Dragon Age 2

[Sabretooth]

To buy a game and not be able to play it, or to play a game without buying it; life is filled with hard decisions.

[igyman]

I have to agree with Sabre. Wholeheartedly.

 

I've switched to playing AC: Brotherhood (finally out for the PC, yay!) in the meantime, but I still take an occasional look at the DA2 site and forums. It's a mess - Bioware is doing a lot of damage control, among other things, in the form of (supposedly objective and not paid) reviews that give DA2 an unrealistic amount of praise and high marks, which can be seen on the homepage of the DA2 site.

[stoffe]

Finished my first playthrough of Ðragon Age 2 as a rogue. Overall it was a pretty enjoyable experience and on my completely arbitrary Fun scale it measures up pretty well against ÐA:Origins. The games are fairly different, and both have their strengths and weaknesses.

 

Combat overall was a vast improvement over Origins, even if it has a few elements of irritation that it'd do better without (unable to see what status effects are on your characters, can't tell what spells enemy mages are casting, boss fights with endlessly respawning minion sidekicks). Still, it felt more fluid and the abilities were more fun and varied than in Origins. For a rogue at least.

 

Story-wise it had its ups and downs. The story was less predictable than Origins, and forced you to make some interesting choices at times, though I'm unsure of just how much difference those choices made in the end, yet. Even though that particular plot was wrapped up at the end it left the overall plot of the Ðragon Age world with more questions than answers, so I assume they intend to make another game to continue where ÐA2 ended. Lots of lose ends to tie up.

 

Companions and interaction was mixed. The fact that you couldn't just chat up companions at camp, but had to wait until the game made new conversation options available (tied to plot/quest progression I assume) made it feel a bit more barren at times. But it might just be an illusion given how many "Yes? ---> Nevermind/Goodbye" conversations you ended up with when talking to companions in Origins. I guess it also served to spread out the content a bit more throughout the game to make the final chapters less empty (can't finish a romance plot as soon as you leave Lothering, like you nearly could in Origins ) Rather mixed crowd of people you pick up as party members too. Lots of potential for conflict, so it takes some puzzling if you don't like in-fighting in your party. Also lead to some interesting (re)actions from companions during the finale.

 

The voiced dialog helped make it more immersive, and personally I preferred it over the nodding mute that was The Warden in Origins. The different "mood" icons/choices that affected the base personality of your character as you progressed through the game were a nice touch as well, though I would prefer if they added the subtitles of what your character is about to say as a tooltip when you hovered the mouse pointer over the dialog wheel. There were still a few instances where what the character actually said was far removed from what I had expected.

 

A fair number of returning characters from Origins and Awakening, too, and for most of them it didn't feel unrealistic or forced to encounter them in the Free Marches. Still, the change in art direction didn't do most of them any favors, in my opinion. A certain elven assassin looked downright creepy with the new art style.

 

Overall I have to say that the game was well worth the time and money spent to play it. Hoping for hybrid of the Origins and ÐA2 styles, with both their strengths and none of their weaknesses for ÐA3. You can always dream.

[Liverandbacon]

Another one bites the dust...

 

 

Dear me. EA does seem to have a problem with this error.

 

Wow. They really don't learn. This guy, unlike the last guy, actually deserved the forum ban (made clear that he wanted other forum members to die, and told another member that he hopes their mother/wife/fiancee/daughter gets raped). However denying him access to a game he presumably paid $60 for is way out of line. Although I'm skirting ad hominem here, I'd be willing to bet money that most of the people who don't see this as a big deal are still buying games with mommy and daddy's money.

 

Supposedly a statement was issued that the ban was non-negotiable, and there would be no further communication on the matter. Let's see them call that a glitch. I honestly won't be buying an EA game for some time now, not for any moral reason (I doubt my boycott would make a difference), but because EA has made it clear that purchasing their games is not a wise investment.

 

Oh well, it's always fun to glance at the Bio forums and watch the Bioware Defense Force blame the negative opinions regarding both the actions of Bioware/EA and the game itself on 4Chan, PC elitism, old people stuck in their ways, pirates, and RPG Codex. None ever seem to consider that the companies/game is where the problem lies.

[Miltiades]

Having finished DA2 just yesterday, I can safely say this game to me is downright disappointing, certainly after the surprise that was Dragon Age: Origins. It feels uncoherent, looks dull and is more than half of the time just plain boring. It's in my book definitely a step backwards compared to Origins, the half-hearted attempt to "streamline" it à la Mass Effect 2 did more harm than good.

