Was Dragon Age II really that bad?

[Jake Martinez]

First of all, I'm going to admit to not thinking that Origin's was all that great. I see people compare it to BG I/II (Two, seriously people?? BG II???) and I think that comparison is pretty unwarrented. In fact, I just got BG II again from Good ol Games and even in the first couple hours of game play you're way more invested in the story than in DA:O.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic here... sorry.

So like, yes - DA:A (DA:2?) is a pretty bad game all around. The writing is really poor, especially considering it's all original IP, with published material and a full time writer devoted to it. I can't fathom how they managed to screw it up so badly. Also, the game mechanics are down right terrible. Randomly spawning into combat monster? Stats and equipment are practically on-rails the entire game (Stats and loot tweaking are about 50% of the fun of most RPG's - way to screw it up Bioware) and the bloodly MINDLESS BUTTON SMASHING.

If you're going to make a game that you can complete by hitting one button in rapid succession ad-infintum, then don't expect me to give you high marks for it.

Really, I regret buying this game. I got bored with it far faster than I did with DA:O, by a factor of like 10. Yes, I did complete it, but I distinct recall feeling like, "So.. that's it huh?" and yes, that really was it.

I now find myself in the position of never wanting to blindly buy another Bioware title, it was that bad, and I'm frightened that ME 3 is going to stink on ice and very dubious about their Star Wars RPG that I was previously really anticipating.

Now, if Blizzard screws up Diablo 3 to make it "console friendly" or some crap, then I am just going to stick to indie games.

I feel like some grumpy old man shaking his fist at the sky, but seriously... gaming has gotten worse over the last few years than ever before. It's like every company is shooting for some magical meridian where they can make a game just good enough to sell a few million console units, and not really caring if the game is actually great.

If this is what the democratization of gaming has brought to us, then I don't really want any part of it. It sucks.

 

[Realitycrash]

They turned our beloved DA:O into Mass Effect without guns. Really, it was stupid, stupid, STUPID.
So fine, I'm gonna rip on DA2. I'm gonna rip on it a lot.

1: Combat was dumbed down. Everything was hack n slash now, without any real need for tacticts.
2: Difficulty above normal didn't add a challenge, just cheap shit like enemies spawning right behind you and one-shotting your mages. Too easy on Normal, too bullshit on Hard/Nightmare.
3: Recycling of the same caves, over and over again? Lame. But we all know this.
4: Fucking up the conversation-system? Really? I LOVED being able to read what odd stuff my character could say, and having plenty to pick from (like in Fallout). Half the fun of conversations were just seeing what odd phrases the writers had put in there for our enjoyment. Now you get THREE options, and most of the time, what you click isn't even what he/she is going to say.
5: Death-animations were crap. Instead of fairly logical and realistic deaths that felt a bit cinematic, now they all explode like a bag of blood.
6: What, I can't equip my party? I CAN'T FUCKING EQUIP MY PARTY? So basically, except for rings and trinkets and weapons, all gear that drops that my main-character can't use is pointless and wasted. Gotta love killing a boss, only to see that NOONE in your party can wear those two pieces of great armor, because you've taken the wrong class as player-character.
7: What, no specializations? Only one fixed specialization for every party-member?
8: Can't talk to my NPC-partymembers whenever I want, just in scripted events. Fuck right off.
9: The GOD DAMN random spawning enemies. It's like the game wee's in your face every time you try to plan a combat-strategy. No matter what, something will spawn behind your defensive line. Like Shades. Always the fucking Shades.

..Really, I can go on quite awhile. The game was so poor I abandoned it about half-way, and I haven't even seen the "cliffhanger-ending". I doubt it was any good.

I don't mind the retcons, though I can see others do. The only real improvements were the increased talent-trees and slight graphics.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

But: was it really that awful?

I was just wondering if any of my fellow Escapists felt the same way, and those who do not, I would like to hear your perspective on the game

First of all, I really liked Dragon Age 2. I thought it was really well done, and IMO all that hate was entirely misplaced.

