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[Sylvius the Mad]

Having now played one entire playthrough (by my reckoning), I am now comfortable writing a review.

Let's start with the good...

The Authored Narrative

This is what BioWare likes to call "The Story".

DA2's story does two things I've been asking BioWare to do for years. One of those things they hadn't done since Baldur's Gate, and the other they had never done. First, the game's main plot is not made known to the player early in the game. Even entering Act III, there's no reason for the player to believe that he knows what the ultimate resolution of the game is going to be, even in broad strokes. This is a terrific platform for roleplaying, and it's something BioWare had only ever done once before. I applaud them for bringing it back, and I hope to see more of it in the future.

Second, there's no Foozle. I've been asking for something - anything - other than a Kill Foozle plot, and DA2 gives that to us. I'm overjoyed that, finally, a mainstream developer again saw fit to give us a plot that didn't spoonfeed us a villain.

I think DA2's authored narrative is very strong. If BioWare's goal is to tell interesting stories in their games, DA2 succeeds, and I say that with no reservations at all.

The Writing

This might appear to be a very narrow definition of "writing", but I've dropped a lot of other writing-related content into some later sections.

The writing, which is to say, the actual dialogue, the lore, and the realisation of characters, is quite good. The NPCs, particularly the companions, are generally well fleshed-out characters. I found the dialogue quite witty, and the lore both detailed and compelling. And while I would rather lore was imparted through expository conversations rather than simple codex entries, that's more of a design problem than a writing problem.

DA2 has solidly good writing, and unlike Yahtzee, I'm still willing to give BioWare credit for that. And they get bonus points for the authored narrative, which is effectively a writing component.

The Emergent Narrative

This is also part of the story, but not one BioWare paid any heed in DA2.

The emergent narrative is the story created by the player, as distinct from the story written by the designers. For example, if Hawke found the Qun really compelling, and had an internal struggle to deal with his growing understanding of its teachings, that's not actually content within the game, but it could well inform Hawke's decisions regarding in-game events. This is where roleplaying happens, as Hawke's decision-making process is basically all the player ever gets direct control over. That's emergent narrative, and DA2 is remarkaly obsctructionist on this point. DA2 makes effectively no effort to accommodate emergent narrative, and indeed directly gets in the way repeatedly through some of its social mechanics (conversation, friendship/rivalry, dominant tone).

The choices offered Hawke throughout the game also appear to be based on a great many implicit assumptions about Hawke's motivations for doing things, and as such any attempt by the player to create his own motivations (again, I don't see how else a player could make decisions for Hawke without deciding what Hawke's motives are) routinely produces explicit contradictions.

DA2 fails horribly in permitting the emergence of player-created narrative.

The Roleplaying Systems

These are the mechanisms within the game that permit the player to roleplay without resorting to metagame information...

..and DA2 basically doesn't have any. DA2 drops quests directly into the player's journal without the player ever being aware of how Hawke would be aware of that quest. The minimap reveals details of Hawke's environment that would otherwise be unknown to the player, and presumably should be unknown to Hawke.

DA2's core non-combat gameplay seems not to recognise that the player and Hawke are not the same person, and insists on handing the player the information Hawke needs, while making no effort to tell Hawke anything.

The fetch and deliver quests are an excellent example of failure in the area, as well as failure in the emergent narrative area. Hawke finds an item, and the knowledge of where to take it immediately appears in Hawke's journal. How does Hawke know that? Why would he care? These are questions the game seems to assume don't matter. And then, when the quest target is discovered (which is nearly impossible without either random chance, or resorting to the metagame information-laden journal), Hawke simply hands over the item regardless of whether the player wanted him to do so. If the player wanted Hawke to haggle, or taunt, or threaten, he is given no such oppotunity.

Dialogue

Dialogue in DA2 is a disaster. There are five different design problems working in combination to make it so.

First, as mentioned above, the dialogue trees are written based on implicit assumptions about Hawke's motives and opinions. I am not claiming that this problem is unique to DA2 - it's possible the BioWare's games have always done this - but the problems arise because of those detail in combination with the others.

Second, Hawke is voiced. If the writers want Hawke to shout a line, then he shouts it, regardless of the player's preference. This limits Hawke to just one tone per line, and just three tones per dialogue hub. Dismissiveness and condescension, among many others, are effectively forbidden Hawke, as the lines simply aren't voiced that way.

