Dragon Age 2 is superior to the first despite what everyone says

[Woodsey]

I've almost finished the second, and having the qunari as antagonists, as well as a conflict between mages and templars, is very interesting I find because it's not a boring good vs evil but rather there is subtlety to it.

This was the part where I was sure the whole post was in massive sarcasm quotes.

What are you talking about? It's very subtle when every other mage you come across slits his own throat to use blood magic as soon as someone accuses them of being a Blood Mage when they're most definitely not. They don't labour that point at all.

OT: If DA2 were the first in the series it'd be more forgivable. As it is, it's an average game that had some nice ideas behind it, with a far superior predecessor.

My biggest gripe really is the complete lack of choice and consequence (or even an attempt at creating the illusion of it). It ignores choices you made in Origins, it doesn't factor in choices you made during the game itself and - whilst this could have been used at certain points to put forward the idea that you just can't change everything (which they had already done far more effectively in Origins with Morrigan) - the whole thing reeks of laziness.

That, and the fact that everyone forgot that I was a Mage at random points. It's quite ridiculous to have a character harp on about how no mages can be trusted when you're standing there in a dressing gown with a magic pole stuck to your back; doubly so when they then make you the second most powerful person in the city, next to themselves.

And the ending is shit compared to Origins' glorious epilogue.

And the beginning is shit compared to the origin setup in Origins. ("THIS IS UR SISTER AND UR MOTHER AND UR BROTHER AND NOW UR SISTER/BROTHER IS DED AND NOW THIS IS A GINGER LADY WITH A **** FOR A HUSBAND AND NOW HE IS DED AND NOW U MUST BE CRYNG 5 MINS INTO THE GAME LOOK AT DA MOTIONAL PWER.")

And the way they travel through the plot is weird and disconnected.

And the passage of time is non-existent and terribly executed when they try to imply it.

And the enivornments are thread-bare.

And enemies come in waves which, whilst not a massive bother to me, is a massive bother for people wanting to play on harder difficulties and actually be tactical about it.

And the UI looks like a placeholder designed by a 10-year-old.

 

[Irridium]

I've almost finished the second, and having the qunari as antagonists, as well as a conflict between mages and templars, is very interesting I find because it's not a boring good vs evil but rather there is subtlety to it.

This was the part where I was sure the whole post was in massive sarcasm quotes.

What are you talking about? It's very subtle when every other mage you come across slits his own throat to use blood magic as soon as someone accuses them of being a Blood Mage when they're most definitely not. They don't labour that point at all.

OT: If DA2 were the first in the series it'd be more forgivable. As it is, it's an average game that had some nice ideas behind it, with a far superior predecessor.

My biggest gripe really is the complete lack of choice and consequence (or even an attempt at creating the illusion of it). It ignores choices you made in Origins, it doesn't factor in choices you made during the game itself and - whilst this could have been used at certain points to put forward the idea that you just can't change everything (which they had already done far more effectively in Origins with Morrigan) - the whole thing reeks of laziness.

That, and the fact that everyone forgot that I was a Mage at random points. It's quite ridiculous to have a character harp on about how no mages can be trusted when you're standing there in a dressing gown with a magic pole stuck to your back; doubly so when they then make you the second most powerful person in the city, next to themselves.

And the ending is shit compared to Origins' glorious epilogue.

And the beginning is shit compared to the origin setup in Origins. ("THIS IS UR SISTER AND UR MOTHER AND UR BROTHER AND NOW UR SISTER/BROTHER IS DED AND NOW THIS IS A GINGER LADY WITH A **** FOR A HUSBAND AND NOW HE IS DED AND NOW U MUST BE CRYNG 5 MINS INTO THE GAME LOOK AT DA MOTIONAL PWER.")

And the way they travel through the plot is weird and disconnected.

And the passage of time is non-existent and terribly executed when they try to imply it.

And the enivornments are thread-bare.

And enemies come in waves which, whilst not a massive bother to me, is a massive bother for people wanting to play on harder difficulties and actually be tactical about it.

And the UI looks like a placeholder designed by a 10-year-old.

