Poll: Is Dragon Age 2 a bad game?

[inFAMOUSCowZ]

I liked it, a few scenes blew me away, but the 3 places you can go really sucked.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

The issue is the number 2.

If they'd called it Dragon Age: Kirkwall, or Dragon Age: Champion or something, it would have been received much better. It's not a sequel, it's a spin-off.

The fact that it's a character based story, rather than an event based one probably put a few people off as well. It's an unusual idea for a game. I really enjoyed it though.

My main complaint is the re-use of dungeons thing. That would have grated less if they'd come up with some vague reason to explain me going into the same cave/sewer network/house full of thugs each time rather than just copy-pasting the maps into different locales.

Oh, and Varric is quickly becoming one of my favouritest characters ever.

 

[Littaly]

It's a flawed game, but not a bad one. It stands for a lot of bad things, but the game itself is enjoyable.

 

[kayisking]

Bad in what way and to whom?

To me? It is a failure in that I didn't enjoy it -- the exact opposite of a video game's intent.

I've heard so many mixed opinions, so let's just settle things once and for all.

Not at all, it's a good game. It just is in the unfortunate position of being a sequel to Dragon Age: Orgins, a better game. We gamers expect our sequels to be an improvement, this one wasn't, but it is still very worth playing.

Ps. Please excuse my bad English, I am not a native speaker.

Again with the English. Stop making me feel so bad for sucking at every language I try.

The only reason I keep mentioning it is so I get lots of nice compliments.

 

[Nimcha]

The issue is the number 2.

If they'd called it Dragon Age: Kirkwall, or Dragon Age: Champion or something, it would have been received much better. It's not a sequel, it's a spin-off.

That's pretty much the worst reason I've ever heard to dislike a game. And there are a lot of stupid reasons for disliking this game.

The only thing that's truly bad about this game is the rehashed environments. You really can't do that anymore these days, quite a faillure.

 

[ShakyFiend]

Love it to death, it has such awesome characters and complaining that RPG elements are left out of it is like complaining hack n slash combat was left out of the first one.

Also you dont get fucked in the ass by every fresh encounter which is nice, its most certainly not perfect (EG the giant dragon boss fight basically boils down too 'aggro onto one guy and then run that guy around until dragon be dead) but its held my attention for so damn long i'll defend it against anything.

 

[spartan231490]

I've heard so many mixed opinions, so let's just settle things once and for all.

It's a great game, it's not much of an RPG. It's fun to play, with interesting characters and plot, but they dumbed-down a lot of what made it an RPG. It's really more of a tactical action game now.

 

[Zing]

It's the definition of a bad game. Mediocre at BEST.

 

[SageRuffin]

Dragon Age 2 has its problems and it's definitely a low point in BioWare's reputation (if the "purists" are anything to go off of), but it's not a bad game. It's not great, but it's one of those game where you need to avoid comparing the game to Origins as much as possible (a con for most, I know, but that's how it is).

I'd go into details about my own experiences, but no one cares about all that. So let's move on, shall we?

 

[Hawgh]

I liked it. It was certainly more engaging than the first one.

 

[SpireOfFire]

its more polished than the 1st one, but not nearly as addicting.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

I paid $60 for it, and got 60 hours of play in two play-throughs. To me, that is a good deal, and I like the game. Not as good as the first, but then again, it never is.

 

[Linkassassin360]

Its one of the few games I played with meaningful character development. That being said, the environment in which the characters do develop needed a fine layer of polish. I played through the game and thoroughly enjoyed it, but it was far from a perfect game.
A pre-owned purchase at most, a rent at best (Although any purchase of a Bioware game goes toward mass effect 3, then again, I would just buy mass effect 2 with that line of thinking.)

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

I loved it, sure the lack of instances is just lazy but it didnt stop me from enjoying the game.

 

[Dectomax]

http://tinyurl.com/3lvmyrh

OT: Don't plan on getting it

 

[Undead Dragon King]

I thought it was all right.