Third, the tone icons themselves are imprecisely defined. It's not at all clear, for example, at whom the aggression associated with any given instance of the Fist icon will be directed.

Fourth, the dominant tone system fails to allow for player-defined differences in context. The dominant tone changes both the tone and the wording of action-hub dialogue choices based on recent dialogue patterns, even if that recent dialogue had nothing at all to do wih the current dialogue (particularly since whether the two are meaningfully related could only ever be known to the player, as Hawke's personality isn't known to the designers).

Fifth, the paraphrases are worthless. This is arguably a component of writing, but I broke it out separately so that my praise for the actual in-game content wouldn't be lost. The paraphrases, which are effectively a UI element, give very little clue as to what Hawke's actual line will be. In fact, they sometimes suggest content that doesn't appear at all within the actual line. The paraphrases thus have a negative effectiveness. They are worse than useless.

DA2's dialogue system is by far the game's greatest failing.

Exploration

What exploration? Hawke isn't pemitted to travel anywhere until the game thinks he has a quest-related reason to do so. And once there, the minimap reveals every nook and cranny of the environment.

Level Design

In general, DA2's level design is poor. The areas consist almost entirely of narrow corridors (Legacy did offer some more open areas - that's literally the only good thing I have to say about Legacy) which hem in Hawke's party and badly damage any illusion that this world is real. DA2's level design is shockingly game-y, a problem BioWare doesn't typically have, but in DA2 it's a constant irritant.

That said, they're quite well designed corridor levels. They tend to offer an interesting network of paths, which would offer plenty of exploration and emergent gameplay if not for two problems. First, as mentioned, the minimap lacks a fog of war, so the player can easily see where all nearby paths are, even if they're not visible in the main gamplay view. This is a shame - the levels do a great job of hiding the entrance to corridors, only to undo that with the minimap. Second, the levels are often riddled with arbitrarily placed doors to funnel Hawke in one direction and one direction only. I suspect this was done to present a unique look at a level each time it was reused, but a conserquence of this is that any need (or ability) to explore the level freely is destroyed.

DA2's level design is a poor idea, expertly done, and then thoughtlessly ruined.

The Companions

I don't have much to say about the companions. I don't typically find the companions in BioWare games that interesting on their own. I generally only care about the characters I control, and since I control DA2's companions less than I would like, I find them uninteresting.

I will object to their tendency to leave the party, however. The player is given direct control over the companions' attributes and abilities, over their behaviour in combat, and even over much of their travel. The player is encouraged - expected, even - to select the abilities of party members to work in concert (particularly through the cross-class-combo mechanic), and then that party design is intermittently taken away. Sometimes permanently. That is a "gotcha" moment if ever I saw one.

The Art Direction

DA2's art direction baffles me. The fanciful animations and whimsical colour palette badly damage the game's overall mood. I find it difficult to take Sebastian's tale of woe seriously when his eyes are glowing turquoise. Furthernore, the ostentatious attack animations given to Hawke and his party stand out party because they are absurd, but mostly I think because NPCs don't get them. As strange as it looks for Fenris to jump 2 metres into the air while swinging a sword that might outweigh him, it looks even stranger when you realise that Fenris is one of apparently only a handful of people in the world who can do it.

DA2 was apparently intended to be more fanciful than its predecessor, but that fancy was so inconsistently applied that it is off-putting

The Encounter Design

I find DA2's encounters infuriating. Hawke is routinely unable to initiate combat except through dialogue, but entering dialogue always repositions Hawke's companions. As such, the player is often prevented from implementing a pro-active combat strategy. This was even true when Hawke knew he was approaching enemies - when he'd been given quest instructions to kill people. He could see the bandits he wanted to attack up ahead, but he wasn't allowed to attack them until they were ready for him. That's really very poor design.

Also, the excessive use of waves of reinforcements eliminates the ability to plan even within a given encounter. The player cannot know (until a second playthrough) whether his enemy's numbers will be replenished. That sort of mechanic can work occasionally, but having it happen all of the time prevents the game-world from ever feeling real. There are almost always more enemies lurking just out of sight where you can never find them until they're ready, and yet they typically wait until you've dispatched their allies to engage you. It's silly and pointless. If the game has trouble rendering enough enemies on the screen at one time, then the enemies shoud just be stronger. Not more numerous and hidden mysteriously on the roof or in a non-existent shadow.

Legacy was no better in this regard.

