127 réponses à ce sujet

[correctamundo]

I can ask the same question in reverse. Why do people like this game?

 

Because it is fun? Entertaining? Time well spent? A great game with some minor flaws? All the good reasons.

[Linkenski]

I liked the game but the story was mediocre and felt more like a saturday AM cartoon than good RPG stuff. The 3 act time-skip structure felt awkward.

[Bakgrind]

I like it well enough it's just that by the time I got to act 3 my eyes were bleeding from a lack of scenery change due to the fact that you are pretty much always in Kirkwall with it's drab color. Was only able to play one race by default, but I was able to get around that by using mods . I found Hawke to be less interesting than some of his companions ( Varric and Fenris come to mind ) Hawkes was written to be to much of a tragic figure for my taste. He is kind of the Tony Romo of DA, talented but really doesn't win the big game. Go to the deep roads a sibling becomes infected, can't save his mom, becomes champion and the city falls down around him. While having showed that he had great endurance to over come these set backs  it would of been nice to see him win a bit more. 

[TheChris92]

Hawke was an amusing protagonist, there were a few characters I liked like Varric, Isabela, Avelline and Merrill, sadly outweighed by the annoyance of the rest.

The seemingly inconsistent plot that can't seem to figure out what it wants to do with itself, does it want to be about a poor refugee, from humble beginnings, rising to glory and fame (loved by all his people?) or does it want to be about conflicting religious beliefs coming head-and-head with each other to a point that it tears apart anyone caught up in the fallout? Or does it want to be about Mages and Templars? In the end, it's neither of these things -- The game feels more or less like it plays out in the phase of self-discovery, where it tries to figure out what it wants to be about, but ultimately end up being Hawke just faffing about doing bugger all -- You also have the poorly use of time skips, reused environments and wave after wave of enemies are certainly a minus as well.

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

For me, it was mostly that the characters were underdeveloped, and built around stale archetypes. The setting never evolved, expanded, or changed, which altered the sense of wonder and exploration that accompanied travelling to new places in DA:O. And, of course, "The Cave™."

[dekarserverbot]

The fact that people who don't like it go out of their way to come here years after it's been released just to insult people who happen to like it makes me like it even more. It suggests that it has a quality of repelling people of less savory character.

 

it's not the fact he liked it, but the fact he acted like if those reasons were facts when they are not. MILLIONS OF PEOPLE agree with me in the fact that this is not a "great game"

[Weltall]

Fair enough.

 

Still, I did like the game. Of the three DA games, I have a hard time picking a favorite. This is because, there are aspects of all of them that I REALLY liked. But there were also things that I didn't like.

 

Regarding DA2, things I didn't like are pretty much the same as other people. Reusing the same areas, which wouldn't be quite as bad if every mansion, cave or, gang hideout in the game didn't have the exact same floor plan. Changing outfits on my companions would have been nice, but at least their outfits were consistent with their character and even played into the dialog from time to time. Didn't like how the elves looked like little kids. And romancing Merrill made me feel like a pedophile. Tons of bad guys spilling out of everywhere. And most of them could be killed in one to three hits. On the plus side, it made me feel like the bad ass bandit slayer of Kirkwall, but that didn't quite make up for the lack of tactical depth. Debilitating enemies, let along setting up detonator, was usually pointless because it was quicker to just kill them. And the enemies who did have enough health to make debilitating worthwhile were usually immune. The ending felt a little forced. Like all that tension that had been building up for all the years of the story had finally come a head, but in the end, the side you picked didn't really matter because both sides turned out to be idiots anyway. Abusive templars and mages turning into abominations was more the rule than the exception, like it was in the other two games. It's like every mage was just a bitter circle-hating, blood magic-practicing abomination just waiting to happen. And every templar woke up every morning just itching to go abusing some more mages. This was the central conflict of the story, but both sides were so messed up, it was hard to be sympathetic to either side, let alone have compassion for the perspectives of both sides. Both sides were jerks and both deserved to be hated.

