can you say something nice about dragon age 2

[bananafishtoday]

Well the very first fight with the Ogre comes to mind as one were Aveline won't survive unless you manually dodge out of the way. I actually died over and over on that fight wondering what I did wrong. I couldn't choose any party members at that point, I hadn't had an opportunity to select any talents and I haven't gotten any gear so I failed to see what I was doing wrong. I tried doing all sort of different tactics until I finally gave up and watched a youtube video. Then it occured to me, oh it's an action game now I get it.

Holding aggro is moot when enemies spawn in random positions. Enemies often appear behind casters and one-shot them. Even the best tank can't be everywhere at once. I found that keeping the party together and just focus firing while backstepping worked best. Most of my attempts at a tactical approach was punished by the game. Positioning is pointless when the characters sprint around the map at random and get one-shotted. The wave system is less strategic because you can't plan for something that is random.

I only played on hard, but after 20 hours of frustrating and repetitive gameplay I uninstalled and never wanted to see the game again. The only reason I played that much was because I really wanted it to be good, because I enjoyed DA:O so much. On the upside it made replays of DA:O much more fun

I do wonder how much DA2 varies between ports, because some of the descriptions I heard from others sounds like a completely different game to me. In my PC version the combat felt very broken.

Or maybe I just didn't get it, thats also a possibility. I often wondered what the intention with the gameplay was.

You're right that it's a lot more action-oriented, which may not be for everyone. And I don't like the overuse of waves either.

But... the waves are scripted, not random. There were a few fights where I got destroyed because I expected n waves, then suddenly, wave n+1 spawned and wrecked me. So it can be frustrating the first time you fight that specific battle, but when you retry it, you can plan for that wave because you know that it'll spawn under the same conditions every time.

The game doesn't communicate this very well, because the fights tend to be chaotic and there's no overhead camera, but yeah. Prolly not worth replaying if you disliked the game that much, but yeah, it isn't random.

Edit: Oh, and the final boss battle in one of the DLCs actually uses the action-y dodge stuff really well. It's a dude and a wyvern, and most of the attacks target the location a character is at (a charge, a projectile, an arrow shower thing) so most of the fight is about switching between characters and moving them around. It ended up being really enjoyable and showcases DA2's combat style better than a lot of the fights in DA2 proper.

Also, I may be misremembering since it's been awhile, but I think there's a button on the UI that toggles whether non-controlled characters move of their own volition or stay where you put them. If not, it's a thing you can change in the AI scripting. Again, unintuitive so you're certainly not at fault, but it's there.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I enjoyed the story and some of the characters and the fighting worked well, its more hack and slash than strategy. The only thing that let it down was the repeated use of backgrounds and rooms, also its set all in one city so there is lack of variety in landscapes.

So if you can get it for cheap then all the negatives wont matter.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

It had good choice acting.
It was a sequel to am actual good game.
Thief skills letting us teleport around the place were coo
It didn't have any QTEs in it.

 

[Toilet]

The Qunari looked really cool and Varric was a great bro and a cool character.

That's all I can think of, it's a pretty bad game. Origins was superior in nearly every way.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I just thought of a good comparison for Dragon Age 1 and 2.

Dragon Age: Origins is like LOTR in the sense that everything is on a massive scale, the world is in immediate peril and there are too many characters in there to remember (easily).

Dragon Age 2 is more like The Hobbit in the sense that the focus is on a small band of people, even though there are bigger things happening around them.

Personally I prefer the smaller story with more focus on the characters, so naturally I preferred DA2 anyway. But one nice thing about it was the deviation from the Tolkien stereotypes, for example the strong warrior type was an Elf, and the crossbow/ rouge type was a Dwarf, and I thought it still worked really well. The characters were believable.

 

[Terminal Blue]

* The skill trees are hugely more balanced with far fewer cheap/useless skills.

* Combat is less sluggish (once you get past the fact that it's wave combat).

* Boss fights are more interesting than just "here is a regular dude with more health".

* Character classes build intuitively (there's actually some benefit to a rogue taking dexterity, for example).

* Specializations make mechanical sense to the class they're linked to. Mage specializations actually help you cast spells, for example.

* Your party actually feels like they have lives, rather than hanging around camp hoping you'll actually take them along on your next adventure.

