Poll: Whats so wrong with Dragon Age II?

[Mikeyfell]

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?

You know exactly what's wrong with Dragon Age 2.
It wasn't as good as they said is was going to be.

There were things that sucked

All the reused dungeons for one thing.
Your party pretty much being Anders, Aveline, Verric for the whole game.

Spoiler: Isabella

It's next to impossible to swing her "Friendship/Rivalry" meeter one way or the other unless you try to get in her pants. And swinging her friendship meeter is important because if you fail to max it out she ditches you at the end of act 2

Spoiler: the Templars

It's physically impossible for anyone with a heart to side with them.
First Anders and Merrill are the two most loveable characters in the game.
Second your family member skews you against them. Your sister's a mage so she's against them. Your brother's a massive tool and he's for them so that gives you even less motivation to join them.
They're leader is batshit crazy.
And they're Nazis! (Seriously guys, the "Tranquil solution". Come on.)

In the last patch they fixed the shield bug. That made me sad.

It's still good though.

 

[mireko]

I loved it, and I honestly believe the story was far more interesting than DA:O's. Yes, it lacked polish in about thirty different ways, but I still like it more for mixing up the formula a little. DA:O is undeniably better in terms of design and gameplay [small](well, despite what people will tell you, the combat is close to identical)[/small], but at least DA2 was aspiring to do something else, even if it never made it all the way there.

I guess my preference for this game is rooted in the fact that it actually has a style. A style that a lot of people hated, sure, but at least it's a style. Origins didn't really have that (visually, anyway), not that that stopped me from doing four completionist playthroughs.

That said, Kirkwall dungeons became Tartarus from P3 before too long. Except even Tartarus changed textures, enemies and music.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I was flabbergasted at how well they had established their companions (some at least), and then completely dropped the ball with interactions. The game held my hand throughout my companion interactions.

For example, in Origins, you could approach your companions any way you wanted. You could learn about Alistair's life as a Templar completely by the end of your first night at camp, or you could go at a slower pace, learning his past over time in a more natural fashion, slowly unraveling his character over the course of the game. I prefer the latter option, but if I wanted to know everything by the end of the first night, I had that option.

In DA2, you are told when to talk to companions, and you are not allowed to talk to them at any other time. Sure they still quip at different locations, but it isn't any different than the companion interactions in Origins that randomly played out between the likes of Leliana or Sten. You want to learn about Isabella? Talk to her now. Now wait until Act 2 three years later to pick up on the same fucking conversation about the treasure again.

You simply have less choice.

 

[Leoofmoon]

People hate it because its more linyer and you only stay in one location, thats a downgrade but i think its not a bad one consedering the game uped its self in every other way.

 

[MercurySteam]

Great game, on my third playthrough now. Why is this still up for discussion?

 

[Soviet Heavy]

People hate it because its more linyer and you only stay in one location, thats a downgrade but i think its not a bad one consedering the game uped its self in every other way.

Which is entirely subjective. I won't argue over which story is better, since they come from very different storytelling approaches. However, I will say that for the approach to the type of story that DA2 took, it was rather poorly implemented.

Talking to a companion about an obscure macguffin in Act 1, only to never speak about it until Act 2 THREE YEARS LATER is not a good way to tell a story.

Also, this is a personal thing, but please fix up your grammar a bit. Your rather abrasive post is hard to take seriously when half of it is misspelled.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Great game, on my third playthrough now. Why is this still up for discussion?

For the same reason that people here still talk about Half Life 2. Valve and Bioware are fan favorites on this website, and they will never, never leave no matter how much you try.

 

[WorldCritic]

I loved it. Yeah the story was inconsistent, the back tracking was ridiculous, and the characters could be a bit "meh," but I enjoyed it a lot.

 

[Flack]

Apart from the reuse of maps I loved it.

 

[Bobbity]

I did actually like it, but it did feel pretty half-assed, and the plot was extraordinarily uninteresting by Bioware standards.

 

[Canadish]

I keep seeing "Improved itself in every way. Apart from the repeated levels".

I do wonder if anyone who made these comments actually played Origins.

The "world" was smaller. One tiny city.

The city was barren. Assassin's Creed is laughing.

Instead of Brown, we got Grey.

The quests never involved anything but killing people.

The inventory was cut down, when it was fine as it was.

Companions got stuck in one set of armour. Buy more via DLC. Thanks. Love, EA.

Conversation was boiled down to Nice, Snark or Punch.

Companion chats were cut down to 6 conversations each, each very brief.

No more epic legends recounted by the team bard. No more Grey Warden stories from Alister. No more musings from Morrigan about the world, or her mother.
Cant risk losing the COD fans with...CONVERSATION!?

Companions were utter morons with little reasoning. (Looking at Merrill. And Anders later.)

The pacing was awful. It built to a climax in the second act and then faffed around with Mages vs Templars for another couple of hours before a abrupt end.

Air dropped enemies. "ANOTHER WAVE!".

Full Plate Ninja Templars.

Enemies falling through the ceiling.

Glitches. Cutscenes playing in the wrong acts. Falling through floors. Battle music playing over "emotional" character deaths. Characters coming back to life (unintentionally).

"Ah yes, Choices, a form of player freedom and way to display ones opinion in game. We have dismissed those claims.".

"I'll prove to you how nice us Mages are. BY TURING TO BLOOD MAGIC AND ATTACKING YOU! DERP "

Disregard for previously established lore.

Lack of variety in enemy types.

And of course;
Characters coming back to life (intentionally, with no reasoning).

So, I'm curious. Where DID this game improve?

 

[Kotep]

If it had been a half-price expansion, a lot of the problems could be forgiven. The blatant disregard of player choice would still be an issue, but a lot of the problem is that it just didn't quite have the same scope as DA:O, even though it was technically better, and for a game that is supposed to be a journey through time more than a journey through a countryside, it did a very poor job of making it seem as if time was elapsing.

The thing that troubles me is that this is the second game in which Bioware has tried to break the 'Bioware Cliche' with their story, and the second game that has had a poor sense of narrative flow. Also, it seems like EA forced the game out quickly, and that speaks to a greater amount of executive meddling that EA might be trying to pull off.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

It has it's problems to be sure, but then so does Dragon Age: Origins. My biggest problem is the Merrill glitch. Yes, there are other glitches in the game and they're annoying, but this one kills me. Does anyone know yet if the patch has been released for the PS3? I don't want to play the game again until they fix it.
I did enjoy the game though. Fun times, and I'm looking forward to seeing how they tie things from the second game into the third one. Hawke pretty much broke the Fade, and Kirkwall's barrier between the two worlds was already thin.

 

[Joccaren]

My complaint is that it isn't what is was sold to be. An RPG. It is not an RPG, it is a hack'n'slash. Here is what I said on a previous one of these threads to be posted (seriously, why post another one?):
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.274668.10641357
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.274668.10641972
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.274668.10646417
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.274668.10646502
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.274668.10670494
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.274668.10708459
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.274668.10716255