Why so much hate for Dragon Age 2?

[Slash Joel]

I found that DA2 is much more enjoyable when viewed as a Character drive story not a plot drive. Its been awhile sense i played the game so I can't give and specific example. But the character interaction and the fact that you build your Hawke's personality makes it much more about the characters then the plot.

 

[aivalera]

I have a like/dislike relationship with DA 2. The first and worst problem was the vigorous recycling of maps. It showed a real lack of polish and felt like padding. Having new collectibles show up on the same Hub maps every act is boring and practically punishing the player.

Plus the game is bitchy at times, I recently just replayed DA 2 as a rogue and enemies would frequently be stuck at one HP and just wouldn't freaking die even after four critcal hits.

However, this is just skimming the true issue with Dragon Age 2. The problem with alot of players was the fact that it was like Mass Effect, which isn't really a critcism. I like the conversation wheel in DA2 because it tells you if your being peaceful, neutral (witty), or aggresive. Then it takes it a step further by marking flirty and special options. So thumbs up there; only dumbasses criticize ideas for being unoriginal when it helps the game.

But I'm willing to take it a step further by saying that Dragon Age 2 tried to copy too much from the ME to ME 2 transition. If you will recall, Mass Effect 2 wasn't as much of an RPG as Mass Effect 1, and Dragon Age tries to do the same thing. The gameplay is more fast paced, "Action-ier", and more streamlined than Origins (which I personally like because Origins was freaking slow to the point of players being sick of the area once they were done.) The same could be said about the story as well, I took a mission and then replayed it and was surprised on how quick it actually really was after I skipped all the dialog.

But this has its downsides, and I'm sure the RPG fans of the original criticized it because of the sudden change in speeds.

Onto the real problem for me, I find that both games have abhorrant DLC practices. "Oh, here's a item pack, that will be 3 bucks. We don't want you to go earning your equipment in-game when you can pay us for it." Whoever thinks this is a good decision should be robbed and have their money spent on in-game content for World of Warcraft or something. This should be the reason DA 2 is hated if nothing else.

 

[Gone Rampant]

A lot of the people who hate on DA2 came from Origins, which had a country-spanning, "Save the World," narrative with a large bunch of companions and a great set of DLC.

2 suffered from EA rushing it out and getting its DLC cut so DA3 could be started, but what did come out (Sebastian, Legacy and Mark of The Assassin), are enjoyable stuff. It's also got a smaller narative... which makes sense. Hawke's not a person trying to save the world, they're just trying to get by and get caught in the chaos.

I enjoy it, and recently finished a replay.

 

[tealc25]

I am surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but do we all remember how the game started? Varric is being interrogated by that seeker lady and we are treated to a nice over the top action sequence (in which your sister's boobs are huge, which always makes me laugh). The entire game is framed as Varric telling a story, and we all know that Varric exaggerates all of his stories. They even cut back to Varric throughout the game to remind you of that fact.
Why does Flemith look nothing like she did in Dragon Age 1? Varrik never saw her and he is spicing the up the story.
Why did the combat go from gritty to over the top, blood-flying, back-fliping, wave spawning action? Once again Varrik is telling the story.
Why did every mage in kirkwall seem to practice blood magic? Varric is telling the Templar lady what she wants to hear.
The examples go on and on from there.

Dragon Age 2 doesn't have a contradictory atmosphere, in fact it stays true to itself the entire game. This same thing can be seen, to a lesser extent, in the DAO DCL were you play as Leliana. Not to say the game is without flaws, but it is much, much better than most people think.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

I didn't hate it. I just found that I couldn't even finish one playthrough out of sheer tedium.

The game was amazingly boring. Almost every battle had two or three incredibly predictable moments where additional waves would be spawned in like the Putty Patrol. Environment recycling is pretty common for Bioware games but in this one it was almost farcical. The characters were amazingly dull, the story was urbane and typified by obnoxious melodrama and pretensions towards meta-narrative. None of the loot ever elicited a response greater than 'Huh.'