The Combat Mechanics

DA:Origins established asymmetrical combat mechanics for the franchise, but that doesn't make their use any more acceptable in AD2 than they were in the first game. Particulary since the implementation got so much worse. That Hawke and his companions do orders of magnitude more damage than every other creature in the world is a crime against verisimilitude. A huge boss enemy could absorb blow after blow doing hundreds or even thousands of damage at a time, while his attack damage typically didn't exceed several dozen.

This also badly breaks friendly fire (which explains why FF was limited to Nightmare - it was badly broken, but then Nightmare isn't supposed to be fair). I played a modded DA2 with FF enabled on both Hard and Normal, and with FF active both settings were more difficult than Origins was on Hard (though with FF disabled, both settings were less challenging that DAO's hard).

In addition, DA2's combat was irritatingly unresponsive to player inputs. Attack animations were not interruptable as they were in DAO, so this effectively trapped characters as if they were engaged in turn-based combat. After they'd selected an action, they were stuck with that action until their turn to act came again, entirely unlike DAO (or, indeed, any other BioWare game as far as I recall). Hawke and his companions were unable to react immediately to events within combat. They couldn't cast a Heal right now if it was needed. They couldn't trigger a stun attack to prevent and enemy from killing an ally. Even the auto-attacks had these long trailing animations which locked in sometimes quite elaborate animations when the player would rather the character be doing something else. Even moving was denied them. DA2 gave the player the ability to dodge spell effects by moving his characters, but then those characters were unable to move because they had attacked something seconds earlier.

DA2 also suffered from what were probably pathfinding issues on crowded battlefields. A melee ability triggered against a target out of range produced an annoying shuffle, much like the one we saw throughout DAO. However, in DAO the player was generally required to move his companions into attack positions manually, so I found the shuffle far less disruptive in the earlier game. Since so many of DA2's abilities could be used to move the characters around automatically (though always in pre-defined ways), the appearance of the shuffle was quite jarring.

The one shining beacon of good design in DA2's combat was the addition of friendly fire for melee attacks (and some archery abilities). Finally melee abilities were constrained by friendly fire concerns as magic has been for years. This was a welcome change. Unfortunately, this feature was partially removed from the game in a patch, which I find quite distressing. And, as mentioned, friendly fire overall in DA2 was badly broken by the vastly disparate damage and hit point levels of Hawke (and his companions) compared to their enemies, thus ruining was had been a very good idea.

The Documentation

There basically isn't any. The core gameplay mechanics are entirely undocumented. What effect does +184 Cold Resistance have?

This is completely unacceptable. The game's systems must be written down somewhere in a devloper's office. Publish that.

The User Interface

DA2 finally returned a pause button to the on-screen UI. I'd been asking for that for years. That was nice.

Having the HP and Stamina bars proportional to the actual HP or Stamina totals was also a significant advancement. Good job.

I still think the UI elements should be held within a frame, though. Having them obscure the player's view of the game world only serves to remind the player that he's playing a game. I could undertand this design if the individual elements were optional - say, if you could turn off the mini-map - but as long as we're forced to have them then they shouldn't get in the way of the action. Having a body I want to loot hidden behind Isabela's portrait is something that could be fully prevented with a better overall UI design.

It would also be nice to be able to sort the character portraits in the UI (much the same as we can sort entries in the Tactics page). Being unable to do that - particularly when forced to accept a specific companion for a particular quest, and thus being saddled with having the character's out of order (which affects both ease-of-use and combat formations) is very annoying.

Similarly, being unable to sort the Inventory also damages ease-of-use, as the player is forced to navigate and browse the inventory page every time he wants something. If we could sort it ourselves, we could put items where we could more easily find them. This problem could be mitigated (though not completely eliminated) by the ability to map equipment pieces to the hotbar. As it is, DA2 forces the player to open the inventory screen to swap weapons (and since creatures are arbitrarily immune or resistance to different types of damage, swapping weapons is obviously something the game's design intends). DAO allowed limited weapon-swapping from the hotbar, but neither game approaches the level of hotbar customisation permitted by NWN, which is by far BioWare's high-water mark for UI design and inventory management.

Other

DA2 lacks polish. I had a character fall through the world on three separate occasions, something I had never before seen in any non-ME game from BioWare. Characters also routinely faced the wrong direction during combat, and fired their abilities in a direction not chosen by me (thus dramatically increasing the risk of friendly fire).

