Why Dragon Age 2 failed...

[endtherapture]

I know I'm about a year late, but I've been thinking on how Dragon Age 2 didn't work.

I'm sure stuff like the story and repeated areas and prominence of DLC has been talked to death, but I have even more reasons why I don't like the game.

The music. When I was playing Dragon Age Origins I had amazing scores. When I listen to them I'm thrown back into the game and want to play the game again, it was genius.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWFEVbfCcOY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBQZnLP4FLI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXVkLSs9GsQ
Which really captured the atmosphere of the game for me. When I listen to those, I think DRAGON AGE!!!!. It really felt like you were in a bleak land on the edge of toppling over. Those songs encapsulate the harshness of Ferelden and the hopelessness of the Blight and your situation. They captured the grittiness of the world. Honestly Skyrim didn't come close even though the world of Skyrim was MUCH more bleak. Dragon Age 2 seemed to have nothing like that, which diminished the atmosphere. In fact it had NO ATMOSPHERE AT ALL. It seemed like a rubbish mish mash of art styles and themes which did nothing. It didn't even feel dark despite all the blood being spilt and stabbing and explosions and rape and zombies.

The build up to the broodmother in DA:O is more atmospheric than all of DA2. Anything is really.

Also I seem to be the only person to dislike the combat. DA:O combat has been criticised for being slow, but it fits in with the atmosphere the game. It was more like Lord of the Rings with more magic, big weighty weapons and armour, as opposed to Dragon Age 2, which ruined it. Having Hawke run around with a giant sword jumping around like an anime character was shit, but everyone seemed to love it. The weapons seemed like they were made of paper and had no weight.

Also how did DA2 look worse than DA:O? The textures were worse, the lighting was horrible, no-one looked real either, all like fake plastic models.

I honestly hope Bioware can get on track with the next game and make it as memorable and great as Dragon Age Origins.

tl:dr: It failed in creating an atmosphere the first game did.

 

[hazabaza1]

I honestly didn't think it was that bad. Worse than DA:O, hell, worse than most of Bioware's games, but still not too bad.

 

[80Maxwell08]

I would just say it failed because it was rushed out in a year and a half and they had to start cutting every corner they had just to finish. Ander's cat was removed because of time constraints. They said they would have had to make an animation for him but they already had the animation from the previous game. The guy from the exiled prince DLC was supposed to be nathanial from awakening until they realized he (or anders don't really remember which) could die and they would have had to add changes to the game if that happened to you. Also the same reasons for why you can run around as a blood mage and no one gives a crap while all condemning blood mages for being immoral. It really was just classic EA rushing.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It failed because it was an RPG which lacked any sense of choice... at all.

It was basically Fable, and that's not meant as a compliment.

It was however the first Bioware game where the male customization wasn't total crap. It was pretty good, actually!

 

[AD-Stu]

All I can really tell you is why I didn't buy it - and it had nothing to do with DLC.

- A number of reviews and people I knew who played the game told me the combat was a big step backwards from DA:O. I found the combat in DA:O painful enough.
- I heard the story was a go-nowhere mess with a really blatant sequel hook ending.
- Hearing about the cut-pasted dungeons sounded like a huge step backwards from the first game.

But more than anything else:

- DA:O didn't get me excited enough about Ferelden to make me want to pay more money to go back there.

That's right, I'd heard bad things about some aspects of the game. But Dragon Age: Origins was the major reason I didn't buy Dragon Age 2. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the game, I just didn't think it warranted a sequel in much the same way that I enjoyed Jade Empire but didn't think it needed a sequel.

Mass Effect, KOTOR, Assassin's Creed, those were games where I got to the end feeling like I just had to spend more time in their game worlds. Dragon Age: Origins didn't give me that feeling and that's why I didn't buy the sequel.

 

[VonKlaw]

The guy from the exiled prince DLC was supposed to be nathanial from awakening until they realized he (or anders don't really remember which) could die and they would have had to add changes to the game if that happened to you.

That excuse is only made more terrible by the fact I had not one, but two characters who died in my "bad" run of DA:O appear in DA2 anyway.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

The OP seems to hit the head on the nail I think. DA2 was a mess because it failed to realize why DAO became such a sleeper hit. DAO clearly showed that many still wanted an "old school" party RPG, with complex mechanics and narrative. DA2 instead opted to go the Mass Effect route of more action, less mechanics and less narrative but more set pieces. That, along with a rushed production, turned DA2 into the poor game we eventually got.

