Dragon Age 2 is actually a Brilliant game!... Sorta, kinda, maybe

[Euryalus]

So, because I was bored, I decided to play Dragon Age 2 again... ANNNNNNDDDDDD it's actually not all that bad *dodges trash thrown in his direction*

Look. Look! Just hear me out. I know the recycling of levels was horrendous, some of the characters were underdeveloped, the fast paced hack n' slash combat was less strategic than it should have been, and the setting felt too confined, ...Wow I'm really selling this game well aren't I?...

...BUT, all things considered, Dragon Age 2 was, or least had the foundations necessary to be, incredible. Story-wise anyway, which was really the only reason I played Dragon Age to begin with. Rather than take your relatively stale "WE HAVE TO SAVE THE WORLD FROM TEH MONSTERS" story, as beautiful a story as it can be *cough* Origins *cough*, and make it the focus, Bioware tried to take a harder look at the politics and problems of Thedas.

To do this, they used Kirkwall as a microcosm of some the biggest problems in the Thedasian political world. The problems between mages and the chantry, and the chantry and most of Thedas with Qunari were all rolled up into one in Kirkwall. The Templars and the chantry were worried about blood magic and demons infecting mages and wreaking havoc on the world. Think about the horrors in the circle tower in Ferelden. It doesn't seem terrible at all when you're the big bad protagonist, but how would your average Joe go about dealing with that? The Chantry wants to prevent that kind of evil from harming people. On the flip side though, the only way they can think to do it is to treat mages harshly and oppressively. This dichotomy asks the question of whether the safety of some is more important than the freedom of others.

The Qunari take this even further. They see the lack of control in people's lives and all around freedom as a detriment to everyone's safety, including the one who is supposedly free. The question they ask is simply "What does freedom bring you other than the ability to make the wrong choice?"

What does the average person know about right and wrong, and why should we give them the power to make that decision?

These questions, and each faction's answers to them, are constantly at play in DA2. You have to navigate them as Hawk, see how the solutions affect your teammates, and form your opinions of them. All of these things are interesting, to me at least, and all of them can be found in DA2. This game may lack a ton of polish regarding the concepts at play, but the unpolished Gold can still be found in it...

The biggest failing of this game isn't so much that its flat out bad as it is the gold is hidden behind unpolished muck. I shouldn't have to dig around in muck to see it, and thats where it fails, but the gold IS still there.

TL;DR

I actually quite like DA2, now that I've stopped foaming at the mouth for "what it it did to the series." The story basis is quite interesting, and its only real crime is that it was underdeveloped.

Discuss! Or tell me why I'm full of shit idk XD

 

[Euryalus]

I AM HERE TO HELP OUT! I HAVE NOT PLAYED DRAGON AGE BUT I ENCOURAGE ALL WHO HAVE TO INSERT THEIR OPINIONS BELOW! WHO KNOWS?! MAYBE I'LL BUY IT ONE DAY AND THEN WE CAN ALL GATHER ROUND UNDER THE SHADE OF A COOLIBAH TREE AND HAVE A TEA PARTY AND DISCUSS OUR OPINIONS OF IT! I PLAYED THE DEMO FOR DRAGON AGE 2 ONCE! THE COMBAT ANNOYED ME BUT THE STORY WAS KIND OF INTRIGUING! Xx

WHY ALL CAPS?!?! xD

Yeah, the combat was disappointing, but then again so was Origin's combat. I wasn't fond of the whole auto-attack thing in the first, and while the second allowed me to manually do all my stuff, it wasn't any better really.

Also, you should go play them both. Right now. I'll wait.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Well people can find gold in lots of games its just most dont want to dig through a load of crap to get to it a brilliant game would not have this problem although it still wouldnt stop people complaining about it.

I havent played Dragon Age 2 I was done after the first one I finished it but wasnt overly impressed it wasnt bad just it wasnt great either playable and enjoyable but forgettable.

Its good if you liked it though everyone gets something different out of games where some see a lump of coal others see a diamond.

 

[mrhateful]

I see your point, what your saying is the game had potential and your happy enough with the potential but that isn't enough for me. The game was flat, the combat was flat, the story was completely forgettable only thing I do remember was ton of references that didn't pan out for anything.

 

[Mikejames]

These questions, and each faction's answers to them, are constantly at play in DA2. You have to navigate them as Hawk, see how the solutions affect your teammates, and form your opinions of them. All of these things are interesting, to me at least, and all of them can be found in DA2. This game may lack a ton of polish regarding the concepts at play, but the unpolished Gold can still be found in it...

