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This is going to be a loooong post, so I'll spoiler the various sections. Note, there will also be plot spoilers in my review (albeit, very few I think), so read at your own cost.
Before I get going I'll give a little framework about me that doesn't include plot or party spoilers. I've beaten DA:O several times on the most challenging difficulty as several classes. I enjoy the game, but found ME1 and especially ME2 more satisfying. DA:O, for all of its awesomeness, was really drawn out at times. Combat became monotonous and you were pigeonholed into classes/specs and party makeup if you wanted to compete. Having to go into several chunks of the game and not finding your way out of it to get back to a city or freedom meant sometimes having 2+ hours in one area that left you with only wishing it to be over. The story was good, but ultimately set in a fairly boring world. I have other complaints about DA:O (although I still enjoyed the game), but I'll end it there.
My play-through of Dragon Age 2 took 56 hours as a rogue on the hard difficulty setting. This includes a decent amount of time while paused while I was afk, but it also excludes some time where I would reset or replay a various zone to prevent death or change party members, etc... so I think the ~60 hours is about accurate to describe it given how much I did. I completed almost ever quest, the few I missed were from transitioning from one act to another too quickly resulting in missing a few here and there. My reviews will have many more things I didn't like than I did like, but that's not saying I disliked the game. I think Destructoid's review http://www.destructoid.com/review-dragon-age-ii-196964.phtml (7/10) is a fair review, although I'd bump it up to like an 8.25 (not that they do quarters).
The Good:
+ Show Spoiler +
Varric - Similar to Mordin Solus in ME2, he is the character that keeps you insanely interested just by his mannerisms and dialogue options. While, as a character he wasn't over fascinating, the voice acting and dialogue made talking to him worth it any time you could. I found myself dragging him along in my party more often than I should have just to hear him interact with my other colleagues.
NPC Interactions - In that same idea, listening to all of my companions go back and forth with completely different lines of dialogue while wandering around the city was fantastic. The character growth between individuals was also a great treat. They didn't remain stagnant, and seeing cut scenes that you were merely a spectator of was enjoyable.
Combat - Combat in DA2 blew the doors off of DA:O. The animations of spells/abilities alone made it 10x more visually appealing. The pace and smoothness of it all also made for consistently entertaining action. Despite people complaining about the camera view, I think I only had problems with it like 2 or 3 times (legitimate annoyances, not just having to spend another second swiveling around to find the right spot to do an aoe spell/ability).
Group Setup - One of my largest complaints about DA:O was how pigeon-holed you were into taking the same group (or roughly) everywhere you went, especially on the hardest difficulty. Tank, Mage, Mage, Rogue was pretty much a must. The tank did his best to survive while 1 mage spam healed/cc'd while the other one spam dps/cc and the rogue ran around doing more damage than god. While there are times where certain companions or group setups will favor you a lot more (the high dragon or rock golem(in the deep roads, the demon guy)), by in large I was able to enter combat with myself and any 3 companions of my choosing. I didn't always have Anders to heal me and I didn't always run with Fenris or Aveline tanking. While I imagine on Nightmare I'd probably always have to have a tank, I imagine it's simply a matter of being more and more cautious with the non-tanks to avoid getting melee'd or cast at and disoriented, which would undoubtedly result in their quick demise
Legitimate Specs Who played as a ranged rogue in DA:O? Nobody, because it sucked. Even if you made Leliana perfect or yourself, your dps would still be absolutely terrible compared to every other class. DA2 made each and every spec viable. Every character was usable. While there were certainly some "better" choices to do more damage, it still offered legitimate variety in playstyles.
The Qunari - While their roles were not as the primary antagonist, their addition to the game was awesome. Learning about them, their war with the Tevinter, etc... added a level of intimidation. You knew their stay in the city wouldn't end peacefully, and their ever-existing presence made for some solid drama for you to meddle in.
Companion Armor - This is good/bad, but I'll just talk about the good part here. Know what was ugly as sin in DA:O? Your companions (and sometimes you) in absolutely ridiculous looking outfits and clown suits. Making your companions armor simply level up and get better was a smart idea, since they could focus on making sure the companions looked good.
The Challenge – Specifically, how some of the boss encounters (few, but not many) were actually challenging. In DA:O, challenging only meant having the right type of tank and good enough gear to survive. In DA2, it is actually about controlling and micro managing your party to avoid certain abilities, cooperate with adds, kite a boss, etc... I would have preferred more of the bosses put me to that kind of test that the High Dragon or Rock-Goldem-Demon-Dude in the Deep Roads did.
Hawke Dialogue – Having Hawke have a voice as opposed to just lines of text is a huge improvement. I hated just being a mute in DA:O. While the dialogue wheel isn't always perfect, that little addition of the diamond, halo, mask, etc. to clue you into the type of response was a subtle yet almost perfect way to solve that.
