and the villains in both games were damm boring. I mean in DA1 its just...the bad boogey man and in DA2 its just some crazy woman whose motives are never really fleshed out. I miss Irenicus and Master Li.
I can't for the life of me understand why people see the Darkspawn as the main antagonist of DA:O. They were nothing more than a backdrop/plot device to create the true conflict between the protaganist and the actual antagonist; Loghain. Who quite frankly I'd argue is one of the best (if not THE best) antagonist Bioware has ever created.
People don't think Loghain is the main antagonist because his reasoning and motivation are never fully fleshed out in the game. Yeah I know the expanded universe novels make it more clear and if you have him join you you can get a bit more background on it all, but the occupation by Orlais is something that is never really given any real structure. I was vaguely aware of it throughout the game but more often then not Loghain's motivation and reasoning just seemed to baffle me and he came off as a crazy idiot.
I always figured Loghain wanted to off you because you wanted to off him. He retreats in the beginning because he was being forced to fight a losing battle, and he just figured that you and Alistair would want him dead for what he did, not to mention the fact that if you let it slip that he betrayed you, he would go down in flames and have to leave the defense of the nation to you, who he considers unqualified.
Think about it, how is he supposed to figure out how important Wardens are when they're so fucking secretive about their methods? form the outside, it could be argued that they just claim to be the only ones who can stop the Darkspawn for the political power it affords them.
I thought a fantasy story about the guy trying to make it in a new city was far more original than "let's save the world." there's the mage conflict he gets dragged towards but he was either a Mage himself or harboring one so it kind of makes sense. The fact Hawke exists as a character instead of my chosen avatar doesn't bother me that much either I like both options otherwise I wouldn't have enjoyed plenty of games.
The only railing I kind of agree on is the repeated tilesets but even that is kind of passable when I'm playing for the dialogue and combat.
The one thing that bummed me quite a bit was the sudden change in the qunari's appearance, it might even look more unique and perhaps better but it made absolutely no sense.
Ok, you may want me to say more:
Interesting characters:
I don't think so. The reason being is in DA 2 no character evolves. They have their one character, with all flaws laid out in about 10 seconds after meeting them and they stay that way. That's not interesting at all.
In Origins, you meet a bunch of people and find out more and more about them, as time goes on. The Thing is you have to play Origins in the right way to see all that. You have to give your people the right gifts, make them like you, take them with you from time to time, and do their quests and you find out so much interesting stuff about them, which goes beyond their first description. There's nothing like that in DA 2. You can even change Leliana and Alistair and make them harder, stronger people.
Oh and the fact that everybody loses their friggin mind towards the end, while the game doesn't even give you the possibility to call them out on it, doesn't make it better.
Better combat:
No, just no. It was fast sure, but it wasn't good or even better than Origins. The Wave - combat destroyed every tactical option you could have. Giving Enemys negative buffs or taunting them to attack your tank, made no sense, because the enemies are dead in 2 seconds anyway and new ones will have spawned then. Aditionally the whole game's combat was just broken and imbalanced.
I mean just look at the Arishok. An enemy that you HAVE to kite in order to kill him in an TACTICAL game? That's not what tactical combat is supposed to be.
Interesting choices:
I don't think so. In Da 2 there are some choices here and there that you can make, but they are not interesting or good. The choices that seem like they could have a big impact are obviously shown to have no impact at all and the rest just isn't interesting. It's Mages or Templars, or Qunari or not Qunari and those "choices" come up again and again. in Origins you could get better results, if your smart enough to select the right dialogue choices. Since DA 2's dialogue is sooo trimmed down, it doesn't have that kind of thing.
In Origins you could convince an escaped mage to go back to the tower, and when the
mages marge with you to Denerim, you can actually see that mage in the mage army
.
Well i think i said enough, but i wanna talk about another point why DA 2 is bad.
The Quests.
They were just sooo awfull, you get bombarded by quests in an absurd amount, which made me just go whereever a questmarker was. Most of the time i didn't even remember who's quest it was, what i was supposed to do and why i should care.
In Origins it's better structured. You go to a location, get a couble of quests for that specific location until you beat that location. You always know what you're supposed to do, who want's you to do it and why you should care.
And about the Story being better:
Origins might have had a stereotypical story, but it was just SOOOO well done, with lots and lots of other really interesting main plots.