The party members (including Hawke) would disobey the Hold command whenever the characters got too far apart from each other. I doubt this is a polish issue - this seems more to be a conscious design decision to limit the ability to have one character scout ahead or lure enemies into an ambush. But it's an unnecessary restriction of player agency.

Cutscenes still force depth of field effects on the player. Those need to be optional (like ME's film grain).

Also with cutscenes, if you're going to segregate gameplay and story so thoroughly as you have in DA2, could you at least put the characters back where they were before the cutscene started? What is the point of placing my characters tactically if the cutscenes are just going to ruin that? It's as if different arms of the dev team had a difference of opinion about whether gameplay and story were to be separate. And while it's heartening that some of them seem to think that gameplay/story segregation is a bad thing, the inconsistent application vexes me.

Conclusion

I don't like DA2. I really don't. It breaks virtually everything that makes a BioWare game good. And it's a shame, because it does some things I've been asking BioWare games to do for many years, and I'm happy to see them. I just wish they were in a better game.

Let me know if there's any part of the game you would like me discuss in greater detail, or at all if I happened to skip it.

[TEWR]

First off, I think this would be better suited in the spoilers section since I predict spoilers will inevitably be told.


Second:

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

The Authored Narrative

This is what BioWare likes to call "The Story".

DA2's story does two things I've been asking BioWare to do for years. One of those things they hadn't done since Baldur's Gate, and the other they had never done. First, the game's main plot is not made known to the player early in the game. Even entering Act III, there's no reason for the player to believe that he knows what the ultimate resolution of the game is going to be, even in broad strokes. This is a terrific platform for roleplaying, and it's something BioWare had only ever done once before. I applaud them for bringing it back, and I hope to see more of it in the future.

Second, there's no Foozle. I've been asking for something - anything - other than a Kill Foozle plot, and DA2 gives that to us. I'm overjoyed that, finally, a mainstream developer again saw fit to give us a plot that didn't spoonfeed us a villain.

I think DA2's authored narrative is very strong. If BioWare's goal is to tell interesting stories in their games, DA2 succeeds, and I say that with no reservations at all.

Regarding the first point about not knowing what the resolution is, I agree that was a good thing going for DAII. However I strongly feel that Bioware did not do a good job with it because it inevitably turns out to be the same thing every time.

Regarding the Foozle point, I disagree. Despite what anyone wants to think, Meredith was and always will be the villain of the game because they used a "big bad evil" to drive their plot forward when what Hawke found in the Deep Roads could've actually helped to make the situation grey.

Also, I disagree that DAII's story was interesting throughout the game. It actually disappointed me because I couldn't change things or even attempt to change things within the scope of the story itself. Not world-changing stuff, just game-changing stuff.

I was interested at first, but my interest quickly waned after.... well after the "prologue" really.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 25 octobre 2011 - 12:05 .

[silentassassin264]

I have to disagree about the Meredith point. In fact, Meredith is portrayed to me as the "Only Sane Man" as well as "Good is not Nice" up until the very end of the game. In fact, the game puts all the blame on the mages and makes them up to be the ultimate evil so the fact the Meredith tries to kill you really does come out of nowhere if you go the way the game not so subtly pushes you, siding with the templars.

[TEWR]

silentassassin264 wrote...

I have to disagree about the Meredith point. In fact, Meredith is portrayed to me as the "Only Sane Man" as well as "Good is not Nice" up until the very end of the game. In fact, the game puts all the blame on the mages and makes them up to be the ultimate evil so the fact the Meredith tries to kill you really does come out of nowhere if you go the way the game not so subtly pushes you, siding with the templars.

Not really. I have to go into some spoilers now on why I think so.

Thrask remarks that Meredith's tyrannical reign as Knight Commander is a direct cause of much of the unrest and that before her, things were different. One also learns that she became Knight Commander long after Orsino became First Enchanter, so the mages are in fact not the problem. Meredith is.

Not only that, but pulling a sudden "I'm crazy beyond recognition!" out of nowhere for both Meredith and Orsino really doesn't make the game more "mature" or grey or make me want to side with the Templars. Meredith was always portrayed as crazy. The endgame just showed that the lyrium idol dug into something that she probably didn't know was there herself regarding mages -- something Varric points out about Bartrand's crimes -- and made her go even more insane.

Plus, you can clearly see the lyriumsaber on her back in Act 3's opening, and this means that it had been affecting her for some time since the idol also started working on Bartrand immediately after he grabbed it. 