I think it is telling that I've replayed DAO with 4 different characters but couldn't even be bohered to make a second one in DA2. In fact, when I replayed DAO in November all I could think was "this game is far superior to its' sequal" inbetween loving it to death for taking me as the player seriously and actually expecting me to learn about both the mechanics and the game world.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Wasn't DA2 still a commercial success and a fairly critical success as well? It just had lots of ran rage because fans always rage?
I didn't think it was that bad myself. I liked the combat better than the first game and I liked having a protagonist that spoke, that was about it though.

 

[omega 616]

I know I'm about a year late, but I've been thinking on how Dragon Age 2 didn't work.

I'm sure stuff like the story and repeated areas and prominence of DLC has been talked to death, but I have even more reasons why I don't like the game.

The music. When I was playing Dragon Age Origins I had amazing scores. When I listen to them I'm thrown back into the game and want to play the game again, it was genius.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWFEVbfCcOY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBQZnLP4FLI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXVkLSs9GsQ
Which really captured the atmosphere of the game for me. When I listen to those, I think DRAGON AGE!!!!. It really felt like you were in a bleak land on the edge of toppling over. Those songs encapsulate the harshness of Ferelden and the hopelessness of the Blight and your situation. They captured the grittiness of the world. Honestly Skyrim didn't come close even though the world of Skyrim was MUCH more bleak. Dragon Age 2 seemed to have nothing like that, which diminished the atmosphere. In fact it had NO ATMOSPHERE AT ALL. It seemed like a rubbish mish mash of art styles and themes which did nothing. It didn't even feel dark despite all the blood being spilt and stabbing and explosions and rape and zombies.

The build up to the broodmother in DA:O is more atmospheric than all of DA2. Anything is really.

Also I seem to be the only person to dislike the combat. DA:O combat has been criticised for being slow, but it fits in with the atmosphere the game. It was more like Lord of the Rings with more magic, big weighty weapons and armour, as opposed to Dragon Age 2, which ruined it. Having Hawke run around with a giant sword jumping around like an anime character was shit, but everyone seemed to love it. The weapons seemed like they were made of paper and had no weight.

Also how did DA2 look worse than DA:O? The textures were worse, the lighting was horrible, no-one looked real either, all like fake plastic models.

I honestly hope Bioware can get on track with the next game and make it as memorable and great as Dragon Age Origins.

tl:dr: It failed in creating an atmosphere the first game did.

Just looking at this quote, not reading it but skimming it, it looks like you put a hell of a lot of weight and emphasis on musical score.

I know it's all opinions but why put so much of the failing of the game on the music?

To me it failed 'cos it was dragon age in name alone, it had the odd person from the first game but other than that it was a totally different group of peeps.

It would be like if mass effect two was FFXIII, it would just be a totally different game but with the same name and a number after it.

 

[K84]

Actually, this is quite on time, i picked it up from the bargain bin a few weeks back.
And....it's not bad actually, i quite like it, it's no masterpiece nor Bioware's best,
but it's not bad, it's a tad repetitive, but the overall style, story and voice actors are fun.

And yes, Kate Mulgrew as a Dragon/Witch is awesome.
(me is one of the few that liked Voyager actually)

 

[Thoric485]

Because it was developed for a year and a half by a company sapped of any upper level creative talent.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Wasn't DA2 still a commercial success and a fairly critical success as well? It just had lots of ran rage because fans always rage?

It actually did fairly poorly both from both a commercial and critical standpoint based on how Bioware games usually do.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip

I'm actually pretty certain that they re-used a lot of the music from the first game, so I'm not certain that argument holds water. I will say, however, that they ruined their own atmosphere with the copy-pasting of dungeons. The reason the build-up to the Brood Mother was so much "heavier" than anything in DA2 is because you're in the darkness of the deep roads, fighting your way through darkness, with a crazed/blighted dwarf woman chanting a creepy verse in your ear. In DA 2 you're hunting down a necromancer who kidnaps people and takes them too...the same under-city tunnels that you've been in a thousand times already.

As for the combat, I don't know who you've been talking to but most people, myself included, have complained about the combat.

I would just say it failed because it was rushed out in a year and a half and they had to start cutting every corner they had just to finish. Ander's cat was removed because of time constraints. They said they would have had to make an animation for him but they already had the animation from the previous game. The guy from the exiled prince DLC was supposed to be nathanial from awakening until they realized he (or anders don't really remember which) could die and they would have had to add changes to the game if that happened to you. Also the same reasons for why you can run around as a blood mage and no one gives a crap while all condemning blood mages for being immoral. It really was just classic EA rushing.