DA 2 has no story at all. It jumps from one plot to the next, while none of them are well done or interesting.
I give you that the Qunari plot wasn't boring, but it was no Civil War Landsmeet either.
There two main categories for why: the game itself was unpolished and the changes from Dragon Age Origins.
I'm speaking as one of the few people out there who seems to have actually enjoyed Dragon Age II, however I will admit that it was a lot weaker in design when compared to it'\s predecessor. The recycled environments and the frequent "mob appears from nowhere and tries to kill you" thing both hurt the game's overall quality for a lot of people; it come across as a bit padded as a result. Not to mention there were quite a few bugs upon release; most of them got ironed out via patches but still the impression was made.
As for the changes from Origins; I can see where they're coming from but I'm a lot less sympathetic. Having a fully voiced protagonist frankly allowed for a lot better characterization and reaction on his/her part. At best the Warden got a witty one-liner while still staring blankly in the background. The story overall was a lot more personal and character focused whereas Origins was the much more standard "heroes on a world saving journey" narrative. So basically Hawke wasn't the Warden and this wasn't Origins. That was enough to doom it for some people.
One thing that tend to be overlooked when people are discussing (or ranting about) Dragon Age is which version you played. Origins and Awakening were far worse on consoles then on PC, because it lacked the tactical overview that made the slow combat work DAO and DAA.
Smart man.
I'd expect players who played the PC version of DA:O to be more forgiving of the game, than those who played the console version.
There's also those little make-your-own-adventure features in origins ofcourse, but when you're stuck in over-the-shoulder + xbox controller mode that's little consolation.
The menus at Dragon Age appear to be: a really shitty action-RPG OR a broken SRPG OR a half-decent RTWP throwback(only on PC).
One thing that tend to be overlooked when people are discussing (or ranting about) Dragon Age is which version you played. Origins and Awakening were far worse on consoles then on PC, because it lacked the tactical overview that made the slow combat work DAO and DAA.
Smart man.
I'd expect players who played the PC version of DA:O to be more forgiving of the game, than those who played the console version.
There's also those little make-your-own-adventure features in origins ofcourse, but when you're stuck in over-the-shoulder + xbox controller mode that's little consolation.
The menus at Dragon Age appear to be: a really shitty action-RPG OR a broken SRPG OR a half-decent RTWP throwback(only on PC).
Seen as I own DA:O on PC and on PS3 I can third this.
It's still a fantastic game on consoles, it's just more difficult to organise your dudes and the busy work takes longer.
Ok, you may want me to say more:
Interesting characters:
I don't think so. The reason being is in DA 2 no character evolves. They have their one character, with all flaws laid out in about 10 seconds after meeting them and they stay that way. That's not interesting at all.
Whether or not it's interesting is obviously personal preference, but it's not true that the characters don't evolve - an Isabela in a friend-romanced relationship with diplomatic Hawke mellows out quite a bit, while an Isabela with a snarky Hawke stays the same and a neutral-relationship one leaves the game. Similarly, Anders pretty clearly mentally declines over the course of the game, and an Anders in a rival-relationship with Hawke is even more unstable than a friend-romanced or non-romanced Anders.
Fair enough if they still bore you, but they clearly do evolve (and evolve in relation to the player choices).
Ok, you may want me to say more:
Interesting characters:
I don't think so. The reason being is in DA 2 no character evolves. They have their one character, with all flaws laid out in about 10 seconds after meeting them and they stay that way. That's not interesting at all.
Whether or not it's interesting is obviously personal preference, but it's not true that the characters don't evolve - an Isabela in a friend-romanced relationship with diplomatic Hawke mellows out quite a bit, while an Isabela with a snarky Hawke stays the same and a neutral-relationship one leaves the game. Similarly, Anders pretty clearly mentally declines over the course of the game, and an Anders in a rival-relationship with Hawke is even more unstable than a friend-romanced or non-romanced Anders.
Fair enough if they still bore you, but they clearly do evolve (and evolve in relation to the player choices).
hmmm, maybe, still you have to play the game multiple times to see that. What annoyed me most about characters was that they were so ... straightforward, i guess. You meet them, they tell/show you who they are and That's it.
In Origins you constantly find out new stuff about your characters, you learn more about them, in DA 2 they show you who they are in the beginning and that's pretty much it.
