Carrotbutt wrote...
I have to say while i did enjoy DA2, I did not enjoy it nearly as much as I did Origins.
With Origins I have 6 Full Playthroughs, Human and Elf Mages, City and Dalish Elf, Human Noble, and Dwarven commoner, And i've played through Awakening on all of them! That's how engaging the story/characters/environment was for me in Origins, I just couldn't stop exploring, and rather then restarting and redoing some quests just for achievements, I was actually encouraged to replay the whole damn game, just to see how that one small change affected everything else, six times.
Of course origins had it's bad things as well as it's good things, The combat being SO SLOW, Run speed dropped to a crawl when in combat. (and that freaking bug that left you in combat stance unless you restarted, so annoying) And my god i hated the Fade, it could be just that all the wibbly wobbly lines gave me a horrible headache tho. But my god the game was just beautiful, even the bad things got outweighed by how many amazing things were in the game, It's still an amazing game.
Now with DA2, I have, i think, 2 full playthroughs, once as a mage, and once as a warrior, i've started and gotten tired of several different rogues, all that flipping about is, well, ridiculous. It just seems to me rogues are supposed to be stealthy on the battlefield, all that leaping and twirling is, distracting. Not that rogues shouldn't be acrobatic, but they shouldn't intentionally be drawing attention to themselves like that. Seems, Counter-intuitive.
Anyway, I've gotten off the point, Three things I disliked about DA2:
1. Recycled Areas: I know that it saves time to recycle areas, but I mean really, using the EXACT same cave over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Not even a token attempt at trying to make things look different, Jesus Christ. Now, The cave in the Exiled Price DLC that you go into in Act Two, Now that cave is the same basic map as all the other smaller caves, but it had massive changes made to it, added architecture, changes in atmosphere, it made it unique and interesting to explore after endless clones of the same cave system over and over and over and over ect...
2. Lack of Companion Interaction and Development: After Origins, I was SO disappointed with how little you could influence and interact with your companions, There was no reasoning with Fenris or Anders, so grabbing Merril by the shoulders and shaking her until she saw sense (not that I expected that really, but one can dream) Does anyone remember changing Shales outlook on all us small squishy flesh creatures? Becoming Kadan to Sten? Convincing Zevran that there is more to life then being an Assassin? I mean goddamn! You can convince Alistair that being King might not be such a bad idea!
Granted I Do like the new friendship/rivalry system in DA2, But why couldn't increasing friendship with Fenris, (Especially as a mage) have opened up his eyes to, if not completely letting go of his hate, at least giving mages the benefit of the doubt? Yea if you're at full friendship or rivalry, he wont abandon you when you side with the mages, but Damn, there was SO much potential with the Friendship Rivalry system and it's upsetting to see it wasted on a few boring companion quests that never change. Everything always happens the same way. Again, the same thing over and over and over. Also can there please be more discussion between the writers, DURING the writing process for Companions? Anders and Fenris were basically the same damn romance. (Oh, Woe is me, we can't be together blahblahblahblah) All that Twilight mentality of the tortured and bitter man makes me want to vomit.
3. Talents: More specifically, Companion Talents, I loved Awakening Anders, he was funny, kind of goofy, quick with his wit. But oh my god, I could not stand having him in my party and having to listen to his constant CONSTANT ****ing and moaning, and he (unless you're a mage) is the only healer! Nevermind Bethany since you lose her in act 1, which was fine with me, I liked Carver better anyway. I let her die in the deep roads.
Please oh PLEASE give us control of our companions back, I hated not being able to develop my companions as I wanted, i didn't mind the armor thing so much, but I at least wanted to be able to control their talents.
Thats my three main things, I have other things that annoy me, but I think thats enough complaining for now.
All that said, I can't wait to see what they decide to do for DA3, I love the franchise and will continue to invest in it since I want to see what happens to this story they're crafting.
Lack of Companion Interaction and Development you hit it on the nail. Yes I remember making a difference in Origin. This made you care about the characters. DA2 it is lacking.