Secondly, after playing all the way through DA2, I went back and tried to play some DA:O. And you know what? It was clunky and not nearly as fun as I remembered. DA2 is just so smooth and intututive - I can't imagine how anyone thinks DA:O is better mechanically. I can understand DA2's story not being some people's cup of tea (I thought it worked, but again, that's me) but the people who pan the gameplay make no sense at all to me. DA2 is probably the best fantasy RPG I have ever played mechanically, with great characters, a great story...

And admittedly lazy dungeon design. That didn't bother me, but it was hard to not notice it.

 

[Realitycrash]

But: was it really that awful?

I was just wondering if any of my fellow Escapists felt the same way, and those who do not, I would like to hear your perspective on the game

DA2 is just so smooth and intututive - I can't imagine how anyone thinks DA:O is better mechanically.

Because we love complicated RPG-games with a lot of micromanaging and planning. Othervise, we would be playing Diablo 2 still.
DA:2 was hardly a RPG, only if you allow modern-day RPG standards.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

It was a disappointment, but that's because it was so rushed. It was the copy pasted rooms that really did it for me, it just felt so lazy and cheap. No one should pay £30 and get a 30 hour long game of going in and out 7 different copy-pasted rooms and just be happy about it and I don't blame people for being really pissed off about the way it turned out.

But there was more than just the copy-pasted rooms that annoyed me, the characters weren't that great, Varric and Merrill were the only ones I liked, the gore was handled immaturely compared to the first game. People don't explode into a bloody pulp when you hit them with a sword it just looked stupid. The combat was a bit over the top like Hawke as a melee class dashing 15 ft forward and slashing an enemy like he'd just nicked commando pro from MW2.

But despite it's flaws and how disappointing it was compared to Origins it was still fun I suppose. I have to admit though the DLC does look good.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Because we love complicated RPG-games with a lot of micromanaging and planning. Othervise, we would be playing Diablo 2 still.
DA:2 was hardly a RPG, only if you allow modern-day RPG standards.

I micromanaged my entire party, pausing the game and controlling them all. I picked their abilities, and who they would use them on. In that, the game was no different than DA:O or KotOR.

On character customization... it was EXACTLY THE SAME as DA:O, except that the abilities were presented slightly differently... and there were more of them.

Your answer is the same idiotic crap that got posted on review sites, and it is entirely untrue. Dragon Age 2 was fully complex and fully realized.

 

[Realitycrash]

Because we love complicated RPG-games with a lot of micromanaging and planning. Othervise, we would be playing Diablo 2 still.
DA:2 was hardly a RPG, only if you allow modern-day RPG standards.

I micromanaged my entire party, pausing the game and controlling them all. I picked their abilities, and who they would use them on. In that, the game was no different than DA:O or KotOR.

On character customization... it was EXACTLY THE SAME as DA:O, except that the abilities were presented slightly differently... and there were more of them.

Lol?
Try equiping any armor to your NPC:s.

And sure, you CAN micromanage the party in DA2, you just don't NEED to. I ran ahead with a melee and slaughtered everything, until the bullshit respawning enemies appeared right behind my casters.

And yes, It's the same complaints that everyone posts..Maybe because everyone noticed them, and are sick of it?
Want some original complaints? Okey. This one is applied for Dragon Age: Origins as well; I wish they would reduce the chest-size of the females in the game. They are utterly ridiculous and I fail to see the point with them (especially Isabella's huuuuge knockers). Actually, it's as close as I can come to feeling slightly offended over a videogame, and I'm a man.
Really, I want to play an immersive RPG, not jack off to cartoon-porn (and yes, I know it's not porn, but I fail to see any other reason with giving every female chest-size: gargantuan if not to arouse men).
But, this one can be applied for DA:O as well, so I guess it's null and void.

 

[Sehnsucht Engel]

I will admit that it is a disapointing sequel to one of the best RPGs of the generation, but I found that it was pretty damn good.

