2797 réponses à ce sujet

[michaftw79]

Dragonage 2 is a decent enough game but falls far short of the high standards Bioware normally sets and that set by origins.  I believe this is down to the fact that it has moved away from the core fundamentals of what makes a great RPG.

1.  The story.  Although lines are well written and voice acting is superb, the plot is fairly weak and the ending is dissappointing.  The whole every rebelling mage is a blood mage / demon is tiresome, likewise (spolier) so is the true nature of Orsino and Meredith- the same objectives could have been achieved without them going to such drastic lengths.  The flow of the main plot seemed more disjointed than origins, maybe because the direction is not so strong, but sometimes I lost track of what really mattered and why I was doing a particular quest and who the people were in the quest.  Progression and sense of purpose was stronger in origins.

2.  Exploration.  The arguement about recycled environments has been done to death, but if you are going to base a game in one city, at least change the layout of warehouses and abodes etc.  More variety within the city is needed, a park area would have been nice and perhaps opening up new areas later on in different acts.  RPGs are exciting due to the sense of adventure of varied and exciting new environments that are beautiful and unknown- sadly this pretty much ended when you were a third of the way through the game.

3.  Choices.  Sadly the only choices seemed to be tone or were quite trivial.  Unlike previous bioware games or games such as the witcher you don't really alter the course of the game.  Origins was linear too, but there were big choices throughout the game.  The game therefore often felt like a movie and the vaneer of choice was actually quite insulting to the serious RPG gamer who likes to see consequences which dramatically alter the course of the game.

4.  Characters.  The distinctive look was for the better, the banter was good, but Aveline and Carver/Bethany were the only characters which seemed to do something with their lives during the 10 year span of the game.  Whilst I liked the characters, I never quite bonded or missed them as much as Alistair and half the other cast in origins.  Likewise the supporting cast was not as strong as Origins, a mentor like Duncan and a human baddy like Loghain who had reason for their actions and actually caused you to pause before deciding their fate, adding a level of depth not seen in DA2.  In DA2 Meredith and Osino (spoiler) are under demonic influence and so are one dimensional baddies you can take out without twinging your conscience.  I remember finding out a workmate was a fan of Origins and we were lost in conversation about how wonderful the characters were in Origins- we did'nt care what the rest of the commuters thought of us as we chatted on a busy London tube ride home.  I know I could not have ther same conversation about DA2 and that's sad.

Really things like graphical style, wave combat, boss health and assaisins in plate backflipping seem trivial compared to the fundamentals I've just listed, although I must admit I do like to give my companions new armour sets!

EA are sales driven and DA2 has generated more sales than Origins, but I'm hopeful this won't translate to the 3rd installment being like the last.  DA2 is one of the few games released this year which has good critic review scores but bad user metacritic scores (from 4000 reviews).  I think the sucess of DA2 was fans of the first buying the game plus the new design attracting a wider crowd.  However fans of the first have responded negatively in droves which will affect sales of the 3rd installment if Bioware don't return to their traditional RPG values - well that is what I hope for anyway.

I'm sure the plot of DA2 is parrallelling the struggle with EA anyway.  EA (the templars) are trying to put constraints on Bioware staff (the mages) and force them into a mold, but some revoluntionary like David Gaider? - I'm struggling here!( Anders/Hawke) is going to a start a massive revolt which sees Bioware regain their freedom from their overbearing handlers and once again deliver great RPGs for the people!  Well that's the fairy tale anyway.

[Rolenka]

The icons for the dialogue wheel really helped it a lot and solved much of my concern with it. The only thing I would add now is that I want to see in advance how my groupmembers feel about the dialogue options.

I get that getting to know the NPCs is part of the adventure, but as it is now I find myself often saving and reloading (or alt-tabbing to the wiki) to make sure I squeezed all the friendship/rivalry I could out of a conversation.

Part of this is that the points aren't always awarded consistently. Sometimes something you know a character would like/dislike boosts their friendship/rivalry, and sometimes it has no effect at all, even when you think it should. Sometimes the points are totally unexpected -- like when Aveline supports summary execution, and disapproves of the rule of law (quest spoiler in link).

This reached highly frustrating levels with Morrigan.

I find myself loading and reloading and going through conversations again and again, and I don't like it one bit.

I don't think I would lose anything from the experience by knowing in advance what my partymembers think. In fact, it might help me get to know them better.