The Bad:
+ Show Spoiler +
Nowhere To Go - Now, exploration isn't the most important thing in an RPG. Yes, everybody likes an open world where they get to wander around and choose. I'm ok with a more condensed world if they do a good job polishing... but there were so few places to go. While growing intimate with the city and its people was cool, at a certain point enough is enough. I don't need to feel the wind in my hair while I gallop around countrysides, but having like 4 places to go on the map, many of which you go to repeatedly, becomes tiresome.
Dependence on Items - When I play almost any RPG I always try to minimize my item usage. I don't know how common it is, but I also know it's my own choice so it doesn't bother me too much. However, you have 1 person who is able to rez companions, and if he's not in your party that means relying on items to do so (either the life ward pot or that rez grenade). Most deaths are avoidable so that's acceptable, but when there are multiple elite rogues on the field and you've got a non-tank at like 65% hp with pots/heal on CD... he's going to die. And if that's Anders, well you'd better hope nobody else dies if you're not prepared to use items.
Recycled Places - I understand time constraints and I understand that allllll games do it. However, With such a limited environment already, Bioware really should have put more time into tweaking the repeated warehouse or cave visits. Hell, it doesn't mean we need completely changing areas, but having the same map over and over with various areas blocked off (also an annoyance in general is that the maps don't change) detracted a lot from exploring.
Boring Enemies - Without the darkspawn suddenly, you find yourself now fighting boring bandits for the majority of the game. While I'm fine with fighting "thugs" or "slavers", given that it became a regular occurrence it also got overplayed. In each act you essentially found yourself a new annoying group at night who you'd eventually find their warehouse and kill.
Inventory/Armor/Accessories - First off, junk is retarded. Junk is an understatement. I'm fine with giving us shit we have to sell to take up inventory space, but this shit sells for absolutely nothing and the only reason I pick it up is because pressing R to pick everything up is easy to do.
The lack of armor for your companions I'm impartial to. It's good and bad, but I'm not strongly pushed in either direction. However, they made up for it by having a thousand rings, belts, and pendants drop that slowly got better. I would have greatly preferred they just found a better way of dealing with those 3 slots. Having to go through every couple of levels and dig around in the inventory for minor upgrades was tedious.
Lack of Exploring – Now, I don't mean a lack of overall zones since I already covered that. My issue was simply a lack of special quests that took either a lot of time/effort with a nice reward or challenging boss fight. Each act had like 1 of these, and while they were usually difficult, they also didn't take a lot to find.
Minor Inclusion of DA:O Characters – This is a small thing, but it seemed so tacky. Compare how old companions were in ME2 compared to DA2 to see how it should've been handled.
Romance – I have a couple of gripes about how DA2 dealt with romance.
1st: The options of who you can make fucky-fucky with are a little just bleh. Isabella is a whore. Not like, a little slutty, but a complete whore. Marrel is not particularly attractive or interesting because all of her dialogue is not very intimate in that regard. Aveline shouldn't even really be a romance option given the type of person she is. If you're gay or play a female Fenris actually seems to be the best choice out of everybody, since Anders is batshit insane.
2nd: ME1 got flack from their romance and sex scenes in the game so in ME2 they were changed and dummed down. DA:O also got some flak for their scenes (which were hilariously bad) but now in DA2, there were no sex scenes. I don't think I'd care about it, but there is so much sexual innuendo that goes on that I feel almost insulted that there isn't more romance. Like, “Hey, we can't do too much with romance, but we sure as shit can talk about it!”
Companions Personalities While the companions obviously were a huge and important part of the game that I enjoyed, there was 1 constant complaint I felt. It's one thing when there are strong personalities, it's another when it seems like ½ of the group hate each other to the point that they shouldn't even be with you and instead fighting to the death in the square at midnight. I'm fine and happy with differing personalities that are interesting, but at some point you'd have to think the fanaticism of some of your party members would cause more problems
Crafting – Just very meh. I like the idea of having to craft things... but that's not what this was. It was pick up random shit then have the ability to simply buy things from your house instead of having to check merchants.
Time Travel – Not legitimate time travel, but the jumps from year to year (or 3 at a time) I think don't really mesh with the idea of an RPG. The whole point of playing an RPG is to engross yourself in the character you're playing and comment/interact in a fashion that makes sense with your own personality or happenings in the game. When you suddenly miss out on years of time, it leaves a salty taste in my mouth thinking there has been no change in these times.
Anders – What a whiny fuck. At the start I thought I'd like him since he seemed like an odd ball talking about his kitten in the Deeproads and whatnot. Instead he was just an emo bitch who I avoided having in my party whenever possible. I'd have preferred my ending allowing Fenris to stick his hand into his chest to kill him instead of me just knifing him (which was decently satisfying).