So I just finished Dragon Age : Origins a few weeks ago which is quite an amazing feat. I have tried playing it for several years (borrowing a family owned copy of the game) but so many little things just bug me about the game that I would eventually just give up. I finally bought my own version of it (Ultimate Edition) once there was a Steam sale on it. So I finally sat down, modded away many of the annoyances and beat the game plus it's expansion.
After doing that I decided to get me a copy of Dragon Age II. After a little over a week I have completed the game and clocked quite a few hours into it. I remember seeing the Metacritic score of it at some point in time and realized it was quite low compared to the original by both Game Journalists. And it's user rating is 4.2.
So why all the hate? Are there people here who can explain to me why so many had such a horrible time with Dragon Age II? I personally thought the combat system was much more polished, balanced, and fun to play with. The characters had more depth then Origins and added quite a bit of depth to some of the characters from Origins. The story was more compelling then the generic "End of the World" scenario. And my word it even throws almost every single Bioware cliche out the window. Also, and most important, you can hide the stupid hats. Those awful and vile hats that shame the world can be hidden. And actually quite a few of the hats look quite good.
So what was it that peeved you off about Dragon Age II. If you hated it when you played it do you still feel it deserves the hate, have you reconsidered? Are you like me and actually think the second is 10x better then the first?
The largest part of the hate comes from the fact that it is different.
The largest amount of legitimate complaints stem from the recycling of environments and how awful Anders and Fenris were as characters(which they were).
I hope BioWare is pleased with itself, these forums can't go 3 days without mention of either Mass Effect or Dragon Age.
That's true, although I actually think that's a point in the game's favour - I was fairly disappointed with it on my first playthrough and only went for a second run out of curiosity and was really pleased at how malleable the characters turned out to be. I ended up playing the full thing through 5 times in the end because I enjoyed those differences enough that it honestly balanced out most of my earlier complaints.
I do think it's too bad that people who played it once and chose the nice or neutral conversations didn't get to see all of that, but I don't see how there's a way around that.
The game was imperfect, there's no doubt about that - I think most people would agree that the recycled areas are lazy and that having enemies drop out of nowhere is absurd. But as an example of what not to do? Aside from those few negatives, there are a lot of arguments on either side. The voiced protagonist, the character developments, the style of the combat - there are people who hate it, but there are plenty of people who like those elements.
So I just finished Dragon Age : Origins a few weeks ago which is quite an amazing feat. I have tried playing it for several years (borrowing a family owned copy of the game) but so many little things just bug me about the game that I would eventually just give up. I finally bought my own version of it (Ultimate Edition) once there was a Steam sale on it. So I finally sat down, modded away many of the annoyances and beat the game plus it's expansion.
After doing that I decided to get me a copy of Dragon Age II. After a little over a week I have completed the game and clocked quite a few hours into it. I remember seeing the Metacritic score of it at some point in time and realized it was quite low compared to the original by both Game Journalists. And it's user rating is 4.2.
So why all the hate? Are there people here who can explain to me why so many had such a horrible time with Dragon Age II? I personally thought the combat system was much more polished, balanced, and fun to play with. The characters had more depth then Origins and added quite a bit of depth to some of the characters from Origins. The story was more compelling then the generic "End of the World" scenario. And my word it even throws almost every single Bioware cliche out the window. Also, and most important, you can hide the stupid hats. Those awful and vile hats that shame the world can be hidden. And actually quite a few of the hats look quite good.
So what was it that peeved you off about Dragon Age II. If you hated it when you played it do you still feel it deserves the hate, have you reconsidered? Are you like me and actually think the second is 10x better then the first?
origins was held back from greatness (imo) by being slower than a one legged turtle with a chronic compulsion to walk backwards. the characters were fortgetable to the point of me just about remembering one of their names (alaistar?), plus the combat was samey and gruelling. not forgetting the entire dwarven section which is worse than even say than OoT's water temple, which while equally frustrating and tiresome, at least compelled you to complete it, becuase once orzammar was out of the way i just knew all that was left was even more 4vs a convieniently proportionate number of enemies combat until the game finally just died and went away.
