DA:I is better than DA2 hands down.
I don't think DA2 is a bad game, in fact I think it's a good game. It also excels in certain departments such as its characters, script and voice acting. I can listen to just its banter on YouTube and be entertained.
However, it has alot of issues and not all are limited to the gameplay.
Its overall "plot" is quite convoluted due to the fact it feels like each of the 3 Acts are a completely separate story. Yes, they overlap with one another but are ultimately separate narratives.
I am also one of those who found its reduction in scope a negative, as naturally it feels like a step back compared to its predecessor and counter to part of what made Origins so awesome. Some people in this thread seem to be looking back on that aspect of the game fondly, labelling it as a more "personal" story but I have two issues with that:
- 1) Whether it is more or less personal than Origins, I acknowledge it succeeds at presenting a personal story. However, even if that success was contingent on a reduced scope I still feel it worked against it, especially off the back of Origins. It made the events throughout 90% of the game feel at worst irrelevant and at best incidental. The only aspect of it that ended up feeling like it mattered to the saga's overall story was Anders' terrorism and its repercussions.
- 2) Personalizing a story and making a story grand in scope are not mutually exclusive and as such not necessarily even directly relevant to one another. DA2 wasn't personal because of reduced scope, it was personal because of how it was written. Perhaps reduced scope aided in that endeavour but that is all. Again, unfortunately for DA2, Origins was once again an example that illustrated this - it was epic and personal.
Outside of scope, I also take some issue with how bluntly the focus was shifted from Origins' focus on the Darkspawn to Mages/Templars. Changing focus is fine, in fact required over a saga, but DA2 was rather blazé in how it handled this.
With Origins I spent the best part of 60+ hours focused on the Darkspawn, they were the most relevant antagonistic aspect in the story and the lore, and not purely because of the Blight due to Awakening's events. DA2 then comes along and ushers them into virtual irrelevance. It felt jarring and discontiguous, immediately splintering it off from a much superior game.
But of course the most obvious and glaring issue is gameplay. Mobs spawning from thin air or from rooftops and recycled environments the glaring issues. World space was also rather small - going from an entire country to a city and the odd area outside is not the way to go IMO.
Truly, Inquisition has its problems, but I cannot see how you'd view DA2 as a superior game. Elements of it are superior of course, and I take issue with how "generic" much of the content out in the world of Inquisition is, but once again that is not an issue with increased scope but an issue with the execution of increased scope. Ultimately, alot of this content is optional anyway, so if one wants to play Inquisition in a smaller, more personalized manner nothing is stopping you but yourself. However, if one wants to play DA2 on a grander stage...well, tough luck.
Inquisition is more ambitious, it strives for more and tries harder. Obviously, it's easier for such an undertaking to have cracks in it but even in spite of that I think it's easily the better game overall. On top of that, once extra content is added and/or DLC I think it will be clear head and shoulders above DA2. It doesn't match Origins, as I just feel all the stars aligned for that game, but it's still a return to form.
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