 

I'm not always happy with the way BioWare does things in their games, but one thing I could always be certain of is that their games had excellent presentation, from the way it tried to tell a story to how levels were being presented to gamers. Mass Effect 2 did the best of jobs, in my opinion, serving us a unique mission each and every time, fleshing out the world with small little details (tongue-in-cheek humor and making fun of themselves, developing issues in the games that draw similarities with real world problems). Dragon Age 2, on the other hand, while having its moments, feels pretty empty and stale.

 

Overall, I agree with a lot of the criticism it gets from many reviewers. Combat, while fresh in some ways (and a lot more fun to play as a Rogue this time), the absence of any need for a tactical approach is a loss. The waves of enemies is neither engaging nor fun. The only memorable fight I had was against the High Dragon (in which Merrill, with the Dragon left with more than 1/8 of his health, had to survive all on her own).

 

A lot has been said about the recycling of dungeons and caves. There's absolutely no excuse for that. It made the game much longer, but also much more boring. I felt like I was riding my Mako on the umpteenth planet again, about to enter the same room to shoot another horde of Husks. The fact that the game was set primarily within the walls of Kirkwall didn't help. It'd have been slightly less annoying if Kirkwall itself was bigger, more lively and had shown some change over the years. I'd expect the

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Qunari attack

would have severely influenced how the city would look.

 

The story itself was incoherent, the three Acts pretty much independent stories that were only linked very loosely. On top of that, in Act I, Hawke had no real motives to do the things he did and it was pretty much about getting rich. I commend BioWare for trying something new and the framed narrative was a nice way of telling the story, but it ultimately felt flat. I liked the Templar-Mage conflict as a whole, giving us some difficult choices to make, but I think they tried too hard to blur the lines and to make our choices difficult by effectively

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presenting it as if almost every mage can't resist blood magic. This came to a head when Orsino turned to blood magic. By the way, does blood magic always turns to disasters. Merrill showed promise to control it, though I would've liked to see the outcome had she fixed the mirror.

 

The companions were also a mixed bag. I liked the innocence of Merrill and of course Varric (especially his initial recount of his visit to his brothers house), but the others either had uninteresting stories, bad voice acting or just weren't that appealing. I felt sad for how they changed Anders' personality from Awakening, but I did enjoy Justice's moments.

 

Anyway, the end of DA2 made me think of

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KotOR 2, where both Revan and the Exile were gone, just like the Warden en Hawke seem to have disappeared.

 

For DA3, I hope they take the few improvements DA2 had (a much more engaging Rogue en Warrior combat and perhaps a compelling new way to tell a story) and return to something more akin to DA: Origins, complete with Origin stories! I must say, if this game did anything for me, it's making me intrigued with the Tevinter Imperium and the Qunari.

[Laar_Dha]

I've only played the demo. I'd say that there are some improvements in the combat, IMO, by otherwise this looks rushed and experimental. The graphics have, thank god, less over-the-top effects but still look sloppy. Contrary to the fans of DA:O (which I did play), I like the new Darkspawn. However, Morgana's recanonization is a bit cheezy and none of the demo's dialog gripped me in the slightest. It sounds like they also took the whole Chantry thing from DA:O to a new extreme, which I would rate down because I found the commentary on religion unnecessary.

 

I've been looking at the Metacritic reviews. Looks like it got okay ratings from major reviewers but was widely unpopular with PC gamers. Not surprised when they moved the game towards the console like twenty other major developers.

 

I do applaud the time-skip plot set-up that you mentioned Logan. It's a good idea with potential, but as you noted it needs work.

 

I expected to dislike DA II. I loved DA:O and was not looking forward to the changes. The story seemed just intriguing enough to lure me to try it, anyway. While waiting for my copy to make it's way through the mail, I decided to try the demo. What a disappointment - thought I'd wasted my $60 bucks. Then I played the actual game. What a pleasant surprise! I'm not sure why the demo is so lacking, but it is perhaps the worst marketing tool I've ever seen. All I can think is that someone figured a pirate with huge breasts would lure buyers better than an actual hint of the story. (Of course, I suppose they could be right.) There seem to be a lot of gamers basing their criticism of DA II solely on the demo; I found the feel of the game to be very different from the demo. Some criticisms are certainly justified (there is definitely too much reuse of areas), but much of it seems to be a lot of ranting over not much.

 

 

Finished my first playthrough of Ðragon Age 2 as a rogue. Overall it was a pretty enjoyable experience and on my completely arbitrary Fun scale it measures up pretty well against ÐA:Origins. The games are fairly different, and both have their strengths and weaknesses.