And the dialog system forbids you from simply telling the mages you want to help them. They kidnap your sibling, and you can't go up to them and say "woah, guys, we don't have to fight, lets just talk about this". No, you must fight and fucking kill them all, and then they're all scared of you and don't think you want to help because you killed lots of mages because the game wouldn't let you just say "lets talk this out".

Shit like that makes me want to fucking flip tables.

 

[Kahunaburger]

And the dialog system forbids you from simply telling the mages you want to help them. They kidnap your sibling, and you can't go up to them and say "woah, guys, we don't have to fight, lets just talk about this". No, you must fight and fucking kill them all, and then they're all scared of you and don't think you want to help because you killed lots of mages because the game wouldn't let you just say "lets talk this out".

Shit like that makes me want to fucking flip tables.

The funniest thing about it is that one of their devs literally wanted a "skip combat" button, and it never occurred to them that it might be possible to design an RPG such that the main character could talk his/her way out of fights.

 

[Woodsey]

I've almost finished the second, and having the qunari as antagonists, as well as a conflict between mages and templars, is very interesting I find because it's not a boring good vs evil but rather there is subtlety to it.

This was the part where I was sure the whole post was in massive sarcasm quotes.

What are you talking about? It's very subtle when every other mage you come across slits his own throat to use blood magic as soon as someone accuses them of being a Blood Mage when they're most definitely not. They don't labour that point at all.

OT: If DA2 were the first in the series it'd be more forgivable. As it is, it's an average game that had some nice ideas behind it, with a far superior predecessor.

My biggest gripe really is the complete lack of choice and consequence (or even an attempt at creating the illusion of it). It ignores choices you made in Origins, it doesn't factor in choices you made during the game itself and - whilst this could have been used at certain points to put forward the idea that you just can't change everything (which they had already done far more effectively in Origins with Morrigan) - the whole thing reeks of laziness.

That, and the fact that everyone forgot that I was a Mage at random points. It's quite ridiculous to have a character harp on about how no mages can be trusted when you're standing there in a dressing gown with a magic pole stuck to your back; doubly so when they then make you the second most powerful person in the city, next to themselves.

And the ending is shit compared to Origins' glorious epilogue.

And the beginning is shit compared to the origin setup in Origins. ("THIS IS UR SISTER AND UR MOTHER AND UR BROTHER AND NOW UR SISTER/BROTHER IS DED AND NOW THIS IS A GINGER LADY WITH A **** FOR A HUSBAND AND NOW HE IS DED AND NOW U MUST BE CRYNG 5 MINS INTO THE GAME LOOK AT DA MOTIONAL PWER.")

And the way they travel through the plot is weird and disconnected.

And the passage of time is non-existent and terribly executed when they try to imply it.

And the enivornments are thread-bare.

And enemies come in waves which, whilst not a massive bother to me, is a massive bother for people wanting to play on harder difficulties and actually be tactical about it.

And the UI looks like a placeholder designed by a 10-year-old.

And the dialog system forbids you from simply telling the mages you want to help them. They kidnap your sibling, and you can't go up to them and say "woah, guys, we don't have to fight, lets just talk about this". No, you must fight and fucking kill them all, and then they're all scared of you and don't think you want to help because you killed lots of mages because the game wouldn't let you just say "lets talk this out".

Shit like that makes me want to fucking flip tables.

I do remember one instance outside of a cave (sorry, the cave) where I told a group of runaway mages I was going to help them since they'd been wrongly accused. Naturally, blood exploded from all of their orifices anyway, as they maintained their innocence.

 

[taiwwa]

And the dialog system forbids you from simply telling the mages you want to help them. They kidnap your sibling, and you can't go up to them and say "woah, guys, we don't have to fight, lets just talk about this". No, you must fight and fucking kill them all, and then they're all scared of you and don't think you want to help because you killed lots of mages because the game wouldn't let you just say "lets talk this out".

Shit like that makes me want to fucking flip tables.

The funniest thing about it is that one of their devs literally wanted a "skip combat" button, and it never occurred to them that it might be possible to design an RPG such that the main character could talk his/her way out of fights.

