Poll: Whats so wrong with Dragon Age II?

[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?

 

[Girl With One Eye]

I did really enjoy this game, however I feel that the plot wasn't as strong as origins. I think they could have played a bit more with Meredith as the main villian rather than a really easy kill at the end. The last fight was no where near as epic as origins and oh yeah Aveline is SO annoying I wanted to cut her face off.

 

[Sozac]

I liked the faster combat and didn't really care about the repeated levels. I liked it.
But for some reason I liked the story in origins a little better and i played it all the way through 11 times at least. DA2 i can only imagine myself playing about 5 times.

 

[plugav]

By the end of act two, I knew all of the maps by heart. Halfway through act three, the repetitive fights started to bore me. The opportunities for dialogue with party members seemed fewer than in previous games, which bothered me a bit. The artistic reboot was incomplete, too many creatures stayed exactly the same as in Origins. And the ending seemed kind of meh. Basically, the whole game feels very rushed.

Now that that's out of my system, I can say: yes, I enjoyed it pretty damn much.

 

[Hosker]

My main gripe was how it was set in the same place the whole game. I preferred the characters and combat of the first as well. Basically, for me, it didn't really improve in any areas, but I still enjoyed it.

 

[JimJamJahar]

I liked it, but I didn't love it. The combat was more exciting, but the whole story was shorter, repeated levels and disjointed story. I never really felt like anything was happening. I loved Merrill, even if she was an insane blood mage, but there weren't enough characters like that. Origins was full of them, but DA2 just didn't feel like it had as much love put into it.

EDIT: Also, it didn't feel as though your choices meant anything. The only thing from Origins that really mattered (sort of) was what you did to Alistair. The choices in DA2 had no effect on the story and I was really hoping that they would.

 

[Darkwhite]

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.

 

[Risingblade]

I liked it, not as much as Origins though. The game didn't actually seem short till after they pretty much blurted out that there was going to be more to the story, and there isn't as much replay value.

 

[Amondren]

I rather liked it the only part I didn't was the reused areas.

 

[Eri]

My only issue was the tired maps. Very repetitive. But other than that, loved it. On my 3rd playthrough.

 

[Koroviev]

I liked the game.
I "still" have a personal issue with the Char-Creation editor locking me out from creating a pretty character. I mean, for fucks sake, what about some simple but stylish long hairsyles? Same applies to mass-effect, really...

Mentioning Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2... did someone else noticed that the "orderign a drink" sequence in the hanged man is exactly the same row of animations like shepard has?

I think the Dragon Age Char-Creation editor is pretty good compared to, say, the one for Demons' Souls. That thing is only capable of aiding one in the production of unspeakable abominations.

 

[cainx10a]

Let's see. I have 300+ hours on Origins, and only 35 hours with DA2, and I have no intention of adding more +1 to it.

I enjoyed the flow of the story, 7 years in the boots of a Hawke was enjoyable. But as a RPG game from Bioware, it has too many flaws. There is no sense of believability in Rogue Templars who 'teleport', or even blood mages teleporting when an earlier codex specifically mention that mages have mastered various aspects of magic, and teleportation, and magic related to movement is NOT one of them.

It feels as if there's a template for all the bad guys, and members of races have to apply to each of them. Yes, I understand this is an RPG and a class system is there for a reason. But I just don't see armored units like the mage hunters being able to 'teleport' with so much roguish finesse.

Add to that enemy waves, the slow cooldown for your abilities and the fact that I was playing on hard. I was spending more time looking at the scenery than using abilities or healing my characters, since most of the time, their abilities were on cooldown. Thanks to having used most on the 1st and 2nd wave of attackers.

Next thing, is the choice of party members you have. When I played as a mage, I wanted to be a pure damage dealer, but boy oh boy, the other mage I wanted to bring along couldn't be a healer, and the mage, I sure did want to leave back at the clinic so he wouldn't backstab me by going al-quaeda, was the mage I was forced to have on the party. Not to mention, he ruined the ending for me too, since I couldn't kill him, as he was the only healer.

While the story was good, I also didn't feel like my choices meant anything. A bit like in a J-RPG, except that the cast of tweens is replaced with adults with issues.\

Note: I played through my first playthrough of Origins with three mages and Golem dudette on my party, it was epic. This time around, that feeling of reducing my enemies to giblets by just swinging my staff in their general direction, did not give me that feeling of epicness at all.

captcha: 46---47 musule
Hey, I'm bad at math.

 

[Samechiel]

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

I was a little bit irritated that I couldn't just enter a product code in the game and just roll, but EA made up for it by going, "Oh! I see you did X, Y, and Z! Here, have a bunch of extra items!"

Ser Issac of Clarke's Armor is pure sex, even if it does get made obsolete pretty quickly.

Complaints about the game:
- Resused maps. A minor irritant, and goddamn if some of them aren't absolutely beautiful.
- Lacked story cohesion. I don't mind not saving the world every game, but things just seem to happen. This wouldn't have been so bad if the game wasnt...
- Too short. It ends too abruptly. Things build up, shit starts to go down, and then it's done.

Basically, Dragon Age 2 just really lacked polish. It's a good game, a fun game, and even though it has its failings doesn't deserve half the flak it takes.

 

[Moriarty]

It was "Meh".

The only thing Bioware really excelled at in the past is character writing. The combat never was that great in any of their titles and they've been telling the same story over and over again with slight modifications. In DA:2 however, there are very few likeable characters. Varric is the only generally liked character with Merill and Isabella being at least tolerated, while I never wanted to use any of the other characters in my party.

So if you take away the characters, whats left?

A combat system that's still as boring as in DA:O, they only sped it up a little and threw more waves of generic enemies at us.

There isn't any exploration left in DA:2, you visit the same cave four times in act 1 alone, I didn't even bother to keep playing after seeing they even recycled their "ruins" as "deep roads" in the transition.

A main plot that doesn't start until act three and doesn't really end anywhere.

The character building aspect is streamlined, which isn't a bad thing itself, but seing my points above there isn't anything else worth to focus the players attention to after freeing them up from the talent trees.

After all, DA:2 is the game were Bioware finally needs to realize that they can't always count on their writing alone, they have vastly improve the actual gameplay in their games.

 

[Ailia]

The game just needed another year of developpement. If they hasn't been so determined to rush it (or hadn't been pushed by EA), it would have eclipsed Origins without breaking a sweat.
As it was, I had loads of fun playing through it (I'm on my ...fifth playthrough, wtf) and I find it less tedious than Origins overall.
Great game, but Bioware shoudl've taken more time to fix the maps and the rushed ending :|

 

[Di'kut]

Why of all sites do you ask on The Escapist? The bias here is about as large as the one on the official Bioware forums. Only difference is that you don't get banned for having a negative opinion.

I thought the game was very much meh, not even almost as good as I thought it would be, but certainly not bad either. My main gripe was that I thought it was the sequel to the spiritual successor of Baldurs Gate, when it ended up being more similar to Dynasty Warriors or something than Baldurs Gate.

 

[Elfgore]

I personally thought Dragon Age 2 was a large improvement form origins. The conversations didn't go on for 2 hour in Dragon Age 2 like in origins. It felt smooth and flowing like Mass Effect's coverstations.

 

[Belgian_Waffles]

I enjoyed it, but nowhere near to the extent that I enjoyed Origins.