Poll: The Dragon Age 2 hate

[Athinira]

It's simple really. It's practically impossible for any "pros" a game can have to compensate for bad gameplay.

A game can have the most epic and interesting story/setting ever, but if the gameplay you have to go through to experience that story is bad/buggy (or in very rare cases: directly dreadful), then you might as well just save yourself the pain and watch a playthrough of the game on YouTube.

Dragon Age 2 is such a game in my eyes:
- Combat is repetetive and uninteresting, and at times also pretty "unfair"
- Your grip on events as a player feels rather loose, especially in the beginning of the game.
- Repetitive environments suck the interest out of playing it

As for whether or not Dragon Age 2 deserves all the hate it gets: No.

What definitely deserve hate, however, is the terrible reviewers who awarded the game a way higher score than it should have been awarded. That's part of the reason why people reviewbombed the game: They wanted to "compensate" for artificially inflated scores because the modern game reviewer all-too-often gets too hyped up to see a games flaws, which is often a result of their job. Reviewers who make a living of it often get tasked with playing through games that they don't like, and this makes them all the more appreciative of games that are "different" or just not downright terrible, and they forget that their reviews are going to be read by people who doesn't just get their games handed to them for free, and have to consider each investment they do. Even Yahtzee admits that he sometimes tends to overvalue games in his reviews when he has just been through a few titles that could be considered real sh*t.

Dragon Age 2 was reviewbombed because it was highly recommended by reviewers, and then gamers got a hold of it and found it that it was a big disappointment (hell, in the eyes of some people it was a complete pile of sh*t).

 

[Smooth Operator]

When your dog shits on the carpet you take a newspaper and smack him on the nose, it's the only way they will ever learn.

 

[Aircross]

Dragon Age: Origins set up a high bar, and the rushed job that is Dragon Age 2 just was not on par.

Sequels are supposed to be better.

 

[honestdiscussioner]

Planescape Torment is a masterful example of a personal tale. DA2's story nature being 'personal' doesn't excuse it from sloppy writing and a disjointed story. I'm all for less epic stories, but DA2 isn't the way to do it.

I disagree that the writing was either sloppy or disjointed. It was broken up into three sections, sure, but that doesn't mean it is disjointed. I found it to be an excellent story of a rise to the top.

Perhaps you can give us an example of where it was sloppy or disjointed.

 

[honestdiscussioner]

Hawke himself is an awful character no matter how you play him; his good responses feel insincere, his aggressive responses seldom manage to threaten anyone and only makes his seem oafish and his sarcastic quips are mostly misses. They really could have used some more time editing the dialogue imo.

Well there's your problem right there. Try playing Hawke as a female. She's a much more reliable voice actress than the male counterpart. There are a few lines the male one gets better (See: "Maker, she's bad at this" [in reference to Aveline]), but overall the female one comes off as a more real character. Not that this is typical in a Bioware game or anything like that ::looks at Mass Effect::.

 

[Pandabearparade]

By that logic Dragon Age 3:The Health Potion Manifestation, will be an upgrade of DA:O and an apology for DA2 , amiright?

Good God, I hope so. I might actually buy it, if that's the case.

 

[Xathos]

It's a small issue but what the holy hell happened to sten's race? Where did those horns come from?! Or perhaps is the Quinari just some collective "race" of people dedicated to the Qun?
When I got the mission to escort the Quinari mage I was really hoping he'd be a party member. He looked awesome I thought.

From what I remembered reading, Bioware wanted the Qunari to have horns in the Origins as well. However, they just couldn't exactly get it to work properly. So now they have it where people like Sten are at the very least, slightly special (but don't exactly quote me on that. Not entirely sure), but most Qunari really look like those shown in DA2. I'm sure if you head to the wiki or look online you'll find the info.

Now as for DA2. I agree that it deserves some hate. While I liked the focus on Hawke and his family, the overall story and choice system was bad. As posted in this thread before, almost every choice you make doesn't matter. You can't exactly change your team mates minds about anything, you can't get the 2 factions to see eye to eye, and you can't stop the unbareably stupid events in Act 3 from happening. I know what really annoys me is that the game seems to present that fact that you can change things from the dialogue wheel, but then is all "just kidding!". Maybe smaller choices done in side quests will matter in DA3, but we don't know yet.