Anders could die. If you get your sibling to join the Grey Wardens, the quest to return to the deeproads won't be some random dwarf wanting you to find his son, but it'll come from the Wardens. If you go back to the Deep Roads with Anders (and if he died in your Awakening), you find Nathaniel and he stares disbelieving at Anders, saying "Anders. You're supposed to be dead. I saw the body!" To which Anders says "That's what I WANTED you to think." Ahhhh yes, the ol' "conjure up a corpse that looks just like you and dress it up in your robes to fake your own death" trick...

Also you can kill Lelianna in DA0, but that didn't stop her head from reattaching itself so she could return in DA 2.

As for people complaining about the story, here's a brief version of my defense of it. Other than setting, indeed, DA2 has little to do with DAO. It's taking a more Elder Scrolls approach in that each game takes place within the same world, but with different settings and characters. Though the ending of DA2 seems to make it pretty clear that we'll see a return of both The Champion and The Warden. Beyond that, DA2's story is important because it drastically changes the landscape of the world in which the games take place.

The world has officially erupted into a civil war in which all mages are rebelling. This is clearly going to be the setting of DA3.

 

[GiantRaven]

I definitely agree that the music in DA2 was utter tripe. One of the few games I've turned down the music on.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I liked DA2, it was the worst Bioware game ever made that's for sure, but hey it's Bioware so it's still a decent game regardless.

The combat would have been good if they didn't spawn about fifty thousand more enemies in every single encounter. There were fucking waves of them!

The ending seems to get either love or hate from people with near to no middle ground. It's either a great tragedy where the epic chosen hero of the land fails to make any meaningful difference to a doomed city s/he loves and is meant to be protecting.

Or it's a failure as an RPG as all choices come to nought in the end and most RPG fans don't like choices that have no meaning or consequence. It's a perfectly valid critisism

I like the ending personally, it's a great aversion (deconstruction? Denial? Damn TVtropes terminology!) of the standard chosen one saves the world trope. Where the chosen one exists in the player character but fails at everything that really matters.

You don't see that very often at all. It almost redeems the entire game in my eyes except the combat is just so drawn out.

And the characters are Bioware characters, so they're up to the usual "well written but arguably generic" Bioware standard.

EDIT: Oh yeah and I didn't mind the copypaste environments. The copypaste items were more annoying to me. Where's the "+69 Staff of Penetration" and the item description? You don't realise how important they are until they're gone.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I like the ending personally, it's a great aversion (deconstruction? Denial? Damn TVtropes terminology!) of the standard chosen one saves the world trope. Where the chosen one exists in the player character but fails at everything that really matters.

I think it's what TvTropes would call an "aversion," which IMO is a lot less interesting than a deconstruction. In terms of games, Witcher does the same thing more effectively IMO, as does Planescape: Torment. Those also do things with the standard fantasy narrative that I would consider actually a destruction, not just a "but in this game, the thing you think is going to happen doesn't happen!"

In terms of deconstructing the hero narrative, that's an old, old, thing to do. The Epic of Gilgamesh, for instance, works as just such a deconstruction, significantly more effectively than most modern attempts to do so.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I like the ending personally, it's a great aversion (deconstruction? Denial? Damn TVtropes terminology!) of the standard chosen one saves the world trope. Where the chosen one exists in the player character but fails at everything that really matters.

I think it's what TvTropes would call an "aversion," which IMO is a lot less interesting than a deconstruction. In terms of games, Witcher does the same thing more effectively IMO, as does Planescape: Torment. Those also do things with the standard fantasy narrative that I would consider actually a destruction, not just a "but in this game, the thing you think is going to happen doesn't happen!"

In terms of deconstructing the hero narrative, that's an old, old, thing to do. The Epic of Gilgamesh, for instance, works as just such a deconstruction, significantly more effectively than most modern attempts to do so.

Yeah I suppose averting the standard chosen one trope is not exactly uncommon if you look at all forms of media e.g. books, some anime etc etc.

The book The Name of the Wind (and the sequel) for example shows the main character building himself a massive, impossible to maintain chosen oneish persona to help him cope with his problems and persecutions and near all of his further problems (and solutions) stem from maintaining, building upon and protecting said persona.

Just as an example, at one point he near aces an entry exam into a university, impressing everyone. Only for him to admit to the reader (he narrates his own life) that he snuck into several advanced classes hours beforehand and committed all the "amazing" facts to memory.

If you haven't read it try to get a copy, it's one of the best books i've read in a while.

Anyway back to Bioware XD

For the averted chosen one trope to be present and done arguably well in a Bioware game is pretty damn good. Since all Bioware games are based on the usual chosen one trope nobody really expects them to go and pull this kinda stuff.

[sub]Wall of Text, I choose you![/sub]