Wait, what!? Dragon age: Origins was IMO, not a good game. It had a story that was obvious to anyone. The characters weren't half as good as the ones in DA2. I hated Alistair and wished him dead, only to find out he could become the king. Luckily, I could make him sacrifice himself. Though since I didn't have my save file in DA2, I chose he was exiled and later found him all pathetic in the inn and I loved that. . The dungeons were lazily designed, but jesus, that was the only problem and you spent more than half of the game in Kirkwall anyway. In any case, I hated DA:O and didn't think DA2 would be a good game, which made me hesitate to buy it, but Hawke was much better than that grey warden in the first game. DA2 made me laugh several times, I find it rare that a game makes me laugh. Hawke was hilarious. In short, DA:O is dissapointing, but DA2 changed that, since it had much better characters and story.

 

[Kelethor]

I thought it was fun. really fun. In some cases I felt the companions in 2 were better than one. No "Breaking down the emotional wall" for Morrigan however, so that kinda sucked. It felt like, as long as you dont look too hard (Wave spawning, repeated dungeons, NOT BEING ABLE TO ARM YOUR COMPANIONS!!) Its a good game. a fun diversion.

 

[TheSupremeForce]

I like the characters in DA2 more than the characters in Origins (for the most part). There's also less of a feeling of wandering around the world map in order to fill up time in 2.

The combat systems were radically different, but I don't really prefer one over the other, so I'm not bothered.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Lol?
Try equiping any armor to your NPC:s.

That's what you're going with? Really?

All the armor in that game was crap. I don't even know why they bothered - the prefab, auto level armor was better in every way, for all characters. That didn't take away from customization or gameplay - it removed a very silly annoyance.

They might as well have given one to Hawke too - you were pretty much stuck with the armor sets because everything else in the game was absolute junk.

I suppose "better armor" would have been a valid complaint....

And sure, you CAN micromanage the party in DA2, you just don't NEED to. I ran ahead with a melee and slaughtered everything, until the bullshit respawning enemies appeared right behind my casters.

Wow, talk about damned if you do, damned if you don't.

You: "Yes, I didn't need to... until I did."

I can see the first time being a shock, but there were secondary waves of enemies in every single encounter in the game. Not most of them - all of them. You KNEW they were coming - plan for it.

If you CHOSE to wade in without thinking, don't blame the game - blame yourself. You could increase the difficulty if it wasn't 'hard' enough for you, or you could stop complaining about 'bullshit' enemies when the game actually gives you the challenge you claim to want.

If you didn't plan for the second wave of enemies after the third battle of the game, then that's entirely your fault. It required managing both your resources and your party member's resources, because if they blew all their abilities on the first wave, you were screwed.

Want some original complaints? Okey. This one is applied for Dragon Age: Origins as well; I wish they would reduce the chest-size of the females in the game. They are utterly ridiculous and I fail to see the point with them (especially Isabella's huuuuge knockers). Actually, it's as close as I can come to feeling slightly offended over a videogame, and I'm a man.
Really, I want to play an immersive RPG, not jack off to cartoon-porn (and yes, I know it's not porn, but I fail to see any other reason with giving every female chest-size: gargantuan if not to arouse men).
But, this one can be applied for DA:O as well, so I guess it's null and void.

Yes, that was also the case in DA:O and it stems from only having one female model. Every female character was sharing the same body in DA:O. There were about, what, three to go around in DA2? That's an improvement - there were a couple of less-well endowed people thanks to Merrill's model being (again comparatively) skinny.

However, I don't really think you can level that complaint at Dragon Age when it applies to every single game in the world.

Well, okay. Not every single game. Just the ones with women in them.

