Ok enough arguing over DA2's gameplay, how is the story?

[Hristo Tzonkov]

TBH play less for the story more for the collective experience.The gameplay was good,the story was decent for the sifi channel,the characters were amazing - I only disliked Anders because he went from cool,suave and slightly gay into really emo.The abundance of real actors doing the voices was really noticable sometimes a bit too much.Like male Hawke having different voices for all 3 dialogue paths.It just broke the flow of the discussions since he asked questions calmly and then next second he's ready to pull out something sharp and nasty.I thoroughly enjoyed it still.

As for the gameplay discussions...I think people are biased by the subpar story in Bioware standarts.The DA:O gameplay was a bit like bumrush pause drop 3 abilities and hope for the best.A lot of spells were unusable for me leading me to playing the same way over and over again.In DA2 the flow of battle is largely impacted by how well you manage each of the characters and the synergies between them.

 

[faspxina]

Story:
The first game's story was about an this journey to save the world, while the second one is basically about some guy who becomes awesome.
I think the first focused on showing us this world imagined by the creators of the series, while the second game seems to focus more on character development(mainly yours).

If we would compare them to movies then "Dragon Age: Origins" would be "Lord Of The Rings Trilogy" (big and epic), while "Dragon Age II" would be "Stardust"(funny and cool), both great films, but competing in different races.

Gameplay:
It's an improvement from the first (specially for consoles), it's faster and more fluid while keeping it's essence.

 

[Nomanslander]

the story was decent for the sifi channel

SiFi or SyFy? Because there is different. Oh, and that scares me....=0

 

[Smooth Operator]

Compared to what DA:O brought to the table DA2 story is honestly piss poor.

 

[Hristo Tzonkov]

the story was decent for the sifi channel

SiFi or SyFy? Because there is different. Oh, and that scares me....=0

Ehm not sure.Used it more like a point that it's decent if you don't look too much into it.It just fails expectations you might have of bioware.

 

[Mekado]

The story wasn't just very mediocre, you don't even really seem to have much choice in what's going on at all.

The serial killer bit is a good example of this; I mean, was this event just completely out of my hands? Was there no way for me to stop this from happening? Apparently so, because the game doesn't give any choice in the matter. All I needed to do was clean up after the damage was done, just as with the majority of the other "quests".

They did intend to give you a way to save Leandra, but given time constrictions they didn't put it in the game.

Funny how most of DA2's flaws (story missing parts,recycled environments, no relevant choices) can be blamed on "time constriction".You don't create a masterpiece in a hurry, if you're good/lucky, you'll make something decent at most...

Yes, I seem to hear that a lot. At first I thought people were ragging on it because it was much less ambitious than Origins. And I thought, well, that makes a different, shorter game, but not a bad one.

However, most people are at least half-right. The game was much less ambitious and it couldn't even pull THAT off.

Oh, don't get me wrong, i liked the game, it just could have been made so much better with a little more time for polishing.

The part that irks me the most are the irrelevant choices, whatever you decide you will fight the Arishok, you will have to fight armies of templars and mages, whatever side you choose and at the end you will fight both Orsino and Meredith, whatever side you choose.

What was the point of choosing then ? just seeing/hearing different dialogue... whoop-de-doo...

 

[Nomanslander]

the story was decent for the sifi channel

SiFi or SyFy? Because there is different. Oh, and that scares me....=0

Ehm not sure.Used it more like a point that it's decent if you don't look too much into it.It just fails expectations you might have of bioware.

SyFy channel used to be called staight up SciFi channel, but around the time they changed the name the quality of their movies went to shit.

Titles like Mansquito, a Z class version of "the fly."

lol

 

[mornal]

It seemed the writers were going for the character-driven story and only partially succeeded.

The stories in each act are fine when viewed individually, but taking a step back to look at the game as a whole reveals the disjointedness of the story as a whole.

As others have said, the first act doesn't really have a major plot but focuses more on Hawke building his name up which felt the most in-tune with the developer's goal of a character-driven story. The second and third acts were good but turned more to dealing with a conflict; this was done well, but it lacked the character-centric feel of the first act.

In general, most quests, especially the main quests, were written well. The only problem I had was with a main quest in Act 3.

Spoilers for act 3:

Spoiler

The second main quest (I think) about cracking the mage/templar conspiracy against the Knight-Commander was really poorly written. I had been playing a pro-mage character and wanted to join the conspiracy but wasn't allowed. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but it almost seemed as thought the entire conspiracy was a way for Grace to get revenge on me for...something. The whole hostage thing was silly too. As my sister was dead, Varric was apparently captured but I didn't even know they had him until I was near the end of the quest. It was sort of as if the game just said to me: "We know you want Meredith overthrown, but kill these people who want her overthrown too. Oh, by the way, they kidnapped Varric"

Edit: All that said, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. Now I want Bioware to combine the gameplay of DA2 with the story of DA:O. Game of the Century there.

 

[Trolldor]

As many complaints as I've heard over the gameplay and the whole dumbing down of the RPG aspect, knowing Bioware, I'm still wondering how the story turned out.

