I want to say I did enjoy the game, very much. In fact Bioware games are the only games these days that can fulfill my gaming enjoyment. ( not necessarily a good thing since I used to play quite a few games, but it stands, the lack of human involvement and personal emotion makes most games I loved no longer fun ho him) I gave a review when it all came out, but I have rethought some issues playing it again.
While I loved how friendship rivalry affected your relationship, and how tones can change a story line, I felt the PC, not me mind quite as much, but the PC was powerless. Every plot that happened forced the PC to be somewhat powerless. For example, The Qunari are an interesting people who are stuck, but no matter what you do with them or how much you make things calmer or even agree with the Qunari...you must fight them. There is a sense of futility and in video games that is expected to some extent. But contrast that with the Dalish plotline where yes you must deal with the curse but you can deal with it in a lot of ways.
It isn't so much the variability that is nice but not feeling helpless. And having agency. No matter what you do with the Templar Mage rebellion, it gets out of control, beyond anything you have done. I realize you need that for conflict, but the thing is they don't rebell because you have been helping the mages and they are uppity, or helping the Templars be tyrants, it is something completely out of your control. Even worse it comes from something you feel you should have seen or prevented. It would have been great if a random Mage blew up the Chantry, or even a sibling who was not there. Nothing you have done up to this point mattered, and you get to choose your arbitrary side, it makes no difference, due to the same feeling and storyline.
A(hopefully) fair critique of DA2
Débuté par
karushna5
, mars 06 2013 09:30
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#2
Posté 06 mars 2013 - 09:48
karushna5
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Sorry for double post, unable to scroll down in that first topic post so had to make it shorter
The story always happens with no input on Hawke other than She finishes it. No matter her feelings on the Qunari there are only really two endings, Isabela, and this is important since it is her actions not yours that determine this plot and it hinges on her liking/ respecting you enough to give you the option, going with the Qunari or you fighting them to leave because they tipped your hand. Hawke is always reacting very rarely acting, this is a problem for most games, but more so with this one due to its play style
This is also true with the companions. I loved them but half of them are fanatical, and it is really hard to deal with fanatics. Fenris absolutely hates mages, which is fine except to the degree he takes it and even though he accepts there may be good ones he is generally hostile and unthinking which would be a great character if we did not also have Anders who is even worse than Fenris as it is his whole concept with hardly anything ever mentioned about anything but the plight of mages. He has a cause, but some part of me wishes his cause was more like Avelines than a constant reminder that even the PC is plagued by it in her own home.
Merrill is also a form of this, so blind about her own powers and obsessed that she sacrifices everything for just a little bit of lore. Her mother figure and possibly the whole clan and even then she has a hard time admitting a mistake. With both her and Anders and being unable to do anything but watch them destroy themselves, at least a aggressive Hawke can convince Anders to fight with the Templars, but even he realizes there is no point
Throw in a lot of other characters who are also fanatic, like some Qunari, and sister Petrice and most mages and Templars. It is very difficult to enjoy the game at some points because while a few fanatical characters, even one in the party, is fun when it is most characters can be a bit emotionally draining.
I know it is unrelated, but I can't help ME3 had a bit this problem as well at the end. A choice completely outside the players actions and done in such a way that makes players feel forced to choose. Even the whole futility of there can never be peace with AIs so they kill you is so helpless it really takes away control. Perhaps just showing the different options, with perhaps 3 AIs representing the different ideas would have been nice. There was a whole lot of choices that matter in ME3 but the sheer helplessness of the ending, as well as DA2 makes it difficult to enjoy.
The story always happens with no input on Hawke other than She finishes it. No matter her feelings on the Qunari there are only really two endings, Isabela, and this is important since it is her actions not yours that determine this plot and it hinges on her liking/ respecting you enough to give you the option, going with the Qunari or you fighting them to leave because they tipped your hand. Hawke is always reacting very rarely acting, this is a problem for most games, but more so with this one due to its play style
This is also true with the companions. I loved them but half of them are fanatical, and it is really hard to deal with fanatics. Fenris absolutely hates mages, which is fine except to the degree he takes it and even though he accepts there may be good ones he is generally hostile and unthinking which would be a great character if we did not also have Anders who is even worse than Fenris as it is his whole concept with hardly anything ever mentioned about anything but the plight of mages. He has a cause, but some part of me wishes his cause was more like Avelines than a constant reminder that even the PC is plagued by it in her own home.
Merrill is also a form of this, so blind about her own powers and obsessed that she sacrifices everything for just a little bit of lore. Her mother figure and possibly the whole clan and even then she has a hard time admitting a mistake. With both her and Anders and being unable to do anything but watch them destroy themselves, at least a aggressive Hawke can convince Anders to fight with the Templars, but even he realizes there is no point
Throw in a lot of other characters who are also fanatic, like some Qunari, and sister Petrice and most mages and Templars. It is very difficult to enjoy the game at some points because while a few fanatical characters, even one in the party, is fun when it is most characters can be a bit emotionally draining.
I know it is unrelated, but I can't help ME3 had a bit this problem as well at the end. A choice completely outside the players actions and done in such a way that makes players feel forced to choose. Even the whole futility of there can never be peace with AIs so they kill you is so helpless it really takes away control. Perhaps just showing the different options, with perhaps 3 AIs representing the different ideas would have been nice. There was a whole lot of choices that matter in ME3 but the sheer helplessness of the ending, as well as DA2 makes it difficult to enjoy.