* Friendship/rivalry system means you can roleplay your character more consistently without missing out on learning about your companions (although I found the thresholds for friendship/rivalry to be aggressively high)

* The story is much more personal and thus includes some genuinely emotive moments. It's also much less generic, and had it been tied together better with more foreshadowing could have been a really original take on RPG storytelling. Points scored with me for trying.

* The redesigns of the various races look really good.

 

[Krantos]

It's a Dragon Age game.

That right there is good. The problem 2 faced is that for most people (including me) it didn't live up to Origins. It's still a perfectly decent game. It's just that Origins was great, so by comparison, 2 suffers quite a bit.

Yes, the characters are mostly flat. Yes, Anders is a ponce. Yes, the game shamelessly repeats dungeons. Yes, Enemies seem to magically appear out of nowhere during fights.

Still and all, though, it's a decent game. I never got through it though, because every time I tried, I'd play for ten minutes and then load Origins up again.

 

[Bostur]

But... the waves are scripted, not random. There were a few fights where I got destroyed because I expected n waves, then suddenly, wave n+1 spawned and wrecked me. So it can be frustrating the first time you fight that specific battle, but when you retry it, you can plan for that wave because you know that it'll spawn under the same conditions every time.

The game doesn't communicate this very well, because the fights tend to be chaotic and there's no overhead camera, but yeah. Prolly not worth replaying if you disliked the game that much, but yeah, it isn't random.

Technically they may be scripted. By random I simply meant that there seemed to be little consistent logic to the spawning. At least not as far as I could tell.

Lack of hints and communication is probably a big factor. DA:O and many other RPGs have wave systems that seems more consistent. Spiders dropping from the roof, skeletons rising from graves, reinforcements appearing from unexplored rooms. In DA2 it felt to me most of those reinforcements came out of nowhere.

I can get a bit emotional about DA2 partly because I was very disappointed, since I had hoped the Dragon Age series would have reintroduced the tactical RPG. And partly because I'm so confused why DA2 was so celebrated among critics and fans, I just can't help to wonder what was considered to be so good about it. It's more a matter of curiosity than a desire to bash it.

But the story and characters? I thought they were great. In DA:O, I played a city elf, and it always annoyed me how little I could do with that. I wanted to play my character as someone who defended her people no matter what, but other than some throwaway dialogue, it was hard to do that. (That guy at Ostagar who laughed about beating his elf slaves? I literally spent an hour searching for some quest line or dialogue choice that would lead to me murdering his ass.) I actually avoided DA2 for a long time because I was pissed I'd have to play a human.

I ended up playing a mage, and it was so good being able to actually do things toward protecting "my" people. I got really immersed in both games' stories, so maybe it was just a happy coincidence, but the actual game narrative in DA2 lined up much closer to the narrative in my head. I absolutely loved my Hawke. I'm definitely in the voiced protagonist camp (either voice everyone or no one, I say). My Warden too often just felt like the character I was controlling in a video game, too much a blank slate. But my Hawke felt like the person I would be in that world. The writing and voice acting really drew me in. Like, when the Arishok declared I was one worthy of respect ...

It's probably very hit and miss whether we connect with the predetermined story. The illusion of choice so typical for RPGs is very fragile if the player expects to do something entirely different. I had similar experiences with the city elf background as you, I wanted to do something else on some occasions. That backstory certainly had the motivation for murder in several areas. I think RPGs needs some room for players to use their imagination, some blank spots that we can fill out. If the story and characters are too detailed the player is left without a purpose. Thats one critique I have heard often about DA2, that people didn't feel it was their story, it was reserved purely for Hawke. In some ways Hawke may have had too much of a purpose for the player to be involved.

In general I probably prefer silent protagonists, but it felt odd in DA:O because the protagonist was shown during dialogue, it made the Warden look mute. I can connect with a voiced protagonist as well, but the way that BioWare implements dialogue wheels in their new games makes it hard for me to relate. I often get a very different impression of the options than what was intended, leading to several cases where the protagonist says things I didn't intend. The fact that DA:O literally showed the whole line works better for me, but that can feel a little derpy when it is repeated with voice over.

 

[The Scythian]

I rather loved Dragon Age 2 and it's baffled me to no end that I'm a minority in that. I won't defend the entire game, but there's one aspect no one ever seems to mention and that's the art direction.

