Interesting. I agree with a lot, surprisingly xD . I'll mostly emphasize the things I feel straongly about. It's reiterating a lot of things that pop up in the Fan Review thread. But I'll repeat myself as many times as needed.
Would like to add that I wish DA2 had been released as Dragon Age: Exodus. That was cool.
Disagree on the art, agree on enjoying Kirkwall as the setting, agree on the sparseness of Kirkwall.
I liked the art and design. It felt different from Ferelden, another culture, another region. It was vivid and distinctive, and it sent the message that it wanted to send. It was used to great advantage for foreshadowing and storytelling, too. We definitely emphasize the love of text in classical RPGs, but it's also a visual experience; DA2 recognizes that.
Agree about unlocking specializations.
I almost never use crafting, so I don't care much for it either way. I'm not sure where my diplomacy skill went. Would like that back. I like the reorganization of talent/spell trees (Force Mage... best thing ever). But the absence of skills and such made it all feel a little empty. Part of an RPG is the mechanics. It does scare people, but it can also make an RPG feel special.
Agreed on the change in the Rogue's role. Didn't like that change much. Would definitely like my secondary weapon slot back.
Origins and DA2 have their own story merits, but I preferred DA2. Agreed on political and cultural conflicts. The qunari are still my favorite species, and the Arishok plot only made it stronger.
The length of time it took me to complete - somewhere between 50 and 70 hours, I didn't keep track other than "I played a lot and nonstop" - felt sufficiently lengthy. I'm not a fan of 100-hour games, especially if it's a lot of fetching quests. But I do think the game would have benefitted from more PC-Party member interactions. That would've extended it a little more. And it would've filled something I feel is a bit empty, despite how full the NPCs
feel (I mark the distinction between perceiving and feeling the robustness).
Agreed on Origins being the introduction to the setting; enjoyed DA2 as the expansion (and legitimate tweaking) of what DAO gave us. It opened up the world pleasantly; it helped that the problem it dealt with crossed borders. Although the darkspawn threat was significant, it was confined to Ferelden, which limited our interests.
Moral grey was excellent here, yes. And I just really love the Templar-Mage debate, the risks involved in giving such-and-such amount of freedom to someone who can, regardless of their intent, turn into what is essentially a walking nuke. I'm glad DA2 explored this. I hope we follow this train of thought.
My beef is that the entire lengths of Acts 1 and 2, I wondered, "What is driving Meredith? Why is she so fixated on her task? Why go to such extremes?" and the questions seemed irrelevant once we got our answer. The opposing side - our... wild friend... - had such a powerful incentive that Meredith's seemed... childish. I had expected more from a game so mature otherwise. I loved acts 1 and 2, and I wish the amount of questing and build-up carried over to Act 3, or at least that the quests were spread out more evenly.
Agreed on the party member and party member inventory bits, though again, I wish I could talk to the party members more. I liked that I had to be patient with their personal plots, but I wish I could talk to them about... shoes and cheese and the Qun and griffons and Grey Wardens like I could with DAO's party members. They had stories to tell.
Also, although I totally dig the Individual Designs for the party members, one would think that they would add to them or change them over ten years. The enviornment, too, should change. Although I would like access to the party's armor... it's a shame to waste old armor as soon as I get nicer armor.
I liked that the combat was faster; I liked the new animations for it. But the lack if isometric view and the difficulty of positioning AoE spells was tedious, annoying, and completely detracted from the experience. There was something to the pacing - not the speed, per se - of DAO's combat that DA2 lacks, though I can't name it, myself. Perhaps it IS a bit more comic-y, though I'm not sure that's exactly what I'm thinking of.
DA2 definitely abused the waves of enemies tactics. In special circumstances, sure, but if I'm about to finish a battle... let me finish the battle. Don't fool me into thinking it's over and then, SURPRISE NEW WAVE.
Please give back spell combos. Those were ten tons of fun. Cross-class combos are great, though.
I like the near-removal of the annoying, pointless fetch-this and kill-that quest. Side-quests were more involved. Sparser use of the board postings was good. Neutral on the find-item-return-to-owner thing. Don't care either way. It was always near a place I needed to go.
Yeah, where did the plot items section go?
Items don't feel important anymore with their generic appearance and lack of description.
What is the point of junk items? I was filthy rich at the end of the game because of them... it was kind of cheap.
I'm a bad person and never used traps (though they annoyed the crap out of me quite well when the enemies used them). Neutral response on their absence.
I still miss the days where the entirety of your play log's conversation and mechanics was stored in the bottom left corner (wiped when you quit, but hey). At the very least, the last few lines said like in JE. Not much in the way of a journal, which I am neutral about, but I found those humorous and a nice touch in BG. Still no way to take notes like in NWN.
Minimap did not display what each x was, I had to zoom to the large map to find out which x was which.
Agreed on Codex.
Don't like the portraits being on the bottom. Put them back on top.
Liked the icons indicating the tone of the speech option; was not always sure who I was siding with when making a decision. There's brevity and then there's ambiguity. Enjoyed the humorous option. The aggressive option was jerk-y, but not brainlessly abusive. Conflicted on the voice-acting of PCs. Still prefer the entire text written out and no voice-over.
I still don't uncerstand the connections between the ads and the game itself. I am starting to dismiss all marketing as ploys. I don't mean to be callous about it or dismissive, but I really don't know who BW is seeking to impress. I guess I'm already a rabid customer, so they don't really need to aim them towards me. But still.
In some ways, I'm a traditionalist. But I like the push DA2 makes towards breaking out of the stereotypes and cliches. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it - gaming is a new medium. Just because something is a staple of an RPG genre doesn't mean it always has to be obeyed. But there are some things I'm not willing to part with.
I know streamlining it was a priority, but there is such a thing as oversimplification, and DA2 got the brunt of that.
As we make our way to DA3, I hope things will have been learned and there can be another reinvention. I'm not opposed to those. A bit of classicism in a big-kid story like DA2's is not a flaw, though.
Ultimately, DA2 evoked powerful emotions. I clapped my hand over my mouth and screamed a little towards the end. The only other time I really did that was Jade Empire. I was laughing, I cried a little, I cheered, I yelled at the monitor, it's all very moving. For all the other flaws... I call it a win when it brings about such powerful emotions. It's storytelling at its prime.
In the words of the PCG review: "...by locking down the context - the world and the politics - BioWare was free to fill its creation with more character and vitality than any game in recent memory."
Modifié par Hawkeyed Cai Li, 17 mars 2011 - 01:44 .
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