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On April 10 2011 09:52 Xeteh wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2011 04:08 PrinceXizor wrote:On March 31 2011 03:59 AlexDeLarge wrote:
I bought this game with pre-order.. but thanks to reading all these reviews i basically lost all interest in playing it.. especially since i loved DA1 and don't want that experience ruined for me. Can someone give me some very good reasons why i should play it and finish it? (p.s. i play all games on hardest difficulty, and i read that DA2 on nightmare is a dull grindfest) The game has a ton of hidden elements that are pretty difficult to find. DA2 is way more emmersive than DA1 to me.
Your actions in DA1 directly affect your game in DA2.DA2 is pretty awesome to play through because of the timespan of the game, your actions have serious concequences it's not just, Oh hey let me help you kill this guy, and then everything is cool 10 years later, despite your barging into his house and stabbing the guy in the chest a few times in front of his 10 year old kid. IN DA2 if that happened you would end up facing an extremely pissed off single minded teenager hunting you down in a few years. The game is so awesome. It's seriously best if you don't go completionist. Just do the quests that your character would do and alter the world greatly. We apparently played a different DA2. Literally no choice you make bears any consequence. Any big choice that you think might expect the storyline doesn't matter. If you decide to + Show Spoiler +Take your sister with you to the Deep Roads. She dies. If you decide to leave her behind. She dies. Your actions affect nothing beyond a different dialogue to the exact same conclusion.
Your spoilers are incorrect. However, I do disagree with his overall sentiment that DA1's actions didn't influence the game as much. I would argue the opposite.
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On April 10 2011 10:26 I_Love_Bacon wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2011 09:52 Xeteh wrote:On March 31 2011 04:08 PrinceXizor wrote:On March 31 2011 03:59 AlexDeLarge wrote:
I bought this game with pre-order.. but thanks to reading all these reviews i basically lost all interest in playing it.. especially since i loved DA1 and don't want that experience ruined for me. Can someone give me some very good reasons why i should play it and finish it? (p.s. i play all games on hardest difficulty, and i read that DA2 on nightmare is a dull grindfest) The game has a ton of hidden elements that are pretty difficult to find. DA2 is way more emmersive than DA1 to me.
Your actions in DA1 directly affect your game in DA2.DA2 is pretty awesome to play through because of the timespan of the game, your actions have serious concequences it's not just, Oh hey let me help you kill this guy, and then everything is cool 10 years later, despite your barging into his house and stabbing the guy in the chest a few times in front of his 10 year old kid. IN DA2 if that happened you would end up facing an extremely pissed off single minded teenager hunting you down in a few years. The game is so awesome. It's seriously best if you don't go completionist. Just do the quests that your character would do and alter the world greatly. We apparently played a different DA2. Literally no choice you make bears any consequence. Any big choice that you think might expect the storyline doesn't matter. If you decide to + Show Spoiler +Take your sister with you to the Deep Roads. She dies. If you decide to leave her behind. She dies. Your actions affect nothing beyond a different dialogue to the exact same conclusion. Your spoilers are incorrect. However, I do disagree with his overall sentiment that DA1's actions didn't influence the game as much. I would argue the opposite.
I guess + Show Spoiler +saying I shouldn't say dies but either way you lose her. It doesn't change anything, no matter what choice you make you lose that character. Like I said, different dialogue to the exact same conclusion.
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Can't believe people are defending this game, i mean, the con's outweigh the pro's in this game, no point even trying to deny it.
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Dragon age 2 was one of the biggest all-time let downs of any game ever. After playing the first and enjoying it quite a bit. Dragon age 2 fell SO FAR short of the original. I played both of them through on the hardest difficulty and the only reason I completed DA2 was out of a feeling of obligation to beat every game i touch on the hardest difficulty. I was mentally 'done' with the game 20% into it and had to drag it out over a week to complete it.
I hope if they make a 3rd they go back to the original style.
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I agree with starcraft911.
I don't think that DA2 is a "bad" game in the grand scheme of things. If you compared it in a vacuum to most any other RPG on the market, it would look great. However compared to DA1, coupled with what is expected from Bioware and how well ME2 did, this was a HUGE letdown.
This may be the worst game Bioware has made and the design process can be summed up in one word imo: LAZY. Everything about this game just feels lazy once you get past the awesome attack animations.
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On April 10 2011 13:42 On_Slaught wrote:
I agree with starcraft911.
I don't think that DA2 is a "bad" game in the grand scheme of things. If you compared it in a vacuum to most any other RPG on the market, it would look great. However compared to DA1, coupled with what is expected from Bioware and how well ME2 did, this was a HUGE letdown.
This may be the worst game Bioware has made and the design process can be summed up in one word imo: LAZY. Everything about this game just feels lazy once you get past the awesome attack animations.