[Feanor_II]

Finally yesterday I finished the game. Well this may be long, I hope my english is good enough, sorry if it isn't in advance. I hope it helps the developers

It's sad to me to finally have to recognice that it has been a disappointing game. My disapointment focuses in 5 major issues which ruined my gaiming experience, I wil divide them en 5 periods in which each of them emerged. Oh wait, I must note that I am PC player:
- Introduction (Game anouncement): First blow, fixed character, suppression of Origins plot lines. Qunari redesign (I will expand on this later)
- Prologue (Launch of the demo): Suppression of tactical camera, anyway I was seriouly consirering to cancle my preorder, but after reading a piece of news on a gaming site where someone from DA team said that the demo was not complete and that the tactical camera and other "hardcore" stuff would make their return on their retail version I decided to continue with it.
- Act 1: Restrictions, restrictions, RESTRICTIONS. swords and shields restricted to warriors, staves to mages, bows for archers and daggers for melee rogues, dual weapons only for melee rogues. IMPOSIBILITY TO MANAGE PARTY'S ARMOR.
- Act 2: By Act 2 I got really irritated with the map reusing. Ireally think that this must be due to time limits, because anyway I can't undestand how could anyone think this was a good idea.
- Act 3: By the last part of the game I got really frustrated with ENEMY WAVES. These was one of the things I most disliked about the game, but by the ending of the game it was to much, the number of waves per combat and number of enemies per wave went beyond sanity...... This totally ruins the tactical combat and is totally infuriating.

There have been other issues that didn't "ruin" the experience but affected negatively to it:
- Art direction I really prefered the art direction of DA:O it looked more realistic and gritty. the art direction looked to cartonish and infantile (exploding bodies, "awesome" movements, where I see a clear influence from anime)
- Qunari redesign: I want to mention this appart, I must be one of the few who prefer the old humanized qunari, again, I see this redisegn with the intention to follow the "rule of the cool". Also, while playing DA:O I always imagined that Thedas was at a development and cultural level similar to the european Middle Age, I always imagined that (aside from their ultra-colectivism) the Qunari were some steps ahead (like the Rennaisance), with this new design they look like a undeveloped tribal society.
- Suppresion of skills and fatigue: These added more depth and complexity to the game, more variables to take into account and to manage.
- Suppresion of 2nd weapon ser, again less flexibility.
- Friendship/rivalry system, it's more "light" than the approval disapproval system from DA:O
- Gifts system: DA:O was more unpredictable with it, a not suitable gifts could have a negative outcome so we really need to know aour partners to find the appropiate gift.
- Characters, I'll expand on it later
- Male Hawke, I found his voice acting totally subpar.
- 75% of the story takes place inside the city of Kirkwall..... but the city looks very small to bear this "plot weight" also, the game expands though 10 years, there can't be seen any evolution in the city.
- It seems that my decisions didn't have much impact......
- Bisxuality: I have nothing against it, but it is a bit forced that
whenever you are nice to a character he/she instantly starts trying to
have sex with you (eeeerrr..... Andres?)
- Too fast combat, combined
with the removal of tactical camera it makes really hard to have he
control of what's going on in the battlefield
- FedEx quests: Random items for random characters ("Your bottle of mud mesere", "Maker bless you!")

I might be a bit hard with the game, but not everything has been bad, let's see:
- The talents had less items per brach, but I liked the idea of giving them a tree structure.
- The story felt very disconnected..... but I recognize that the ending of Act 2 and Act 3 were trully epic, also the day by day of a hero to be was a good idea, unfortunately it was not well executed.... and the tensions between mages and templars had much more potential.
- If male Hawke's voice was bad..... Fem Hawke's was FANTASTIC.
- It was nice to see companions visiting each others, I could have been more used.

Characters are a crucial element of this kind of games:
- I found Merrill trully stupid and annoing.
- I found Isabella quite interesting at the begining, but that changed as I advanced in the game, I found her quite childish and superficial.
- Sebastian and Varric were good but they had many high and lows and I never got too interested on them
- Fenris and Anders were a bit ahead of the rest, Anders trullyfailed me at the end of the game so I ended.......
- Bethany, well, looked like a nice girl, that's why I have favoritism towards her, a nice character, better developed could have been great
- Well as you can see I didn't develop strong bonds with the companions, why? mostly because you never get the chance to empathyze with them, the camp a quest time conversations from DA:O were gone and we only could chat with them because of their personal quests, ME series also don't have as much as conversations with partners as DAO had, but why do they have a higher steem from fans (also it's true that ME games are much shorter than DA:O)? well, because the conversations were deeper.
- By the end of Act 2 Meredith and Orsino become central parts of the story, but this chacters are very superficially developed, I find the characters of First Enchanter Iving and Knight Command Gregoir more appealing.... and they appeared much less in DA:O!
- Oh wait I forgot something...... Oh yes of course, the finest for the last part: AVELINE I really loved this character, nothing to envy from anyone form DA:O, she ended becaming the base and main support of my team.