But some things like having missions in the day or night I liked. Liked how every team mate had a bunch of missions to themselves(though Aveline's was probably the best one, and how everyone of them should have been in my opinion). Also found out that your Hawke will start to talk depending on how many times you choose a certain option. For example, if you choose the sarcastic comment a bunch, then times when Hawke talks(as in he speaks for himself, you don't choose what he says) will come out sarcastic. Don't know the exact details of it, and it sounds simple, but I thought it was interesting.

As for the game play, characters, redesign of the world and whatnot? That's more of a personal thing. You'll either like it or hate it. In my case, I liked it a lot. Except for characters not named Aveline or Varric, everyone else just felt..."annoying" I guess is the word I'm looking for. And while being confined to a city is fine for the first 1 1/2 acts, it gets a little grating towards the end because there really isn't anything too new.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: the game wasn't too bad or anything. But considering it was a Bioware game? It felt very sub par to many people. Least that's what I think anyway.

 

[Yostbeef]

I think so,it's not a very good game.I still found it somewhat entertaining but it wasn't even close to what I expect from a Bioware title.

 

[RagnarokHybrid]

DA2 was, unfulfilling, I suppose. I came in expecting it to be a super-fantastic revamp of Origins--which it was. It didn't change too much though. Once you get past the combat there wasn't much else for it to fall back on. And the ending was especially disappointing; everything just gets resolved too quickly. I didn't like the one-town thing, either. It made me feel like I was just trudging back and forth trying to keep the plot going, running into umpteen million random gang/demon fights.

DAO was more fulfilling, though more bland. From the graphics to the combat and animation, the game looked really bad. However, its story allowed for a lot more liberties and possibilities. I didn't like how you had to read the results of the millions of quests you did, though. I would've preferred a cinematic but whatever.

I hope DA3 has better combat and a greater sense of exploration and adventure in this great fantasy world that Bioware has built. That means, no more reusing the same dungeon backdrop for, like, fifty different missions. It ruins the immersion factor of the game.

Also, am I the only one who thinks it'd be cool to transform into or summon a dragon? I think larger-scale and higher-stake battles are exactly what this game needs. I'd love to see an entire town torn apart by a battle between a colossal demon and a titanic dragon.
And, while I'm fantasizing, I'd also love to see much more possible party members and possible races to play as. I kept getting bored playing through the game as different characters with, basically, the same personalities and the same party members. Sure, many characters would be overlooked but that's a small price to pay to avoid repetition.

 

[lordmardok]

I think it just got a lot of the hate that it did because of the disappointment. True that it wasn't overall an awful game from the bowels of cocytus that many herald it as, but still I think that it was built up too much and had far too good a pedigree to give us the rather slapdash performance it did with constantly reused environments, the lack of an overarching narrative or storyline, etc...

I will say that the characters were still as good as ever though.

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

I loved DA: Origins but I haven't liked the things I've seen with DA2 and I don't intend to purchase it. This isn't an anti-streamlining I think the changes to ME2 made the game better for it, but I wanted DA to stand out as a series in it's own right rather than just steal mechanics like the dialogue wheel. Also, I've heard the story and characterisation isn't up to snuff failing to pose an active question in the plotline and the environments are shallow, homogenous and repetitive, something that ME2 actually fixed from it's sequel and yet Bioware continue to make that mistake for this title. I don't like the look of it, but that being said I don't think it's the gaming anti-christ like many other posters seem to. As has been said earlier, people have a tendency to overreact.

 

[Extravagance]

Didn't really like Origins, if I'm honest, and saw no need for a sequel/the hype behind it. With that in mind, I didn't play much of 2, or enjoy it much. It was just Origins.

 

[Ziggy]

but Dragon Age 2 is a great game.

and yet it made 40% of it's fanbase angry.

 

[Condiments]

Planescape Torment is a masterful example of a personal tale. DA2's story nature being 'personal' doesn't excuse it from sloppy writing and a disjointed story. I'm all for less epic stories, but DA2 isn't the way to do it.

