Poll: Is Dragon Age 2 a bad game?

[Hawgh]

I liked it. It was certainly more engaging than the first one.

 

[SpireOfFire]

its more polished than the 1st one, but not nearly as addicting.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

I paid $60 for it, and got 60 hours of play in two play-throughs. To me, that is a good deal, and I like the game. Not as good as the first, but then again, it never is.

 

[Linkassassin360]

Its one of the few games I played with meaningful character development. That being said, the environment in which the characters do develop needed a fine layer of polish. I played through the game and thoroughly enjoyed it, but it was far from a perfect game.
A pre-owned purchase at most, a rent at best (Although any purchase of a Bioware game goes toward mass effect 3, then again, I would just buy mass effect 2 with that line of thinking.)

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

I loved it, sure the lack of instances is just lazy but it didnt stop me from enjoying the game.

 

[Dectomax]

http://tinyurl.com/3lvmyrh

OT: Don't plan on getting it

 

[Undead Dragon King]

I thought it was all right.

Then I discovered Dragon Age Nexus modding.

Now it's truly excellent.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I thought it was a good game, then I went back and played origins again. DA2 is like 5/10 for me DA:O is a 9. The dialogue, characters and story are great but the environments and battles just feel rushed. There is alot of copypasta going on and the depth of character and group customisation is questionable. It pretty much forces you to use Aveline and Anders for example. Even Ostagar one of the first areas in DA:O is gorgeous compare it to the stylised browness of Kirkwall and there is just no comparison. The copypasta mines compared with the temple for the urn of sacred ashes...

I'm not a rampant DA:O fangirl I think I played through it once when I got it. I'm playing it through again atm becuase I'm bored. Compared to DA2 its so much more polished. Pretty shockingly so.

 

[8bitlove2a03]

Is it a good game? Yes. Is it a perfect game? Hell no. Is it better than Dragon Age: Origins? Sometimes.

I cannot lie, the combat is much more interesting than the combat in DA:O. I (though I seem to be in the minority) enjoy the fully-voiced protagonist. The characters are all awesome, as opposed to just having three interesting characters for DA:O. The downside is that it's buggy, short, and the text is so small that it's impossible for me to read it on my TV (thus eliminating my ability to read all of the codex entries, which I rather enjoyed in DA:O).

That's my two bits.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I didn't think the writing was bad at all, not super stellar either but quite solid nonetheless. I prefered it over DA:O's clichéd "sole savior of the world" story actually.

But you're right about how the combat is a lot more streamlined, though I have to disagree about the console-part (people should so stop that). I played DA:O on the PC, and the difference in feeling wasn't so much in the controls (which haven't changed all that much) but pure in the speed and flow of it. But the way you give orders, decide on which tactics to use, place AoE's and glyphs all basically worked the same as in DA:O. It just flowed a lot better, felt less sluggish. That and they made the combat even more dynamic. All classes had a lot more options to choose from, and they only expanded on DA:O's skill-combo's.

You're right about the kill animations though. Shame they didn't put those in, but I have no idea how it's a 'major indication in the tone and direction they took'. The main difference it could show is gore, be it not that even without the special melee kill animations I still had bodyparts flying over the place. Thanks Merril!

First, the dialog wheel, while it has its pluses, did more harm than good to the game, IMO. It put what felt like more of a limit (even if it functionally did not) on what kind of responses and choices you could make, plus I didn't like the fact that you got shoehorned into "Snarky cynicist", "Paragon of Virture" or "Bloodthirsty Psychotic". In DAO I could at least pretend my character had said something with a different inflection or tone to more match what I was trying to say.

Second, as for the combat, you are correct in that the raw mechanics flowed much better. It was much smoother and nicer to play.

The problem with the combat is almost entirely the way they designed encounters instead of the mechanics therein. The biggest problem with the mechanics was the fact that every single fight involved wave after wave after wave of mooks spawning, running up and getting one shot. The fact that they spawned all over the place, with no real rhyme or reason to it, robbed the combat of just about any semblance of strategy aside from "Get everyone in a big clump and kill everything that comes nearby". It was pathetically easy as well.

