Poll: Is Dragon Age 2 a bad game?

[Bobbity]

It's not by any stretch of the word bad, but it's certainly not up to Bioware's usual standard of excellence, and, as such, is particularly disappointing.

 

[kuolonen]

I liked it but it was really close to being meh. I had a roleplay breaking bug right up until pathc 2.
To best describe the diffrence between DA2 and DAO:
In DAO you choose the next king of ferelden, king of orzamar, wheter or not a godbeing is being born into world from thy seed, wheter to side with mages or templar, wheter to side with dales or werewolves and so forth. Lots of decisions that have a real impact.
In DA2 you choose between mages and templars. The end. And even that decision wont change how the ending plays out.

Spoiler

You always have to kill Meredith and Orsino.

So yeah.
I still believe in Bioware but EA seems to be a really bad influence on 'em. Now with dread to wait for ME3. Please oh please dont f*ck it up.

 

[Gill Kaiser]

I was disappointed in DA2, for sure.

It had so much potential; the idea behind it was a good one, and I was actually looking forward to playing through a more personal story that wasn't about defeating an ancient evil, etc. However, the story just didn't hang together, and the game was so obviously rushed in so many areas that I felt entirely disconnected.

The frequency of combat and the waves of enemies that kept spawning just felt like a chore after a while, and without the story to keep me soldiering on, I just didn't have the motivation to keep playing.

There were a lot of frankly bizarre design decisions in DA2. It seemed like it had been cobbled together with a lot of ideas from Mass Effect 2, but in a way that didn't take into account that they were very different games, or exactly why those aspects from ME2 fit into that game.

 

[Agayek]

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.

 

[JediMB]

I love it.

It did a lot of things right where both Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 did wrong, but... it also suffers from not getting enough time for polish, and the last-minute padding (such as the delivery quests) didn't really help the game's image either.

But what did it do right? Battles are more fast-paced while still retaining most of the strategic elements from its predecessor, it handled the concepts of friendship and family quite excellently, and the way romances were handled is worlds better than how they were in Mass Effect 2. The "iconic" companion equipment thing is handled better than it was in ME2, although I will say that there's still room for many improvements.

The dialogue wheel is a great improvement over what we've seen in Mass Effect, but once again there's still room to make it even better.

If I had to choose between DA2 and ME2 at this point in time, I would easily pick DA2.

 

[BlackIvory]

How does the dialogue wheel make the ordering any less neat? If anything it's now a lot more clear what each dialogue option does, and with a quick glance at the icon you can see in which style the answer is presented.

Thats exactly the problem(!) You don't even have to read the lines, you can just look at the color(not even shape!) of the icon and the one you want it to be, instead of actualy reading and thinking about the meaning or consequences. Thats pretty much the definition of dumbed-down.

 

[Talin Silverbane]

It was a good game, but it could of been far better.

 

[Gill Kaiser]

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.

Agreed. Although, I thought the writing for some of the individual quests was fine, and the dialogue for the companions was up to Bioware's usual standard, but the overall plot's writing was terrible.

 

[tzimize]

A lot of awful design decisions.

One of the biggest disappointments in recent gaming history.

 

[Agayek]

I loathed it, I found none of the characters to be interesting, the story was unengaging, the dialogue system limited my immersion and the locations were down-right bloody boring. Even before I went through them 3 times.

How the hell did you manage to see every zone in the game only three times?! By the end of Act 1, I had visited each (forwards and backwards) at least a dozen times.

Also, I agree with you on everything you said there, except for Varric. He was an interesting, likable character with a rather intriguing backstory. He's my #2 favorite character in any Dragon Age game/dlc/campaign/whatever, right behind Shale.

And though I won't wholly agree with you on the slideshow ending, I can understand where you're coming from and do agree that it probably was meant to be a throw back since the whole game felt as much (which was SO FUN to me, loved that kind of style. Even see it in Divinity 2).

Oh, and speaking of physical retcons, did you see what they did to the elves in DA2? What's with those noses?! The elves in DA:O were more like people with point ears. I don't know about you, but the design changes they made in DA2 just put me off from the get go. >: /

The character design retcons were a mixed bag, IMO. I really liked the new Qunari look, and it makes a lot more sense how Ogres come from Blighted Qunari.

The new elves look ridiculous though. They just need to fall into some blue paint and they could be the Na'vi. They were just fine in the first game, near-human, but different enough to be instantly differentiated. There was no reason to change them.

Also, I quite liked the slideshow ending in DA:O. It was a hell of a lot better than the "Well we killed the big bad, then we ran away. Then we split up and Hawke rode off into the sunset" we got with DA2. Varric couldn't even be bothered to deal with a god damn proper epilogue.

 

[AlternatePFG]

It was pretty mediocre. There were some good things about it, but it made some of the same mistakes ME2 made. The main plotline was a muddled mess, and the sidequests were not even memorable. There was so much potential for the game and they killed it. I enjoyed my first two playthroughs, but I never want to play it again.

My main problem with it is that the game reeks of laziness.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

*Snip*

Yeah no?

First, having a four year English degree and 'many' classes on storytelling is irrelevant. What you explain is exactly why it is a bad system. The fact you spent 3 to 5 minutes figuring out what you want to select is a good thing. The fact that what you wanted to say and how the NPC took it is a good thing. That's called Role Playing.

A good role playing experience comes from being able to quickly pick the response that comes closest to the aligned response that the person would say in real life, if the situation was actually happening to him or her.

In a non-scripted real life role play, if I am making a statement/answer after the last bit of conversation, I will give a straight answer with clear feelings, unless I feel neutral and give such a response, or I want to be bad and I give the forceful or evil response. I'm not going to give a response that one can't tell what is going on.