Yeah.. I actually did like the theme of a more personal story, as they really couldn't up the stakes after having an apocalyptic war.
I also liked that there was an aim to make more characters closer to the plot rather than having a group of optional followers.

Unfortunately like you say, Bioware was probably rushed on time with being able to polish the story and setting properly, undermining some good ideas beneath it all.

 

[endtherapture]

Dragon Age 2 seems like a decent attempt at a political, character driven story.

Until you play The Witcher 2.

Then you realise what it could have been. It was a mess. Then you realise the politics in Origins were much better than in DA2 as well. The game was such a failure.

 

[JayElleBee]

I also really liked DA2. Moreso, even, than DA:O. I agree that it was massively underdeveloped and that there were some major faults, but overall? I enjoyed it. And that's really all I require from the games I play. Sure, I would have liked better level development. Sure, I would have liked more of the story (though I did like the narrower scope. It's all well and good saving the world, but sometimes it's nice to focus on something smaller). But to be honest, it doesn't deserve all the rabid hatred it receives. Not by a long shot.

 

[shrekfan246]

I had two issues with the combat: Enemy waves and damage-sponges. The waves wouldn't have been quite so annoying if they weren't so gratuitous in their usage, and really, it shouldn't take ten swings to take down another orc - sorry, "darkspawn" that you've already killed hundreds of already.

The recycled environments were repetitive, but at least they tried changing the paths you actually took every now and then which is more than they did with the planet/moon-side bases in the first Mass Effect.

As for the characters, I genuinely liked Merrill, Isabela, and Varric. Anders swapped between likable and sarcastic to brooding and whingey too often for my liking, and the rest of the group were so forgettable that I can't even remember how many others there were. Well, okay, Aveline was all right and her little arc with the other guard was cute.

I liked the framework of the story. It could've been made into a really unique, great new narrative turn for Bioware games. They didn't really pull it all together though... the three acts are so disconnected that you can literally refer to them as the three acts of the game, and there's very little narrative structure between each section. So it fell flat in the end. The Qunari arc was pretty interesting though.

 

[OpticalJunction]

It would have been an awesome game if they'd worked on it for another year or two.

 

[pure.Wasted]

I had two issues with the combat: Enemy waves and damage-sponges. The waves wouldn't have been quite so annoying if they weren't so gratuitous in their usage, and really, it shouldn't take ten swings to take down another orc - sorry, "darkspawn" that you've already killed hundreds of already.

Yup. Although the combat in DA:O was terrible too, so really it's kind of a wash.

The recycled environments were repetitive, but at least they tried changing the paths you actually took every now and then which is more than they did with the planet/moon-side bases in the first Mass Effect.

Yup.

As for the characters, I genuinely liked Merrill, Isabela, and Varric. Anders swapped between likable and sarcastic to brooding and whingey too often for my liking, and the rest of the group were so forgettable that I can't even remember how many others there were. Well, okay, Aveline was all right and her little arc with the other guard was cute.

Yupyup. Alistair is still the best companion in the DA:O franchise to date, but Isabela, Varric, Merrill, even Anders and Aveline are all head and shoulders above anyone else in DA:O with the exception of Morrigan. In DA:O no one else even mattered. The characters had no arcs, no side-quests tying them into the main plot of the game (Oghrenn very mildly excepted), nothing at all about them to make you give a shit.

The "Ask companion" option in dialogue is one of the coolest things Bioware has ever come up with. The idea that your party members have their own hangouts in town while you're doing your thing went on to make your ME3 team feel way more alive and dynamic than the ME2 one ever did. The idea of your party siding with or against you in really dramatic moments based on decisions you make in the main plot made the plot way more memorable than it had any right to be. Most party members can leave, or backstab you and leave, or backstab you and try to kill you - based not on a few random conversations but the outcomes of their quests and a bunch of other variables from the rest of the game coming together. This is cool. The game made Qunari actually interesting, which is a remarkable feat considering they had to undo the first impression of Sten completely.

And the Arishok was awesome.

So yes, there were lots of great innovations and techniques experimented with in DA2 on the storytelling front, and it's a shame that the game gets more or less zero credit on that front.

 

[omega 616]

I'm playing it for the first time.

It's pretty piss poor so far, the combat seems jerky, I can't load up my team with the gear I want them to have, I think the skill tree is much worse. If this game came out a year later I think it would have been great. I want to be able to play a dwarf or elf though

I am early on in the game though, so I can't condemn or praise it. I do like the voice acting on my person though.