So when I stepped outside my character's house one in-game morning and noticed his torso had become invisible for the billionth time thanks to some graphical bug, I just closed the game and went back to flicking paperclips into the dustbin for amusement.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

I am surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but do we all remember how the game started? Varric is being interrogated by that seeker lady and we are treated to a nice over the top action sequence (in which your sister's boobs are huge, which always makes me laugh). The entire game is framed as Varric telling a story, and we all know that Varric exaggerates all of his stories. They even cut back to Varric throughout the game to remind you of that fact.
Why does Flemith look nothing like she did in Dragon Age 1? Varrik never saw her and he is spicing the up the story.
Why did the combat go from gritty to over the top, blood-flying, back-fliping, wave spawning action? Once again Varrik is telling the story.
Why did every mage in kirkwall seem to practice blood magic? Varric is telling the Templar lady what she wants to hear.
The examples go on and on from there.

Dragon Age 2 doesn't have a contradictory atmosphere, in fact it stays true to itself the entire game. This same thing can be seen, to a lesser extent, in the DAO DCL were you play as Leliana. Not to say the game is without flaws, but it is much, much better than most people think.

Someone at Bioware dusted off a Lit Theory 101 textbook and turned to the entry for 'unreliable narrator'. That doesn't make the game better, it makes it pretentious.

 

[|Sith|Eldarion]

Dragon Age 2 is a game I initially defended. I'm a rabid fan of the original, having put more hours into it than any other game including Skyrim, so I pre-ordered it and expected nothing less than the second coming of Andraste, Jesus, and the first coming of The Great Pumpkin all rolled into one. And when I got it... I was disappointed in the extreme. And over time my opinion of it grew less and less.

There are some things it does better than Origins, things I hope stay with the series. The combat was made a lot more streamlined and console friendly, with the welcome ability to catch up to enemies running away from you and use archery talents without an errant twitch from the left thumb stick interrupting you, but pretty much everything else was made markedly worse. The combat, while streamlined, lacked the intense tactical feel of its predecessor, and it halved the available specializations while keeping only the least interesting ones(Spirit Warrior, Arcane Warrior, Champion, Ranger, Keeper, Battlemage, Legionnaire Scout, Defender..we'll miss you. No one mourns Shapeshifter, I don't think). The story royally shat the bed as well in Act 3, and gave us one of the worst final battle speeches I have ever heard. Shepard does a good final battle speech and has a backup orchestra to help him along, so why couldn't they pilfer that along with the dialogue wheel? Then there is the truly anomalous amount of fetch quests, the dip in character quality(I am looking at you, Merril), and the wave based combat that made careful planning useless when it could be ruined by five enemies spawning behind your mage when you weren't looking.

And then we get to the Inventory Screen. OH GOD, the Inventory Screen. I have a 42 inch widescreen TV, and I still couldn't read the text. And while I'm at it, the entire loot system was crap was well. In Origins, if it had an enchantment, it had a suitable backstory ranging from grim to humorous. In DA2, I can get fifty different amulets called "amulet" with differing enchantments, which makes sorting through them an absolute nightmare. The mechanic introduced to compensate, the star system, is absolute bullshit as well, because half the time it lies to me. How is +44 attack better for my mage than +3 mana regen? Hint: MAGES CAN'T MISS! The only inventory system that experienced a worse change was Assassins Creed's between Brotherhood and Revelations.

And at last, we come to the last straw. The end of the line. The point of no forgiveness. The Darkspawn design. WHAT. THE. FUCK. They used to be scary. They used to have complex models that were interesting to look at. They used to have a bestial cunning, a dark humor in their laughs. Now they have straight, pearly white teeth, dead eyes, Genlocks and Shrieks have been completely scrapped, and they don't even have the appearance of something that's tainted. I'm sure the intent was for them to be more like a horde of insects, but it looks more like a horde of coked up bums with excellent dental hygiene.

I wanted to like it, but I couldn't. I know it has its fans, and I won't tell them to stop playing it. I just hope DA3 has more going for it than the Frostbite 3 engine.

