Why was Dragon Age 2 so bad?

[PinochetIsMyBro]

I liked it, the dialogue was slightly better than the less game. Hated having to go to their houses just to talk to them though.

Repetitive dungeons and 'wave after wave of my own men' zapp branigan AI tactics were the major sore points for me. The plot was decent.

 

[NEDM]

The lack of diverse environments. Reusing the same ares, just locking and unlocking different doors...... That is the hate for DA2. Other than that I really enjoyed it. It just was really hard to not notice that I'd been to the same set of caves 20 times over the course of the game.

 

[Hashbrick]

It wasn't people ***** to *****. Does it fall short of the original DA? Sure does, but it is no where near as bad as the amount of hatred it got. The combat got better but everyone bitched about the lobby feel to the whole thing. what people don't realize is the original DA was the same thing they just cut out the annoying random encounters while traveling.

 

[zefiris]

I've been reveling in the complaints on ME3's ending, and that's cool and all but I keep hearing people complain about DA2. I've played it and liked it well enough, all the zones were constantly reused and there wasn't much of an overall story but I loved the revamped combat and the frenemy thing. It seemed like they just streamlined and removed a lot of the junk and clutter. But when I hear things like "Completely destroyed the in-game universe" I get a little curious.

Yes I did use the search bar and didn't find anything. Also can we try to keep the conversation here about Dragon Age? I get that everyone's pissed at ME right now but that's not the point of this thread.

-Combat was boring. They just added random, boring waves, without difficulty or strategy. Hardest difficulty just added length to battles, not difficulty. It was boring.

Yes, this includes the crystal boss.

-The dungeons were reused, making the game feel like work, not recreation. The reusing wasn't even done well - you could see the parts where they closed off corridors with copypaste walls, or closed off a cave entrance on top of a mountain with...a cart. A cart on top of a mountain. Sure.

-The story was extremely bland. Not ALL of it, mind, I'm talking about Act III, where it falls apart. Other bad parts are the connections between the three arcs - they are disconnected and important parts are completely ignored. My Hawke would have checked what happened to that Idol and do everything to go after it. I couldn't, the game seemed to consider that done. BAD.

-Act III. Act III falls apart because nothing in there makes sense. You are forced to pick two sides, both of which are idiots. There is a third side, which makes good points, but you are forced to kill them - in ways that are written terribly. Example: You're told to check out on this group.W hat do you do? A cutscene forces you to WALK UP TO THEM, gives you no option to negotiate, and then ends up with you killing them. Same thing twice in a row.

It goes on like this. The archmage? Sure, you help him, but then he turns into a monster and attacks you. For no reason. We were winning. He did it anyway.

It's all nonsensical, bad writing.


The only really good thing about the game were the companions and Act II.

 

[The_Lost_King]

Because it was God of War Effect not Dragon age 2. Dragon age: Origins was one of my favorite games and then Dragon age 2 comes along, I am so excited and then I get THIS! It is mediocre at best and that doesn't fly in a Bioware game. Well, at least until EA took over.

Im just gonna say that God of War Effect sounds like a much better game then DA2

Well it obviously isn't because that is what DA2 was. It also really doesn't because I didn't like God of War.

 

[Swyftstar]

It isn't necessarily a bad game (disclaimer: I never played it past the demo). I just didn't want to play it because it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted a sequel to the first game with some improvements. This was an almost complete overhaul into a different gaem. It was probably a perfectly servicable action rpg. I just didn't want that and honestly there were several other action rpgs on the market that I thought did it better.

 

[Krantos]

Why are they still with you?

Why didn't Fenris hit the bricks the second you started siding with the mages?
Why did Goofy Hawke give a fuck about who ran Karkwal?
Why did Verric hang around if Hawke was a humorless prick the whole time?

If the whole world had been in immediate peril all those questions would have an answer.

Thank you, someone else who realizes this.

As cliched and standard as the "Save the World" plot is, it provides an easy way to justify holding the party together. BioWare doesn't seem to realize this, however, and fails to account for this lack in DA2.

It's entirely possible to write in good characters that will stick with you regardless of what's going on, but you have to develop that. Give them a reason, give them a personality that makes sense. If they're just clingy and need someone to follow, tell us.

Of course, on the flip side, if you do have the "Save the World" plot you can't have characters leaving the group arbitrarily. In Origins, Alistair leaves if you save Loghain, apparently forgetting that being a Grey Warden was his whole life. He even says as he's leaving "Have fun ending the blight." That completely destroys his character.

Looking back, I'm starting to think BioWare does good dialogue and nothing else. It seems like nothing is consistent and someone really needs to sit them down and tell them how good stories are actually written.

 

[DeadYorick]

I hated everything about Dragon Age 2.

I hated the combat, it reminded me of every generic hack and slash I had ever played (and how it had very little thought process. See some enemies" hack at them, use your skills, bing bang boom your done), I hated the animations and how they were supposed to be "epic" (like look at the bow animations, and how much effort Hawke puts into releasing his/hers arrows. It's like watching an anime). I hated Hawke and how much of a generic hero character he was (I seriously thought they were joking when they said the main character's name was "Hawke". Its like asking a D&D player what their first player character's name was), I hated Merril for how manipulative the character felt in terms of how she was written, I hated the characters in general because they felt like characters in an anime, I hated how it was OVER marketed like crazy, I hated how the game disregarded my choices in the previous game, I hated how the developers disrespected the fanbase, I hated how the developers deliberately stated numerous times how much better the game was then Origins.

Bare in mind I havent even mentioned the fact the Darkspawn look like shit (I laughed at the Darkspawn the first time I saw them, and thought "Wow you guys didn't spend any effort on enemies did you?". Why they didnt port the original models from Origins I do not know.), or how the maps were recycled (apparently someone on the development team thought if you throw a bunch of meaningless sidequests at the player and not spend any effort on them, they will care more about the storyline), or how the art style was terrible (I hated the JRPG-ness of the art style. How all the characters looked like they were drawn by artists to be marketable), or the day one DLC.

I hated, everything, about, Dragon Age 2. It felt generic and I do believe if Bioware didn't develop it, no one would have bothered to defend it.

 

[lapan]

First things first. You don't like the change in aesthetics. So what a lot of people don't.
Secondly you gave the game a 5.7/10 and call it bad. Well hate to break it to you but 5-7 is average 8-9 is good 10 is amazing. If you want to call a game bad then it needs at least a 3/10.
Is DA2 worse than DA:O that is Yes. But does that make it a BAD game. No it doesn't

Not in modern game reviewing.

9-10 is GOTY
7-8 is average
6 is below average
1-5 is crap

 

[LokiArchetype]

I'd say the biggest issues were the recycled environments and the waves of respawning enemies.

It hurts your immersion when you're in a copy pasted dungeon and after defeating all the enemies, a new wave magically appears out of nowhere.

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