 

Things I did like: Most people didn't like not being able to pick your race. But I rarely pick something other than human, so it didn't bother me. On the contrary, it actually created some extra depth to the story for me. If the character's backstory in DAO or DAI actually played any signficance in the story, I might consider the loss of it in DA2 to be worth griping about. But in DAO, you start out from wherever you're from, things go bad, you get picked up by the Wardens, and from there your history never really matters again (except for maybe a tiny sideplot depending on which race you pick). In DAI, it's even less significant because the only time your history is even mentioned is briefly with Josephine and random impassive mission on the War Table. In both games, outside of a few brief conversation lines, your race doesn't play much significance. In DA2, your family history is very significant. It plays into the entire story. It also allowed for your companions to refer to you by name instead of just a title, like in the other games. This made Hawke feel like a much more personal character to me.

 

I also generally liked the companions' personalities and banter better. Whereas in DAO and DAI, where I really only cared about maybe half my potential companions and the rest stayed back in camp, I consistently rotated through my companions in DA2 because I wanted them to be part of the story and and liked their interactions.

 

It was the first DA game with a voiced protagonist, which was a HUGE improvement.

 

It was the first time I'd seen where having a negative relationship with your companions wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Unlike in other games, if they don't like you, they just leave, here you had an opportunity to use that contrary personality to influence them and go against their dead-set views and sometimes even change them. You could even romance them while pissing them off all the time and making them see the error of their ways. And going the rivalry path with them opened up unique talents as well.

 

People will complain that mages were nerfed in DA2, but at least they weren't as OP as they were before. Things were at least a little more balanced this way.

[Djoffer]

want to like it, but cant play it due to horrible lag despite my rig being way above recommended setting..

[Putrid Pete]

In my case, I kinda disliked how easy this game was versus DA:O. I'm generally a casual gamer that will play games on normal, perhaps replay them in hard if I liked a particular game a lot, but with DA2 I had to switch to hard in order to have a similar experience to Origins in the normal difficulty.

There was also the sense that less strategizing was involved here, and often felt I was just mashing buttons to feel busy. That said, I enjoyed the story and characters; it was a positive experience overall, though it fell short a time or two of the expectations I had.

[Rannik]

It still better than any of the November 2014 Top10 list games:
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Grand Theft Auto V, Super Smash Bros., Madden NFL 15, Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Far Cry 4, Pokemon Omega Ruby, NBA 2K15, Assassin's Creed: Unity, Halo: The Master Chief Collection

 

REALITY CHECK:

 

- GTA 5 is a vastly better game than Dragon Age will ever be, it oozes quality in every single aspect (gameplay, world, story, characters, music, graphics...) which is something that very few studios, and certainly not Bioware, have ever achieved. The very fact you're comparing Rockstar's baby to the DA2 trainwreck makes me believe those Fox News guys have way more idea about videogames than you do.

- Super Smash Bros is the return of one of the most solid and successful casual fighting games, with Nintendo's usual qualities.

- Far Cry 4 is a great game overall, I don't enjoy the Ubisoft-game formula so much but I can see why other people would.

- Haven't played Pokemon, but if they're still following their formula it has a to be an extremely solid title.

 

The rest I have absolutely no idea about (dropped Halo when they left PC, Unity is broken and I do my sports outside) but if people buy them it is because they provide fun, which is the one and only metric any reasonable person would look at when comparing entertainment products.

[caradoc2000]

The rest I have absolutely no idea about (dropped Halo when they left PC, Unity is broken and I do my sports outside) but if people buy them it is because they provide fun, which is the one and only metric any reasonable person would look at when comparing entertainment products.

Exactly, personal experience. And as I said - in my personal experience - I've enjoyed DA games (DA2 included) more than any of that Top10 list games.
 

The very fact you're comparing Rockstar's baby to the DA2 trainwreck makes me believe those Fox News guys have way more idea about videogames than you do.

Yeah, I am a newcomer to gaming. I've only played since the 80s, so how could I possibly know what I like.

[gay_wardens]

parachuting enemies

 

wtf does that even mean?

