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

[Seneschal]

The real gear grinder for me is the continual reuse of maps. It's lazy and I feel like using more than three or four maps isn't too much to ask. Why is Fenris' mansion the same as every other mansion? Why is every cave the same? If the game wasn't so immersive and interesting the map thing probably would have ruined it more for me, but as it happens I'm pretty engrossed. The quests are imaginative and fun, sometimes disturbing, sometimes shocking, but always entertaining. I'm only about half way though, so things could change!

That's about the only thing that's 100% inexcusable about the game. I've yet to see anyone defend it; it makes the game feel half-assed, rushed, unfinished and amateurish. I cannot fathom how BioWare thought no one would notice, it takes a lot of nerve and arrogance to come out with this. It's like they thought, "Hey, we're freakin' BioWare, we can afford to be lazy!"

Eveything else is certainly debatable. Art style/animation appreciation? Completely subjective. Combat? No less complex; works the same, but paced and focused differently - enjoyment depends on taste. Characters and story? I have a friend who regards DA:O as a dull, cowardly, unambitious, generic monument to archaic gameplay populated with uncanny valley denizens, and DA2 as an intriguing, involving and original concept with more interesting characters and a far more plausible depiction of relationships. We don't agree completely, but he has a point - it's a ballsy, high-concept game. The execution of this concept isn't bad as much as it is cheap and lazy - next time, BioWare, postpone your cash grab for six more months.

What were people expecting from a multi-platform title, exactly? To map Infinity-engine-era combat mechanics to controller buttons? To dump twenty-years-old D&D 2nd Edition rules on an audience of millions? That didn't happen in DA:O and was never an option.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Also, DA2 is HARDER than DAO

Uhhhhh.....nnnnnnnno.

This should be in the user reviews section, maybe.

Actually, I agree with the OP. DA2 has challenged me more than Origins ever did.

agreed, i have had to start over MANY MANY times in da2 compared to dao, if anything i breezed through da most of the time comparatively, granted i played hard mode in da, as i'm not someone who plays games for the challenge, but more for the fun of it, but for bosses i was getting my ass kicked hard, the quanari i had to change it down a notch as he was butt raping me across the room so many damn times.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

The real gear grinder for me is the continual reuse of maps. It's lazy and I feel like using more than three or four maps isn't too much to ask. Why is Fenris' mansion the same as every other mansion? Why is every cave the same? If the game wasn't so immersive and interesting the map thing probably would have ruined it more for me, but as it happens I'm pretty engrossed. The quests are imaginative and fun, sometimes disturbing, sometimes shocking, but always entertaining. I'm only about half way though, so things could change!

That's about the only thing that's 100% inexcusable about the game. I've yet to see anyone defend it; it makes the game feel half-assed, rushed, unfinished and amateurish. I cannot fathom how BioWare thought no one would notice, it takes a lot of nerve and arrogance to come out with this. It's like they thought, "Hey, we're freakin' BioWare, we can afford to be lazy!"

Eveything else is certainly debatable. Art style/animation appreciation? Completely subjective. Combat? No less complex; works the same, but paced and focused differently - enjoyment depends on taste. Characters and story? I have a friend who regards DA:O as a dull, cowardly, unambitious, generic monument to archaic gameplay populated with uncanny valley denizens, and DA2 as an intriguing, involving and original concept with more interesting characters and a far more plausible depiction of relationships. We don't agree completely, but he has a point - it's a ballsy, high-concept game. The execution of this concept isn't bad as much as it is cheap and lazy - next time, BioWare, postpone your cash grab for six more months.

What were people expecting from a multi-platform title, exactly? To map Infinity-engine-era combat mechanics to controller buttons? To dump twenty-years-old D&D 2nd Edition rules on an audience of millions? That didn't happen in DA:O and was never an option.

i will agree on the inexcusibility for the maps, i mean they didn't even change the mini map! you would see an entire half of the dungeon be NON accessible because it was being used so many damn times, now that did irk me for sure, but it is not gamebreaking by far, especially when im enjoying just about every other element in the game.

 

[Irridium]

Except it isn't you dumbass. Do you have the exact same skills? How about the same weapons? How about the same armor and enemys to fight? Same locations? Same camera view?

No, no, no, no, no, no. Combat isn't the same, but you like to generalize and state things as fact which ARE NOT FACT. Is it any wonder that someone who can't understand what a fact is, misses the logic behind peoples opinion?

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.

Your referring to the aesthetics of everything. I'm referring to the gameplay. On the PC, the gameplay for both Origins and DA2 are the same. Origins is just faster.