Plus, compared to the first game, how does the story stand out?

Mechanically it's fine.

The story plays out like a puddle of fermenting shit.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Kinda shit.

There's no real main antagonist until about 30 hours in...It's all side-plots. But those are decently done.

Bioware MAIN PLOTS are always kinda shit. Reapers, archdemon, etc.

 

[Mekado]

It seemed the writers were going for the character-driven story and only partially succeeded.

The stories in each act are fine when viewed individually, but taking a step back to look at the game as a whole reveals the disjointedness of the story as a whole.

As others have said, the first act doesn't really have a major plot but focuses more on Hawke building his name up which felt the most in-tune with the developer's goal of a character-driven story. The second and third acts were good but turned more to dealing with a conflict; this was done well, but it lacked the character-centric feel of the first act.

In general, most quests, especially the main quests, were written well. The only problem I had was with a main quest in Act 3.

Spoilers for act 3:

Spoiler

The second main quest (I think) about cracking the mage/templar conspiracy against the Knight-Commander was really poorly written. I had been playing a pro-mage character and wanted to join the conspiracy but wasn't allowed. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but it almost seemed as thought the entire conspiracy was a way for Grace to get revenge on me for...something. The whole hostage thing was silly too. As my sister was dead, Varric was apparently captured but I didn't even know they had him until I was near the end of the quest. It was sort of as if the game just said to me: "We know you want Meredith overthrown, but kill these people who want her overthrown too. Oh, by the way, they kidnapped Varric"

Edit: All that said, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. Now I want Bioware to combine the gameplay of DA2 with the story of DA:O. Game of the Century there.

To answer your Grace question ;

Spoiler

it's indeed engineered by Grace to get revenge because you killed her lover, Decimus in act2.He was a blood mage, the quest where thrask makes you go to the wounded coast to "get some apostates" out of the cave.Even if you killed/tricked thrask and let the mages go (including grace) she gets caught and hates you for not giving her a headstart,fine example of "whatever you decide in DA2 dosen't matter", she still wants to kill you if you killed a templar for her and let her run.

 

[RatRace123]

I like it, the more personal story appealed to me.
For the umpteenth time, the change of pace from usual Bioware fare is nice. I hope they continue to break it up.
Also, the story definitely lives up to the promise of "dark fantasy" it is incredibly dark and downright depressing at times. I wish the overarching conflict was examined a bit more, and the story pace is awkward at times, but it's still a good story.

Once again, I like it.

 

[plugav]

People have said this already, but DA2 is not as epic as DA:O was. You're an adventurer; the stakes get higher as you progress, but you're never expected to save the world - a vast improvement, if you ask me.

It does take some time before a major story arc surfaces, though. It's a rags to riches tale, in a way.

There's some very emotional moments and at least one difficult decision - you'll probably like this if you get attached to characters.

The companions are generally well written (with Varric being my favourite), as always with BioWare games, but you'll get to talk to them less often than in DA:O or Mass Effect 2.

My one big complaint about the story is that it ends with a bit of a cliffhanger, an indication of a bigger plot that we won't get to see unless DA3 comes out. That's probably the most frustrating moment in gaming since Soul Reaver 2.

Also, people who complain about railroading are mostly right. There are moments when you can't really decide what you'll do, only how you'll react to what's happening. That can get frustrating at times, although it's mostly not that visible.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

The story has no major plot twists or stunning reveals, and if you pay close attention to the opening "press start" screen, you can tell from that what the final conflict will be. Still, I think it's told fairly well.

What's interesting is if you read The Enigma of Kirkwall codex entries and you find all of them. Based on what happens at the end of Dragon Age 2 and those codex entries, I'm betting we can guess what's going to happen in Dragon Age 3. It should be a very epic battle, and I'm expecting the Maker himself to show up at some point in the third game.

 

[the_green_dragon]

It's not that great at all. Predicatable

I found it far more enjoyable than the first game. And far less predictable and generic, than the whole go there, do that, save the world that the first one had. The characters where more involved as well especially Hawke.

I suppose everyone has their own opinions, I'm not saying there aren't any improvements but the whole thing felt like it was badly thought out and a little bit rushed.

The first game was predictable too, I mean from the offset they said "Go kill this guy" and we all know what would happen in the end (but they did throw in a few little twists there), but all the stuff in between was very cool, imo. Now DA2, the 2 major events which happened even tho it was not as obviously advertised as the mission goal in DA1, I could see them both coming a mile away.

And as mentioned previously, I'm not a big fan of Hawke, he seems more like the accidental hero instead of the bad-ass warden was. He almost feels like Maxwell Smart. Hahah lolz

 

[dyre]

I'd say the main story was actually better than the one in DA:O (imo, the DA:O main storyline was pretty dull, down to the last minute plot twist with Morrigan), but unfortunately there weren't any side stories, and Bioware games generally rely heavily on engaging side stories/quests to make their universe more interesting.

Like someone else said earlier, a lot of the "choices" towards the end weren't really choices at all, and lead to similar outcomes. But I think overall the story was more well-developed, with a definite sense of rising tension and a nice climax on top