Was Dragon Age II really that bad?

[Bara_no_Hime]

Lol?
Try equiping any armor to your NPC:s.

That's what you're going with? Really?

All the armor in that game was crap. I don't even know why they bothered - the prefab, auto level armor was better in every way, for all characters. That didn't take away from customization or gameplay - it removed a very silly annoyance.

They might as well have given one to Hawke too - you were pretty much stuck with the armor sets because everything else in the game was absolute junk.

I suppose "better armor" would have been a valid complaint....

And sure, you CAN micromanage the party in DA2, you just don't NEED to. I ran ahead with a melee and slaughtered everything, until the bullshit respawning enemies appeared right behind my casters.

Wow, talk about damned if you do, damned if you don't.

You: "Yes, I didn't need to... until I did."

I can see the first time being a shock, but there were secondary waves of enemies in every single encounter in the game. Not most of them - all of them. You KNEW they were coming - plan for it.

If you CHOSE to wade in without thinking, don't blame the game - blame yourself. You could increase the difficulty if it wasn't 'hard' enough for you, or you could stop complaining about 'bullshit' enemies when the game actually gives you the challenge you claim to want.

If you didn't plan for the second wave of enemies after the third battle of the game, then that's entirely your fault. It required managing both your resources and your party member's resources, because if they blew all their abilities on the first wave, you were screwed.

Want some original complaints? Okey. This one is applied for Dragon Age: Origins as well; I wish they would reduce the chest-size of the females in the game. They are utterly ridiculous and I fail to see the point with them (especially Isabella's huuuuge knockers). Actually, it's as close as I can come to feeling slightly offended over a videogame, and I'm a man.
Really, I want to play an immersive RPG, not jack off to cartoon-porn (and yes, I know it's not porn, but I fail to see any other reason with giving every female chest-size: gargantuan if not to arouse men).
But, this one can be applied for DA:O as well, so I guess it's null and void.

Yes, that was also the case in DA:O and it stems from only having one female model. Every female character was sharing the same body in DA:O. There were about, what, three to go around in DA2? That's an improvement - there were a couple of less-well endowed people thanks to Merrill's model being (again comparatively) skinny.

However, I don't really think you can level that complaint at Dragon Age when it applies to every single game in the world.

Well, okay. Not every single game. Just the ones with women in them.

 

[Saviordd1]

Was it as good as DAO? No, but I still got a good 140 hours of enjoyment out of it, thats more then enough for the 50 dollar price tag. I liked the game overall, I wish people would actually think before condemning it to cyber hell

 

[Alade]

The combat was awful, I still can't believe they removed auto attack. Also a large problem of the combat (at least for me), is that the game doesn't make every spec viable for the main character. I tried playing tank on nightmare mode but it's god damn impossible after a while. The random factor was unbelievable, groups with 2-3 assassin's could decimate your group before you know what's going on. I am not complaining about the game being too hard, I'm complaining that when it's giving you trouble, it's just the annoying kind, it isn't a challenge.

The recycling of the areas was so annoying, especially since there are so many side quests, and they all drag you to the same place, and make you fight the same enemies again, with very little story support, it was horrible. Also, too many random encounters, I felt like I was doing 6-7 encounters for one short piece of dialog, at least in DA:O you had to do 1-2 encounters before you could advance the story in a side mission, it had a much better pace.

I liked some of the characters (varic was awesome), disliked others, overall it's a bit better in that area than DA:O, I was very disappointed that Anders got a new voice in this game. The story was average, but still edging on the bad side. I was disappointed in DA:O that we only got to influence one country, here for the 90% of the story we only influence one city, only at the end does something world-shattering happen. So story-wise, the first 2 chapters are very average and not very epic, but the last chapter was done very well.


I could go on, but those are my complaints. I tried to like this game, but I simply couldn't.

 

[nin_ninja]

I liked it just fine, I also liked the first one. I guess I am the odd one out. I find I can enjoy a lot of games for a lot of different reasons. Perhaps Dragon Age fans are just anal.

Fans of any series can be anal when it comes to sequels.

OT: No. I loved the first game, and even though the second game felt rushed I still loved it. The things that bothered me were scripted events to talk to companions, reused dungeons, and losing descriptions for all the items.

 

[Gitty101]

*Breathes through teeth*

Dragon Age 2 wasn't by any means bad, in fact I rather enjoyed it, but it didn't feel like a proper sequel. More like an expansion... with less content. The combat and graphics were vastly improved in my opinion, but the main reason I played Origins, the variety and story, felt like they had taken a back-seat. Origins gave the player a lot of freedom to make the story truly their own, whereas the sequel felt rather linear in most respects.

I hate to do this, but I'm going to point to the Witcher 2 as 'how a sequel should be done'. The combat was vastly improved and relies heavily on player skill, the story doesn't feel linear, varied locations, awesome graphics. When BioWare were talking about Dragon Age 2 in the development diaries, I thought we'd end up with something like this...

Still, Dragon Age 2 isn't bad and did not deserve nearly as much of the hate it got when it was released.

 

[Happy Sock Puppet]

The gameplay was buggy as hell and easily exploitable.

The story was disjointed and segmented. I never really got emotionally attached to any of the 3 different storylines.