....this thread would've been better in the spoilers section, methinks.


EDIT: can someone tell me how to hide what I've posted so that you have to highlight it in order to see it? I have a feeling I'll feel like a fool for asking, but I'm asking.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 25 octobre 2011 - 12:51 .

[mesmerizedish]

What I find interesting is that I read through your review, agreeing wholeheartedly with almost every single point, and yet I loved DAII while you didn't like it at all XD

[Morroian]

Just a couple of things your dialogue section is really about the dialogue system not the dialogue itself. Secondly you are wrong about the encounter design being no better in Legacy, the encounters are more varied, the enemy placement is better, the battlegrounds offer more opportunities for tactics, the waves are reduced and when they are used they are used logically with enemies coming from places you would expect.

[Brockololly]

Good stuff Sylvius.

Especially agree on the unresponsiveness of the combat. I just find that aspect especially confusing considering the devs kept hyping how reactive and snappier the combat in DA2 is compared to Origins.When, in actuality it almost plays out like a turn based game since your characters are locked in the attack animations for so long after you initiate the attack and can't be broken out of it.

I also agree completely on the inability to ambush enemies even when you've scouted out ahead. Thats terribly frustrating.

Excellent review.

Modifié par Brockololly, 25 octobre 2011 - 12:37 .

[devSin]

I found myself mostly agreeing with the review, except for the parts that were too Sylviusy.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

....this thread would've been better in the spoilers section, methinks.

So he should be directed as to where he should or should not make his posts for the sole reason that you cannot observe the forum rules? How does that make any sense, at all?

[TEWR]

devSin wrote...

I found myself mostly agreeing with the review, except for the parts that were too Sylviusy.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

....this thread would've been better in the spoilers section, methinks.

So he should be directed as to where he should or should not make his posts for the sole reason that you cannot observe the forum rules? How does that make any sense, at all?

not at all. It's just that elements of his post up top deal with the actual story of DAII. The story is full of... well... story stuff. It's all spoiler-y.

People will end up disagreeing and then spoilers will come out. I admit I'm certainly not helping keep them from pouring in by posting about spoilers myself. That's doing significantly more damage by drawing it in sooner.

But this is something that has happened in the forums a lot. A post is made in the General Discussion or RGO General Discussion, and spoilers get drawn in.

Now, I'll edit my post to remove the spoilers I mentioned and I'll keep quiet about the spoilers, but I just don't think that it'll make a difference because it'll happen anyway. How else can we discuss the story of DAII if we can't discuss it in a spoiler area?

I'm not asking him to redirect his thread, nor am I chastising him for placing it here. It was merely an observation on what I see as the general nature of the forums.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 25 octobre 2011 - 12:48 .

[Dhiro]

I really enjoyed the review, Sylvius. Shame DA II wasn't of your liking, though. Will you still try DA III?

[tmp7704]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

What I find interesting is that I read through your review, agreeing wholeheartedly with almost every single point, and yet I loved DAII while you didn't like it at all XD

I suspect Sylvius rolled succesfully on the check against hypnotic effect from Merrill's scarf, and thus the ultimate disparity of opinions.

[KilrB]

Thank you Mr. Mad.

I found your review to be more interesting and entertaining than the game itself.

I think you give the narrative and the writing more credit than they deserve, but they were the only half-decent parts of the game, imo.

Their potential was unrealized, being short-changed on time and forced into a product hampered by otherwise appalling design choices and game-play, again imo.

[lv12medic]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...


Cutscenes still force depth of field effects on the player. Those need to be optional (like ME's film grain).

I don't even have to think about what you wrote to agree with this.   

(Blurring effects in the Fade could also be included here).

[devSin]

tmp7704 wrote...

I suspect Sylvius rolled succesfully on the check against hypnotic effect from Merrill's scarf, and thus the ultimate disparity of opinions.

Actually, I imagine the backstory he created for the scarf didn't include it having hypnotic powers.

Thus, he would obviously be unaffected by them; no saving throw necessary. ;-)

[Zjarcal]

That is a good review, at least in the sense that it explains in detail every criticism made. I agree with some and strongly disagree with others.

The unresponsiveness is the one I want to mention. It's true that basic attack animations prevented spells or talents to be activated immediately, but with the exception of ONE mage attack animation, every other animation was so short and fast that the talent or spell could indeed be activated virtually instantaneously. The one mage animation I'm referring to is when the mage bangs their staff against the ground after doing a small backwards move. Other than that overly long animation, no other basic attack animation left me with a feeling of unresponsiveness when playing.