The Random:
+ Show Spoiler +
The Ending – People bitched and moaned about this time and time again. It didn't bother me. Was it somewhat abrupt and not the greatest? Sure, but riddle me this... What RPGs legitimately leave you with a great ending? I can think of 2, Chrono Trigger and Earthbound. That's it. Every other RPG I can think of has left me less than fully satisfied with their ending. The reason most people are mad is the same reason most of the people were mad at Empire Strikes back. Clearly this is part of a saga, so its end isn't meant to be a complete end. This leaves the game feeling incomplete, and in a couple of years when we play DA3, then the ending of DA2 wont matter. For now it's all we're stuck with, so people are frustrated.
Your Family – I had mixed feelings about Bethany, your mother, and Gamline. They were just... weird. I'm not sure if I played it differently if Bethany can be in your party the whole time or not (I kinda' doubt it). While the addition of a family was nice, your mother always felt like a nagging bitch and Bethany is gone for most of the game, mocking you as a grayed out character on the party screen.
The Black Emporium – I don't know if Maker's Sighs were obtainable elsewhere in the game, but the ability to redistribute attributes/talents was fan-fucking-tastic. Seriously, That might have been one of the single biggest problems with DA:O, and this item solved the shit out of that. The rest of it I wasn't a fan of in terms of a place to buy shit, but it was interesting.
Companions' Personalities – This is just a random musing or train of thought, no real point to it though. I like extraordinary characters without the extraordinary personality. What I mean is, I'm fine with characters having unique and interesting background, so long as their personalities aren't obscene. DA2 has some problems with this, since they made such conflict amongst your group. You'd think Fenris would've left me pretty quickly given that he despises all mages and I travel with 2 and seek the freedom of others. It takes the last 30 minutes of the game before you finally get through to him at all. But he's still awesome, so that's ok.
Champion's Armor – At least for a rogue, looked ridiculously awesome. I think the whole reason I really even killed the High Dragon was so I could get the chest piece and complete my awesomeness.
As somewhat of a closing thought, this game moved simultaneously forward and backwards, just as ME2 did (albeit ME2 took more steps forward than back). The overall gameplay was vastly superior, but it was a more streamlined plot and user friendly. Whether or not DA3 will be decent or god-like will depend on ME3 in my eyes. If they took what they learned from ME1->ME2 and make ME3 fantastic, then I'm sure DA3 will receive the same kind of care and attention it deserves. If ME3 don't deliver, then I don't expect DA3 to deliver.
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Pretty much perfect review of the game....it seems like all Bioware games since KOTOR have had truly great parts but also parts that are seriously lacking and could easily see room for improvement. In their past few games all of the great parts overshadowed the ones that were lacking unfortunately these parts are a bit too glaring in DA2 =\
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On March 24 2011 11:54 I_Love_Bacon wrote:This is going to be a loooong post, so I'll spoiler the various sections. Note, there will also be plot spoilers in my review (albeit, very few I think), so read at your own cost. Before I get going I'll give a little framework about me that doesn't include plot or party spoilers. I've beaten DA:O several times on the most challenging difficulty as several classes. I enjoy the game, but found ME1 and especially ME2 more satisfying. DA:O, for all of its awesomeness, was really drawn out at times. Combat became monotonous and you were pigeonholed into classes/specs and party makeup if you wanted to compete. Having to go into several chunks of the game and not finding your way out of it to get back to a city or freedom meant sometimes having 2+ hours in one area that left you with only wishing it to be over. The story was good, but ultimately set in a fairly boring world. I have other complaints about DA:O (although I still enjoyed the game), but I'll end it there. My play-through of Dragon Age 2 took 56 hours as a rogue on the hard difficulty setting. This includes a decent amount of time while paused while I was afk, but it also excludes some time where I would reset or replay a various zone to prevent death or change party members, etc... so I think the ~60 hours is about accurate to describe it given how much I did. I completed almost ever quest, the few I missed were from transitioning from one act to another too quickly resulting in missing a few here and there. My reviews will have many more things I didn't like than I did like, but that's not saying I disliked the game. I think Destructoid's review http://www.destructoid.com/review-dragon-age-ii-196964.phtml (7/10) is a fair review, although I'd bump it up to like an 8.25 (not that they do quarters). The Good: + Show Spoiler +
Varric - Similar to Mordin Solus in ME2, he is the character that keeps you insanely interested just by his mannerisms and dialogue options. While, as a character he wasn't over fascinating, the voice acting and dialogue made talking to him worth it any time you could. I found myself dragging him along in my party more often than I should have just to hear him interact with my other colleagues.
NPC Interactions - In that same idea, listening to all of my companions go back and forth with completely different lines of dialogue while wandering around the city was fantastic. The character growth between individuals was also a great treat. They didn't remain stagnant, and seeing cut scenes that you were merely a spectator of was enjoyable.
Combat - Combat in DA2 blew the doors off of DA:O. The animations of spells/abilities alone made it 10x more visually appealing. The pace and smoothness of it all also made for consistently entertaining action. Despite people complaining about the camera view, I think I only had problems with it like 2 or 3 times (legitimate annoyances, not just having to spend another second swiveling around to find the right spot to do an aoe spell/ability).