After finnishing the game I felt nostagic and installed DA:O after a long time..... I thoght that playing as a female, rogue city elf could be good..... Oh it's such a great game! I really don't think that DA2 it's actually a bad game (but neither is an outstanding one), but looking to DA:O I can't help to think what DA:O could have achived if DA continued improving and adding more elements to the DA:O formula instead of, as we say in my country, "trying to reinvent the wheel"

Modifié par Feanor_II, 11 juin 2011 - 11:29 .

[Serpieri Nei]

quaresma_Pt wrote...




Guys very good review. See it. If you dont like the bgning skip it. Tell me what you think about it.

Interesting review 

[ddv.rsa]

The world never seemed to respond to your actions. Despite everything Hawke got up to, the innkeeper never bothered to update his rumors in 7 years. Tying in with that is how so few choices from Origins are even acknowledged. Don't get me wrong - I'm not asking for the game to branch off wildly. All I want is acknowledgement. If you look at ME2, almost every little thing Shepard does in ME1 is recognised in some way. You are shown that things you did still have meaning. In DA2 no one even bothered to mention basic stuff like that my Warden was a dwarf.

Choices needn't have a big impact, but there's no excuse for not even acknowledging them. ME2 showed it can be done.

Modifié par ddv.rsa, 11 juin 2011 - 12:29 .

[ddv.rsa]

Phaelducan wrote...

You ever wonder if the DA2 team is secretly miffed that ME2 just absolutely killed it?

I think they must be wishing they'd paid more attention to ME2. ME2 took a successful RPG, trimmed the boring and repetitive elements, and released something even better. The tonns of positve feedback and reviews speaks to their success.

DA2 was trying to do the same thing on an even bigger scale. They should've paid more attention to their colleauges who'd just finished pulling it off.

[Apathy1989]

Phaelducan wrote...

You ever wonder if the DA2 team is secretly miffed that ME2 just absolutely killed it?

ME2 was a brillient game. They took the great ME1, trimmed the boring and repetative elements, redesigned the classes and combat for better flow, and released a far more fun game to play. My only complain is it suffers the middle film syndrome of being a filler plot - completely skippable in the grand scheme of things when compared to the first and final games. ME2 shines for developing a bucket of characters though.


Now, on to DA2.

The good:
 - Development of skills. Abilities to add extra functionality to skills and improve them as you level up was a good decision. Ultimately in origins you end up with a collection of skills you never use.
 - Faster combat. Origins was terribly slow to watch. Every sword blow and arrow seemed to take years to move. We have a pause function, so we don't need slow combat to go with it.
 - Qunari, Elf and Dwarf redesign. My opinion is that they all look great. Elves and Qunari no longer look like humans. Qunari look more like Ogres and scary beyond reputation.
 - Good voice acting and writing generally. On an individual basis, line by line, its great. I love most of the companions, or at least feel adequit emotions given the time spent with them.
 - Friendship/Rivalry system, and Personality system. Coersion skill was silly in DAO. I much prefer the development of a character towards a different personality, and reaping the benefits in conversations later.

The bad:
 - Pacing of story is scattered and slow. You rarely feel you have an objective besides killing the next wave.
 - Enemies are all insane. No moral dilemmas since they are all blood mages, bandits, abominations or simply nuts.
 - Darkspawn generally look too simple and light, no corruption.
 - Constant reuse of the same caves and dungeons.
 - Hostile mages and rogues being instant-kill gamebreakers. Rather than debilitating your team with hexes, poisons, etc they simply kill your entire team. No way to work around them, you just have to kill them first or reload. Curse of Mortality from hostile mages, crushing prison, and others were great to recieve and work around.

The ugly (bad but I can live with it):
 - Rated PG romances.
 - Bodies exploding into a million pieces from sword strikes.
 - No open-book conversations with companions. I did like learning alot about companions in origins with the direct conversations, while in DA2 you have to glean it over years and still not know much.
 - Anders and Fenris are both nutty guys for people who are attracted to men. No sane options there.
 - Reduced complexity from reserve % rather than set mana, and no fatigue. Similarly with many skills, which use % rather than hard numbers.
 - I would have prefered if skill upgrades were only for CCC (condition or exploit), reduced mana/stamina costs, rather than making a skill not rubbish.

[colata]

Most suggestions here are very good and thorough.

Though I'd really like to state the grim fact to come in the future that most of these superb suggestions would live only in this very thread.

EA's grave desire for earning in short term would never let bioware to develop something as time consuming and devoted project like DA:O or any previous bioware's instant classics.

I'd like to state that bioware would never make another great games like those in the past.


I am sorry to tell the truth, but anyone with slightest knowledge of how this game business work already know it.
Almost nothing can change this dismal trend, it's s\\bad from gamer's point of view.

