stop setting up their camps and ambushes in the Wounded Coast on top of the MOUNTAIN OF CORPSES that had surely accumulated due to my exploits.
- In the end, the fact that my actions never seemed to really effect anything and resulted in the same outcome. This combined with the 'Waves of nobodies attacking' style of combat saw my Hawke character gradually devolved from 'Sarcastic but doing the right thing' to simply causing the largest quantity of trouble in an attempt to have more people to murder. Because that's what you are really, an unstoppable killer. My usual party just gave emphasis to this: Anders and Merril are both off the deep end and Varric doesn't seem to care what I do. There are even dialogues from the characters pointing out your murderous proficiently.
Ot doesn't matter than I completely splatter the enemy so quickly (Cleave+whirlwind, fireball, lightning storm, and Varic dong something) that Hawke and co even re sheath their weapons, another wave of randoms still falls out of the sky. Similarly it doesn't matter that I save any one mage and slaughter all that stand before me (or what I say to them either) they'll still probably just turn into an abomination. In the end both the Templars and the Mages failed to elicit any sympathy from me.
Again falling into a subcategory from this, why the hell does Orsino suddenly and randomly turn into a Harvester. Firstly, why? Judging from my ingame exploits of turning anything alive into smaller pieces, why should he be worried? Secondly, why a Harvester - it just seems completely random and out of the blue.
- The game overall was repetitive partially for the above reasons, especially due to the shear amount of side-quest padding. In Dragon Age Origins your side quests, numerous as they were, often took you to new and interesting locations, and had tangible effects on the outcome of the game. In fact, a lot of the 'side quests' were more or less interwoven - like the Urn of Andraste; you don't need it, but it's a good quest, and has ramifications. In Dragon Age II, you're back to the same damn mansion again and again and again.
- The dialogue wheel is rubbish. Get rid of it, please. it makes no sense. The blurb presented for what you end up saying is usually inaccurate, often utterly random, and sometimes the opposite of what I thought it was meant to say. In Dragon Age Origins you had more options, and because you knew what they were you could say whatever you deemed appropriate to the conversation or situation. In Dragon Age 2 the fact that there is a Good/Sarcastic/Disgruntled dialogue wheel makes it feel more shoehorned, and thereby more rarefied into these stereotypes.
- The catch phrase (grating) of 'press a button and something awesome happens' simply isn't true. In this case I'm talking about the talents. My warrior simply has less 'awesome buttons', less activated abilities. I'm comparing My DAII Warrior to my Dual Wielding warrior from Origins. Or any mage in Origins to any mage in DAII - Inferno Tempest Blizzard Quake is no more.
I can't really comment on the rogues since in DAII Varic didn't really seem to count as one - he was a lock picking artillery piece and all the stealth talent trees useless. Additionally, I found Isabella rather useless. Finally, what happens just isn't really that awesome. It just the same thing time and time again - to be sure Origins was much the same it this respect. The catch phrase just doesn't justify itself.
- Items. What the hell. When you can't change the armour of anyone bar the main character, what's the point in getting inundated in pieces of it. I spent far too much time hoarding bits and pieces until I realised they were actually never going to be used. I spent almost the entire game with just two different armour sets anyway. Because all the character classes are so overly specialised now (I liked being able to open with a volley or arrows) all the weapons similarly become redundant that much faster. Similarly, far too much time was spent on sorting through half a dozen 'Amulet' and 'Ornate Ring' s. Give then different names or something. Finally on this topic, I enjoyed playing dress up with my characters. Now they are boring and wear the same thing forever. Except Anders who decided to dye everything black one morning.
And on a similar note, on hard mode everything was so easy that the health/stamina/lyrium potions picked up from dead enemies effective sufficed for the entire game (bar the Arashok or High Dragon). Most of the items in stock (i.e, poisons) simply weren't necessary since you'd win quick enough anyway.
- And from there on that note, I found the tactics screen completely pointless since I never needed to actually set it.
- While the dialogue in general was good, I felt it was often a degree or two below that of Origins. Far more instances of trying to force humour,and predictability.
Little said that hasn't already been said I suppose.
Modifié par CMKMStephens, 11 avril 2011 - 09:58 .
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