Yeah, I'm playing this thing through on easy. I started on hard but then wiped about five times on a boss, and figured that it's just not worth it. Dropped to normal. Then wiped on another boss. dropped to easy and have stayed there ever since.

I mean, combat just feels like filler a lot of times. Especially when you run into some random mob of street gangs. While dialogue actually provides you with meaningful choice imo.

OT: first play through with a mage. Second play through which is better: two handed warrior or dual wielding rogue?

 

[Feylynn]

Could someone who thinks DA2 is better please explain to me how ignoring the choices from the first game, having shitty combat, reusing the same dungeons over and over again, locking you in the one place that doesn't change at all over a decade or so and giving you virtually no choice at all beyond the selections of the dialogue wheel makes a game superior?

The combat wasn't shitty. If you played it in nightmare and without the brokenly overpowered Avaline for a tank then Dragon Age 2 was better balanced, more difficult, and extremely fun.

DA2 had it's moments throughout and hate for it is well over exaggerated, but I'm kind of tired of explaining all of it and will settle for
"Yes Origins was mostly better in everything except its terrible combat"

 

[Stoneface]

Dragon Age 2 was no where near as good as origins. Not the worse game ever, but a massively rushed out cash cow. I mean what was with the super fast sonic the hedgehog style combat? Origins actually took skill and a degree of strategy to be good at, whilst 2 was just farrrr too easy.

As far as i'm concerned it was 3 DLC packs taped together, seeing as the stories had practically no relevance to each other. The use of only one city is criminal.

Someone on here has said if you count all the location's in 2 its about even, no, not even close, Denerrim was about as big as kirkwall, and that was just 1 of around 4 large locations.

 

[Instant K4rma]

DA2 was probably the least immersive BioWare experience I've ever played. The combat looked rigid and unrealistic, with waves of enemies simply dropping from the sky. Instead of impressive finishers like DA:O, DA2 implements a system where, at the conclusion of a sword fight, your enemy completely bursts into gore. I don't regret buying DA2, but I feel they took severe steps in the wrong direction.

 

[anthony87]

Could someone who thinks DA2 is better please explain to me how ignoring the choices from the first game, having shitty combat, reusing the same dungeons over and over again, locking you in the one place that doesn't change at all over a decade or so and giving you virtually no choice at all beyond the selections of the dialogue wheel makes a game superior?

The combat wasn't shitty. If you played it in nightmare and without the brokenly overpowered Avaline for a tank then Dragon Age 2 was better balanced, more difficult, and extremely fun.

DA2 had it's moments throughout and hate for it is well over exaggerated, but I'm kind of tired of explaining all of it and will settle for
"Yes Origins was mostly better in everything except its terrible combat"

All the combat in DA2 had going for it was that it looked better. It was all style and no substance, a button masher that was less fun than Dynasty Warriors.

 

[Bostur]

I generally play games for gameplay, and DA2 had very little in that respect.

I also play games for gameplay, and I loved DA2's action-based style way more than DA1's mundane MMO mechanics.

You can say you liked DA:O better. But don't say it had "little gameplay".

Well I said it because I didn't notice much gameplay. I felt I had very few tools to do things in combat. At one point I actually tried to look on the net to get a hint of how the game was supposed to be played, because after several hours I didn't get the gameplay.
I got the best result by simply selecting all characters and focus firing on individual opponents. But that didn't take much skill and quickly got dull.

Action gameplay usually requires a smaller set of features because there is a limit to what we can control when a game is fast paced. But DA2 has the same amount of characters and the same amount of control as DA:O. That makes it practically impossible to manually dodge attacks with all characters for instance. Most action RPGs let the player directly control one character but thats not how DA2 works.

Keep in mind I played it on PC with a point and click interface. A control scheme most suited for slow games with thinking involved. It may be a very different experience on a console with a gamepad.

I think they tried to combine two types of gameplay that can't be mixed and are incomatible. A slow deliberate thinking game, and a fast paced action game works in so different ways that they will only get in the way of each other. That was probably the main mistake of DA2s gameplay, as it was implemented on the PC version.