Group Setup - One of my largest complaints about DA:O was how pigeon-holed you were into taking the same group (or roughly) everywhere you went, especially on the hardest difficulty. Tank, Mage, Mage, Rogue was pretty much a must. The tank did his best to survive while 1 mage spam healed/cc'd while the other one spam dps/cc and the rogue ran around doing more damage than god. While there are times where certain companions or group setups will favor you a lot more (the high dragon or rock golem(in the deep roads, the demon guy)), by in large I was able to enter combat with myself and any 3 companions of my choosing. I didn't always have Anders to heal me and I didn't always run with Fenris or Aveline tanking. While I imagine on Nightmare I'd probably always have to have a tank, I imagine it's simply a matter of being more and more cautious with the non-tanks to avoid getting melee'd or cast at and disoriented, which would undoubtedly result in their quick demise
Legitimate Specs Who played as a ranged rogue in DA:O? Nobody, because it sucked. Even if you made Leliana perfect or yourself, your dps would still be absolutely terrible compared to every other class. DA2 made each and every spec viable. Every character was usable. While there were certainly some "better" choices to do more damage, it still offered legitimate variety in playstyles.
The Qunari - While their roles were not as the primary antagonist, their addition to the game was awesome. Learning about them, their war with the Tevinter, etc... added a level of intimidation. You knew their stay in the city wouldn't end peacefully, and their ever-existing presence made for some solid drama for you to meddle in.
Companion Armor - This is good/bad, but I'll just talk about the good part here. Know what was ugly as sin in DA:O? Your companions (and sometimes you) in absolutely ridiculous looking outfits and clown suits. Making your companions armor simply level up and get better was a smart idea, since they could focus on making sure the companions looked good.
The Challenge – Specifically, how some of the boss encounters (few, but not many) were actually challenging. In DA:O, challenging only meant having the right type of tank and good enough gear to survive. In DA2, it is actually about controlling and micro managing your party to avoid certain abilities, cooperate with adds, kite a boss, etc... I would have preferred more of the bosses put me to that kind of test that the High Dragon or Rock-Goldem-Demon-Dude in the Deep Roads did.
Hawke Dialogue – Having Hawke have a voice as opposed to just lines of text is a huge improvement. I hated just being a mute in DA:O. While the dialogue wheel isn't always perfect, that little addition of the diamond, halo, mask, etc. to clue you into the type of response was a subtle yet almost perfect way to solve that.
The Bad: + Show Spoiler +
Nowhere To Go - Now, exploration isn't the most important thing in an RPG. Yes, everybody likes an open world where they get to wander around and choose. I'm ok with a more condensed world if they do a good job polishing... but there were so few places to go. While growing intimate with the city and its people was cool, at a certain point enough is enough. I don't need to feel the wind in my hair while I gallop around countrysides, but having like 4 places to go on the map, many of which you go to repeatedly, becomes tiresome.
Dependence on Items - When I play almost any RPG I always try to minimize my item usage. I don't know how common it is, but I also know it's my own choice so it doesn't bother me too much. However, you have 1 person who is able to rez companions, and if he's not in your party that means relying on items to do so (either the life ward pot or that rez grenade). Most deaths are avoidable so that's acceptable, but when there are multiple elite rogues on the field and you've got a non-tank at like 65% hp with pots/heal on CD... he's going to die. And if that's Anders, well you'd better hope nobody else dies if you're not prepared to use items.
Recycled Places - I understand time constraints and I understand that allllll games do it. However, With such a limited environment already, Bioware really should have put more time into tweaking the repeated warehouse or cave visits. Hell, it doesn't mean we need completely changing areas, but having the same map over and over with various areas blocked off (also an annoyance in general is that the maps don't change) detracted a lot from exploring.
Boring Enemies - Without the darkspawn suddenly, you find yourself now fighting boring bandits for the majority of the game. While I'm fine with fighting "thugs" or "slavers", given that it became a regular occurrence it also got overplayed. In each act you essentially found yourself a new annoying group at night who you'd eventually find their warehouse and kill.
Inventory/Armor/Accessories - First off, junk is retarded. Junk is an understatement. I'm fine with giving us shit we have to sell to take up inventory space, but this shit sells for absolutely nothing and the only reason I pick it up is because pressing R to pick everything up is easy to do.
The lack of armor for your companions I'm impartial to. It's good and bad, but I'm not strongly pushed in either direction. However, they made up for it by having a thousand rings, belts, and pendants drop that slowly got better. I would have greatly preferred they just found a better way of dealing with those 3 slots. Having to go through every couple of levels and dig around in the inventory for minor upgrades was tedious.
Lack of Exploring – Now, I don't mean a lack of overall zones since I already covered that. My issue was simply a lack of special quests that took either a lot of time/effort with a nice reward or challenging boss fight. Each act had like 1 of these, and while they were usually difficult, they also didn't take a lot to find.
Minor Inclusion of DA:O Characters – This is a small thing, but it seemed so tacky. Compare how old companions were in ME2 compared to DA2 to see how it should've been handled.