Agree. Though LAZY is somewhat inappropriate in this case. Greedy is more like it. Why else will they leave us hanging in end and that too with same environments over and over throughout game. Also, there were DLCs to 'expand' game from the get go. They need to take a clue from Blizzard or Stardock and release large expansions every couple of year instead of launching an 'sequel' every other year.
But funny thing is it was still not bad. Disappointing yeah, but not bad....
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I agree about the DLC. Having DLC available from the start is not only insulting, it is a tell about how Bioware has changed over the years.
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I hate DLC's. The only ones I've ever tried in any game is the ones from DA1, but all they did was make an easy game easier. How can you justify getting free items as "content". That is just bullshit. And even when the DLC was new areas, they were so loaded with good stuff, everything else seemed redundant. I never bothered trying the DLC for DA2. Just left it in my stash all game.
Also I will have to agree that the game seemed lazy. The dungeon layouts (as mentioned like a million times already) were so pathetic, I felt robbed off my money every time I went into a new dungeon. How hard can it be to hire 2 newbie IT students for a few hours work a week where they sit and use the applications they have, to design an infinite amount of different dungeons. Oh right, then they'd have to also change the combat triggers, the looting locations and possibly the monsters too (who am I kidding, there are hardly any new models in DA2 already).
In general I feel that their art team must have been extremely cut down, or severely understaffed. No item icons, hardly any models, reused dungeons etc etc. One of the biggest letdowns for me.
I played most of the game through on nightmare too. Expected it to be a lot like DA1, but alas was I disappointed. Fights could be pretty tough, yes, but mostly it was just 20 minute long fights you had to repeat every time a new "Phase" started, and half your team died due some random spawning enemies. The hardest part of DA2 on nightmare was to not smash your keyboard out of frustration when you've spent an hour and a half doing some shitty encounter, and you die again cause you didn't know an enemy would spawn on top of your healer, right at that moment.
In the beginning, I defended the game to my friends who tried it, but I think I was merely trying to justify my purchase more than anything else. I would rather have waited a year longer, and gotten an actual RPG out of bioware. Oh well, we live and learn. I am going to be very reluctant buying bioware titles in the future before proper reviews from friends and players come out. I simply don't like the way they are heading with their games.
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I finally beat the game and I avoided every discussion and rumors on the net. I have to say this thread delivers on everything that is good and bad about the game. I want to write about some of the more random stuff that hasn't been mentioned. Apologies for the incoming negative comments.
Why release a DLC at launch date when the game was obviously rushed and had numerous bugs that ruined some of the quests? I personally had at least three quests in which the dead mob did not drop the item that would advance the quest. The fact that Bioware wants us to fork out another $7 or so to play a few quests with an optional character is an insult.
What's the deal with the Qunari? They looked as if they were big Arabic/African warriors in DA:0 and in DA2 they grew horns, all have the same Frankenstein face, and look so sad.
The trailer looked way too cool, but I felt it had some heavy spoilers. The Arishok looked amazing in that trailer, and in the game... (see above paragraph)
The big "reveal" of the ending. + Show Spoiler +So they show Leliani as a chantry warrior.. WHOOP DE DOOO.. That was a big omfg moment, right? /sarcasm
Hawke's mom. + Show Spoiler +The Jack D. Ripper storyline and Resident Evil type character was so incredibly random and cheesy.
Male Hawke looks too much like Jesus in the game and looks too much like figure skater Rudy Galindo in the trailer. The voice actor for Hawke doesn't sound correct unless you pick the protagonist answers.
I noticed recycled voice actors from DA0 and it just made the game feel cheap. Anders' voice came from Jowan, and Varric's was from Shale. C'mon hire some new voice actors.
Overall, I just get the impression that Bioware is rushing into this trilogy so that they can launch a DA MMO. The lore is ambitious, but it's so incredibly inconsistent and the material just seems bare.
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I downloaded this and couldn't last more then 2 hours, would not recommend the purchase. I feel ripped off and I didn't even buy it.
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I agree with you broz0rs but that part about the voice actors is an incredibly odd statement.
Edit: Did some research because I'm just watching streams atm.
DA0
Desmond Askew Jowan
Greg Ellis Anders
Geraldine Blecker Shale
DA2
Adam Howden Anders
Brian Bloom Varric Tethras
All from game credits. If they sound the same or similar I guess they are doing their jobs.
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Kind of annoying how on nightmare the hardest things to fight tend to be unnamed templar hunters and assasins, while revenants the hardest non storyline guys of da:a are basically walkovers.
Also anyone who has played lots of bioware and does not honestly say this feels like the laziest game to date for them is lying to themselves. Still a decent game but way under par for them.
