[updated old topic] Finished Dragon Age 2, here is what can confirmed.

[Super Toast]

I have two complaints:

1: You can't have lengthy conversations with your companions at any time.

2: The sheer amount of times that dungeons are copypasted is ridiculous, and totally inexcusable.

The rest of the game is solid, but those two problems really bring it down.

 

[NezumiiroKitsune]

When I did my Hard playthrough on the PS3, I had to drop it to Normal for [PARTIAL SPOILER] Branka [END], and I still had party damage, so if that also occurred on PC, it was the same on PS3. I remember being taken aback by it.

I liked the tactical use of poultices balancing the use of heavier ones against weaker ones scenario by scenario, and the heavy damage you could take in boss battles meant that sometimes they were of limited time based use because it took a 3 - 4 seconds for a character to use them, in which they could still be killed.

I look forward now, despite the nay saying, to playing DA2. It sounds very different to DA:O so I will go into it expecting a vastly different experience, rather than an experience based and built on DA:O, so as to assess it by it's independent merit alone.

 

[michael87cn]

Actually, only hard and above had Friendly Fire in DA:O. A

Actually on the PC on normal difficulty your party members would take 50% damage from AoE spells, only on casual friendly fire was taken off completely.

On the PS3/Xbox you indeed had friendly fire only on hard (50% damage) and on nightmare (100% damage). Henceforth why some people hate that Dragon Age 2 was "dumbed" down even further for consoles since we have friendly fire only on Nightmare.


My own personal opinion is that a sequel should be better then its original game and since that's not the case, I think some of the hatred is well deserved.

But some of the hatred is indeed retarded, I heard some people whined why they couldn't have a romance option with Bethany/Carver.

Here's where opinion fits into things. You believe game over screens = fun. I think they equal poor game design. Challenges are supposed to be just that - challenging, not time wasting. The best games challenge us to an inch of our characters life, but don't shovel game over (and reload) screens on us repeatedly. If DA2 manages this, then it's an improvement.

You said that a sequel should be better than its original game, and "that's not the case" because the next game has easier lower tier difficulty levels. My reply?

You can still turn it on hard for your difficulty/friendly fire. You can still manage those game over screens you had no control over so you can replay the same scenarios multiple times so you can get that "whoopee I did it" moment.

My question then is. WHATS THE PROBLEM? Turn the difficulty up and shuddup.

 

[gl1koz3]

2/10 is just so painfully obviously a troll score... I have only played the demo and seen all the rage and counter-posts 'round here, and can give it a 6 or 7. That is not the score I play. But THAT (2/10) bad it can't be either. The low score posts are justw painfully blunt. Not what I'd take seriously.

 

[Zetsubou-Sama]

Funny how no one mentions how broken the merchants are as well as any sort of crafting, you can breeze through the game without ever buying stuff or crafting anything, that's a glaring flaw in game design if you ask me.

And I find it weird how no one mentions the ending, it was seriously one of the most underwhelming endings I've ever seen barely better than awakening.

 

[michael87cn]

2/10 is just so painfully obviously a troll score... I have only played the demo and seen all the rage and counter-posts 'round here, and can give it a 6 or 7. That is not the score I play. But THAT (2/10) bad it can't be either. The low score posts are justw painfully blunt. Not what I'd take seriously.

Don't judge it based on the demo. Right after the demo ends you spend a good 3+ hours with slow paced gameplay (just like DA:O!).

I got it thinking it was streamlined but the truth is, it plays pretty much like the old game. There are little details that are different, but it REALLY does play just like the old game.

 

[xXDeMoNiCXx]

While I don't agree with all that was said, I do agree that all the haters saying all this crap about the game being dumbed-down and too easy and linear are utterly bullshit. The game is no worse than the first game, maybe even slightly better. Least in my opinion.

 

[godofallu]

I don't like DA2 because they got rid of auto-attack, and zooming out, and the inventory system. I find the characters and locations to be generic and tedious. Try to deny any of that, go ahead, some of it is fact and some of it is opinion.

Got rid of zooming out? Yes
Got rid of inventory system? Yes
Got rid of auto-attack? No

Go look in your options menu for the auto attack. Therefore combat is still similar. Less tactical without the first two, but similar. And if you wish to rebuttle the argument that you can turn on auto-attack via options, read the review on the site, watch the video supplement, or check out the options yourself.

You must have missed the part where the reviewer admitted he was wrong, and that you can't turn off auto-attack on consoles.

Or maybe you missed where I said I own the game on consoles, and I said that you can't.

Either way you presume too much. Hows that for a rebuttal?

 

[Tenkage]

hmm I fair assuption

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I agree that it's hard...how the hell do you beat the Aroshock at the end of act 2? I haven't even come close.

 

[Risingblade]

Is that what people really complained about?

 

[BehattedWanderer]

You can't interact with your party members more than a few times, under specified conditions. Beware flirting--you might accidentally find yourself having been romanced, without any way to end the relationship. This has annoyed the piss out of me in Act 3. Avoid the ninjamance, people.

 

[Moriarty]

No more persuasion or cunning options in dialogue.

A minor complaint, but still bugged me a bit. Running into special kinds of dialogue options that offered better rewards or unorthadox outcomes were always kind of a nice thing to have.

the cunning options are still there, it's just not as obvious.

For example, in DA:O you could use intimidate or persiasion as skills, but only the warrior class had enough strength to actually use intimidate and only rogues had enough cunning to do anything useful with it. In DA2, you basically get extra dialogue options based on your class.
The result stays the same, but you don't have to gimp your character combat-wise to get the extra dialogue options.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Well-put.

And 2/10 reviews for pretty much anything are bound to be stupid. If you've ever played a true 2/10 game, you immediately understand why even the worst AAA title typically scores somewhere in the 5-7 range.

 

[automatron]

I have two complaints:

1: You can't have lengthy conversations with your companions at any time.

2: The sheer amount of times that dungeons are copypasted is ridiculous, and totally inexcusable.

The rest of the game is solid, but those two problems really bring it down.

yeh these really annoy me

 

[Zer_]

For me, the fact that it takes place in one town, with the copy pasted dungeons just kills it. I mean, most of the other stuff I can take, this, I cannot.

 

[Drakane]

The camera issue has pissed me off a lot so far. An inability to get into a non top down view sucks when your getting nuked from mystery mage out of the frame. Also does it seem to anyone else the game pretty much tried to make you be a fire mage (if you are playing as a mage as i am) by making 90% of mage gear +fire damage??

As for the combat. I died way more in DA:O then I have thus far in DA2. As for as splash damage on aoe spells: I played WoW for 5+ years, and really I can only think of a few RPG's that had friendly fire on your aoe spells so it didn't bother me much/at all that they took that aspect away on lower difficulty lvls.