Maybe it's for the best to place some of fans hopes for another promising develpoers who's not yet compromised.


Every lying personnel knows it, but trying to hide it.
Apparently.
So apparently obvious like former president bush's bad lies about war in middle east.

Modifié par colata, 11 juin 2011 - 11:12 .

[ddv.rsa]

Is BW still checking this thread?

[ddv.rsa]

colata wrote...

Most suggestions here are very good and thorough.

Though I'd really like to state the grim fact to come in the future that most of these superb suggestions would live only in this very thread.

EA's grave desire for earning in short term would never let bioware to develop something as time consuming and devoted project like DA:O or any previous bioware's instant classics.

I'd like to state that bioware would never make another great games like those in the past.


I am sorry to tell the truth, but anyone with slightest knowledge of how this game business work already know it.
Almost nothing can change this dismal trend, it's sbad from gamer's point of view.

Maybe it's for the best to place some of fans hopes for another promising develpoers who's not yet compromised.


Every lying personnel knows it, but trying to hide it.
Apparently.
So apparently obvious like former president bush's bad lies about war in middle east.

Well, ME2 came out after the EA takeover and it was still solid gold. They probably contributed, but DA2's problems don't  begin and end with EA. They made some good changes but also took away a lot of what made Origins great. Hopefully they'll pay attention to feedback and combine the best of both for DA3.

Modifié par ddv.rsa, 11 juin 2011 - 12:24 .

[Cody]

quaresma_Pt wrote...




Guys very good review. See it. If you dont like the bgning skip it. Tell me what you think about it.

Joe is an idiot who can't make a solid review to save his life anymore. He doesn't get his facts straight and doesn't do a good in depth look at the games he reviews before reviewing them. He is like a half cocked child. Jumping up at saying their opinion before getting all their facts straight.

A little tip to Bioware, take 2 years or more to actually make and polish a game. Don't get cocky and say that your working with a system your used too. Or that you have been working on the story for some time. Because that doesn't cut it. As evident by the reused areas, lack of noticable change in the areas over the tears, bugs, and so on.

[Madax132]

Loved about every part of it, just got one criticism.

My save file is damaged and bioware hasn't responded for 3 months to many complaints of it, good 14 hours but ultimately a waste not as well of a waste of $60.

[kazuya246]

Dear Bioware,
Please stop designing the fade with that weird annoying blurry focus. I understand that it is the world of spirits and dreams and dreams are often unclear, but this hurts my eyes. You could use some other visuals to depict that we are in the fade.

[Elrena]

Perhaps it is a little
late, given how long the game has been available for purchase now,
but I wanted to spent a while summing up the pro's and con's of
Dragon Age II, so that I could cover the right aspects of the game
and narrow down what I liked and what I didn't.




When I bought Dragon
Age II, I went into it with very high expectations of a fantastic
game. I did not expect Origins 2.0.

To begin with, I
was enthralled with the game. I loved the personality of my Hawke
(and her lips, thank you graphics upgrade) and her skill with her
staff when she immolated the Darkspawn in the prologue. As I moved on
into Act One, I was still very happy. I loved the fact that you
arrive in Kirkwall on a boat and get to see it happen, for example.
However, when I finished Act One (which was wonderful) I was
incredibly surprised to find out that I'd skipped an entire three
years of my characters life. I shrugged this off, figuring that I
still had seven or so to play through and dived right back into the
game. Which is when I started to get a little irritated.

To begin with, the
recycling of environments is horrible and in some cases, came off as
a little lazy. The map system showed routes to objectives that
weren't there, doors that didn't open and passageways that were
actually walls. I spent so much time trying to just find my way
around and it could have been made much simpler with a DA:O styled
map. Secondly, after meeting all my companions in Act One, I expected
there to have been some development in their relationship with my
Hawke over that three year jump, but in most cases (Varric being the
exception, he and my Hawke seemed to hava a comfortable and wonderful
camaraderie that had sprung up over the years) this was not the case
and conversations felt as though they were just being resumed from
Act One. This was especially prominent with Anders and Fenris.


On the subject of
Anders...what happened? I understand that he's been through a lot
since Awakenings and that melding with Justice has naturally forced
him to take a turn to the dour, but it was a lot like I was being
introduced to a brand new character that happened to resemble him (in
a much more attractive older brother sort of way) and shared the same
name. Some of his lines were sickeningly sweet (but I ate them right
up, even as I cringed) while at times he came off as a gigantic
hypocrite, especially on the topic of the Qunari.