DA2 on the other hand ... suffered from many of the same problems. but at least the combat (once patched, severely) was pacey enough to keep you constantly on your toes (will ANOTHER batch of bad guys inexplicably spawn after this one? who knows!), and bioware tried much harder the second time around to make the characters and interacting with them that much more engaging.
basically i could never motivate my self to finish DA:O, but DA2 just about kept things interesting enough to finish it.
I actually quite enjoyed dragon age 2, its not the unholy abomanation people think it is. That being said the game still has a lot of flaws.
The decission to make the game take place in just one city is a choice i would say is more interesting then bad. Had Bioware made some more effort to make Kirkwall bigger and feel more alive then i would say it was a great decission to make. Sadly they didn't. Kirkwall feels lifeless and isn't even that much bigger then Denerim.
The characteristation is a mixed bag. Overal i like the characters especially the subtle notes about how they in fact do have a life that isn't completely dependant on the main character. Its Hawke i have a problem with, not with him per se but that the world doesn't reflect the choices you make for him. I played as a mage which in DA I had some people notice that i was indeed a mage. Some people still do but much less, to the point that for 2 of the 3 acts i could walk through the supposed ''templar headquarters of eastern Thedas'' with my staff and mages robes in clear day and there wasn't a single problem, even if i walked straight up to the Templars. Being a blood mage was never brought up either. Whenever someone talked about blood magic Hawke could only condem it and no one brought up his own use of it, not even Fenris the obsesive.
Now i'm going in a bit of spoiler territory as i talk about the story so be warned.
Lots of people here criticise the faction leaders, Meredith and Orsino but i think their dynemic was nicely done for most of the game. Its only at the end when both descendend into ''muhahahahaha!'' behavior that they fall apart. There really was no reason for either Meredith or Orsino to turn on you, especially Orsino who was severly outnumbered in the final battle and relied on Hawke and the party. It just seems like a lazy atempt to stretch out the game by adding another boss fight. You could claim Bioware just wanted both leaders out of the way for the DA III to avoid the work of actually showing Hawke's choice but this could have been fixed much easier in a way that fitted into the character of Meredith and Orsino. If Hawke chose the mage path then Orsino feels secure enough not to go insane and resort to blood magic and gets slain by Meredith who would serve as the final boss while in the Templar path his desperation to protect his people would make Orsino embrace blood magic to face Meredith and Hawke, resulting in him slaying Meredith before being killed by Hawke. The current ending in which both turn on you for no reason makes no sense, no matter how much they try to justify it with insanity and desperation.
The story had potentional but the depiction of the Mage Templar conflict just ended up weakening it. Every templar with a few exceptions are just itching to purge the mages and for people who turn to blood magic in self defense the mages sure seem eager to torture or kill any Templar they get their hands on. The circle of the templars cracking down harder with every resistance and with the mages getting more desperate and ressistant as a result seems interesting its not what you see in any thing other then the side-dialoge. Most templars you meet are facist or even complete Nazi's with their ''sollution to the mage problem'' and every enemy mage just seemed insane. The game tried to show you the worst of both sides to give each a valid reasoning but ironicly it just ends up giving neither any positive reasoning for their actions.
This wasn't needed because the first game already did both side as valid. The mages there where depicted as dangerous and in need of watching and the templars where being shown as to terrify some mages into acting. Both had their good and their bad members, the mage villain in the tower quests fits the insane possesed mage danger and the Templar captain who tried to kill Anders against both the King and wardens wishes fits the zealot Templar, but there was also a genuine willingnes of both factions to work togheter. Gregor and Irving actually seem friendly with each others and while a jerk to mages Gregor is depicted as a reasonable man who wants to protect man and mage alike, he just thinks normal citizens have the priority. You can even see a templar praying for both Templar and mage who have fallen during the events of the game.
The game really had potentional but the rushing and poor story choices made sure it never realised that. Some more time would have fixed the recycled dungeons and the empty Kirkwall, some more care for the story would have suceeded in making the mage/templar conflict a reasonable one and a better thought out endgame would have given their leaders a satisfying end
Re-use of environments, dumbing down mechanics (unable to freely equip followers), and making combat more action oriented over the previous tactical system were the big three.
Personally, I feel that DA2 was the superior game in every way but story.
Even then the story was awesome up until Act 3.
People cried betrayal on the franchise for entirely petty reasons in my opinion.
I can easily see why it's not the best of the series but it's still an above average RPG well worth a recommendation.
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