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I can't help but feel Bioware is pooling all of their resources to ME3 and SWTOR. DA2 had to be the 3rd wheel this last year or so.
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I was expecting much better gameplay in the sequel than the first dragon age, but it's practically the same. It's not very challenging tactically and some spells are even overpowered/unbalanced. I play at the hardest difficulty btw.
I completed the game for the RPG part though, which was kickass. The story is a little thin, but one thing i've always enjoyed was the large amount of conversation and choices. Man do i miss elder scrolls ^_^
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After playing this for a while, I must say I hate when they make games for both PC and consoles. It's so dumbed down and linear, you follow a narrow path with so little options. Only console games that managed to do well on PC is oblivion and fallout, due to it not restricting you as all other console games do.
I really tried to get into this game but it just feels so bland, meh. 2/10
by the way I love RPG games.
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It has nothing to do with being on a console, it has to do with lazy development and EA rushing the product.
Origins was the exact same on the PS3 besides the difficulty, which you could make even yourself.
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On April 10 2011 15:00 Zavi_ wrote:
I hate DLC's. The only ones I've ever tried in any game is the ones from DA1, but all they did was make an easy game easier. How can you justify getting free items as "content". That is just bullshit. And even when the DLC was new areas, they were so loaded with good stuff, everything else seemed redundant. I never bothered trying the DLC for DA2. Just left it in my stash all game.
Also I will have to agree that the game seemed lazy. The dungeon layouts (as mentioned like a million times already) were so pathetic, I felt robbed off my money every time I went into a new dungeon. How hard can it be to hire 2 newbie IT students for a few hours work a week where they sit and use the applications they have, to design an infinite amount of different dungeons. Oh right, then they'd have to also change the combat triggers, the looting locations and possibly the monsters too (who am I kidding, there are hardly any new models in DA2 already).
In general I feel that their art team must have been extremely cut down, or severely understaffed. No item icons, hardly any models, reused dungeons etc etc. One of the biggest letdowns for me.
I played most of the game through on nightmare too. Expected it to be a lot like DA1, but alas was I disappointed. Fights could be pretty tough, yes, but mostly it was just 20 minute long fights you had to repeat every time a new "Phase" started, and half your team died due some random spawning enemies. The hardest part of DA2 on nightmare was to not smash your keyboard out of frustration when you've spent an hour and a half doing some shitty encounter, and you die again cause you didn't know an enemy would spawn on top of your healer, right at that moment.
In the beginning, I defended the game to my friends who tried it, but I think I was merely trying to justify my purchase more than anything else. I would rather have waited a year longer, and gotten an actual RPG out of bioware. Oh well, we live and learn. I am going to be very reluctant buying bioware titles in the future before proper reviews from friends and players come out. I simply don't like the way they are heading with their games.
Agree with all of the above. The biggest letdown for me personally was that A: I always thought I'd get out of this unimportant indifferent city where you basically are a pretty plain person who does every day jobs. Basically nothing you do has a greater purpose. Next Dragon Age you'll probably be a maid in a home, doing dishes and cleaning the family's clothes..
and B: All the reused shit everywhere. Basically every single dungeon was the same, with a concrete block blocking off an area. They didn't even try to remove the door post, it's just a gray fucking block in the door post -_-*
I didn't mind the low difficulty, as I don't enjoy the fights all that much in the first place. It's just a giant time sink imo (plus the frustration RAAAWR). Every fight is basically a tetris fight where they test how long you can keep it up, and it goes on and on and on. I just wanted to go through the content, so I ended playing on Hard.
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First Bioware game i've bought and felt really let down by. Kind of hoping its not a sign of things to come. I think development time was its biggest problem, Dragon Age Origins was in the making for years. DA2 was rushed.
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Bought this game on release, having finished DA:O before it... But had to really drag myself through it. There's so many inconsistencies and randomness in the story, in the game play, in the difficulty levels, in the interface etc. , basically all the criticism in this thread is spot on. Wow I was so let down  .
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Overall I felt like it was quite a letdown. The story was kind of random and had nothing to do with the origins/awakenings universe, heck even the place they go to is completely unrelated.
+ Show Spoiler +You fight a total of 2 (?) dragons in the entire game. And the darkspawn make a cameo-like appearance.
The only thing that was a vast improvement over origins was the talent system. I mean in origins you just drown in talents and abilities. Although I felt like the rogue and the warrior never had the energy to actually do anything resembling a rotation.
The itemisation was stupid. Sometimes the game was suggesting items to be upgrades that clearly wasn't. Sometimes two items with exactly the same stats got different 'ratings' and so on. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Game had its moments, but way too much stuff went south compared to the first one.
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EPT
