Poll: Whats so wrong with Dragon Age II?

[BlastedTheWorm]

I enjoyed it but there was plenty of reasons to dislike it.

-It igonored a lot of what you did in Dragon Age Origins, discarding your characters and the like.
-While facial graphics in the main characters was superb, a lot of graphics, in NPCS, backgrounds, armour, weapons, a lot of things, are rather bad.
-They say that Hawke is "one of the most important characters in the Dragon Age universe", at the heart of it all, when he was basically a bystander.
-They kinda ruined Anders, in my opinion. In fact, returning characters were either completely changed, in it for five seconds, or flanderized beyond belief. The new characters, with the exception of Varric, were much less memorable.
-Combat, instead of making it more accessable and user friendly, was just dumbed down.
-Almost the whole game takes place simply in the city of Kirkwall and it's surrounding areas, whereas the last game took place across the Ferelden in a wide variety of locations.
-The constant reuse of dungeons.
-The general barren, empty and uninteractive feel of Kirkwall (compared to say, Denerim, which was much livelier).
-Dragon Age Origins came out about five years after its announcement, whereas Dragon Age II Came out about 16 months after its announcement. It kinda screams quick cash-in. I hope this was EA, rather than BioWare.

It's a shame. I liked Dragon Age II, but I was very disappointed nonetheless. It wasn't a worthy sequel to Origins, and while I look forward to Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age III, I do feel a bit of trepidation towards them. Hopefully, BioWare will prove me wrong.

 

[psicat]

I enjoyed DA2 there where a lot of improvements in combat, story, and characters from DA:O. My only issues was of course the reused maps, but other than that it was a good game.

 

[bootz]

What I liked :
Quicker combat Better team AI.
What I didn't like:
I felt like all I was doing was killing kirkwalls citizens, playing cop.
Never met any mages in the circle so you had no idea who you would free if you sided with them.
The recycled map. kirkwall was boring rome from ac2 killed kirkwall. It was suppose to be so packed you cant get in and you get in its empty. No single class combo like grease + fireball in orgins. Anders attracts all the dudes that spawn randomly. I made up my own story so there was one.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

-Combat, instead of making it more accessable and user friendly, was just dumbed down.

What's the difference? I hated the combat system for DA: O, with multiple adversaries like that, as far as I am concerned, free flowing combat is a must. Allowing for basic attacks at no cost is much more exciting.

Besides, you say dumbed down, I say much more fun. It'll be one to someone or the other to someone else.

-The constant reuse of dungeons.

That's probably because its easier to program and troubleshoot a single layout and then manipulate it. More than likely a product of the rushed dev time.


EDIT:

Merrill was cute, Isabela was fun and Varric is my SUPER BEST BRO Seriously, I loved that guy.

 

[bob-2000]

YES. It pushes RPGs away from the old, bored cliches of "oh no, monsters, help us hero!!!". It also greatly improves the quality of BioWare's already impressive character development process. In short: I fucking love this game, and I'm sorry to see that the fanboys don't appreciate the change it brings.

 

[BlastedTheWorm]

-Combat, instead of making it more accessable and user friendly, was just dumbed down.

What's the difference? I hated the combat system for DA: O, with multiple adversaries like that, as far as I am concerned, free flowing combat is a must. Allowing for basic attacks at no cost is much more exciting.

Besides, you say dumbed down, I say much more fun. It'll be one to someone or the other to someone else.

Okay, I suppose it wasn't that different. It's not so much the combat itself, but the other factors, like talent trees, or weapon sets. In Origins, a warrior could use two handed weapons, one handed weapons, one handed weapons and shields, two one handed weapons, etc, yet in Dragon Age II, it's a two handed weapon, or a weapon and shield. Minor, I know, but it still feels restrictive.

-The constant reuse of dungeons.

That's probably because its easier to program and troubleshoot a single layout and then manipulate it. More than likely a product of the rushed dev time.


EDIT:

Merrill was cute, Isabela was fun and Varric is my SUPER BEST BRO Seriously, I loved that guy.

The key phrase there is "rushed dev time". That's basically the cause of most of Dragon Age II shortcomings. It doesn't mean they can be excused, it's still a major flaw in the game.

Yes, Merril was cute, but she's very different from her small appearance in Origins. Yes, Isabela is fun but in Origins, sure, she's up for a threesome/foursome, but it's at your suggestion, not hers. In Dragon Age II, she basically wants to fuck everything that moves.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

snip

Well the changes to Isabela and Merrill are more a problem for you because you were able to slog through the tedious combat of DA1 to finish it, I was turned off by the combat system so badly I didn't play much beyond recruiting Morrigan. My loss I suppose, but it was a deal breaker.

 

[Zaik]

I enjoyed it. Quite a bit, actually.

Seems like typically your pointlessly angry e-rage review will stem from "it's not Baldur's Gate 3 again so I hate it " syndrome, but will occasionally use an actual real complaint like the reused environments or the occasionally excessive fighting thrown in there to try to look legit.

Unless you were looking at metacritic for reviews or something, apparently /v/ caused that clusterfuck.