#3
Posté 06 mars 2013 - 10:01
Sir George Parr
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I do agree that Hawke was swept into a maelstrom and had no means of influencing events. What was going to happen would happen regardless of what you do. On the subject of Anders it is better that you feel that you should have seen it coming. Now if only the game had allowed you choice to have prevented it from happening in the first place.
Interesting idea to have had Bethany radicalised by Anders and have her blow up the chantry intead. I just extrapolated from your reference to the sibling.
Interesting idea to have had Bethany radicalised by Anders and have her blow up the chantry intead. I just extrapolated from your reference to the sibling.
- karushna5 aime ceci
#4
Posté 06 mars 2013 - 10:45
Angrywolves
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I stab Anders in my other playthrough. Yes one of the game's flaws was that the outcome was predetermined no matter what you as Hawke did.
#5
Posté 07 mars 2013 - 03:03
karushna5
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Or carver, either way, but it does feel that Hawke is always forced n every situation with no choice or even an action but a reaction, and I really don't want this to seem I hate the games, I really loved DA2 but me and my roommate can't help but feel something was "off" but saying that isn't very useful so this was me trying to pinpoint that feeling
#6
Posté 07 mars 2013 - 11:47
Sir George Parr
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Forgot about Carver.Found he was the only downside to playing as a mage
#7
Guest_krul2k_*
Posté 07 mars 2013 - 03:48
Guest_krul2k_*
Guest_krul2k_*
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love DA2 but dislike most of the companions, it is my biggest gripe about the game tbh, im alone there though nigh everyone else loves the companions in this game an i just find them off putting lol, basically play this game solo majority of the time now an dont even recruit fenris as he managed to replace zevran as the most annoying character ive ever encountered in a video game lol
Aveline was probably the best of the bunch, just a pity i never had a use for her outside of getting to kirkwall, isabele always ended up my LI though wierd, guess i found soloing pretty darn lonely lol
Aveline was probably the best of the bunch, just a pity i never had a use for her outside of getting to kirkwall, isabele always ended up my LI though wierd, guess i found soloing pretty darn lonely lol
#8
Posté 11 mars 2013 - 03:17
grumpymooselion
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I'd have liked to be able to stab Anders sooner. Just saying. Was anyone but me sure he was up to no good, before he actually did no good? That request he makes of you, sure, you can turn it down, but you can turn it down because it's so blatantly obvious he has really bad intent. He was an abomination by any other name, even before that point, having the option to just plain put him down was something I was hoping for in my head with nearly every interaction.
I kind of liked Carver in my Mage play through. I think I liked him because with two sisters, both decently powerful mages, I sort of get how he could end up the way he is. His father was a mage, and both his sisters (or sister and brother if your mage play through was male) are mages. His father spent all his time with the two magical children, because he was training them to control themselves and not go wrong . . . but Carver didn't know or understand that. In fact because your character, and he, as children, never talked much during one DLC you have a chance to outright, and finally, talk to him about this fact. It becomes obvious that their Father kept Carver in the dark about a lot of things. Carver lacked a strong male fatherly presence to raise him, that he craved, and . . . the sad part of it is that the father, apparently, always wanted his children to all be non-magical. In a way, and Carver never knew it, he was the favorite . . . the Father spent time with the mage children because he was worried about all the things that could go wrong with them. As a result he never really was there for Carver, but it was because he thought Carver would be okay just by way of being normal.
It's interesting, and it actually made me really connect with Carver's character. Being able to reach out and heal those old wounds, with Hawke and Carver, was actually one of the more touching things I got out of DA2.
I kind of liked Carver in my Mage play through. I think I liked him because with two sisters, both decently powerful mages, I sort of get how he could end up the way he is. His father was a mage, and both his sisters (or sister and brother if your mage play through was male) are mages. His father spent all his time with the two magical children, because he was training them to control themselves and not go wrong . . . but Carver didn't know or understand that. In fact because your character, and he, as children, never talked much during one DLC you have a chance to outright, and finally, talk to him about this fact. It becomes obvious that their Father kept Carver in the dark about a lot of things. Carver lacked a strong male fatherly presence to raise him, that he craved, and . . . the sad part of it is that the father, apparently, always wanted his children to all be non-magical. In a way, and Carver never knew it, he was the favorite . . . the Father spent time with the mage children because he was worried about all the things that could go wrong with them. As a result he never really was there for Carver, but it was because he thought Carver would be okay just by way of being normal.
It's interesting, and it actually made me really connect with Carver's character. Being able to reach out and heal those old wounds, with Hawke and Carver, was actually one of the more touching things I got out of DA2.
#9
Posté 13 mars 2013 - 04:50
karushna5
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I agree, part of me is always sad to play a rogue or a warrior because I miss out on him and their complex sibling rivalry, in some ways he was my favorite character.
#10
Posté 26 mars 2013 - 05:23
karushna5
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Also a bit of a lack of accomplishment, I realize.
Qunari have left but it is for only a period of time, and still a sense of we will be back.
Mage/Templar debate only escalated
Hawke even doesn't keep the friends s/he has been amassing and then disappears even if you become the viscount
Very little is accomplished by the player and this may add to a sense of futility
Qunari have left but it is for only a period of time, and still a sense of we will be back.
Mage/Templar debate only escalated
Hawke even doesn't keep the friends s/he has been amassing and then disappears even if you become the viscount
Very little is accomplished by the player and this may add to a sense of futility