You see, unlike Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2 actually has an art direction. Origins was a very bland looking world with little in the way of unique design. It all looked so stock. The elves were just shorter humans with point ears, the dwarves might as well have been Moria, and the environments were just stale. Dragon Age 2, however, is full of unique looks. It still manages to harken back to Origins, but it also presents its own style. The elves especially look different. While the environments are repetitive, yes, they also aren't as bland as Origins (though DA2 does have the same issue at times, especially in the dungeons.)

Unfortunately, that new art direction was completely horrible.

 

[Izzy1320]

In my opinion, since this is an extremely opinionated thread, the biggest mistake that Bioware made when creating the game was calling it 'Dragon Age 2'. This essentially labeled it as a direct sequel to the first game, and I believe that that is what a lot of people were expecting. In fact, DA2 would have been served much better with a title along the lines of Dragon Age: Legends of Kirkwall, or something like that.

That being said, I appreciate what the studio tried to do, and in some cases, succeeded in doing. The game feels much more personal to the protagonist. Rather than making an entire country at risk, it focuses down to a single man/woman, and his/her fight to protect the new home that he/she has found. (Honestly, like other bioware series, I found preference in the female Hawke's voice acting.)The story has its weak points, but it is still better than a lot of people seem to give it credit for. Looking at the bigger picture of Dragon Age lore, the second game had a lot more to offer. It provides the spark that sends the mages and the templars to war.

As a game, I enjoyed it. It was developed much more heavily for consoles than its predecessor, with the simpler controls and action heavy combat, but there was never a part of it I found particularly 'bad'. It provides a solid bridge between the first and (hopefully) third iterations of the series and I am waiting for DA3, if and when it comes.

 

[LiberalSquirrel]

I rather loved Dragon Age 2 and it's baffled me to no end that I'm a minority in that. I won't defend the entire game, but there's one aspect no one ever seems to mention and that's the art direction.

You see, unlike Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2 actually has an art direction. Origins was a very bland looking world with little in the way of unique design. It all looked so stock. The elves were just shorter humans with point ears, the dwarves might as well have been Moria, and the environments were just stale. Dragon Age 2, however, is full of unique looks. It still manages to harken back to Origins, but it also presents its own style. The elves especially look different. While the environments are repetitive, yes, they also aren't as bland as Origins (though DA2 does have the same issue at times, especially in the dungeons.)

I'll second this. I thought the art direction was stronger than DA:O, and that's a good thing.

To get back on the general topic...

Sure, the game has problems. The feel and flow of the combat is different than what a lot of people were expecting (which would have been averted by not titling it "Dragon Age 2" and instead picking a new subtitle for the game to indicate a shift in creative direction...), there are repetitive dungeons, and you don't get the same huge world scope that you got in Dragon Age: Origins.

However, the story, while episodic and decidedly different from its predecessor's, was both interesting and good, in my opinion. It was more... personal. There was more nuance, in that there was no huge, overarching, pure-black-morality villain that you had to go kill in the end. There were plenty of antagonists in DA2, sure, but no one was the straight-up "bad guy," like the Archdemon in DA:O. I thought that change was very much for the better. I actually felt all of the characters were quite strong, as well. And yes, Anders turned into a bit of a ponce. But just because he was a bit of a ponce does not make him a bad character... I actually thought his story arc was really well done. (Doesn't mean I liked him. Just means I thought his part of the story was quite good.)

In conclusion to this lovely little mini-rant, I rather liked it. It's got flaws, sure. So does every game under the sun. But it's a good game, with different weaknesses and strengths from DA:O. That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it. ...But then again, one should expect little else from someone with a DA2 avatar who is a member of the "Dragon Age 2 was a good game" user group.

 

[4RM3D]

The gameplay was more balanced and more challenging than that of its predecessor. It was still flawed, though.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

You know, I don't get this attitude. I don't know what difficulty any of you played on, but I have a feeling it wasn't on nightmare, because if that was the case, I'm fairly certain none of you would say there's little or no strategy involved. This is not to put any of you down, please don't take it that way, but I think it's unfair to call it an action game and/or button spammer, if you haven't beat the game on the highest difficulty.

I don't think it's unfair at all. The gameplay style reminded me of a hack-and-slash game. I don't have to have played it on Nightmare mode to think that; genre is separate from difficulty.

