Reading some of the reviews for DA:I, you kind of get the impression that DA2 was some kind of monumental misstep which did everything wrong, and DA:I is the savior of the gaming world which corrects everything wrong about DA2 and resurrects the dead corpse of Dragon Age.
But really, what does DA:I do different aside from making it much more Skyrim-like?
-Massive open-world with hundreds of side-quests. This is basically a matter of increasing DA2's enclosed areas to huge scales. The influence of Skyrim is obvious here in what they were trying to do.
-Huge number of choices which impact upon characters and the world. DA2 already did this, and DA:O before to a lesser extent. It's typical Bioware.
-Big reliance on dialogue, with options changing character outcomes, romances and deaths. The DA series has always done this, and it was almost the main focus in DA2.
-Character creation: Very different from DA2 where you were limited in who you could be, but almost identical to Skyrim aside from race and class, which use DA lore.
-Relatively short main quest with 100s of hours of side-quests. Skyrim, anyone?
-DA:I has horses you can ride. So does Skyrim.
-DA:I has dragons to kill. Okay, you did that before in Dragon Age but it's 100% Skyrim the way the game approaches it.
-Crafting. I can't think of any way it differs from DA2's system.
-Combat. I would say combat is about 90% DA2. It has the same skill tree system and a useless tactical-pause, while tactics remain skill-spamming and potion chugging.
-The loot system. 100% DA2 the way it churns out useless random items to pawn off. I can't think of very many times I got something that I actually found useful, even after killing a huge important boss.
Anything else? There's the war-table, which to me is really just a novelty quest-chooser, and the oculariums. There's also the fact that it re-used environments much less, which seems to be important to a lot of people. These are minor points.
In summary, I really can't find many things that don't fit into "DA2" or "Skyrim". Does anyone find it strange that a game that does so many things similar to its predecessor gets hailed so much, while the predecessor gets slated? It's kind of hypocritical, in my view. If you like DA:I, you should like DA2 or at the very least, refrain from criticizing it.
Personally, I didn't like DA2. I *kinda* liked DA:I, but only because it injected Skyrim's openness into it. I'm not a massive Skyrim fan, but it's fun, although it wears off on my and I get bored of it. DA:I bored me around 20 hours in and I just wanted to get it over with, just like Skyrim.
But really, what does DA:I do different aside from making it much more Skyrim-like?
-Massive open-world with hundreds of side-quests. This is basically a matter of increasing DA2's enclosed areas to huge scales. The influence of Skyrim is obvious here in what they were trying to do.
-Huge number of choices which impact upon characters and the world. DA2 already did this, and DA:O before to a lesser extent. It's typical Bioware.
-Big reliance on dialogue, with options changing character outcomes, romances and deaths. The DA series has always done this, and it was almost the main focus in DA2.
-Character creation: Very different from DA2 where you were limited in who you could be, but almost identical to Skyrim aside from race and class, which use DA lore.
-Relatively short main quest with 100s of hours of side-quests. Skyrim, anyone?
-DA:I has horses you can ride. So does Skyrim.
-DA:I has dragons to kill. Okay, you did that before in Dragon Age but it's 100% Skyrim the way the game approaches it.
-Crafting. I can't think of any way it differs from DA2's system.
-Combat. I would say combat is about 90% DA2. It has the same skill tree system and a useless tactical-pause, while tactics remain skill-spamming and potion chugging.
-The loot system. 100% DA2 the way it churns out useless random items to pawn off. I can't think of very many times I got something that I actually found useful, even after killing a huge important boss.
Anything else? There's the war-table, which to me is really just a novelty quest-chooser, and the oculariums. There's also the fact that it re-used environments much less, which seems to be important to a lot of people. These are minor points.
In summary, I really can't find many things that don't fit into "DA2" or "Skyrim". Does anyone find it strange that a game that does so many things similar to its predecessor gets hailed so much, while the predecessor gets slated? It's kind of hypocritical, in my view. If you like DA:I, you should like DA2 or at the very least, refrain from criticizing it.
Personally, I didn't like DA2. I *kinda* liked DA:I, but only because it injected Skyrim's openness into it. I'm not a massive Skyrim fan, but it's fun, although it wears off on my and I get bored of it. DA:I bored me around 20 hours in and I just wanted to get it over with, just like Skyrim.