Romance – I have a couple of gripes about how DA2 dealt with romance.
1st: The options of who you can make fucky-fucky with are a little just bleh. Isabella is a whore. Not like, a little slutty, but a complete whore. Marrel is not particularly attractive or interesting because all of her dialogue is not very intimate in that regard. Aveline shouldn't even really be a romance option given the type of person she is. If you're gay or play a female Fenris actually seems to be the best choice out of everybody, since Anders is batshit insane.
2nd: ME1 got flack from their romance and sex scenes in the game so in ME2 they were changed and dummed down. DA:O also got some flak for their scenes (which were hilariously bad) but now in DA2, there were no sex scenes. I don't think I'd care about it, but there is so much sexual innuendo that goes on that I feel almost insulted that there isn't more romance. Like, “Hey, we can't do too much with romance, but we sure as shit can talk about it!”
Companions Personalities While the companions obviously were a huge and important part of the game that I enjoyed, there was 1 constant complaint I felt. It's one thing when there are strong personalities, it's another when it seems like ½ of the group hate each other to the point that they shouldn't even be with you and instead fighting to the death in the square at midnight. I'm fine and happy with differing personalities that are interesting, but at some point you'd have to think the fanaticism of some of your party members would cause more problems
Crafting – Just very meh. I like the idea of having to craft things... but that's not what this was. It was pick up random shit then have the ability to simply buy things from your house instead of having to check merchants.
Time Travel – Not legitimate time travel, but the jumps from year to year (or 3 at a time) I think don't really mesh with the idea of an RPG. The whole point of playing an RPG is to engross yourself in the character you're playing and comment/interact in a fashion that makes sense with your own personality or happenings in the game. When you suddenly miss out on years of time, it leaves a salty taste in my mouth thinking there has been no change in these times.
Anders – What a whiny fuck. At the start I thought I'd like him since he seemed like an odd ball talking about his kitten in the Deeproads and whatnot. Instead he was just an emo bitch who I avoided having in my party whenever possible. I'd have preferred my ending allowing Fenris to stick his hand into his chest to kill him instead of me just knifing him (which was decently satisfying).
The Random: + Show Spoiler +
The Ending – People bitched and moaned about this time and time again. It didn't bother me. Was it somewhat abrupt and not the greatest? Sure, but riddle me this... What RPGs legitimately leave you with a great ending? I can think of 2, Chrono Trigger and Earthbound. That's it. Every other RPG I can think of has left me less than fully satisfied with their ending. The reason most people are mad is the same reason most of the people were mad at Empire Strikes back. Clearly this is part of a saga, so its end isn't meant to be a complete end. This leaves the game feeling incomplete, and in a couple of years when we play DA3, then the ending of DA2 wont matter. For now it's all we're stuck with, so people are frustrated.
Your Family – I had mixed feelings about Bethany, your mother, and Gamline. They were just... weird. I'm not sure if I played it differently if Bethany can be in your party the whole time or not (I kinda' doubt it). While the addition of a family was nice, your mother always felt like a nagging bitch and Bethany is gone for most of the game, mocking you as a grayed out character on the party screen.
The Black Emporium – I don't know if Maker's Sighs were obtainable elsewhere in the game, but the ability to redistribute attributes/talents was fan-fucking-tastic. Seriously, That might have been one of the single biggest problems with DA:O, and this item solved the shit out of that. The rest of it I wasn't a fan of in terms of a place to buy shit, but it was interesting.
Companions' Personalities – This is just a random musing or train of thought, no real point to it though. I like extraordinary characters without the extraordinary personality. What I mean is, I'm fine with characters having unique and interesting background, so long as their personalities aren't obscene. DA2 has some problems with this, since they made such conflict amongst your group. You'd think Fenris would've left me pretty quickly given that he despises all mages and I travel with 2 and seek the freedom of others. It takes the last 30 minutes of the game before you finally get through to him at all. But he's still awesome, so that's ok.
Champion's Armor – At least for a rogue, looked ridiculously awesome. I think the whole reason I really even killed the High Dragon was so I could get the chest piece and complete my awesomeness.
As somewhat of a closing thought, this game moved simultaneously forward and backwards, just as ME2 did (albeit ME2 took more steps forward than back). The overall gameplay was vastly superior, but it was a more streamlined plot and user friendly. Whether or not DA3 will be decent or god-like will depend on ME3 in my eyes. If they took what they learned from ME1->ME2 and make ME3 fantastic, then I'm sure DA3 will receive the same kind of care and attention it deserves. If ME3 don't deliver, then I don't expect DA3 to deliver.
good post but I just gotta kinda randomly take issue with u saying archers were useless in DA:O...if you ignored every other stat at the bare minimum and just pumped dex I found them to be the best class DPS wise for nightmare mode besides a player controlled meele rogue. They were far from useless imo :O. But anyways carry on
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the champions armor look awesome, except the rogue's. the rogues armor looks like a bunch of cloth put together. IMO the mage champion armor is the best
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I haven't played the game, but I've taken great interest in it while starting Dragon Age: Origins. From what I've read, the general consensus is that DA2 is disappointing in that it's not nearly as deep RPG- and strategy-wise and the story is a little lack-luster compared to it's predecessor, but it's still a good game based on other merits. Nerds are just whiny, elitist bitches who don't want change.