Modifié par Zjarcal, 25 octobre 2011 - 12:58 .

[TEWR]

I'll be addressing bits and pieces of the entire review in each post of mine:

Dialogue

Second, Hawke is voiced. If the writers want Hawke to shout a line, then he shouts it, regardless of the player's preference. This limits Hawke to just one tone per line, and just three tones per dialogue hub. Dismissiveness and condescension, among many others, are effectively forbidden Hawke, as the lines simply aren't voiced that way.

I certainly wouldn't say no to having more options for the voiced protagonist to choose from, but in the end the Warden wasn't much better.

You can certainly imagine how you would say something, but the person you say it to may take it another way and you can't tell them how you actually meant it. Well, save for the one instance with Voldrik Glavonak

So doesn't that mean that what you imagine to be how you said it is effectively not the case?

Third, the tone icons themselves are imprecisely defined. It's not at all clear, for example, at whom the aggression associated with any given instance of the Fist icon will be directed.

This I agree on. Sometimes I would pick the aggressive option that I had never picked before only to find out that it wasn't as bad as the paraphrase made it seem to be.

Likewise, the sarcastic choices were sometimes very much a bad thing because of what the paraphrase said. Example: the end of Following the Qun. The paraphrase is "Look on the bright side!".

I don't know what the bright side in Hawke's mind is going to be. For all I know he'll say something that doesn't make him seem like an ass but makes him seem like a concerned -- albeit very jokey -- person.

Now, had the paraphrase matched up with the actual line better this wouldn't be an issue. Not that I've ever taken the sarcastic choice there, but it's the principle of the matter.

Fifth, the paraphrases are worthless. This is arguably a component of writing, but I broke it out separately so that my praise for the actual in-game content wouldn't be lost. The paraphrases, which are effectively a UI element, give very little clue as to what Hawke's actual line will be. In fact, they sometimes suggest content that doesn't appear at all within the actual line. The paraphrases thus have a negative effectiveness. They are worse than useless.

DA2's dialogue system is by far the game's greatest failing.

I agree with this, but I already made my point up above. I consider the two to be linked together.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 25 octobre 2011 - 01:10 .

[bleetman]

lv12medic wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...


Cutscenes still force depth of field effects on the player. Those need to be optional (like ME's film grain).

I don't even have to think about what you wrote to agree with this.   

(Blurring effects in the Fade could also be included here).

More graphical options as a whole would've been nice. I mean, unless you're pumping it up to Very High, you've basically got squat to tinker with that'll make any kind of noticable difference to framerates.

[TEWR]

DA2's art direction baffles me. The fanciful animations and whimsical colour palette badly damage the game's overall mood. I find it difficult to take Sebastian's tale of woe seriously when his eyes are glowing turquoise

I actually know a couple people with naturally turquoise eyes. I also happen to have mood eyes along with a few friends of mine. That is to say that our eye color changes depending on our mood.

Furthernore, the ostentatious attack animations given to Hawke and his party stand out partly because they are absurd, but mostly I think because NPCs don't get them. As strange as it looks for Fenris to jump 2 metres into the air while swinging a sword that might outweigh him, it looks even stranger when you realise that Fenris is one of apparently only a handful of people in the world who can do it.

Yea I agree that because the enemies dont' get the same animations, it really sort of damages DAII's appeal. All of the enemies don't even need to use all the same basic animations we use. Just a few from each, while the bigger class enemies could use all of them.

It's even worse when the enemies can't even use the same abilities/spells we use.

However, greatswords weigh only about 5-8 lbs. While the game may not make the swords themselves reflect this, that's a separate -- albeit somewhat related -- issue I think.

[upsettingshorts]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

What I find interesting is that I read through your review, agreeing wholeheartedly with almost every single point, and yet I loved DAII while you didn't like it at all XD

I feel similarly, even though I wouldn't categorize my evaluation of paraphrases as beyond saving.  I don't have the same standards for meticulous accuracy in protagonist speech as Sylvius does, though.  I'd throw in my usual first vs. third person gamer rant here but it's not really the place.

I just think they're quite a ways from doing the paraphrases right.  And before anyone says DXHR did them best: No.  To start with, the "don't use any words in the paraphrase that appear in the actual line" house rule needs to be dropped permanently.  Second, for those of us who are like me that dislike repetition in the preview and the delivery, it's not a big deal if the summary and the resulting line are close - but it would be if they were exactly the same.  This drives me nuts when games do it, like TW1. 

