There's a lot to love in DA2, but for every love there seems an anchor around its neck: (BEWARE SPOILERS BELOW)
LOVED the inclusion of Hawke's family which made for some great emotional ties. (All that remains, seriously, the writer for that quest should seek counseling, but well done.)
DISLIKED how little interaction there seemed to be with your family after ACT1. I hated that I couldn't go visit Bethany, and the flippant options I had for greeting her at the end of ACT2 when I was genuinely happy to see her again.
LOVED the cleaner look of the art design, the vistas of Kirkwall
DISLIKED the darkspawn redesign and LOATHED the JRPG style two handed swords.
LOVED the stories of many of the quests, some genuinely great thought provoking quests in there
DISLIKED how often my only option was CRUSH MY ENEMIES! SEE THEM DRIVEN BEFORE ME! In origins I seemed to have so many more options on how to handle these situations.
LOVED many of the new companions, and that they all had their own haunt, thought this was just a very nice storytelling mechanic and made them seem real to me, especially over the year span.
DISLIKED how little there seemed to say to them. There was only a few conversations per companion, would have loved more detail and information here.
SIDE NOTE Not really a complaint and I understand content was limited, but would have enjoyed more quests per companion, but that’s more of a tertiary comment.
LOVED the shock and awe of Anders’ act. I still sided with the mages but booted him out, I was genuinely disgusted by his actions. Bravo to the writing team for eliciting emotion here,
DISLIKED the ending of the game with almost no mention of what happened to my companions.
LIKED Hawke’s voice. I connected with Hawke to a much greater degree than I ever did Shepard.
DISLIKED the paraphrase wheel and voiced prot, but I’ve probably voiced that complaint too many times by now, and I realize there are a whole group of folks who like this feature, I’m just not one of them.
LIKED the combat well enough, but I’ve never really played Bioware games or rpgs for that matter for combat. One forum poster back when Origins was released made the comment “I would love this game if combat was decided via bouts of hangman.” Couldn’t agree more.
DISLIKED the skill trees, particularly the lack of non-combat skills like persuade and intimidate. I disliked not having the options to influence people through special conversation options, and ME has shown that needn’t be peculiar to the old dialogue trees.
LIKED the overall story, was fun to see Hawke’s rise to power and resolution over the time period, I would like to see Bioware try this again, telling a story over time.
DISLIKED well, the much maligned reused maps, what appears to be a rushed development cycle. As much as I really dislike the Fable games, I did enjoy the general effect of your actions in Fable 2 and how the town in general changed based upon your actions, or the growing of a new town. That would have been a nice touch so long as the storytelling aspects aren’t neglected. I NEVER want to see storytelling neglected, it’s the main reason I play Bioware games.
LOVED the concept of the friendship/rivalry system and think this is a vast improvement over Origins approval system which was already an improvement over previous Bioware games.
DISLIKED how inconsistent it seemed to me. For example I have no doubt Morrigan and Sten would have been rivals to me in DAO, but in DA2 I rather gave up on trying to influence rivalry as too many of my choices seemed to result in friendship swings, so just went down that path which was easier. I realize I could try to be more articulate here but am trying to be brief.
BOTTOM LINE there’s a lot to love about DA2, and a lot of room for improvement. Most of the complaints it seems to me would have been resolved by a longer gestation period. As it is DAO looms very large in my mind, with DA2 fitting securely in its shadow. The reused maps, the truncated options, and the unsatisfactory ending all equal a lesser game. To me at least. I do lament the absence of a game like DAO being in development at Bioware (that we know of) but that’s another post entirely. Sorry for the lengthy post, just figured I’d add my two cents to the fray.
Modifié par CarlSpackler, 25 mars 2011 - 06:01 .
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Actually post the good with the bad. (Also the lack of foolish "I'm a reviewer!" rhetoric is nice.)