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On March 24 2011 15:44 Cedstick wrote:
I haven't played the game, but I've taken great interest in it while starting Dragon Age: Origins. From what I've read, the general consensus is that DA2 is disappointing in that it's not nearly as deep RPG- and strategy-wise and the story is a little lack-luster compared to it's predecessor, but it's still a good game based on other merits. Nerds are just whiny, elitist bitches who don't want change.
This is always the case. While DA2 is obviously not without faults, it is still a great game. What it is, even more than great, is disappointing though. Disappointing because it shows so, so, so, so, so much promise to what it could be. Everybody then focuses on what they would've done better, as opposed to all the good they still did. Sure there are a lot of weak spots, but given the amount of people who logged 50+ hours games, I'd say something was driving them to do so more than simply to bitch about it somewhere online.
It's a good game, albeit not great.
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apart from the improvement of the combat system and the redistribution of talent points, what redeeming qualities does this game have to stand on? its boring story that went no where? its character developments that were quite literally boring as hell? the amazing scenery that is so good you have to see it 5 or 6 times? the room for exploration throughout the game? The stupidity of waves upon waves of enemies that require the utmost unintelligent strategy for fighting? The 1 hit kills by overpowered ninjas that are enough to frustrate you because you're going to die to them more than bosses so you're forced to save in stupid locations in fear of dying and having to repeat your last 30-60 mins of game play? and lets not forget the ending, oh how can we not look past the redeeming quality of the ending?
All the qualities that are essential to making an RPG good are lacking in this game, so how are we complaining for no reason?
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On March 24 2011 18:37 The Chief wrote:
apart from the improvement of the combat system and the redistribution of talent points, what redeeming qualities does this game have to stand on? its boring story that went no where? its character developments that were quite literally boring as hell? the amazing scenery that is so good you have to see it 5 or 6 times? the room for exploration throughout the game? The stupidity of waves upon waves of enemies that require the utmost unintelligent strategy for fighting? The 1 hit kills by overpowered ninjas that are enough to frustrate you because you're going to die to them more than bosses so you're forced to save in stupid locations in fear of dying and having to repeat your last 30-60 mins of game play? and lets not forget the ending, oh how can we not look past the redeeming quality of the ending?
All the qualities that are essential to making an RPG good are lacking in this game, so how are we complaining for no reason?
Feel free to stop posting now.
User was warned for this post
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played the game on nightmare besides two long bosses (dont want to spoiler) with a not so well specced grp. liked the game a llot besides rogues,the first of those 2 bosses and in general those "easy" encounters where u wiped just because u didnt know the ki would run right in the boss under certain circumstances after 20+ mins of fighting
anyways,combat was quite good,dont care about the story but i loved troll answers.
for me its a way better game than dao and i will play it again and try to beat nightmare completely.
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There where a lot of werid things in it that I really didn't like (how many times did they reuse the same areas)
I came into it not really expecting anything. I had my runs with DAO but never really got into it deep like other games awakening was cool but I thought was a weak expansion overall.
Dragon age 2 in my mind just blew everything up. I could say on multiple times my jaw was on the floor and I simply loved the parts when other people came in. Alistar was there I saw once zevran it just flowed very well. It wasn't their story but it was nice to see them again and I hope that this continues into the third game. Everyone said the ending was adupt and sudden but I didn't really see that all the companions story lines ending really gave away that this was gona be the end. The companions I think where the strongest part. They really had their own stories going on and didn't go overboard like in ME2. they had organic feeling conversations that I know never repeated once.
what was it that fenris did with sticking his hand into peoples hearts?
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I enjoyed the game a lot, but it's true that it's not nearly as good as DAO.
They spent what 9 years on DAO, and like only one year on this game, so I suppose it's understandable.
If they hadn't made DAA and so many DLCs, then maybe they could have put more effort into DA2. DAA was complete trash anyways, so I have no idea why they even released that.
I preferred all the awesome companions from DAO and their dialogue over the companions from DA2.
The story from DA2 was okay, and the ten year thing was pretty cool, but I didn't like that we couldn't explore different towns and stuff.
The thing that DA2 has going for it is that it has the best combat out of any RPG that I've ever played, no lie. I also didn't really mind all the fights that most people complained about. It was somewhat annoying that they reused the same dungeons over and over again with little to no diversity though.
Anyway, the game was fun, but I actually think that Fallout New Vegas was a better RPG, and I would also rate Drakensang's River of Time as probably being a bit better though that one is more debatable.