Much of what I like about DA2 are things BioWare games have always done for me that I've appreciated more than Sylvius, and the opposite is also true.  Their games are and for a while have been moving in a particular direction that doesn't contradict my playstyle, but does his.  That doesn't prevent us from agreeing on what elements end up constituting a poorly put together game - and a lot of those examples are contained in this review.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 25 octobre 2011 - 01:22 .

[Heather Cline]

Some things I agree with, some I don't.

Combat was good but the waves/hordes of enemies sucked. Combat was fast and responsive.

The story narrative was a good idea but they destroyed any possibility of choice having any far reaching effect in the game to later acts/chapters in the game. You free the mages in the cave for Ser Thrask and they still get captured. They then turn on you in Act 3 blaming you for what happened to them when it wasn't your fault.

The game is riddled with so called choices but the choices don't matter. Same thing happens when you side with either Meredith or Orsino, outcome is still the same.

The dialogue wheel I quite enjoyed. The icons I enjoyed too. Could the tone system been done better? Of course. Did it outright suck? No it did not.

However I did enjoy DA2 but it really needed to be worked on more and the decisions being made needed to have farther reaching effects and consequences.

[upsettingshorts]

Brockololly wrote...

Especially agree on the unresponsiveness of the combat. I just find that aspect especially confusing considering the devs kept hyping how reactive and snappier the combat in DA2 is compared to Origins.When, in actuality it almost plays out like a turn based game since your characters are locked in the attack animations for so long after you initiate the attack and can't be broken out of it.

I preferred DA2's mechanic in the sense that I found its unresponsiveness was much more predictable than DAOs.

I knew that combat would play out as Sylvius described and played accordingly.  On the other hand in DAO I really couldn't predict when my characters would inexplicably path (shuffle) around or towards or right past its target only to chase it stupidly, and it really damaged my impression of the combat.

I'm not sure I have an answer on a good way to fix this that would please everyone.  DAO was bad.  DA2 was bad.  They're bad in different ways.  But still bad.  

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 25 octobre 2011 - 01:30 .

[Heimdall]

Heather Cline wrote...

Some things I agree with, some I don't.

Combat was good but the waves/hordes of enemies sucked. Combat was fast and responsive.

The story narrative was a good idea but they destroyed any possibility of choice having any far reaching effect in the game to later acts/chapters in the game. You free the mages in the cave for Ser Thrask and they still get captured. They then turn on you in Act 3 blaming you for what happened to them when it wasn't your fault.

The game is riddled with so called choices but the choices don't matter. Same thing happens when you side with either Meredith or Orsino, outcome is still the same.

The dialogue wheel I quite enjoyed. The icons I enjoyed too. Could the tone system been done better? Of course. Did it outright suck? No it did not.

However I did enjoy DA2 but it really needed to be worked on more and the decisions being made needed to have farther reaching effects and consequences.

I think you've more or less described my veiw.  I also think they should drop the personality system and include the option of full text along with the paraphrases.

[upsettingshorts]

Lord Aesir wrote...
I think you've more or less described my veiw.  I also think they should drop the personality system and include the option of full text along with the paraphrases.

I like the "if you highlight the paraphrase for 2+ seconds the full line appears" compromise.  That way if I like the idea of picking choices on the fly and not being spoiled by the following line, I don't have to.  But if I would rather put more thought into my choice - or it's a key choice - I can take my time and see what each and every one of my options really is.

[TheBlackBaron]

devSin wrote...

I found myself mostly agreeing with the review, except for the parts that were too Sylviusy.

This needs to be trademarked. 

Anyhow, Sylvius, I agree with most of your points, although I have a lower opinion of the "authored narrative" and don't put nearly as much emphasis on what you call the "emergent narrative", so I am not really bothered as much as you by some of its shortcomings. 

[C9316]

I pretty much agree with your points except for the authored narrative. I just felt confined whenever I played, mostly due to the time skips. They made the game seem broken if you will, like a jig-saw puzzle no one bothered to put together. Oh and to me it kinda ruins the dlc. "Oh that's right I forgot something about Hawke, lemme tell ya some more stuff he/she did that otherwise has no real impact!"

Modifié par C9316, 25 octobre 2011 - 01:51 .