 

Combat overall was a vast improvement over Origins, even if it has a few elements of irritation that it'd do better without (unable to see what status effects are on your characters, can't tell what spells enemy mages are casting, boss fights with endlessly respawning minion sidekicks). Still, it felt more fluid and the abilities were more fun and varied than in Origins. For a rogue at least.

 

Story-wise it had its ups and downs. The story was less predictable than Origins, and forced you to make some interesting choices at times, though I'm unsure of just how much difference those choices made in the end, yet. Even though that particular plot was wrapped up at the end it left the overall plot of the Ðragon Age world with more questions than answers, so I assume they intend to make another game to continue where ÐA2 ended. Lots of lose ends to tie up.

 

Companions and interaction was mixed. The fact that you couldn't just chat up companions at camp, but had to wait until the game made new conversation options available (tied to plot/quest progression I assume) made it feel a bit more barren at times. But it might just be an illusion given how many "Yes? ---> Nevermind/Goodbye" conversations you ended up with when talking to companions in Origins. I guess it also served to spread out the content a bit more throughout the game to make the final chapters less empty (can't finish a romance plot as soon as you leave Lothering, like you nearly could in Origins ) Rather mixed crowd of people you pick up as party members too. Lots of potential for conflict, so it takes some puzzling if you don't like in-fighting in your party. Also lead to some interesting (re)actions from companions during the finale.

 

The voiced dialog helped make it more immersive, and personally I preferred it over the nodding mute that was The Warden in Origins. The different "mood" icons/choices that affected the base personality of your character as you progressed through the game were a nice touch as well, though I would prefer if they added the subtitles of what your character is about to say as a tooltip when you hovered the mouse pointer over the dialog wheel. There were still a few instances where what the character actually said was far removed from what I had expected.

 

A fair number of returning characters from Origins and Awakening, too, and for most of them it didn't feel unrealistic or forced to encounter them in the Free Marches. Still, the change in art direction didn't do most of them any favors, in my opinion. A certain elven assassin looked downright creepy with the new art style.

 

Overall I have to say that the game was well worth the time and money spent to play it. Hoping for hybrid of the Origins and ÐA2 styles, with both their strengths and none of their weaknesses for ÐA3. You can always dream.

 

My feeling about DA II is a pretty much a ditto. I expected to dislike the dialog wheel and voiced PC as much as I did in ME, but I got used to it very quickly and actually think that it is an improvement (barring the occasional "oops - that's not quite what I wanted to say). I loved the political intrigue - it was like Orzammar x10. I think DA II does a fantastic job of placing the hero between a rock and hard place. You're forced to make a choice, even when no "good" choice exists. Yeah, it sucks, but it's pretty true to life.

 

Some of the combat animations are -umm- over-the-top, to say the least. The dual wield rogue is way too fast, the shield/sword warrior is way too slow, but they did improve the two-handed weapon animations - no more slow-motion slicing. I found the mage class much more enjoyable than mages in DA:O and they kept my favorite rogue-archer awesome. Overall, I found the combat smooth and fast, with plenty of strategy required to survive some of the battles.

 

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I do think the artist who gave Isabela an astronomical breast augmentation should be smacked upside the head by his mother. Zevran did indeed look creepy (and pudgy-faced) rather than handsome and dangerous.

[Drunkside]

 

the absence of any need for a tactical approach is a loss

 

I see this on almost every negative review, but seriously, in DAO most of the time the only useable tactic is a total and complete faceroll... I have been playing it again to get a save transferred for DA2, and I am actually shocked how much the time has blurred the memory, when i try clever tactics it usually ends with the enemies running in a large blob and picking off all of my characters before i can react, and when i just charge i usually win even the harder fights on the first try.

[Miltiades]

DA2 takes away any need to prepare before combat because of the amount of waves you get thrown at you, which you just hack 'n slash your way through. There's pretty much no need to wait a second, catch your breath and think out anything because you slice through enemies like they're butter.

 

Perhaps my experience with DAO is different because I had a hard time with my Rogue Archer PC barely surviving fights (on normal difficulty), but I did force me to think and be careful.

[Primogen]

One of the many, many problems DA:O had was that the difficulty was inconsistent, due to the massive disparity of power between classes. Rogues were -terrible-.

[Drunkside]

Really? I knew that mages were ridiculously overpowered, but I haven´t played any other class but rogue and I dont find the game all that difficult (not when im playing the updated version at least), exept for some places where the AI fails due to weirdly shaped areas (the maleficarum-mission in Denerim).