I mean, DAII really was in a different genre to DA:O, and I think the fact that it was marketed as a sequel to DA:O massively hurt its chances of getting a fair reception. It would have been better off going full-hog to the ARPG side and making something like God of War set in the Dragon Age universe; at least then I could enjoy it.

Also, how is the wave combat making the combat any less strategic? If anything, it adds more things to consider to every encounter, like repositioning and cooldown management. I have no idea how those two things removes strategic elements, rather than add them.

The wave combat made positioning or planning irrelevant. It didn't matter where you put anyone; in fifteen seconds another dozen dudes would spawn behind you like spiders jumping out of a clown car. You'd have street brawls where a hundred Carta thugs would leap from the rooftops, inexplicably avoid breaking their ankles, and backstab Merrill half to death before you even knew what was going on because the game also didn't let you pan out the perspective to give you any idea of what was going on. "Maintaining aggro" amounted to "hit Taunt whenever it's off cooldown."

It was dull, lazy, immersion-breaking and as tactically engaging as wack-a-mole.

 

[Jynthor]

Dragon Age 2 is pretty enjoyable, too bad it runs like crap on my pretty good machine.
Anyway, I absolutely love female Hawke's voice. Especially the humorous choices.

 

[Colt47]

Dragon Age 2 isn't as bad as people make it out to be. It was short and didn't have the scope of the original title and it reused dungeons when it shouldn't have. Beyond that, the dwarf bard is probably one of my favorite characters of all time, and the simple relationship advancement felt fairly natural and didn't feel forced (Persona 3 comes to mind). Combat reminded me a bit of a faster paced Final Fantasy XII, which pretty much sums up both Dragon Age 1 and 2 thanks to the macro system in place for the AI.

 

[The Lunatic]

It could have been a lot worse.

 

[Zeldias]

Characters I liked that felt like people instead of inert things that only activated when the main character approached.

Rival system allows me to act however the hell I want and still progress relationships as opposed to having to be a bootlicking douchebag like most games of that type (DA1 particularly; "Here bro, I got you some gifts. Do you like me yet?")

Combat was far and away more interesting than DA:O.

Sidequests feel meaty. Some of the sidequests in DA:O were just bounties from a sign that you can turn in. Nothing like that in DA2, which I liked.

There's actually a lot amount of things I like about DA2. I can't even bring myself to play Dragon Age 1 again after playing it because the only thing Dragon Age: Origins has going for it is the story being interesting.

What I really don't get is how people find DA:O to be so superior: once I hit like level 13 or so, the game become abysmally boring to me. I like the characters and the stories like I said, but actually playing the game is a chore and a half. It's hard for me to even see it as a BG successor because I remember being able to do a hell of a lot more with my characters in BG than I could in DA:O (although that might be me misremembering; I just recall having a lot of options).

 

[ArchBlade]

I think Dragon Age 2 got a lot more hate than it deserved, personally.

Okay, yes, I believe Origins is by far the superior game. But there was stuff about Dragon Age 2 that I genuinely liked.

The gameplay was alright, and at the very least the combat was a little more entertaining than Origins combat, in terms of speed, anyway.
The story and writing was pretty good. Once again, not on par with Origins, for the most part, but I still enjoyed it.
And I DID like Hawke. He was no Warden, but he's shown to be near on par with him in terms of skill.

Those are my opinions, anyway.

 

[BarbaricGoose]

I enjoy experiencing deja vu. So that was fun for me.

But seriously, if you can find it REAL cheap, sure. Honestly, I'd wait to see if DA3 is any good, because the only reason I would recommend DA2 is if you wanna catch up on the story in prep for DA3.

DA1, though, is great. Buy it if you haven't. Worth $60, but you can nab the ultimate edition for cheap now.

 

[ArchBlade]

-Snip-

I would say that as a Dragon Age game, every bit of hate it got was well deserved.

But as a game if you dont take its pedigree into account, then the bile is a bit much, but thats the risk you run when slapping a known and loved name on something.

It probably would have done much better if it wasn't called Dragon Age

I suppose I can agree with you there. As a followup to Origins, it was pretty weak.

Hopefully Bioware breaks their recent pattern and Dragon Age III really drives it home...