(The Arishok was badass, though )

 

[gamernerdtg2]

The reason that anyone plays that game is for the story. The story, and all the subsequent arcs off of the main story can be seen on YouTube, without ever playing the game. People are now posting entire game stories on YouTube, like Devil May Cry and DMC4 can be seen in one hour long video.

I beat Dragon Age two, romped with Isabella, saw Aveline and Isabella become friends, and all. Whatever I didn't see, I went to YouTube to watch and that was that. I had no desire to replay as a new class because the combat isn't all that great. I appreciate the real time feeling, but it plays more like a game that should have been turn based or something...it's not as gritty as Amalur, or Dragon's Dogma (which is what I prefer for combat in RPG's).

The story is great, but there needs to be something in a game that makes me come back after the story is finished. There was unfortunately nothing there after the game is beaten, so I sold my copy back. I did the exact same thing with Mass Effect 2, and I'm not bothering with Mass Effect 3.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I mean going through a bandit cave that was a spider dungeon 15 minutes ago is literally the laziest game design Ive ever seen and having the whole game take place in one town is nothing short of not epic at all. I mean it had some decent aspects and I really liked the ending I got, so I'm not saying it's the worst game in the world, but at the same time, I could totally understand why someone would say it's god awful.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

For me it turns an mediocre RPG into a more mediocre action title.... if they added more features and not took them out like Mass effect 2 I would not hate the game...then again I hate the first one for being so half assed.... meh I am full of hate these days

 

[jklinders]

Funny you should ask since I am in the middle of a playthrough just now.

It isn't a terrible game but it could have done quite a few things far better. Lazy level design is pretty unforgivable and using the same 3 maps over and over again and expecting us not to notice is pretty bad.

Narratively it was in too much of a hurry to kill Hawke's family off to really feel the impact of losing them. The first sibling dies before you even get a chance to know them. Kinda makes it hard to feel any impact. Their home is destroyed but you never saw it or how they lived so that is meaningless. Kirkwall as a city makes little sense. The lore has it that the veil is thinner there than almost anywhere else so of course the best thing to do is keep a circle of mages there. Nothing bad can happen from having a bunch of people who are sensitive and vulnerable to demonic possession in a place where the demons find it easiest to contact them right? Right? The Viscount was a weakling who should have been deposed years earlier. Lastly, Anders could not have been more obvious as a ticking timebomb if he was carrying a sign saying as much. Just ignoring that made no sense at all from a story writing perspective.

The game worked real hard at pretending your choices mattered then through the futility of actually believing that straight into your face. That attitude works well in a novel but not in a game. I feel now as then that the story fit a novel better than a game and it may have even been the original intent.

It IS fun, if extremely repetitive. I'm getting through with my playthroughs now better than before but without all the repetitive filler combat it is less than a third of the length of Origins. And far more poorly written as a game.

 

[alik44]

Don't get me wrong i don't hate dragon age 2 I am disappointed in dragon age 2. dragon age 2 was probably one of the biggest let downs of my gaming life. after immediately coming off dragon age origins and all its dlc i was expecting a lot from dragon age 2 what i got was rushed out mess. its not a bad game its just so obviously a rush job. the game felt incredibly short by bioware standards, the story while interesting really did not start going anywhere until the last acts and even then it leaves on a dam cliff hanger, the game was horribly padded, the game play felt watered down from the origins. the game it self does not even feel connected to dragon age origin aside from random characters from origins just showing up for fan service and leaving the plot before anything good happens. all in all it games that i had a lot of faith and hope in and it was crushed.

 

[DRTJR]

I find DA2 a mixed bag, I prefer the art style of DA2(especially with the elves), The Characters(I <3 Merrill), and the combat style while different is also really good and satisfying.
DA:O had the better story, setting and conflict, with the combat being more tactical and slower but also satisfying.

Personally these are both very good RPGs that are awesome, and although I think DA 2 edges out DA:O there both superb.