 

And to the OP: They are just story and quest focused people who don't care as much about the combat, which is evident in why everyone loves Inquisition with its butchered combat.

[caradoc2000]

wtf does that even mean?

"Parachuting enemies" refers to the enemies dropping from the sky.

[The Grey Ranger]

wtf does that even mean?

 

 

 

Or to say it another way.  "Another Wave" 

[Natureguy85]

The story was bad. Hawke is a reactive protagonist, not an active or proactive one. Things happen TO Hawke. This can work in story telling but is a hard sell in a video game, which is normally about the player taking control.

 

Secondly, the time skips hurt the story, the supposed rise to power. The first year, where Hawke makes a name for himself and learns the city, is skipped. Then more years are skipped. So Hawke has a 10 year relationship with his companions, but we only see a little bit of it.

 

The final comment on the story I will make is that it ruins it's two sides of the conflict. Firstly, you don't get to know them until halfway into the game, so it's hard to say Templars v Mages is the theme of the whole game. It's more the theme of the second half. Secondly, while they both build a lot of sympathy, it's destroyed n the end. Orsino uses blood magic to become a monster. Meredith seemed well meaning but paranoid, but is ultimately shown to be crazy because of the red lyrium. The Red Lyrium wasn't properly used. It could have been shown to strengthen or bring out characteristics of it's holder, as it seemed to strengthen Bartrand's greed, but then they show that it just made him batspit crazy. The same with Meredith. I could have bought that it was strengthening her paranoia, but then she goes full insane and using crazy magical powers.

 

Ultimately, the story leaves me saying "so what?"

 

The companions other than Varric were all individually boring and one-dimensional, though their interaction was great.

 

Finally, you have gameplay things like enemies magically coming out of nowhere to extend battles and the reused environments, such as in the caves.

[Catastrophy]

I got tired of visiting the same places all over again and of running up and down the city trying to figure out how to advance the story. I stopped playing before getting to the dark roads. I couldn't really get warm with the combat system either. DAO combat wasn't really my cup of tea either but I endured it for the story and the happy Mabari. And Morrigan-Alistair banter.

[dekarserverbot]

I got tired of visiting the same places all over again and of running up and down the city trying to figure out how to advance the story. I stopped playing before getting to the dark roads. I couldn't really get warm with the combat system either. DAO combat wasn't really my cup of tea either but I endured it for the story and the happy Mabari. And Morrigan-Alistair banter.

 

i envy you... stopping playing it would be the second best decision in my life... but i was stupid and kept playing it for another 8 hours just to see it sucked big dinosaur balls

[Vader20]

I haven't played it for years.... so i don't remember some things that went on there very well. The problem with it was that everything took place in Kirkwall and I got bored of seeing the same recycled places over and over again. Honeslty it could have been even better than DAO if it had the same world size. The writing was good.. character interactions were a LOT more interesting than in DAI because not everyone was kissing your a**s like in DAI. I loved the tension between female mage Hawke and Carver. Looking back now it was a pretty well wrotte story and world, BUT.... everything plays out in Kirkwal. For someone who loves explorations like me, it was a killer.

 

The deep roads expedition was really exciting... what are you going to find ? who to take.. and that you had to make money to go there. After the expedition that game gets killed by revisitiong the same caves and areas all over again.

[fkirenicus]

My reasons for liking DAO better, apart from reuse of environments/areas, repetetive and boring combat ("one group ahead, one behind, and darn me if not yet another one or two groups drop from the sky (!!) as well!") AND ridiculously flashy combat (feels like I'm playing Street Fighter at some points) are that the depth / richness found DAO is almost completely gone. Sure, there are codex entries, but I really liked being able to examine even mundane gear in DAO. I liked the icons - while they were limited, they didn't ALL look the same (apart from colors). Also, I do not find the story so compelling as those of DAO / DAA - there are too many loose ends that they somehow try to tie together, with in my opinion variable luck.  
What I do like are the skill / spell trees (though they do look a little like Diablo 2 :-)). 