I disagree that the writing was either sloppy or disjointed. It was broken up into three sections, sure, but that doesn't mean it is disjointed. I found it to be an excellent story of a rise to the top.

Perhaps you can give us an example of where it was sloppy or disjointed.

I could go into a long rant of how the game's plot is haphazardly constructed, but these guys do it better:

Dragon Age 2 Plot analysis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA1KPsFV1tQ&feature=channel_video_title

Dragon Age 2 What went Wrong(Rock Paper Shotgun):
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/31/analysis-dragon-age-ii/

Quote for article:
"But the issue goes deeper than just mechanically. The game doesn?t seem to have the wherewithal to manage such a complex and nuanced story in its own narrative. At a certain point I had no idea which blood mage was which, as every single quest blurred into one. I?d deliberately defy orders to kill them/arrest them, and try to set them free (the angle I?d chosen to take for my character), and nearly every time they?d turn into a demon and I?d have to kill them anyway.

Which is, in fact, the model for most of the game. Where BioWare?s wonderful Knights Of The Old Republic offered the illusion of choice, changing the way you behaved in the fixed events, Dragon Age II offers not even an illusion. Do you want to open door A or door B? Both open up into a fight where you kill someone, but door A meant you wanted to. And this, tragically, even applies to the game?s floppy, hapless ending.

I?ve carved out a path through the game ? at every junction I?ve chosen to fight for the mages against the Templar, I?ve argued the mages? cause in every discussion. So why am I being asked whose side I?m on at all?! Let alone why does that make absolutely no difference whatsoever to what I?m actually going to play?

In the end Dragon Age II has nothing to say about slavery, subjugation, or acculturation ? themes that shone in Origins. It pretends it does, but it?s all flap and waffle to excuse some more fights. It has nowhere to go, nothing to reach for.

The plight of the elves, either City or Dalish, is trivialised to a couple of asides, and the dwarven caste system that surely provided Origins? most controversial elements is completely absent, maybe alluded to in one or two lines. We?re just left with the mages, and it?s offered to us in such a silly way that it doesn?t allow us to think anything interesting. Every blood mage turns into a demon, and yet no one seems to notice. Fighting for them begins to make blurry sense, and yet fighting against aligns you with psychopaths who wish to see horrific acts of mental abuse and eugenics."

 

[Xaio30]

1.Enemy waves jumping out of nowhere
2.Exploring the same cave for the 10-th time.

It does deserve a lot of hate,even tho I enjoy this game I have to say that BW devs had to say to themselves "Phuck our customers, we're doing shortcuts all the way this time"

Adding on to that:

3.Totally shit ending.

Spoiler

Anders' inner idiot wreaks havoc Arch-mage turns out to be just as stupid by proving the templars right, and Leliana is somehow resurrected from the grave.

 

[AlternatePFG]

It wasn't awful, just really rushed and didn't live up to it's potential. I blame EA for that, not BioWare. (I'm not a big BioWare fan at all, but it's pretty obvious EA has been a horrible influence on them.) The hate it gets is expected, but rather ridiculous.

 

[Fidelias]

I thought it was a good game, but as others have been saying, it was dissappointing.

Sure, it had (In my opinion) improved combat, graphics, and characters.

However, I had three major problems with it.

The first is the obvious one, the re-used environments. Coming from a company like Bioware, this is inexcusable.

My second and third problems pretty much go together.

That you never get out of Kirkwall, except to go on some small missions. And those are in boring caves. Kirkwall got boring REAL fast. It would've worked a little better if they had decided to put you in an Elven village, or Orzammar, but instead they put you in a boring human city.

My last complaint is about the hype of the so-called "Champion". Through the trailers, and throughout the game, the "Champion" is spoken of as though he were some kind of awesome god. As if he was on par with the Hero of Ferelden, or even better than him/her. Turns out, you just saved a city from a couple of riots. Because that's what they were, they weren't organized, tactically challenging wars, they were chaotic, unplanned riots. I mean, sure, the Champion is cool and all, but he/she's not even close to the same league as the Hero of Ferelden. It was just kind of a letdown.