 

[The Madman]

There's nothing wrong with a game trying to focus on a more political story, as opposed to a 'Save the world' archetypal plot. In fact, developers should be encouraged to move away from save-the-world plots.

Unfortunately, the flipside of that is that you need to tell your political story well.

Which DAII completely, utterly failed at.

Bingo, couldn't have said it better myself.

Dragon Age 2 had good ideas, it just failed utterly in executing them.

 

[Hyper-space]

I still feel that the ending to the "Shepherding Wolves" quest is the single most poignant moment in a video-game ever. It completely turned the power-fantasy on its head and showed the player what true characterization and independence meant, for all of your power and persuasion were futile in face of true determination. You could not dictate him, for this was his own life and way of living it, but not because of any antagonistic reasons. He wasn't the bad-guy or a straw-man for you to overcome with your own opinions and sense of what was right, he simply was.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Your thread title makes you sound very unsure of your argument.

I liked DA2 but only as a game in itself. I liked the faster paced combat, but I preferred combat in DA: O overall.

My biggest beef with DA2 is that it's not a sequel at all. DA2 has fuckall to do with DA: O, it's merely set in the same universe. I would've liked it much better if it was simply a new title within Thedas.

Pros:
+Hawke's epic beard.
+Verric is a bro.
+Isabella looks much better than her Origins incarnation.
+Faster paced combat.
+Interesting story.

Cons:
-Anders is a whiny, irritating little piss ant.
-Sebastian is a twat.
-Story leaps ahead of itself within 3 different arcs with little to no ties.
-Has fuckall to do with Origins. My personal opinion, DA2 is not at all by any stretch of the word, a sequel.
-The recycled dungeons. I can understand it and don't even mind it. But DA2 does it more frequently than should be allowed.

Overall, it's a decent game, maybe even a decent Dragon Age title. But it's an awful sequel.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

While I agree the story foundations had potential, they weren't just underdeveloped, they were completely mishandled. Half of it made no sense. It felt so rushed. Foundations don't matter if what you build on top of it has cement made of custard and bricks made of wool.

 

[Doom972]

I recently played it for the second time and I really love certain parts of it. What I liked was the story, which finally wasn't about saving the world from total destruction, and actually challenges the player's perception of good and evil. I also love the characters - they are all well developed and interesting.

Too bad they had to streamline it so much and add all those unnecessary battles against faceless bandits/gangsters etc.

If Dragon Age III will have the story and characters of DA2 and the mechanics of DAO, it could surpass both.

 

[votemarvel]

Dragon Age II is a good game. However for me it simply isn't a good sequel.

Animation aside, there isn't anything I think Dragon Age II does better than Origins.

I've ranted about this quite often so I'll restrain myself from going on too much but perhaps my biggest issue was with the time jumps. I always had the feeling that too much interesting stuff was happening that I never got to know about.

Part of me wonders if we'd had more DLC for the game if they'd have released content set between the jumps.

 

[Euryalus]

The Qunari arc was pretty interesting though.

It always felt to me like the the Qunari arc should have been at the end, and the mage templar fight in the middle. It would have made more sense for the Qunari to take advantage of the chaos. It would also give Hawke an option of mediating the two sides.

Miracle of Sound's song is a pretty good example of what I'm talking about if I've interpreted it right.

While I agree the story foundations had potential, they weren't just underdeveloped, they were completely mishandled. Half of it made no sense. It felt so rushed. Foundations don't matter if what you build on top of it has cement made of custard and bricks made of wool.

To me it was less a foundation in a building analogy and more a core idea that is built around. Doesn't make the result less disappointing, but what was there more than just a foundation for other things. It was something valuable in its own right.

To be fair, even though I'm defending the game I still don't really like it very much. I'm just saying that its not without value. It IS an okay to good game. Probably somewhere inbetween the two but closer to okay

Your thread title makes you sound very unsure of your argument.

Well the argument technically is that DA2 was a game with a ton of problems, but its not without value. It could have been incredible but is so under polished that it takes time and work to dig through to the core goodness.

Previously I would have been in the "I fucking hate this game camp," but I've grown to appreciate the things that are good about it.

I love to hate this game, and I hate to love it. My conclusion is less about me being uncertain, and more about me not quite knowing how to say "The things I dislike about this game, I really fucking hate, and the things I like, I really fucking love."