[Miltiades]

Really? I knew that mages were ridiculously overpowered, but I haven´t played any other class but rogue and I dont find the game all that difficult (not when im playing the updated version at least), exept for some places where the AI fails due to weirdly shaped areas (the maleficarum-mission in Denerim).

The first few hours as a Rogue Archer were extremely difficult, I think that was a criticism shared by many. DAO's combat definitely wasn't perfect, but DA2's combat's a step backwards, in my opinion.

[logan23]

One of the issues with DA2's combat setup was with the waves of enemies. The reason for this was the area was small so you could not place them all down at the same time. Another was the area of tactics was built around the idea that if you use your spell or move on a mass group of enemies this could come back and bite you in the ass since you might not have the proper mana or stamina for the next wave. (I have not played nightmare mode or hard to see how this all plays out in the area of high end tactics, wither this works or not, only played normal difficulty)

 

This might have ended up as tactically as they would like since you can have good deal of potions to heal these.

 

 

Looking at the combat and even some of the new testing of artistic design on races and etc, seem to allow the designers to see what the player thinks since DA2 is a story within a story so things could be exaggerated. From combat to other areas can be tweaked and DA2 is see as a what it is a story told by a Dwarf who take the real based story and ass special effects or exaggerations to pump it up in the area of visuals. The end result is a DA3 that will pull back from some of the choices of DA2 in some areas without affecting the DA design.

 

With combat I like certain aspects of each, the more tactical DAO and the fast pace reactive combat animations of DA2. I do believe that the exploding enemies need to be toned down and be shown only in certain point/ or moves since it became repetitive and at time blocked the view of the player when planning moves/actions.

 

With the party members I did like that they did keep their own style of clothing but I wished that the companions had the ability to change them even in the area of color schemes for that Act's companion's clothing design.

 

It would be great to be able to change the texture or the color of them allowing some personalization. This would be simply a change in color here and there, similar to what modders do with their skins.

 

Logan

[Miltiades]

Yes, I read in interviews that while the developers understand that people were disappointed that they couldn't choose the armor of their companions, it was important for them that each of the companions have their own look. Which I agree with. I think the compromise could be to allow different sets of armor specifically for each companion, or armor is adjusted when equipped to a certain party member.

[igyman]

armor is adjusted when equipped to a certain party member.

 

This I think is the best solution. Remember ME1 and how there was a Quarian, Turian, Krogan and Human version of each armor? This would be even simpler, as in they wouldn't make separate items for each companion/race, but rather it would always be one "Colossus armor" item in your inventory that would have several appearances depending on which character is wearing it.

 

I'm also thinking they should do away with the separate gauntlets, boots and chest slots because let's face it - when you equip an armor, you always strive to wear a matching set. They should revert to KoTOR's inventory system which had more than enough slots to allow sufficient customization and yet you were always wearing a "set" when it comes to armor/robes.

[Primogen]

I dunno. I'm reminded of KotoR where your party all has individual, unique looking outfits - for ten seconds until you get something superior to AC-0 armor. I think it should just be possible to make armor on companions cosmetic, akin to Lord of the Rings Online's system. Actually, that's a good idea for the player character too. Realistic? Not really, but who cares?

[igyman]

Cosmetic only, no thanks. There are certain video game genres where that works really good, but in RPGs it would basically remove one of the elements that defines the genre.

[Alkonium]

I dunno. I'm reminded of KotoR where your party all has individual, unique looking outfits - for ten seconds until you get something superior to AC-0 armor. I think it should just be possible to make armor on companions cosmetic, akin to Lord of the Rings Online's system. Actually, that's a good idea for the player character too. Realistic? Not really, but who cares?

 

If you mean having stats and looks separate, I agree that that could work, but if you mean lost stats entirely, definitely not.

[Primogen]

I mean stats and looks separate. In LotR Online, you have your equipped gear which augments your stats, and your cosmetic gear which alters your appearance. So you can be running around in mismatched, retarded-looking armor because it's effective while wearing classy, cool gear that's not very effective in the cosmetic slots.

[igyman]

Ah, that's different, thanks for clarifying. Though I'm not sure, since we're talking about Bioware specifically, that they would bother to implement that system. I'd say stats and appearance separate, or KoTOR's system for all characters - player and companions - would be much better than the current situation.

 

Then again, whichever system they implement, they need to give us sufficient (visual) options. DA2 had perhaps five (different looking) armor sets per player's class and out of those five only three gave a set bonus and the rest were used as generic items. It's even worse for companions, most of whom don't change their clothes for ten years (unless they are like Batman and have identical spares tucked away in their closets).