And finally, the writing. The writing in DA2 was complete garbage. There really was no overarching plot with any meaning, it clearly suffered from the lack of a defined protagonist, and there was no conclusion to anything. The fact of the matter is, the whole game was a perfect example of the developer being either insanely rushed or lazy (I'm betting on the former). There was very little in the story that actually made sense and there was literally nothing tying the different acts together. The whole thing was just a mess.

Pretty much my feelings. God, how I despise the dialog wheel.

 

[VaudevillianVeteran]

It isn't a bad game. Some consider it bad compared to it's predecessor and did not like the changes. I myself, liked it, I liked it's charm, the banter, the characters (Although I can perfectly understand why people don't like a lot of them), had a true black and grey morality at the end and a much improved combat system.
But while I say this, as I said, I can definitely see why many fans disliked Dragon Age 2, I was one that didn't though.

 

[ryai458]

Really enjoyed it, play through three times with all classes got every achievement, great game.

 

[ScoopMeister]

Great game in my opinion, despite its flaws, and its recycled environments.. It annoys me that it has to always be compared to Origins, since I don't believe they should be compared.
But, of course, it's inevitable since it is a sequel. The reasons it's got such mixed reviews are that some changes are better than Origins, and some are worse.
You're more likely to enjoy it if you haven't played the prequel, because most Origins fans seem to have found it difficult to move on.

Not at all, it's a good game. It just is in the unfortunate position of being a sequel to Dragon Age: Orgins, a better game. We gamers expect our sequels to be an improvement, this one wasn't, but it is still very worth playing.

Ps. Please excuse my bad English, I am not a native speaker.

I wouldn't worry. Your English seems to be much better than the majority of the native speakers on this site.

 

[Woodsey]

Its OK.

Certainly not as bad as some make out, but its got some rather huge - and amateurish - flaws.

 

[Senaro]

Dragon Age 2 is fantastic, the only flaw being how often they recycle all of those dungeons.

 

[WaywardHaymaker]

No, not at all. It just isn't as good as Origins. Bioware took a little gamble when they sped up the combat and wrote a new type of story, and they got mixed results. I liked it, but I hope they see where they went wrong and move the franchise back towards Origins for the next one.

 

[LobsterFeng]

I've heard so many mixed opinions, so let's just settle things once and for all.

Worst poll ever

Either 'hate it' or 'it's okay'? What were you thinking

Umm, which poll are you looking at, I put more than that. I also included other, so what's the big deal?

 

[mireko]

Recycled dungeons and enemies, inexplicable paratroopers, weird glitches and some of the final confrontations seem like they were only half-written. Story still better than DA:O's. Characters slightly more interesting as well. Despite what people will tell you, the combat is nearly identical.

Overall, I like it more than I like Origins, but I won't deny that Origins is a far better game. If that doesn't make sense, I also like Maken X more than I like God of War. Go figure.

 

[Anti-Robot Man]

I felt the first game was over-rated, in particular I felt that only a few of your party were interesting. It's story didn't engross me as much as KotOR, and the decisions didn't seem to carry enough weight to them. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it and have completed multiple playthroughs (+all the DLC), but I don't think it was so great that no sequel could have compared to it.

The second game brought some needed improvements. I like the ME dialogue system (it felt kind of jarring to have a silent protagonist again in DA:O after ME), but Hawke's voice actors weren't up to the standard of Sheperd's. Overall I liked the party more, Varic and Isabella especially - though Zevran's cameo reminded me what a fun character he could be.

The biggest problems for me with DAII was that the whole game felt rushed and unfinished. I encountered a lot of bugs, including unfinishable quests and the Isabella slow down. The limited use of environments and endless fetch quests made the game very repetative (even to a die-hard completionist like myself).

Finally, the plot was both unconventional and structurally odd. I think Bioware deserve some credit for trying something different - Hawke is a hero carried along by circumstances beyond his control (rather than the more traditional reshaping the world role RPG heroes tend to fall into). Unfortunately, I don't think it paid off. The final act feels disconnected from the rest of the story, and Hawke's decisions are disappointingly binary.