[wallydog]

Didn't hate the game but was far from thinking it was good.  From the first time I played the demo, I thought, wow, they've turned this into a Japanese fighting game.  Your character with the giant oversized weapon, swooshing into the enemy at blinding speed.  Thought to myself just how realistic it was.  I personally do that sort of thing all the time in real life.

Story was half baked but not horrible.  Companions pretty much sucked, Varric being the only real exception.  Merrill was a 10 year old with a " I don't want to listen to anybody who doesn't agree with me cause I'm right no matter how wrong I am." completion.  Isabella totally shallow.  Anders went from pretty good in origins dlc, to totally idiotic.  Won't bother to go on.

Reused caves and scenery.  Nuff said.

Dialog sucked a lot of times.  Either you're a total d--k, or you want to romance them with no in between.

The friend or rival would have been good if it hadn't sucked so bad.  Had good conversations with someone only to have a bunch of rival points go up and left me totally confused.

Lots more but I'll finish with this.  I was just replaying it and with at least a dozen more missions to do, I got thrust into the final fight before I should have.  Haven't even got all my gear.  Didn't give me a say in the matter, just threw me into the endgame no matter what.  REALLY po'd me.  Just beat the high dragon went back into town and boom,  game over.  Origins was 10x the game this one was on both story and gameplay.  Fighting was slower but much more thought out.  I don't want a dragon age streetfighter game.

I also finished origins with every character possible.  Loved it.

[TheodoricFriede]

I acknowledge its flaws. Many of which have been mentioned already.

 

But something about it, maybe the characters, makes it my favorite in the series.

 

I love DA2.

[AngelOfOutlaws]

I don't actively dislike Dragon Age II. It's better than some games I've played. There are some things I consider objectively bad, but mostly there are things that make it a game I'm far less interested in and which has far less opportunity for roleplaying and replayability than Dragon Age: Origins did. Therefore, it may often seem as though I dislike the game, but that's only in comparison to games I actively like -- and if there's a question of feedback or which Dragon Age game I liked better, which I'd like to see more features from in the future and so forth, it's going to be Origins.

Because I've some time on my hands right now, here's a more in-depth breakdown of what I don't like about Dragon Age II as compared to Dragon Age: Origins, and -- to be fair -- also a few things I do like.

Objectively Bad
- Reused sets
- Opponents dropping from the sky
- Boss-type monsters being designed with mass quantities of hitpoints (this is the way to create lengthy and tiring encounters, not challenging and deadly encounters)
- Very generic loot
- For being basically the only place you can go, Kirkwall's pretty small
- The ending was too similar both ways despite given the impression it would be a decent amount different; should've been a little bit more difference, or maybe seemed less like it would've been different
- Many circumstances where many characters would not have gone along with the plot except that it was forced (including all of those "fighting here would be meaningless" situations)

Subjectively/Situationally Bad
- Voiced PC
- Paraphrase system
- Less interesting and satisfying combat (quite a few more specific complaints which I'm lumping under this)
- Can't change companions equipment (although at least there's a mod for that)
- Armour and weapons restricted by class, often in ways that don't make sense (why can't warriors use bows?)
- Weighting combat mechanics with such huge numbers really changes things for the worse (if the difference between 400 and 500 is what the difference between 40 and 50 used to be, just stick to 40 and 50)
- Combat now too sped up, as opposed to being too slow
- Rogue abilities got a lot cheesier, and in fact, so did abilities in general
- Almost no replayability due to voice and the story being more personally focused
- Less interesting companions on average than in DA:O
- More things seeming to defy lore (mages flitting around in combat, Orsino's sudden harvester act, and so forth)
- I really disliked the elf redesign; I would not have actively liked it had they been designed that way to begin with, but I don't like such changes in the middle of a series at all
- Being restricted to a human character
- The intro where you have to play as the over-the-top default character no matter what
- Only being able to talk to companions when you get a quest for it felt odd and forced
- Having your character interject things into the banter with no control over it
- Friendship/rivalry system left no room for NPCs ever actually disliking your character
- No non-combat skills
- I really didn't like the UI, but that's not a major complaint, rather a fairly minor one
- Female character animations only worked for a narrow band of characters, not including any I wanted to play
- Not being able to hold and move the characters around as well made some combat strategies more difficult
- No conversations at all with basically any merchants, only clicking on them to open the shop
- Lots of fetch quests which were (unintentionally?) humorous, but odd and kind of pointless feeling
- A lot of other quests felt kind of odd to me as well (eliminating bandits and so forth)