But back to my
in-game journey. I finished Act Two, then watched in incredulous
horror as I was shoved forward another three years. At this
point, I was a little angry. The way the developers had been talking
on the forums, I had expected time jumps of hours, days, possibly
months as the main storyline warranted it, but that I would still
experience 10 years of story. The marketing promised that
ten year journey and, by the time I had finished my first
playthrough, it had failed to deliver for me. There was the potential
for so much more character development and I was disappointed at how
shallow some of the interactions were between my Hawke and the
companions. Whenever I did get the chance to speak with
them, I savoured it, but it still felt like a rush job that left me
with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth. I really missed being able
to speak with my companions at will and there were times that it
would have been appropriate, such as after completing "All that
Remains", where my Hawke (and I) really felt like talking to
someone. Or getting blind drunk with Varric and Isabela in the Hanged
Man.

Overall, I enjoyed
the main storyline, though it was convoluted at times and in some
cases, a bit of a reach. I 'heard' about the plight of the mages, but
didn't really get to experience it first hand a lot of the time, even
as a mage, which removed me from the story a bit. When I finished the
game, I was incredulous at how bad things had gotten without me
really seeing any major evidence of it other than words
and the odd grandstanding templar. The way everyone was talking, I
expected massacres in the street, bloody battle in the Circle tower.
Anders was hardly a reliable source of information, after
all.

Graphically, the
game was beautiful, even on the mid settings (which is all I can run
at the moment) and similar enough to Origins that it was clearly
related to the first game and a nice visual continuation of the
franchise. I loved the detailing on armour and spent many a minute
staring wistfully at the downy glory of Varric's chest hair and
wishing there was a dialogue option that would let me stroke it.


The dialogue tree
was novel at the start, since I hadn't played Mass Effect and had no
preconceptions as to its value. However, after playing Mass Effect 2
thanks to the sequel celebration (thank you so much, Bioware!) I
realised why it had bothered so many people. For me, it wasn't the
inclusion of the dialogue tree in the DA universe, it was the icons
that showed the tone of my response. It was easy enough to guess that
tone from the paraphrase of dialogue shown and it felt a bit like a
developer was leading me gently by the hand through the game to make
sure I didn't deviate from my set personality to much. I did
like the sarcastic icon, however. The resemblance to Troll Face made
me laugh more than once. The romantic interaction icons were a tad
too obvious for me, as well. They were always placed on the bottom
left side of the tree, away from the vanilla options (as if the
'heart' icon wasn't a dead giveaway). I liked guessing in Origins
what would go down well with a companion and start a romance, but
sometimes it felt as though my Hawke had been handed a romance novel
with Fabio on the cover to read her lines from, so gooey and
lovey-dovey were they. It didn't feel very authentic, at least not
with Anders. I kept expecting to hear Disney music and twittering
birds serenading their Twoo Wub™ as they strode of into the
flame-lit sunset.

Combat was at times
fun, at other times simply ludicrous. Nothing bothered me more than
seemingly winning a battle, only for more enemies to fall from
the sky! I might be more accepting if they jumped down from
nearby handy roof terraces, at least offering the pretence of an
ambush, but no. Straight down, out of the Kirkwall sky. That was
abysmal encounter engineering for me and didn't feel like it belonged
in an RPG. Also, the rogue moves made me feel like I'd fed an
hyperactive squirrel an energy drink, the way Isabela hopped back and
forth across the battlefield. I can understand the wish to make it
more fluid and graceful, but I think it ventured into preternatural
ninja territory, because some of the moves she pulled should have
seen her locked away in the Circle tower. The exception to this,
again, was Varric. His combat animations were all class. Playing a
mage who deals death with fire and ice is incredibly entertaining and
made me feel nicely god-like without being over-powering.

There were a number
of technical issues, one of the most annoying being the tendency of
the game to crash in cut-scenes, which happened a lot. I
actually don't know how my Hawke's story ends, because the epilogue
crashes every time I try to find out.
As I said in the beginning
of my review, I did not expect Origins when I began this game. I did
expect a game with a fully fleshed out story that carried over ten
years. I didn't feel like I got that once I had finished my first
playthrough.

I got a great game,
that held my attention and at times carved emotional responses out of
my chest with a blunt and jagged knife, but it lacked
something...some deeper layer of immersion that I think could have
easily been found if a little more time had been spent developing the
game before it was released. Maybe another year or so, just to work
out the glitches and deepen the story. I'm sure that we would have
been willing to wait, and perfectly happy to bide the time with more
DLC and story expansion for Origins and Awakenings. I think that
waiting longer would have just heightened the anticipation for DA2
even more and therefore generated more marketing buzz and thus more
profit when the game launched, but that's just my opinion and I make
no claim to be a marketing expert.
I hope that DA3 isn't released
for a long time, at least 3 years, to give the writers and developers
all the time they need to craft a beautiful RPG game that will breath
back that essential spark into the world of Thedas and deepen the
story. I think that it could benefit by returning some of the aspects
that made Origins so great, like the conversations between your
followers, the inventory system and item descriptions and the map
layout (but I liked the night/day cycle, so feel free to keep that
../../../images/forum/emoticons/wink.png).