I have Dragon Age 2 on PC, and I've played Origins pretty extensively on both 360 and PC. And it is different on PC. The underlying mechanics are the same, and anyone who's played Origins will pick it up pretty quickly but if you play it like Origins you won't do too well on higher difficulties.

And I mean that in a good way. I like the combat in Origins and all, but it's all too easy for people to hide behind traditional character builds in it.

PS. Does everyone else hate Templar Hunters as much as I do?

I know its different between the consoles and PC. I was referring to both game's PC versions.

PC Origins' and PC DA2's combat is the same.

I played it like Origins on Normal(also played Origins on normal) and I couldn't tell any difference other than your character attacking faster.

 

[Seneschal]

i will agree on the inexcusibility for the maps, i mean they didn't even change the mini map! you would see an entire half of the dungeon be NON accessible because it was being used so many damn times, now that did irk me for sure, but it is not gamebreaking by far, especially when im enjoying just about every other element in the game.

No, it doesn't break the game itself, especially if everything else suits you, but compare it to the rest of the industry? What else (except cheap Asian free-to-play MMOs) has three environments and two kinds of quest structure? I was expecting the characters to age visibly, for Kirkwall to change over the years depending on the choices you make, to see it in different seasons, to see the damage and hardships it sustained through the game... And I wasn't expecting too much because games as old as Fable had these things, and they certainly do now. They could have implemented them to give a richer and more compelling experience, but they chose to push the game too early. Now this extremely ambitious and hard-to-pull-off game looks like an overpadded Neverwinter Nights module made by an overly economical designer.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

The removal of the persuade/intimidate speech checks sucks, but I do like the inclusion of dialoge actions based on who is in your party at the time. Varric's stories are great. I hope Bioware implements something like that into ME3.

 

[Eiv]

I've seen all sorts of people on forums dump hatred on DA2 in a seemingly irrational manner, so I thought what better way to find truth to these accusations than to play the game itself? So having played the game myself, here are some completely unbiased confirmations that I can make here. Bear in mind that I'm playing the PC version, so maybe some of these things may not apply to the console versions.

Combat has not been dumbed down in anyway. Also, DA2 is HARDER than DAO (I've been playing on Hard and Normal, the REAL difficulties that you should be playing on).

I don't know why people keep talking about how everything has been dumbed down. You auto attack by right clicking on enemies, you set tactics for your non controlled party members, you can pause the game in order to deliver commands to your companions strategically, and you can use skills and abilities by hotkey or mouse. Same as the original but faster and more fluid, pretty much. Also your character doesn't shuffle around awkwardly when trying to attack certain enemies even when you right click on them like in Dragon Age Origins, so that's a plus for me. And yes, this game is harder than the first. Abilities have been remade somewhat and enemies will swarm you like crazy, so you'll be pausing a lot more often in order to get yourself out of stickier situations. The bosses are actually difficult, too, especially now that you can't just chug all four types of Health poltices on your character anymore. Now you only get one type of Health potion and one type of Stamina potion and both of them have long cooldowns.

There is inventory management in this game as well as being able to customize the appearance of Hawke.

I don't know where people got this assumption from, but I can say for certain that it came out of their asses. You can indeed customize the appearance of Hawke and equip items on him or her with a wide range of armor, helmets, rings, amulets, belts, and weapons. The only difference is that armor can't be equipped just by your Strength stat but sometimes by both Strength and Consitution which apply to heavy armor or Cunning and Dexterity which apply to light armor. You can also equip your companions with amulets, rings, belts, and weapons but not their default outfits, but is that really a bad thing? Can you really picture Morrigan wearing a First Enchanter Robe or Isabella wearing heavy plate?

The game was no more linear than Dragon Age Origins and Awakening were.

Basically, the gist is that there are still rival factions to choose between, a wide assortment of main plot quests that can be undertaken at any time, and loads and loads of side quests to complete. Dragon Age Origins gave the player the illusion of having freedom by giving them the ability to change companions into whatever armor sets and weapons that they liked, but in truth there wasn't much freedom at all. Leliana starts out strictly as an archer, Sten a two-handed swordsmen, and Morrigan a mage. Yeah you can equip Morrigan with dual daggers and Sten with a sword and shield but that wouldn't be very efficient, would it?






Now, to prove that I am indeed unbiased I'm going to confirm some things that did genuinely disappoint me in Dragon Age 2.

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.

Side quests consist mostly of talking to people and killing things.

Pretty self explanatory, and was also a problem that Dragon Age Origins had.

Companions weren't quite as dynamic or memorable as Origins's companions were. Also you can't converse with them as often.

I don't know. To me the characters you get in Dragon Age 2 have the potential to be very compelling and interesting but they just haven't stuck to me yet. I think they could have gotten the player more attached to these companions if they would let you converse with them more often.