Then I discovered Dragon Age Nexus modding.

Now it's truly excellent.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I thought it was a good game, then I went back and played origins again. DA2 is like 5/10 for me DA:O is a 9. The dialogue, characters and story are great but the environments and battles just feel rushed. There is alot of copypasta going on and the depth of character and group customisation is questionable. It pretty much forces you to use Aveline and Anders for example. Even Ostagar one of the first areas in DA:O is gorgeous compare it to the stylised browness of Kirkwall and there is just no comparison. The copypasta mines compared with the temple for the urn of sacred ashes...

I'm not a rampant DA:O fangirl I think I played through it once when I got it. I'm playing it through again atm becuase I'm bored. Compared to DA2 its so much more polished. Pretty shockingly so.

 

[8bitlove2a03]

Is it a good game? Yes. Is it a perfect game? Hell no. Is it better than Dragon Age: Origins? Sometimes.

I cannot lie, the combat is much more interesting than the combat in DA:O. I (though I seem to be in the minority) enjoy the fully-voiced protagonist. The characters are all awesome, as opposed to just having three interesting characters for DA:O. The downside is that it's buggy, short, and the text is so small that it's impossible for me to read it on my TV (thus eliminating my ability to read all of the codex entries, which I rather enjoyed in DA:O).

That's my two bits.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I didn't think the writing was bad at all, not super stellar either but quite solid nonetheless. I prefered it over DA:O's clichéd "sole savior of the world" story actually.

But you're right about how the combat is a lot more streamlined, though I have to disagree about the console-part (people should so stop that). I played DA:O on the PC, and the difference in feeling wasn't so much in the controls (which haven't changed all that much) but pure in the speed and flow of it. But the way you give orders, decide on which tactics to use, place AoE's and glyphs all basically worked the same as in DA:O. It just flowed a lot better, felt less sluggish. That and they made the combat even more dynamic. All classes had a lot more options to choose from, and they only expanded on DA:O's skill-combo's.

You're right about the kill animations though. Shame they didn't put those in, but I have no idea how it's a 'major indication in the tone and direction they took'. The main difference it could show is gore, be it not that even without the special melee kill animations I still had bodyparts flying over the place. Thanks Merril!

First, the dialog wheel, while it has its pluses, did more harm than good to the game, IMO. It put what felt like more of a limit (even if it functionally did not) on what kind of responses and choices you could make, plus I didn't like the fact that you got shoehorned into "Snarky cynicist", "Paragon of Virture" or "Bloodthirsty Psychotic". In DAO I could at least pretend my character had said something with a different inflection or tone to more match what I was trying to say.

Second, as for the combat, you are correct in that the raw mechanics flowed much better. It was much smoother and nicer to play.

The problem with the combat is almost entirely the way they designed encounters instead of the mechanics therein. The biggest problem with the mechanics was the fact that every single fight involved wave after wave after wave of mooks spawning, running up and getting one shot. The fact that they spawned all over the place, with no real rhyme or reason to it, robbed the combat of just about any semblance of strategy aside from "Get everyone in a big clump and kill everything that comes nearby". It was pathetically easy as well.

And finally, the writing. The writing in DA2 was complete garbage. There really was no overarching plot with any meaning, it clearly suffered from the lack of a defined protagonist, and there was no conclusion to anything. The fact of the matter is, the whole game was a perfect example of the developer being either insanely rushed or lazy (I'm betting on the former). There was very little in the story that actually made sense and there was literally nothing tying the different acts together. The whole thing was just a mess.

Pretty much my feelings. God, how I despise the dialog wheel.

 

[VaudevillianVeteran]

It isn't a bad game. Some consider it bad compared to it's predecessor and did not like the changes. I myself, liked it, I liked it's charm, the banter, the characters (Although I can perfectly understand why people don't like a lot of them), had a true black and grey morality at the end and a much improved combat system.
But while I say this, as I said, I can definitely see why many fans disliked Dragon Age 2, I was one that didn't though.