In summary:

• Loved the
  graphics, voiced Hawke and the art direction of the game. (except
  for redesigned Zevran and Alistair. Alistair looked like he got
  punched in the nose several times between Origins and his cameo)
  Took me a while to get used to the new elf designs (can anyone say
  Avatar? Colour Merril blue
  and make her blood-writing glow gold, you've got a Na'avi, ladies
  and gentlemen) but I grew to like them. Except with Zevran. I had to
  close my eyes so I could just listen to him talk, rather than
  flinch. Couldn't he have been a genetic oddity? I understand why you
  did it, but...
  
• Loved most combat,
  particularly mage, but not dagger-wielding rogue so much.
  
• Loved the base
  personalities of all my companions. Except for Carver. He was
  annoying and rude. Which I suppose was rather realistic.
• Enjoyed the
  romance (though I've only done Anders' so far), but I think they
  could have been fleshed out a bit more, given the supposed scope of
  the game. Need Varric romance for DA3.
• Hated
  parachuting enemies. Really did. I don't know if this bothered
  anyone else as much as it did me, though I will admit that I laughed
  when dwarves fell from the sky, confirming that the suspicions of
  that Duster in Origins were correct and that you really can
  fall into the sky...and come back down again.
  
• 
  Needed more content. 10 years of game would have been nice
  
• 
  Repeated environments got stale fast. Really fast.
• 
  Most of the writing was brilliant, (looking at you, Mary Kirby!) and
  the voice acting was superb. There were only a few places where
  things fell a little flat for me, like after 'All that Remains',
  when there wasn't that much in the way of an emotional reaction. A
  random encounters, like Isabela hustling Hawke off to the brothel
  for a night of 'relaxation', or Varric telling Hawke stories to
  distract them.
  
• 
  Animation was beautiful. Varric twirling an arrow made me squeal out
  loud, while watching Flemeth drop a screaming Darkspawn had my jaw
  dropping.
  
• 
  Overall score: 6.5/10. Here's to DA3, Wardens and Hawkes!

[ItachiBR]

Good:

LOL took me a few minutes to think about it but...

Graphics: are better than Origins (if you are the kind of player who play a supposedly  RPG because of GRAPHICS that's the right game for you).

Combat : is faster just like God of War just press the same 3 buttons over and over again and that's is done (ops actually you have to use strategy in GOW on some fights but don't worry about this here this is a "RPG" not a strategy game)

I think that's it...

The BAD

Maps: ctr+c, ctrl+v hey can i get a job on bioware "art" design or whatever department take care of that?I'm real good on that too...

Combat: are the enemies being beamed down from Normandy ?Or maybe a reaper ship?Where is the strategy when the enemies just show up from nothing...

Companions: They are boring not appeal at all maybe a little Varren that's is...

Romance: Good luck you may think about going ****** on this one, a **** a shemale soldier and a skinny crazy ugly elf sorry but i "stick" with my sister if you guys release a DLC for about $1.99 with this option i try to play again just to reach on the sex scene...

Quests: TONS of useless quests worth of a CHAMPION lol...

Choices in game: Press ESC and choose quit or hit ALT+F4 because the ones in game are null except for 2 or 3 close to the end of the game....

I feel like Bioware hook up the old players very well with the demo showing Flameth speaking about Morrigan enjoy because that's the only connection with Origins in the game and the game is for wannabee RPG players who like pressing buttons and colorful graphics and easy choices for theses players i recommend playing Origins, or google "what is a real rpg" before defending DA2 because this game is anything besides a REAL RPG.

Try not releasing DA3 in less than 3 years or make a baby rushed edition like DA2 and a RPG edition for the real players....and think very well about DA3 because next time the RPG players will not pre-order the game because of a video or useless items in game we will remember DA2 and we will not fall again for that, so choose between your reputation of great RPG makers or enjoy your new customers while you lose the old and loyal ones like me.

Modifié par ItachiBR, 12 juin 2011 - 03:59 .