In short TLDR, Dragon Age 2 is a fairly decent RPG that is, in most aspects, just as good as Dragon Age Origins. Also that most of the hatred that DA2 gets is completely irrational. Seriously, 2/10? Only a completely broken game with absolutely no redeeming qualities would be worthy of a score that low. 7-8/10 would be more fair in my opinion.

In my opinion, DA:O was harder in all aspects. But, in my opinion, they seem like 2 completely different games using the same story line. I cant call this a sequel, in the same respect that i dont call Fallout 3 a sequel. The gameplay is just too different for me to enjoy as a followup game.

As a standalone game, it rates well... looks nice, plays nice etc. But i would have liked the old engine with a new coat of paint and a few extra features (very few games i can say this for ==>looking at you EA<===)

All in all, a good game, but not a sequel

 

[Seneschal]

PC Origins' and PC DA2's combat is the same.

I played it like Origins on Normal(also played Origins on normal) and I couldn't tell any difference other than your character attacking faster.

As far as mechanics are concerned, yes. Same abilities, same results by boosting abilities, 60% identical skills/powers/spells, better user interface, some new mechanics (physical/elemental "force" and cross-class combos).

However, it plays out a bit differently. The speed of the attacks isn't that important, but there are more "critter" enemies, they have less health, there's the infamous waves that spawn out of nowhere, making positioning less crucial, attacks are more likely to stagger, stun or knock enemies down, the camera is closer and in general the encounter design shifts more to crowd/pest control than aggro management. It's not just sped up, they've pushed it into having different priorities. Of course, that's a deal-breaker for some sensitive souls.

 

[Drake_Dercon]

In short TLDR, Dragon Age 2 is a fairly decent RPG that is, in most aspects, just as good as Dragon Age Origins. Also that most of the hatred that DA2 gets is completely irrational. Seriously, 2/10? Only a completely broken game with absolutely no redeeming qualities would be worthy of a score that low. 7-8/10 would be more fair in my opinion.

I'd give it a 9 (taking half points into account). Minus 1 point for inadequate characterization (on a comparative basis) and clipping problems. Again comparatively, the world felt a bit small. Constricting it to a single city-state about twice the size of Denerim (just at a guess, I'm sure it's woefully inaccurate) made the game feel more then a bit small and lost it some of its grandeur.

I didn't like it quite as much as DA:O, but it was still a very good game. I'm eager to see what they do for the next (and given the ending, a sequel is very obvious).

Spoiler

Surprise! It's Leliana looking like she has business she's supposed to implicate the wardens in and really isn't too happy to do so.

Then again, a sequel was obvious from the start.

 

[Rayne870]

In short TLDR, Dragon Age 2 is a fairly decent RPG that is, in most aspects, just as good as Dragon Age Origins. Also that most of the hatred that DA2 gets is completely irrational. Seriously, 2/10? Only a completely broken game with absolutely no redeeming qualities would be worthy of a score that low. 7-8/10 would be more fair in my opinion.

I like you, you have more than 2 brain cells

 

[Judgement101]

Also, DA2 is HARDER than DAO

Uhhhhh.....nnnnnnnno.

This should be in the user reviews section, maybe.

Could you please explain? If I'm wrong, then would it not be reasonable to elaborate on what I've been mistaken on?

Yes, i can explain. The difficulty of DAO was acknowledged by even the developers of being too hard. There was a patch soon after release that improved the stats of your party.
On Normal, the first game required a tank+healer combination to play effectively. I've finished DA2 once (now playing it a second time) using a two-handed sword warrior with Taunt and the defense aura as my tank.
In the first game, on Normal and Hard, area of effect spells could damage your own party. In DA2, they do not unless you're playing Nightmare.
Add to that the speed at which the enemies die, the lunge attacks, automatic drop rate adjustment of potions, class combos with devastating effects and the fact that choosing spells has been made far more accessible and streamlined, and you have an easier game. The only difficult element in DA2 are the mobs that stealth and backstab your support characters, but even those are easy to take care of with the huge amount of crowd control spells.

After reading this it made me realise something. I just suck at RPGs in general.

 

[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.

You do know you revisit the same spots a lot right?

You don't buy a home go away for a holiday come back and expect the fucking house to be refurbished all of a sudden

That's not what I meant. I visited six different caves and four different hideouts during my playthrough and they were all the exact same, down to the exact same chair in the exact same corner. It's totally fucking ridiculous, and screams of laziness on BioWare's part.

 

[Warachia]

the reason you are dying is because you are not running away from the spawn area, once you are gone from where the waves spawn then the fights become VERY easy and everything is served in sizeable chunks. The only difficulty change from hard to nightmare is in the numbers departement (damage // adds). Bosses are easy as pie (other than rock wraith).

