Lets take a look at what Bioware removed from BG to their first console RPG KOTOR.
KOTOR had a party size of three. They went from six to three. We could no longer attack civilians, inventories were now unified, areas were smaller, there were less NPCs in the areas, Party members could not die, you could no longer solo the game with the same vigor as you would in BG, soloing in BG was a cause to replay. You could solo with your character after you beat the game, Day/Night cycles were all but removed, point and click or point and press controls were removed so you couldn?t move party members while paused thus you could not flee or set up ambushes. Party customization was removed. With the infinity engine you could create a party of Luke, Lea, Han, Chewie, R2, and C-3PO and gave them custom voices.
That was KOTOR?
Then we get DA:O. Supposedly it?s the predecessor to BG. Its supposed to restore some of this stuff right? What did we get? An extra party member. Good start but why not six? Then we lose the ability to bash chest, we get auto healing, level scaling that is much worse than KOTOR?s, less exploration, worthless ranged weapons, a ridiculous hit point driven stat system that makes D&D seem logical, senseless stat requirements, and you still cant move characters while paused in the console version.
If the game had decent encounter design I could have put up with it. With all of that gameplay removed Bioware used filler combat to fill the void.
Earlier today I checked the speedrun records of some notable RPGs. DA:O is the slowest of them all. Its slower than Oblivion, Morrowind and Baldurs Gate put together.
So DA 2 comes out and...
we lose friendly fire on normal and hard, we lose the iso cam, we lose auto attack, and some inventory management but we gain fast Power Rangers animation.
For what??? How streamlined does it need to be before its shallow? I?m reminded of what George Carlin would say about when we changed the term "Shell Shocked" to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Maybe the soldiers would receive better treatment if they were still Shell Shocked. Maybe we shouldn?t get rid of the term Dumbed Down. Maybe it fits. If "Press a button and something awesome happens" is the slogan for DA 2 I have one for DA 3. Smarten up!!