[Uccio]

Quick note: armors/clothes/weapons. After receiving all the champion goods the character looks like it has been pulled out of the WoW. Please do not use these exaggerated models anymore. The character looks like a crossbreed between colourfull candy and metal porcupine. Who in their right mind would wear such outfit which would get them stuck in every corner let alone in a combat. Also, some of the two handed swords looked like giant bread knifes. At times it seemed that my character had a shower howering over his head. A touch of "reality" would be appreciated with the items.

edit: also about the mages. How come every blood mage turns into monsters who look like toxic avenger? Wasn´t there a time where the old imperium had blood mages all around and they did just fine. What changed in the game world to make it so hard to use this brand of magic. It makes me wonder why would anyone use blood magic if they end up possessed looking like a mutant monsters. It is a bit too much to have every run away mage turn into blood magic if the result is as shown.

Modifié par Ukki, 13 juin 2011 - 05:44 .

[MacNille]

i can say this about the game: I gave it 58/100. It didn't feelt like Dragon Age to me. I hate the new art desgin and the story have some good parts, but it's plot holes is bigger then Highlander 2: The Quckning! The combat is ok but i didn't like. Overall this game should had more time (like 2 years more) and should have NOT got out of the gates in this form.

[Barkortran]

Ok this is something that bioware didn't do wrong but just didn't do right either and it really ruined the entire game for me and you need to fix it.

The racial tensions were terrible when compared to DA:O it seemed like every character was defined by their stereotype. ALL Templar were zealots ALL apostates were blood mages ALL dalish were angry and ALL city elves were theives.

In DA:O they were still all these things on the surface but talk to an individual and he would have his own opinons. There was a mage that wanted the templars to kill all mages and it made sense. you got this feeling that racism wasn't caused by the way the groups acted but because of centuries old prejudice and societal pressure that influenced the way each character saw the world in order to create said stereotypes and this created a much better experience.

This isn't in DA2 and i causes moral choices to be harder not because both side were valid but because both sides were dicks. In DA:O every decision was tough because you had to think about what was the right thing to do. this felt amazingly realistic and allowed me to love every dialogue every character because they felt real and i wanted to help them and i wanted to play it through again and again not to see what would happen but to merely see the same thing from a different perspective.

And remember the discussions about morality on the forums and the arguments over who did what and the debate over which real world group was being represented by the elves wernt they fun.

Unless DA3 fixes it this franchise is dead to me which is a shame because DA:O for me had the best backstory and world in the history of all fiction because you could tell why mages are seen that way by that group and why the dalish and the humans were at each other throat and every character felt real because of it.

If you agree please say so for me this was the main problem as it cause issues with the story and made me dislike hawke allot.

[Bryy_Miller]

Phaelducan wrote...

You ever wonder if the DA2 team is secretly miffed that ME2 just absolutely killed it?

Not really, they're the same company.

[John Epler]

ddv.rsa wrote...

Is BW still checking this thread?

We are. Not quite as often as before (as it's slowed down quite a bit) but yes, we're still looking at it on a weekly basis.

[erynnar]

JohnEpler wrote...

ddv.rsa wrote...

Is BW still checking this thread?

We are. Not quite as often as before (as it's slowed down quite a bit) but yes, we're still looking at it on a weekly basis.

Damn you! I demand, we, demand, no...wait, the Dalek demand you exterminate...no...um that you check ever five seconds minus four seconds! Or you are hiding, ignoring, doing...um...something. Yes! That's it! SOMETHING!

Sorry, sill mood tonight. I couldn't resist!

[DubiousPigeon]

These are the three big ones.

1. Recycled environment. 
 This is done to the point of absurdity. While revisiting an area isn't automatically bad, in conjunction with using the exact same settings for alleged different areas, the visuals get old very fast. This is unfortunate as alot of the environments are pleasing to look at, atleast the first dozen times.

2. Limited flexibility.
  classes are extremely limited in weapon selection/style. You cannot fight unarmed, or with a single one-handed weapon, and can only deviate from your tiny selection in the rarest of examples. (Probable oversights, or mods.) Once again, this gets old.  The rigidity is curious and boring, not streamlined.

3. Limited companion interactions/development.
  I personally have very few complaints about the writing in regard to characters. In my mind this is THE strong point of DA2 - and there should have been more of it. Hawke's influence on characters and their relationships seem vague and undeveloped at times as a result. Additionally, the impact of certain coversations and events seem nonexistent for the same reason.

 I often read speculation that the game was rushed, and my complaints seem indicitive of that. What it comes down to is repetitive combat against repetitive enemies in repetitive locations - with just enough plot and character interaction to keep me interested.

Modifié par DubiousPigeon, 15 juin 2011 - 05:49 .

[Genly]

JohnEpler wrote...

We are. Not quite as often as before (as it's slowed down quite a bit) but yes, we're still looking at it on a weekly basis.

Good to know, so here goes my post...

Though I'd pre-ordered the game and played at day 1, I thought it'd be more fair to wait a while (and after a couple of patches) to give my criticisms. I just played a second time after the 1.03 patch PC version). Also, I haven't read the thread, so likely my post will repeat things already said.