Objectively Good
- Generally better proportions for human characters, less huge hands
- Family members looked at least potentially related to your character

Subjectively/Situationally Good
- Longer period of time meant that companion relationships (both friendship and romance) seemed more reasonable to me
- Bringing the same companions along for the DLC as opposesd to having new ones for each DLC (this was a problem I had with Origins' DLC)
- Being able to let your companions handle situations every now and then was nice
- The whole receiving letters and hearing about past quests thing
- Legacy was cool (though I'd've preferred the same premise for DA:O)
- There were several story themes that I thought were interesting, but I'd've enjoyed them more if I'd enjoyed the gameplay more
- There were a few times I thought the whole narrated-by-Varric thing worked quite well, and it was an interesting concept, although there were also definitely times where I didn't think it worked very well
 

I'd say that's actually fairly accurate, although I'd go with a slightly different way of describing the second category: people who prefer RPGs which try to emulate the tabletop experience to some degree (particularly in terms of how much control you have over your character) such as Baldur's Gate, played DA:O because of that, and are disappointed by the fact that DA II moved further away from that particularly because DA:O did a good job of it. I don't think most people really believed the whole 'spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate' thing, since there were a good many differences between DA:O and BG, but DA:O did have a more classical RPG feeling than DA II -- and that classical RPG/action RPG divide is I'm sure where the largest split in opinion comes from.

Remmirath hit the nail on the head. I'm just going to add my own comments to hers(?) instead of creating a whole new list.

 

And before I continue, I do like DAII. To me it's like the class clown of a group of friends, not taken very seriously, but always fun to have around. I definitely prefer it to DAI.

 

Personally, I just didn't like that it felt rushed. I would have waited another year if it meant a better game. Especially because it was following what is widely regarded as the best RPG of all time (although DAO does have some flaws don't get me wrong.) It didn't feel like the daughter of DAO...more like the second cousin. You can kind of tell they're related once someone has already told you. 

 

One of my biggest grievances is the three reply/personality options. I hated how it was either, sweet, sarcastic, or aggressive. It DAO, you had 4-6 different replies normally and it had a huge range of emotions. DAI kind of fixed this...but not really. 

 

The awkward trigger for companions, I hated how you could only talk to them when the give you a quest/finish a quest. In DAO once it had the random conversations in camp which was always fun. And the romance dialogues were triggered by approval instead of: "Congrats You Unlocked Anders Tragic Backstory Conversation!" 

 

But yes, I agree wholeheartedly with Remmirath, so I will stop before I write a novel. 

[Kondorr]

DA2 was an overlong DLC... and at that it was a prequel DLC to inquisition, not Origins... the story was disjointed, the ending was too abrubt... it was like going about your buisnes for 10 years and then the game ended, 80% of quests were side qyests of little importance, Hawke although "the champion" was a total underachiever (mom dead, sibling dead, friend killed hundreds, could not stop Arishok from laying siege to the city) the passage of time was criminaly underused:

• no changes in city layout,
• people wear same clothes for 10 years straight,
• people did not age,
• one guy was waiting 6 years for a meeting with the vicount, as far as I know he still is there, while I go to close the Breach in Haven) NO I DID NOT TELL HIM THE VICOUNT WAS BEHEADED...
• The same whores in the Rose for 10 years... <now this one is a joke>

Was the game fun why it lasted? YES
Is the DLC good? Actually better than the game itself.

Is it worth playing... at least once if you like Bioware and accept the fact that DA2 is more a Spinoff than a Sequel.

 

But in the end it was the ending that did not go well with me...