1.The Lack of Meningful Choices- In my opinion the most important part of an RPG game is being able to make choices that have a real impact upon the story as well as the enviroment that the story takes place in. Both of these are lacking in Dragon Age 2. The story is largely linear in nature, beyond being able to spare/kill a few random npc's that really have no bearing upon the way the major plotline plays out , you are really restricted as to how the story is told. Even which party members live or die really does little to affect the overall narative. I was under the impression that the entire purpose of having a game that takes place over 10 years(really 7) was that you would be able to make important decisions and see how they affect the city of kirkwall over the years. This really is not the case, kirkwall's zones remain static over the years and leave you feeling like you really aren't accomplishing much. Another thing i found strange is that despite supposedly charting your "rise to power" the story really didn't give you any power. Despite becoming Champion and supposedly the most influential man in the city you are still left basically being an errand boy for the 2 major factions. When you decide to support one of the 2 factions at the end it really is just giving them the support of a powerful combatant and a few of his friends, not the broad based political support you would expect to bring to the table as the city's most influential noble. I feel like it would have made the game much more compelling if rather than simply choosing one side or the other at the end, you instead were able to create your own powerbase through contacts with individual mages, templars, nobles,merchants, mercenaries, guards, mages, thieves, commoners, elves and immigrants and every other party I have forgotten that is interested in the fate of kirkwall. Depending on how you interacted and invested your gold among all of these different groups of people you could build a unique power base and thus a unique position from which to make that final decision and that decision would have a different impact, and thus cause the game to end in subtly different ways in the same manner that origins did. It would set up a number of fascinating either/or type missions that I think would be much better than many of the go here kill this type quests the game contains. I feel like all of that could have been accomplished without forcing the writers to drastically change the narrative that they want to carry over into future games, namely that Hawke was at the heart of how the world came to the brink of war. I apologize if that all seems unnecessarily vague im trying to avoid any spoilers.
2. Combat- I do not have the overarching concerns that many people seem to have about the increased pace and more action packed nature of combat. I actually found the sped up combat rather enjoyable . The lack of a top down camera was somewhat irritating but certainly not game breaking. I do have a problem with the waves of enemies "droping" in. It just seems like a somewhat inelegant solution to increasing the difficulty and length of encounters. I'm not saying I am against the idea of waves as a whole(really im indifferent to it) just how they are implemented. I think it would be much better if the new spawns always came through a doorway or archway, that way you could have respawns but for those that like tactical battle play you would at least know that enemies were going to spawn in a specific location and be able to take that into account as you laid your plans.
3. The inability to resolve the vast majority of quests without violence- This is meant to be a violent game and obviously combat is going to be an enormous part of conflict resolution. I understand and even enjoy that. That being said i was disapointed how rare being able to choose another option was. A specific quest comes to mind near the end of the game that I have seen other people reference as well. You are tasked to investigate a conspiracy, a conspiracy that I involves people that I in fact wanted to support, but rather than being able to show up and choose to aid them or at least let them go, I am forced to slaughter all of them without even being able to explain myself. This struck me as very disjointed. I had made my preferences quite clear prior to this quest yet the conspirators reactions to my presence were immediately hostile.
4. Companions- I actually quite liked a lot of the interactions with my companions. I found the banter between the different party members particularly strong. Having said that there were some things that I felt were of the mark. For one i missed being able to talk with my party members any time I wanted as was possible in DA:O. I think a combination method might have been better where I could still talk to my companions whenever I wanted but they would get a quest marker whenever they had a quest or unique conversation option. I found it really irritating to not be able to adjust my companions equipment when i was in my mansion as was possible at the camp in DA:O . It seemed clunky that I would have to leave the mansion and select the party member whose gear I wanted to swap out. In terms of the lack of being able to customize my companions armor I am divided. On the one hand I appreciate each companion having a unique style, but on the other I miss having the choices that Origins gave us. I feel it might have been better if you could customize your characters but each character would apear differently wearing the different armor pieces you gave them thus maintaining their unique style. The only other complaints I have were making the only healer the most controversial character in the game to keep in your party. And the inexplicable fact that after you finish Merril's quest chain she never talks to you about it despite the horrible things that may have happened. I would also like more control over how the companions quest chains play out, but as you have seen I am pretty much always a proponent for more player choice rather than less.
5. Repitition of enviroments-Not much I can say on this other than has already been said by others. I would be more forgiving of this fault if the quests were a bit more unique and consequential and we were able to, by our actions, change those enviroments. I have already addressed that though so I won't rehash the same arguments again.
That about sums up my feelings about how the game could be improved. I would like to say that DA 2 is not a terrible game by any means. Admittedly my first reaction upon finishing the game was disappointment but that was more because of a feeling of lost potential than that it was an unmitigated failure. It is an ok game probably 7.5/10. The reason Bioware is seeing such a backlash on these forums is that we as gamers hold them to a higher standard given what they have done before. We have a feeling that O.K. is just not good enough for them. No one is complains when a C student makes a C effort but when the valedictorian does people are disapointed. That should not shock anyone. I just hope that the developers read some of these posts that level legitamate criticism in the so that they might consider it for in future games and DLC and that they don't get bogged down among all of the hyperbole and rage that many other posts contain.
Modifié par BarroomHero555, 15 mars 2011 - 08:09 .
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