Overall, I think it IS a good game. I don't care if it's not a "traditional" RPG (whatever that is) nor if it's too different than DA:O and such. I know that changes and "streamlining" should occur and they do lead to better games (ME2 proved that imo). So, while I may not agree with some specific design changes, my main criticism about the game is that it feels rushed and unpolished. I understand that for a project like this, you work with limited budget and time, so you can't include everything you want anyway. But considering this is Bioware, I was expecting a higher quality product. So, while it's a good game, it could have been much better!

That's not to say developers and writers were lazy and slacking, I'm pretty sure they worked hard and put a lot of time/work into the game to make it as best as possible. Because of that, I understand it must be hard to listen and read to all these complaints, but again... you're Bioware. As you set the bar higher, can you really be surprised by the criticisms?

The most glaring flaws that shows the rushness have already been discussed to death: over-used areas/levels,
endless waves of enemies, generic name items etc. A small detail to emphasize the lack of polish when re-using the same area: the minimap is not even updated to reflect the unaccessible paths.

Besides those, it seems that most design ideas, while good on paper, were twisted when implemented after considering the thought: "how can I turn this idea into something that I can use to cut even more content/development time?".

For example, having the game taking place mostly in a single area (city and surrounding region) is definately not a bad idea, especially story-wise. But when you see the end result: the area is not that large to begin with, it changes very little throughout the time, lack of unique details, etc... you get the impression the idea fit well with the low development cost/time mindset. The same could be said about several other design ideas that are not bad in theory: framed narrative, lack of meaninful player decisions, no customization of companions' armor, etc.

Now some more debatable opinions I have:

- Combat is more responsive/improved and I particularly like the skills/skill trees (other than healing spells playing a minor role). I also like how each companion had their own skill tree, it made them feel more unique and heroic.

But I personally find the animations to be too fast and sometimes over the top. My mage in particular looked like a ninja weaving the staff effortlessly. Because of that, I enjoyed the game more when playing Hawke as an archer rogue (though kicking the Miasmic Flask annoys me).

I did miss a more strategic combat. Patch 1.03 fixed a bit by making enemies interrupt less and wait a bit before attacking when spawned in a wave. But I still have to struggle with the camera by not having the option zoom it out more. It was too annoying when I tried to play on Nightmare, so I have to stick with the Hard mode.

- I think crafting was better handled in DA2, but it felt a bit too impersonal a not too different from buying from vendors. You could have at least let the companions do some crafting (like Anders providing potions), instead of a random person that seemed to know me while I had no clue who she was.

- I really enjoyed the companions, their relationships, romances, banter, etc and some NPC reactions to them. Banters could have included Hawke though. Friendship/rivalry system is a very nice concept, though I wouldn't mind being improved for further titles.

- The main story/plot was fine, I don't mind the apparent lack of cohesiveness throughout the acts. But you should have been able to keep the same major outcomes, while at the same time giving more menaingful choices/decision (or the illusion of those) to the player. But again, it seemed like it'd be too much extra work.

- The icons in the dialog wheel were a great addition, it helps to determine the tone and intention of the dialogs. I wish there were more than 3 options though, even if they overlap some.

[The Stiatcher]

*Note* Was asked to repost here (since this is the correct place!)

Just finished DA-2 last night. Brilliant conclusion - I thoroughly enjoyed this game. Played by switching between high/normal difficulty levels (I barely managed certain tough fights on high, but then I reloaded them and played on normal to relax and plan out my cross-class combo's etc). I've been following the lead-up to this game, reading the critical comments, reviews, complaints. I have to say, I was put off by the Isabela companion slo-mo bug and had to stop playing for 6 weeks nearly (was on an optimal playthrough), but 1.02 fixed that retroactively and put me back in the game. As a programmer myself, I can see the difficulties in releasing such an expansive game. You have to ship sooner or later, bugs or not. In the end, I enjoyed every minute of it. More Dragon Age, BioWare! Good Work! Comments are welcome, would love to debate on the quality of this game from many perspectives.

[foo man chew]

My opinion of what this game needs is.Companion armor its so boring seeing the same armor the whole game.Weapons and armor only having one stat restriction it doesnt feel like a rpg when your forced to build your character a certain way just to equip weapons and armor.realistic combat not this over the top warping and jumping everywhere its painful to watch.Bring back dual wielding warriors it was just fun plain and simple.Better looking weapon skins how about more realistic but with a darker approach.A longer story I actually felt i got my money out of origins da2 feels rushed.And bring back origin options,And lastly more open world locations that are unique one city for a whole game basically equals boring.