People were expecting one of the best games ever, and instead they only got an above average game, so that's why the metacritic ratings are so low. It's unfortunate but Bioware can no longer be counted on for always producing the absolute top quality RPGs, and I think that Betheseda is currently the frontrunner for that role.
If you really want to play some games that will live up to their hype, then wait for The Witcher 2(May 2011) and Elder Scrolls V Skyrim(November 2011) to come out. They will most likely be a lot better than DA2.
Overall, I give DA2 8.5/10 with DAO, KOTOR, and BG2 each receiving 10/10.
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Oh c'mon, DA:O is not on par with KOTOR or BG2.
I've always disliked the DA:O combat system. The "skill-trees" in DA:O (if you can even call them that) were so bad and the combat mechanics were so dull. DA:O had great qualities, but combat was definitely not one of them.
About DA2:
The good:
The DA2 combat-system is very entertaining. The Skill-trees are way more sophisticated than they were in DA:O and there is a lot more diversity in builds and strategy. Effects and actual gameplay feel very smooth in comparison to DA:O.
I love that the companions really have their own personality this time. No more tagging along without even knowing why. They all have their own goals and morale. That was the case in previous bioware games but not to that extent.
I liked the armor system for companions so they can keep their appearance. Those mage-hats just looked so ridiculous in DA:O and most of the helmets and armors looked like crap as well.
The overall presentation was great. No more mute protagonist. Nice camera angles and cutscenes, great atmosphere. Also it was one of the few games where i actually noticed the great soundtrack. Really liked the music.
I also liked the level of detail in some areas that were not recycled. The Statues and wall-paintings in the gallows were quite nice for example.
Things that should have been better:
Just more different Dungeons and diverse areas would've improved the game by such a huge amount. That is by far the biggest flaw in this game. Dungeons are recycled and areas reused. Also most of them look pretty boring and barren. All Bioware needed to fix that was a little more time for their developers.
Same goes for actual enemies. The bosses were usually great, but in between you had to fight hordes of slavers/bandits/marauders who are basically all the same. Kudos to the combat system because those fights were usually still a lot of fun.
The overall storyline was good and had great potential. It was missing some compelling subpots though. I need a questline that doesn't involve slaying yet another horde of bandits for some arbitrary reason
The guys from Bioware have already shown that they can do much better. Especially in DA:O. Every major area had a nice and unique questline and a nice subplot to the whole story.
My conclusion
I feel like DA2 could have been an all-time great if they had just put in a little more time to develop. Nearly every flaw is based on lack of developing time. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the game. The story, the characters, the combatsystem, the franchise, the artwork, the music and the presentation are all there and they are great (or could have been)
The bashing in fan-forums is definitely not deserverd. Unfortunately most fans had either way too high expectations or they were expecting something completely different from what Bioware has delivered. Doesn't mean it's a bad game just because they expected something different.
I mean with all the flaws DA2 had it still was a lot of fun to play. That means they must have done a lot of things right.
If you go into this completely unbiased you will have ur fun and be entertained for many hours.
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I never player Dragon Age 1, but since it good feeback i started DA2 righ with nightmare, i enjoy even small fights, since i pretty much coud die anywhere. I find story and dialogs kinda boring, and i dont know if i gonna finish the game, heck i dont even know if i can, since i pretty much put few bad points here in there, and i can only respec my main character. It feels pretty limited the amout of things i can do, I like combat system a lot, but i feel like talents / items / bosses coud be more complex. Each levels feels like a level, i remember first big figh with templars with level 4 or so, when it took me almost a 40 min to finish it , i need to kite a lot , do some focus fire, etc. I mean there is some depths in combat, but i must agree that Mass Effect 2 got more of it, as some ppl mentioned. I would rate this game 7/10.
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Dah Fuck? I didn't even notice there was 2 threads on DA2, let alone the large amount of content in this one.
I agree with the majority of people who think this was a complete let down. The best summarys of what I think of this game are either Zero Puncuations or
http://www.videogamessuck.com/review437.html
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I apologize if this has been addressed before but I have a specific question about the ending and there is a good chance that this actually hasn't come up and I don't have time to go through 50 pages for such (what I consider) an obscure question. Anyway...
Spoilers for DA2 and DA:O here.
+ Show Spoiler +Leilana shows up in the ending and apparently she doesn't know where the Warden is from the first game. She was my lover in DA:O so there'd better be a damn good explanation for this! Then again I didn't play any of the DLC for the first game so perhaps it's explained there. Anyway...
Did anyone get Leilana killed in the first game and then beat DA2 with that save file? If so, what happens? I know you can get her killed by pouring the dragon's blood onto Andraste's Ashes with her in your party.
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She still appears. It doesn't matter if you kill any of the NPC"s, because "fuck you", they still make an appearance in the 2nd installment. It is not a bug.
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I was a little disappointed with DA2, I found the combat just wasn't as engaging as DAO. DAO is one of my favorite games and DA2 made me a little sad to see what can happen when a franchise is mismanaged.