In role plays, I want to come the closest I can to real life, and having to sit for 3 to 5 minutes is wasting time.

Never in my life have I been given 3 to 5 minutes to blankly stare at somebody and make a decision. In schools the teachers will move on to the next person after 1 minute or less. When I'm talking to people I know, if I took that long, they would either tell me to hurry up, they'd change the subject, or they'd leave the room.

As the saying goes, time is money. Also, time is precious. I only get a certain amount of time a day to play games, 1 to 3 hours. I want my games to flow so I can easily pay attention to the story and not have to let thoughts linger. Plus, having to constantly load the game and redo conversations really eats away at that play time.

There is no reason for a game having multiple and clear choices to be deemed as not a good RPG; it is actually what makes a RPG good or even great.

A bad RPG is one that is full of ambiguity that slows down the player and flow of the story.

 

[Ian Caronia]

When writing a story there is no such thing as "it's about the journey, not where you end up". That's stupid and if an author even mentions that NEVER read their shit because they obviously don't care about the endings they write.

That is not how it works in the writing world these days, though I don't think it mainly worked that way in the past. Of course it is about the journey, without the journey(the majority of the book) you don't have a book.

I went to two universities and had four creative writing professors and the majority of the assignments if not all off them focused on writing the journey, since it is the bulk of stories and the most important part.
*SNIP*
But still on the end of DA2 I will say again, of course the ending isn't going to be complete or majorly intense, because the game isn't a wrap up of the series, it is just a part of the series that will continue. A true end won't come into play until either DA3 or until whatever game they are going to make the last and final one in the series.

Well firstly, mate, I'm glad to see you have such education and I hope you use it to write a novel I can keep on my bedstand one day (not being sarcastic, I really am happy to see when someone is blessed with a good literary education). However, I comepletely disagree that the journey is the most important part, as would many of my professors.

The journey and the ending are both equally important. How you end a story is how you close off the world you've created, and how you'll leave your reader afterward. Do you want them excited, or sad? What kind of conclusion does your story have? You see, there's no such thing as a "most important part", which is what the phrase "it's about the journey not where you end up" is saying, that the journey is more important than the ending.
If your journey is long and filled with adventure, but then ends suddenly and/or with nothing explained, you've failed as an author. Without a sense of closure, even if there are plans for a sequel to continue the overarching story(i.e. Harry Potter books, LOTR books, Narnia books, most books of a series, really) your journey is merely a beautiful, interesting and imaginative walk off a cliff.
Point in case: mass effect. Done also by Bioware but a different team, each ME game has a sense of closure to a degree, but also shows the grander plot is not over.

Which brings me to DA2's ending. Closure. There literally is none. In any regard. This makes it a failure, and makes failures of those who wrote it. It's a sick ploy to infect people with the all too well known urge to buy the next installment to see what happens, and it shows no love from the authors for the world or characters that they created. A story that ends badly is just as bad as one that plays out badly (which, in terms of playing out bad I will admit is a matter of opinion). But, it is fact that DA2 has a cliffhanger ending with no closure. That makes it a bad ending, which, in my opinion, makes the story of the game worthy of the hate of those gamers who beat it expecting more.

 

[JediMB]

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.

See, I don't get where people get the idea that they have to play "Nice Hawke", "Snarky Hawke" or "Violent Hawke".

Me? I crafted a basic personality for my Hawke while playing the prologue. I decided what her values were. She was overly protective of her little sister, she had both a sense of honor and a sense of humor, and she despised slavery and how the Circle treated mages.

And then I simply handpicked options from the dialogue wheel accordingly. She'd usually be nice and patient, she'd crack jokes when the situations weren't too dire for it to be appropriate (or simply when she was around Isabela), and on occasion she'd get angry or just let her greataxe do the talking.

That said, the wheel could stand deviating from having a good, a bad and a neutral response as the default. Mix it up a bit, by having multiple options of similar attitude available at the same time.

 

[Ch@Z]

The combat is awful. In DA:O you need to pause and plan your attack before each fight since there are so many different types of enemies,enemy spells, environments and traps. But in DA2, you just run in head first without planing anything.

The game also didn't have a real plot at all. No central conflict or anything.

 

[deshorty]

The gameplay is great fighting, RPG elements everything is good. But once you've killed your 10,000th blood mage who is summoning the same monster as the past 9,999 ones in the same cave, it gets a little old and once you defeat all the monsters in the room, guess what? You have even more of the same monsters to kill. The boss fights are exciting, but the problem with them is that the AI is unbelievably stupid. I was fighting a dragon and my AI mages just ran and started melee-ing the dragon. Anyway, the point is, DA 2 is only good if you play it in small installments and can micromanage the completely brain dead AI. I could so I enjoyed it, but didn't love it.

 

[Ian Caronia]

*snip*
Also, I quite liked the slideshow ending in DA:O. It was a hell of a lot better than the "Well we killed the big bad, then we ran away. Then we split up and Hawke rode off into the sunset" we got with DA2. Varric couldn't even be bothered to deal with a god damn proper epilogue.

My friend, ANYTHING is better than a cliffhanger ending with no closure. It's a non-ending. It's stupid and made to make you buy the next game, which I refuse to do.

I miss my cute dalish elves V_V

 

[Joccaren]

I disliked it. If you didn't like DA:O and thought it should be faster paced and less RPG, more Hack'n'Slash, you'll like it. If you loved Origins and want the game to just expand on and improve the features it already had for a better RPG experience, you'll likely hate it. If you haven't played Origins, and like hack'n'slash styled games, you'll probably like it.\

Captcha: HLR.railyiT
It is just me or are these getting weirder and weirder?

 

[Sehnsucht Engel]

I've never played it