1) you state that combat has not been dumbed down in any way:

The melee AI can NEVER hit you if you are good at abusing the mechanics of the game. Dragon age 1 did not have this issue, as once the animation was started the damage was considered dealt.

2) You state that there is inventory management in this game.

I state that there is LESS inventory management in this game.

I also found the game more challenging and the Arishok was brutal, but that's beside the point.

I ask you, is it so bad that there is hit detection for the regular enemies? I thought being able to dodge an enemy attack and counter was called skill, not abusing game mechanics.

Yes, there is LESS inventory management, only slightly less though (just the parties armour), and is that necessarily a bad thing? Actually I can't say becuase it boils down to personal preference.

 

[Warachia]

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.

You do know you revisit the same spots a lot right?

You don't buy a home go away for a holiday come back and expect the fucking house to be refurbished all of a sudden

That's not what I meant. I visited six different caves and four different hideouts during my playthrough and they were all the exact same, down to the exact same chair in the exact same corner. It's totally fucking ridiculous, and screams of laziness on BioWare's part.

To be fair, you couldn't have lengthy conversations with your party in the first game either, you could talk to them again and again, but they would say the exact same things, with no extra developement until you passed a certain point.

The dungeon complaint is a good one though, it is one of a few good complaints I've heard about the game (like the numourus bugs that testing should have caught, and sometimes an event will play out of order).

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

i will agree on the inexcusibility for the maps, i mean they didn't even change the mini map! you would see an entire half of the dungeon be NON accessible because it was being used so many damn times, now that did irk me for sure, but it is not gamebreaking by far, especially when im enjoying just about every other element in the game.

No, it doesn't break the game itself, especially if everything else suits you, but compare it to the rest of the industry? What else (except cheap Asian free-to-play MMOs) has three environments and two kinds of quest structure? I was expecting the characters to age visibly, for Kirkwall to change over the years depending on the choices you make, to see it in different seasons, to see the damage and hardships it sustained through the game... And I wasn't expecting too much because games as old as Fable had these things, and they certainly do now. They could have implemented them to give a richer and more compelling experience, but they chose to push the game too early. Now this extremely ambitious and hard-to-pull-off game looks like an overpadded Neverwinter Nights module made by an overly economical designer.

this is true, i do not think the design team really went deep into those aspects, as on the surface they aren't quite as noticeable, but when you play the game,especially on replays, that stuff can be super immersive, which really could have been nice to do some winter kirkwall quests, maybe have some stuff freeze over so it wasn't accessible but it made other place accessible and likewise in the spring/summer.

still..like i said, i enjoyed it good enough, so hopefully some successful mods are able to come out of this and make some juicy nice content for the game.

 

[Warachia]

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.

Look, We'll make it easy for you people to do spoiler tags here:

Spoiler

just remove the asterisk and anything inbetween the two spoiler words when you type something. [*/spoiler]

 

[Warachia]

Also, DA2 is HARDER than DAO

Uhhhhh.....nnnnnnnno.

This should be in the user reviews section, maybe.

Could you please explain? If I'm wrong, then would it not be reasonable to elaborate on what I've been mistaken on?

Not at all.

I played on Hard, and only had people bite it during the first Deep Roads boss, the Arishok and Meredith.

people bite it during the arishok bit?

Heck I fought that on my own

Spent half an hour running but hey I'm a rogue it's what we do


See this is one of those things that I like about this game, we might have made 99% of the same choices and still through this experienced the game a little different

People find the arishok bit hard because they fight hm on their own. Incidently, I fought him as a warrior and he will wreck you if you don't spend the majority of your time running away (mainly when he's lower than half health).

 

[lucky_sharm]

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

Whoa, hold on a minute. You can't get an RTS view of the battlefield in this game, but you can still zoom the camera in and out. And there is an inventory system, just a slightly revamped one.

 

[Kevonovitch]

Also, DA2 is HARDER than DAO

Uhhhhh.....nnnnnnnno.

obviously u never played a melee that wasen't easily hidden or not a combo w/ arcane warrior.

 

[beniki]

Well, yeah. Dragon Age 2 is probably easier than Origins. But only because it looks like it's more balanced now. I never liked being forced to use a sword and shield tank with a healer at the same time just to play the game normally.

To me, a healer should be there to support a more squishy tank whilst he does cool stuff with either dual wielding or a dirty big great sword. And vice versa. A heavy tank should be there to support a mage whilst they do flashy stuff with magic.

And yes, that's a style over substance argument, but I like my entertainment to be about things that are cool, not the most efficient.