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On May 10 2011 19:04 Scamp wrote:I apologize if this has been addressed before but I have a specific question about the ending and there is a good chance that this actually hasn't come up and I don't have time to go through 50 pages for such (what I consider) an obscure question. Anyway... Spoilers for DA2 and DA:O here. + Show Spoiler +Leilana shows up in the ending and apparently she doesn't know where the Warden is from the first game. She was my lover in DA:O so there'd better be a damn good explanation for this! Then again I didn't play any of the DLC for the first game so perhaps it's explained there. Anyway...
Did anyone get Leilana killed in the first game and then beat DA2 with that save file? If so, what happens? I know you can get her killed by pouring the dragon's blood onto Andraste's Ashes with her in your party.
Might have been overlooked. I know you more or less taught me how you could pull that off, so it's safe that they just ignored it seeing where the 3rd installement is most likely to take place.
Other than that, I think the story was well written and the game is a whole lot of fun, especially if you play on the harder difficulties.
I don't get the flak this title gets, especially considering it's mostly from people who have taken the time to finish the game, possibly multiple times, clocking dozens of hours.
The story doesn't quite branch as much as you would like, the asset reusing in this game is a little more obvious than other games (and they ALL do) even if they took alot of time to make sure you almost never went through a similar area exactly the same way, and the ending is... gah...
However if I had a time machine and could go back in time to the day I pre-ordered this game... I wouldn't change a thing. It's a fun game and I'm still anxious for the next one.
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I finished up Dragon Age 2 a few weeks ago - my fiancee finished it just a few days ago, so we've had plenty to talk about. Here's a few thoughts on the game (which in retrospect I actually rather enjoyed):
One of my favorite parts of DA:O was the origin stories. They worked for me on several levels. From a story perspective, they helped develop a character for you to play through the game. Your character had a back-story other than "random guy with a sword," and different back-stories could lead to different results much later in the game. The promise of the origins wasn't entirely realized, in my opinion - particularly, I think that much more could have been done to make your origin choice more meaningful later in the game - but in general it was a pretty cool idea. Mechanically, too, it helped increase the re-playability of the game for me. I almost never play big RPGs more than once, and one of the biggest hurdles is just getting through the first couple hours of gameplay. By varying the story, the origins actually made re-playability an interesting option.
Thus, I was pretty disappointed when I heard that the origins would not be returning in DAII. I understand that a game with full voice-acting can't have that many variations in the player character, but frankly the lack of a voiced player character in DA:O didn't really bother me that much. Once I'd thought about it a bit, I realized that DAII doesn't actually ditch the origin story concept at all - rather, it only allows you to pick one origin story (that of a human refugee) and then seeks to make that origin meaningful throughout the entire game (my biggest complaint with the origin stories from the first game). Unfortunately, I thought that DAII's delivery on this "growth over time" mechanic is mixed, at best. Story-wise, some of the characters exhibit some development (like in any other Bioware game), but I never really got the sense that the world or the characters were growing or aging over time. There was plenty of opportunity to really delve into some time-related issues - growth, child-rearing, aging, mortality - but I found that these were only touched on in a rather superficial manner.
Good lord, did I dislike the combat in this game. It was probably the biggest letdown for me, especially coming in from Dragon Age: Origins. Combat in DA:O wasn't perfect, but it was serviceable - it generally rewarded good positioning, and provided some interesting environments in which to play. Two big things made me dislike the combat in DA2. First was the waves of reinforcing enemies, especially those that would just randomly appear behind the party. I can't even tell how many times I re-loaded in frustration because a group of archers spawned in an awkward location and one-shot my mage. Second was most of the boss fights - tedious encounters against enemies with ridiculously large health bars that you simply had to whittle away, a bit at a time. I got around 2/3s of the way through the game on hard and then just gave up and turned the difficulty down to casual for the remainder of my play-through so I could see the end.
The pacing for the story was awful, but the story itself wasn't half bad. The first act was just so slow, and with the exceptions of a few moments the second act seemed kind of empty. That said, I actually really liked the Arishok - I always love a good antagonist, and the Arishok was certainly more interesting to me than any of the villains in DA:O. And I thought the third act was actually quite well done. It really captured for me the tragedy of a small group of moderates desperately attempting and failing to keep a tense situation from turning into a bloodbath (though I think it would have been better if Meredith and Orsino were introduced to you in person before the end of the second act - this would have given them time to grow as characters, and thus heightened the tragedy, rather than just serving as straw-men for their respective sides). It's just a shame it took so long for the story to get to the good stuff.
Overall, I actually enjoyed playing DAII, despite its several flaws. As much as I love whoring myself out for a few experience points and driving a sharp object into an ogre's eye-socket, I play RPGs for the story. DAII was a refreshing departure from the standard Bioware story. It's a shame, really, because I actually think that at its core, DAII has a much more compelling story to tell than DA:O, but a host of implementation issues prevented that story from really emerging in the way that it should have.
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