Repeated (MANY TIMES OVER) exact same environments. With fights popping up in the same places every time. I felt like I was running heroics in WoW again.

Not an experience worth the money.

 

[devotedsniper]

It was terrible for me, i got in expecting badass, a third way through i decided to do just the story because of how repetitive it was, i really didn't enjoy 2. It may have done ok from a different company under a different name but it was no where near normal Bioware standards and it was so different from Origins that in my opinion could no longer be called an RPG more of a hack and slash.

The thing is Origins prided itself on being an old fashioned RPG, this is one of the reasons why so many liked it because it didn't dumb things down like every modern game has been doing for years, i must have played through origins 4-5 times now i still enjoy it, compared to my 1 rushed playthrough of DA2 (i finished it in 16 hours the day it came out). This sort of thing may have worked for ME2 (which i like) but thats only because it was a hybrid RPG/shooter, dragon age was known for its traditional RPG style but thats down the drain now..

My only worry is whats 3 going to be like? I'm also worried for ME3 too, i have serious doubts about bioware after this lazy thing which doesn't even deserve the name Dragon Age 2. I guess i'll have to wait and see but i'm not going to get my hopes up, since even Bethesda seem to be taking this route with Skyrim with there "sreamlining" (although at the moment this only seems to affect armor).

 

[Brutal Peanut]

I liked Origins a lot, but I still enjoyed DA2 and had fun playing it, despite the flaws. I'll admit that it felt pretty rushed. But I eventually played through it at least three times. So no, I don't think it was actually terrible. People just expected something a lot different from the DA series, especially after Origins. Some aimed their hopes pretty high.So you have people who never liked the DA series complaining (though they never stopped), and fans of Origins complaining because it wasn't Origins. It wasn't Origins,...at all. o_o;;

 

[synobal]

It was bad, reused areas, poor gameplay mechanics, little to no customization, oh and the lack of a real story.

 

[StrappingYoungLad]

not as bad as some people make it out to be but still pretty bad.
no consequences to my actions, recycled environments, wave after wave of enemies.
No overhead camera which made aiming spells a *****. enemy rogues with more HP than a brick wall...

This about sums up my opinion.

 

[Xanadu84]

Its not terrible. It was disappointing.

DA:O kinda represented a torch carrying of the Baulders Gate style RPG. DA2 felt like it was killing of a great and underused genre in favor for a tweaked Mass Effect when we already have Mass Effect. Random other shortcomings just re-enforced the disappointment.

 

[DustyDrB]

It wasn't bad at all. There were faults, but there were improvements as well.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Not at all, it's the best game ever, I wish all RPG's were yearly stamp outs, actually they should make them half yearly stamp outs, that's how you really get the quality in there.

 

[KAPTAINmORGANnWo4life]

Watch this Let's Play. Chart the player's mood when each episode starts, and you'll find out why people say bad things about Dragon Age 2.

 

[Argonian alchemist]

Hawke: "Prepare to die corrupt guardsman!"

Aveline: "Hawke no!"

Hawke: "Oh for chist sake Aveline, shut up. He's corrupt, that means it's okay for me to kill him..."

*Aveline friendship -10*

Hawke: "Oh what the fu-"

*Merril friendship -20*

Hawke: "Huh what, what did I do!?"

*Fenris friendship -50*

Hawke: "Okay what the hell is going on, all of you stop!"

*Varric friendship -200*

Hawke: "..."

*Isabella frien-*

Hawke: "OH F**K THIS!!!"

*Throws controller and storms out room...*

 

[DSK-]

There were some parts I enjoyed, although they were few and far between. In all honesty, there as distinct lack of polish in terms of the story, where I literally had no idea what the hell was going. Most games have an underlying, driving goal that is meant to be achieved during the game - but the goal of Hawke is met half way through the game with nothing else taking it's place.

I was pretty bored through most of it, I found it quite unenjoyable.

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

I didn't even really like origins, or consider it especially good. I got right near the end, was about to fight the dragon, and resigned out of boredom. As for the sequel, yeah I kept away, and suddenly people realised some of the weaknesses in the series and came down hard on this particular episode in the series (but not the first, no that is almost worshipped).

 

[dibblywibbles]

I remember really enjoying my time in kirkwall when it was new. then as I progressed through the game something happened. everything started looking the same, the combat which was fun at first became kinda boring. maybe I had high expectations, but seriously, they dropped the ball with their lazy level design. is it wrong to expect great things from a sequel? graphics were better, the story went in a direction I wanted it to and leads up to a third game which will hopefully not be terrible so long as they learn from their mistake.

 

[Glenn ReDavid]

Was it everything I had hoped for? No Did it have major flaws? Yes But, so did DA:O that most people have forgotten about. I loved both games and I hope DA:3 builds upon both of these and fulfills the promise that this series has. I love Dragon Age!!

 

[oden636]

When i first played DA:O I enjoyed it but i didnt think it was amazing or revolutionary. DA:2 I did enjoy and it improved the series in some ways, such as changing the leveling.
Its just a shame the story was naff, the environments i can count on one hand and i hated most of the characters Except Varril and Meryl.
In brief Its not terrible but its not Biowares golden goose.
And yes i will still buy legacy.