 

[ZtH]

I have as yet not played it, I decided to go through DA:O first, but was wondering if it had the same bug issues as the first. I've had heaps of trouble getting DA:O to run well and the DLC has been a pain to get working.

OT: Perhaps there are similar issues to the first one with bugs and such?

I got the Black Emporium DLC with the game and that was a pain in the ass to get going, you had to register it with EA then download it from their site (They hid the download option i swear, i had to look up where it was lol) But after that it worked just fine, the game did crash a few times during my playthrough as well but not as bad as some.

Ah, that doesn't sound nearly as bad. Perhaps I will pick it up after all.

 

[kuyo]

it was okay, nothing that good, and I expect more from Bioware. Their rep is from writing good story and DA2's story was a rambly mess. It's more like three DLCs conjoined with duct tape.

 

[sephiroth1991]

I enjoyed it but I found the last Act kinda rushed, which made the ending feel empty and pointless.

 

[electric discordian]

Why is them reusing interiors such a problem??? I have been down some sewers and I can honestly say they were not set apart by their interior décor! Most of the places you go are under the city not different civilisations!

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Why is them reusing interiors such a problem??? I have been down some sewers and I can honestly say they were not set apart by their interior décor! Most of the places you go are under the city not different civilisations!

Iv'e been playing ME1 lately and they basically do this all the time especially for side quests. I'm pretty sure ME1 doesn't get terrible flak for being a horrible game. It's almost like they looked at Dragon Age and said right lets make it like Mass Effect 1 and 2 rather than Origins.

In itself Mass Effect isn't a terrible game (although I found the second one rather corridor - like.) I think it's more the expectation that DA2 was going it be like Origins and it wasn't that let people down. People grasped onto it as Baldur's Gate legacy and when they switched it up people didn't like that.

In effect Dragon Age 2 ''in itself'' isn't a terrible game, it's the comparison with the more 'open' Origins that makes it suffer. Bioware would have done better to release it as an IP rather than a sequel.

 

[chainguns]

This poll on a site that gave this game 100% (5/5). I generally agreed with the escapist until that review came out, now I only visit for Yahtzee...

What's wrong with DA2? Well I like RPGs for starters. And DA2 dumped a heap of RPG conventions. No big deal you say. Well let's see you persuade Treyarch that Black Ops 2 should not have gunsights, just a background 'dexterity' check to see if you hit. Then look at fans' reaction and go 'haters gonna hate' with a big smirk. Which RPG conventions? Well, like choices and consequences. No matter how you play, differences in how it ends are tiny and cosmetic. RPG conventions like a good story. Why do I get a 'cliffhanger' ending? Oh yeah, to feed the DLC machine. RPG conventions like choice of race and origin instead I get Voice Overs. RPG conventions like open companion inventory, crafting, having more than 2 stats per class...

Mainly I didn't fit in the target audience for this game, which seems to be 14-19 y.o. That's going by the waterballoon blood bursts, Avatar elves, Cirque du Soleil combat animations, anime art, massive boobs, jrpg swords, emo characters, quests about pedophiles, STD themes, zombie mothers, emo sibling rivalry, quests that autocomplete themselves. All fun when I was 15. Now I've moved on and want something with a bit more maturity.

It seems that if you're not really a fan of RPGs and/or are under 20, you should have fun with DA2. Outside of that, you're probably going to find this a really forgettable game.

 

[SystemOfADown]

I actually really enjoyed the game but that siad I defiantly see were some poeple are coming from when they say they were pissed with it too, I mean god dam you won't believ how thorouly pissed I was when I found out I couldn't complete isabelas side quest to full cause of some BS glitch in the game

@hiname ha and referring to your comments it really pisses me Off too as me being a male with long beautifull hair lol that I can't make my charachter have long flowing hair in battle but I quess I'm just nitpicking cause ovaral besides for that fact my character actually looked very simaliar to me in real life

 

[Custard_Angel]

It's alright. Not great.

If you let it take you in, you'll have a barrel of fun. If it doesn't take your interest it'll be a disappointing experience.

 

[eggmiester]

it is great game, no doubt. but i have a nagging feeling...

if you took away the characters, would it still be a great game? or are the characters the only reason you play the game?

for me, it would be 8/10: but i have a sneaking suspicion that it would be a /10 without the FANTASTIC characters...

really, if bioware ever wrote a tv series, it would be BRILLIANT. it makes you wonder if the lads at bioware are not better suited writing television scripts or novels or such: what do ye think?

 

[Ando85]

Ok i just finished Dragon Age II and I really liked it. But I was in two minds about buying it after reading the mass of reviews saying how horrible it was. I thought the combat was much quicker, smoother and just much nicer than DAO and I loved the story. However I did find the last two acts disappointingly short and the ending was rather rushed.

But anywho, enough from me, what did you guys think about it?

I enjoyed it but I will say Dragon Age Origins was a whole lot better in almost every aspect in my opinion. I think the problem is DAO was such a great game that people were expecting DA2 to be a masterpiece. DA2 is a good solid game but it pales in comparison to DAO.