 

[Stoneface]

I'm really worried about the state of the Dragon Age franchise anyway, after a great first game, the second generally got raped by players, the online web series was terrible too.

This series needs to re-establish itself as one which values quality and traditional RPG-ishness. Its kinda sad that its lost that reputation so quickly.

 

[Nivek999]

I am pretty sure this entire thread is a joke. If you think DA2 was a good game you either didn't play the first DA or didn't like the first DA. If you are in the second category I doubt you spent the amount of time it would take to beat DA:O on anything other then casual or easy.

DA2 was absolute and total shit. Poorly written, poorly designed. I bet more time was spent on that Dragon Age Facebook game.

 

[Nivek999]

I am pretty sure this entire thread is a joke. If you think DA2 was a good game you either didn't play the first DA or didn't like the first DA. If you are in the second category I doubt you spent the amount of time it would take to beat DA:O on anything other then casual or easy.

DA2 was absolute and total shit. Poorly written, poorly designed. I bet more time was spent on that Dragon Age Facebook game.

 

[Xaio30]

Better plot and story

Say it with me now. "Bad story telling".
That's the biggest reason why I hate DA2.

You want examples?

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

[li]The game retcons Leliana back to life without explanation.[/li]
[li]Your sibling dies out of nowhere with even less screentime than Sir Wesley.[/li]
[li]Lyrium is supposed to kill Mages outright if touched, and cause serious injuries to anyone else. In DA2 however, the Idol only twisted a few minds.[/li]
[li]There was no power associated with being the Champion of Kirkwall. No armies or supporting townspeople. The only thing you got was the privilege to talk to the Viscount. AND HE DIED.[/li]
[li]The ending is an illusion of choice, since nothing you do changes the fact that Anders blows up the only sensible authority around (Grand Cleric Elthina), Orsino is a weak-minded fool who gives in to what he was fighting to prove wrong and Meredith is a crazy zealot.[/li]

The game would've been infinitely better in my eyes if I had the option to violently stabb Meredith at any occasion we met.

 

[Xaio30]

I have NEVER understood the immense hatred for DA2. Never.

With the risk of double posting, I'll tell you some of my reasons.

[li]The game brings Leliana back to life, if you killed her, without explanation.[/li]
[li]Your sibling dies out of nowhere with even less screentime than Sir Wesley.[/li]
[li]Lyrium is supposed to kill Mages outright if touched, and cause serious injuries to anyone else. In DA2 however, the Idol only twisted a few minds.[/li]
[li]There was no power associated with being the Champion of Kirkwall. No armies or supporting townspeople. The only thing you got was the privilege to talk to the Viscount. AND HE DIED.[/li]
[li]The ending is an illusion of choice, since nothing you do changes the fact that Anders blows up the only sensible authority around (Grand Cleric Elthina), Orsino is a weak-minded fool who gives in to what he was fighting to prove wrong and Meredith is a crazy zealot.[/li]
[li]I did not feel like Kirkwall had any personality at all, and the areas outside the city were reused too many times.[/li]

 

[RyoScar]

Dragon Age 2 wasted potential, had a boring story, boring characters, and took the game out of the Baldur's Gate style and into the Mass Effect style when it didn't need to. It pretty much pulled a Highlander 2 and ruined the series.

 

[Sam Warrior]

I think the thing that annoyed me most about DA2 was the story not really doing anything till the third act then as has been mentioned before your choices mean nothing and everyone dies. The story of DA:O was an epic adventure where the choices you made really effected the progression and results of the game, even if it was simply getting mages or templars to help fight at the end. The story was much better organised I felt. As far as characters go I liked both sets equally well although I think Isabella resulted in some of the the best lines in a video game, (well how does anyone know Isabella? and: wait your leaving but what about sex?) The level design of DA2 was very lazy I get that your in the same place and time is passing but really you wander round the same city and the same 4 outside city environments 5 or 6 times an act. I enjoyed the combat in both games, I felt DA:O was more tactical and probably more intense DA2's combat however looked and flowed much better. DA2 wasn't a total fail it was just lazy, DA:O was a much more polished game in my opinion.