 

[Munkey_bear]

DA2 has great fight animations, the graphics were good and the story setting was pleasent. However it was too linear; the stages were recycled; and overall it never felt like a true sequel to DA1

 

[happyninja42]

I didn't like how railroaded the plot was. Sure you get a dialogue choice, which usually boils down to Nice Guy/Smart Ass/Asshole reactions, but frequently the end result wasn't any different at all. The end result of the quest was still predecided, and the only "difference" your choice really made, was which group involved got pissed at you, and which one liked you.


For example

Spoiler

When you do the mission where you can rescue/capture the escaped mages hiding out in that cave, regardless of whether you let them go or not, they still end up back in the city, and the woman in charge still gets angry at you, blaming you for their plight. Note, she acts this way even if you help her escape, and lie to the Templars so there is no pursuit. Then, later when she and the other mages have gone over the deep end, and taken hostages, you can again try and resolve the situation. Now, here, if you try and defuse the situation with Good Choices...you fail, she goes apeshit and kills the nice Templar guy in front of you. Now, if you choose the Asshole Choice...which I might add is worded "Screw this! Attack!", and even has the cross swords icon which usually indicates that you stop talking to fight....YOU STILL KEEP TALKING, and you stand there while she kills the Templar. EVEN AFTER YOU SAID TO HELL WITH TALKING, LETS SKIP TO THE KILLING!! So no matter what you do, the plot choices were laid out for you. And when things like that are in place in a game, but the game gives you the illusion of "choice" in your destiny, it ticks me off to no end. And sadly, DA 2 was loaded with situations like this.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

It has a really terrible ending and a lot of the combat basically amounts to "IT'S RAINING MOOKS!"... Also the game really hits its highpoint for player narrative control and drama at the end of Act 2 rather than the end of Act 3...

But generally I dunno... I actually like Dragon Age 2... Varric is one of my all time favorite characters and the combat is really fun, if the Story didn't get kinda crappy in Act 3 it would be one of my all time favorites.

 

[Gameguy20100]

It was published by EA and people will hate the elixir of life If the EA logo was on it.

Ignoring that probably the weaker story and less memorable characters but Its a great game on its own when compared to Origins Its merely good

 

[The_Lost_King]

Origins isn't that great of a game. But for some reason everyone loves it to death. Dragon Age 2 was a rushed sequel which switched things up and angered the nerds. CHANGE BAD! That's all you need to know for why people hate Dragon Age 2.


Honestly I found Dragon Age 2 to be more interesting then Dragon Age : Origins. Origins felt like I was picking up an encyclopedia, lots of interesting stuff explained in a boring contrived manner. Dragon Age 2 felt more like one of those crappy Fantasy books. Where a lot of the time it misses the mark, but sometimes it just does something so interesting that you sit there and go... well that was actually fun.

Both have flaws a plenty, but I tend to overlook DA2 flaws because the parts that work in DA2 are so fantastic and fun. Where as DA:O while interesting and a good experience tends to trudge through mediocrity.

The way I like to see it is that anyone that prefers Origins to DA2 hates things that are fun and interesting.

In all honesty, I like them both. But DA2 holds a special place in my heart for being the first game to create a character that I actually found interesting and endearing.

It is not only change bad. It is the fact that the story was stupid and not cohesive at all. The characters also weren't nearly as good. Varic was pretty cool and everyone else was meh. Origins was just better in every aspect other than the combat.

It was published by EA and people will hate the elixir of life If the EA logo was on it.

Ignoring that probably the weaker story and less memorable characters but Its a great game on its own when compared to Origins Its merely good

Dragon Age: Origins has EA on it and people loved that, and people loved mass effect minus 10 minutes.

 

[OpticalJunction]

It's not that bad, it's just not what I expected from a dragon age sequel. If it were marketed as a spin off I think it would have fared much better. On the positive side, the combat is much improved, as are the skill trees and friendship system. I thought it was silly how in Origins you could dump a bunch of gifts onto a companion and suddenly be in bed with them, lol.