 

[Saviordd1]

Was it as good as DAO? No, but I still got a good 140 hours of enjoyment out of it, thats more then enough for the 50 dollar price tag. I liked the game overall, I wish people would actually think before condemning it to cyber hell

 

[Alade]

The combat was awful, I still can't believe they removed auto attack. Also a large problem of the combat (at least for me), is that the game doesn't make every spec viable for the main character. I tried playing tank on nightmare mode but it's god damn impossible after a while. The random factor was unbelievable, groups with 2-3 assassin's could decimate your group before you know what's going on. I am not complaining about the game being too hard, I'm complaining that when it's giving you trouble, it's just the annoying kind, it isn't a challenge.

The recycling of the areas was so annoying, especially since there are so many side quests, and they all drag you to the same place, and make you fight the same enemies again, with very little story support, it was horrible. Also, too many random encounters, I felt like I was doing 6-7 encounters for one short piece of dialog, at least in DA:O you had to do 1-2 encounters before you could advance the story in a side mission, it had a much better pace.

I liked some of the characters (varic was awesome), disliked others, overall it's a bit better in that area than DA:O, I was very disappointed that Anders got a new voice in this game. The story was average, but still edging on the bad side. I was disappointed in DA:O that we only got to influence one country, here for the 90% of the story we only influence one city, only at the end does something world-shattering happen. So story-wise, the first 2 chapters are very average and not very epic, but the last chapter was done very well.


I could go on, but those are my complaints. I tried to like this game, but I simply couldn't.

 

[nin_ninja]

I liked it just fine, I also liked the first one. I guess I am the odd one out. I find I can enjoy a lot of games for a lot of different reasons. Perhaps Dragon Age fans are just anal.

Fans of any series can be anal when it comes to sequels.

OT: No. I loved the first game, and even though the second game felt rushed I still loved it. The things that bothered me were scripted events to talk to companions, reused dungeons, and losing descriptions for all the items.

 

[Gitty101]

*Breathes through teeth*

Dragon Age 2 wasn't by any means bad, in fact I rather enjoyed it, but it didn't feel like a proper sequel. More like an expansion... with less content. The combat and graphics were vastly improved in my opinion, but the main reason I played Origins, the variety and story, felt like they had taken a back-seat. Origins gave the player a lot of freedom to make the story truly their own, whereas the sequel felt rather linear in most respects.

I hate to do this, but I'm going to point to the Witcher 2 as 'how a sequel should be done'. The combat was vastly improved and relies heavily on player skill, the story doesn't feel linear, varied locations, awesome graphics. When BioWare were talking about Dragon Age 2 in the development diaries, I thought we'd end up with something like this...

Still, Dragon Age 2 isn't bad and did not deserve nearly as much of the hate it got when it was released.

 

[Happy Sock Puppet]

The gameplay was buggy as hell and easily exploitable.

The story was disjointed and segmented. I never really got emotionally attached to any of the 3 different storylines.

Repeated (MANY TIMES OVER) exact same environments. With fights popping up in the same places every time. I felt like I was running heroics in WoW again.

Not an experience worth the money.

 

[devotedsniper]

It was terrible for me, i got in expecting badass, a third way through i decided to do just the story because of how repetitive it was, i really didn't enjoy 2. It may have done ok from a different company under a different name but it was no where near normal Bioware standards and it was so different from Origins that in my opinion could no longer be called an RPG more of a hack and slash.

The thing is Origins prided itself on being an old fashioned RPG, this is one of the reasons why so many liked it because it didn't dumb things down like every modern game has been doing for years, i must have played through origins 4-5 times now i still enjoy it, compared to my 1 rushed playthrough of DA2 (i finished it in 16 hours the day it came out). This sort of thing may have worked for ME2 (which i like) but thats only because it was a hybrid RPG/shooter, dragon age was known for its traditional RPG style but thats down the drain now..

My only worry is whats 3 going to be like? I'm also worried for ME3 too, i have serious doubts about bioware after this lazy thing which doesn't even deserve the name Dragon Age 2. I guess i'll have to wait and see but i'm not going to get my hopes up, since even Bethesda seem to be taking this route with Skyrim with there "sreamlining" (although at the moment this only seems to affect armor).