[Primogen]

KotoR's system had the problem of eventually everyone wearing those stupid looking visors at all times to the point where to get my cutscenes looking at least somewhat serious I just stopped using headpieces entirely.

[igyman]

Yeah I agree that they were ridiculous, but that's an equipment design issue. Slot-wise, there were 9 equipment slots, if I remember correctly, and the visible "armor" was divided into a "headgear" slot and a "body" slot. And let's not forget that they now have a "helmet toggle" option that hides headgear.

[mimartin]

Finished my second playthrough of Dragon Age 2 over the weekend and while it isn’t a great game by any stretch of the imagination, it was a very fun game to play in my opinion. Originally I gave up on DA2 and got bored with it about 3 hours in, however after discussing DA2 with stoffe I decided to give it another try. I am grateful to stoffe for the advice to try it again.

 

Like others I was originally put off with the new art direction of the game. I was also upset about not being able to play my normal female elf rogue. However, after seeing the new art direction elves have taken in DA2, I was thankful that BioWare had made me choice human. Even though I still am not especially excited by the art direction it became largely unnoticeable by the end of the second act in my first playthrough.

 

I also wasn’t happy about the new fully voiced PC, but now trying to play DA:O (for a different save to transfer) I miss the Dialogue Wheel and the fully voiced Hawke. My only real gripe about this aspect of the game is female Hawke wasn’t voiced by Jennifer Hale, but I thought Jo Wyatt did a wonderful job. Don’t know about the male voice as both playthrough so far have with a female rogue Hawke.

 

While playing the demo I hated the Rogue combat. I thought it looked jerky. However after getting use to it, the combat system became acceptable. It is nothing great, but still fun to play. Found the game way easier than the first time I played DA.

 

I played the entire game twice and as far as I remember I have not found a single bug or crash. I also found the load times extremely fast. I am running the game on the highest settings, but this is after the patches.

 

If I would have written this after my first playthrough I would have been raving how I felt the story was more mature, dark and gritty. All things BioWare advertised about DA:O but did not live up to the advertisement. Don’t get me wrong, I liked DA:O enough to buy it on the 360 and the PC, I thought it had a wonderful story and was enjoyable to play. DA:O and/or DA:A just in my opinion wasn’t all that mature, dark or gritty. DA2 on the other hand came close at least once to crossing that imaginary line in my head (thinking of the All That Remains quest and story line. While the story isn’t on the grand scale of DA:O at face value the battle between the Chantry, Templers and Mages has just as dire consequences as the darkspawn and I found the story line less predictable than DA:O. Still many of the choices I thought were so meaningful on my first playthrough were just illusions. So while the story was solid, it wasn’t the master pieces (in BioWare standards) I thought it was.

 

Besides the story line, my favorite part of DA2 was the companions. There were the typical BioWare companions that stick with the PC through thick and thin no matter Hawke’s choices, but there were others that made Hawke’s choices matter. It is my opinion that Isabela may be the best written companion I have seen in a video game since Kreia. Not going into much detail, but the ending with one of the party members and the choice you are given blew my mind.

 

All in all I would recommend DA2. The game, especially the ending could have been better and more lore friendly, but it still was a blast for me to play. DA2 has even gotten me to play DA:O again.

 

I’m starting to think of BioWare like I do Star Wars. Even their worse games are better than 90% of the crap out there. Same with Star Wars (just not on the game side of it) Even bad Star Wars movies/TV is better than 90% of the other crap out there.

[Salzella]

I'm glad to see you write that minimartin, I'm very torn on whether to get this game... Loved DA:O, love pretty much everything by Bioware, and much prefer ME2 to ME1, but idk, I've not heard good things, or rather what i've heard hasn't been as positive as i would like, since i'll make about 1 game purchase every 4 months.

 

Second/third opinions? (in a nutshell like )

 

edit: hurr, just seen the ones by militiades and stoffe...

[Q]

I'm only in Act II, but I haven't found the game to be as big of a letdown as I've heard it to be; mainly because, after being disappointed by DA:O, my expectations weren't very high to begin with.

 

I'm having fun with DA2. If you can find it cheap, go ahead and get it. Make sure that you have the latest drivers for your graphics card, though. The game engine is quite demanding.

[mimartin]

Make sure that you have the latest drivers for your graphics card, though. The game engine is quite demanding.

Now that you've mentioned that I do believe that was the only problem I had, but after I got the driver updated I’m fairly sure I went 70 something hours with no problems.