Why so much hate for Dragon Age 2?

[Woodsey]

It's just nothing compared to Origins. Conceptually it's very interesting, but in terms of execution it's fairly laughable.

I could have dealt with the recycled environments and the City of the Dead feeling if they'd worked more on choices and consequences, which seemed practically non-existent. I'm sure some will argue that's the entire point of the game and I can completely understand that, but to get behind it I'd have to have not play Dragon Age: Origins, which illustrated just how infuriating a lack of influence can be by actually spending most of the time giving it to you. (The sitch with Morrigan is what I'm referencing, by the way.)

 

[boradam]

I personally love Dragon Age II.

 

[Frozengale]

Origins isn't that great of a game. But for some reason everyone loves it to death. Dragon Age 2 was a rushed sequel which switched things up and angered the nerds. CHANGE BAD! That's all you need to know for why people hate Dragon Age 2.


Honestly I found Dragon Age 2 to be more interesting then Dragon Age : Origins. Origins felt like I was picking up an encyclopedia, lots of interesting stuff explained in a boring contrived manner. Dragon Age 2 felt more like one of those crappy Fantasy books. Where a lot of the time it misses the mark, but sometimes it just does something so interesting that you sit there and go... well that was actually fun.

Both have flaws a plenty, but I tend to overlook DA2 flaws because the parts that work in DA2 are so fantastic and fun. Where as DA:O while interesting and a good experience tends to trudge through mediocrity.

The way I like to see it is that anyone that prefers Origins to DA2 hates things that are fun and interesting.

In all honesty, I like them both. But DA2 holds a special place in my heart for being the first game to create a character that I actually found interesting and endearing.

 

[mattttherman3]

Honestly, staying in Kirkwall for 90% of the game annoyed the shit outta me

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Because compared to its predecessor it is not very good.

Copy/paste Dungeons, wave combat rendering most tactics useless, silly redesigns, smaller world, less choice, retarded Mage plot...

I could go on.

The two things that made me finish the bloody thing were Varric and Averline, practically everything else was mediocre at best.

 

[Dendio]

so much was underdone from the romances to the graphics and art design. The reused environments were unforgivable. The game also ended rather suddenly and forced a segway to the next iteration without proper closure. Its pales in comparison to the excellent for its time dragons age origins....screams rushed all over

 

[Joccaren]

Because really there isn't anything that I'd call good about the game. It ran on my PC and didn't crash. That's about it.
Poor combat.
Poor and lazy level design.
Poor story writing.
Poor character writing.
Shit graphics.
Poor conversation options.
Poor gameplay systems.

The one good thing that I can give it is Varric, and even then he feels somewhat out of place in the game. Honestly I'm not sure what could be called good about this game to get it to even the "Mediocre game" level. Its a poor game with a slightly out of place but fun character, that fails in most every other aspect.

 

[mrhateful]

Eh, I've been done with hating it for a long time now.

It was a rushed cash-in, and an RPG in name only. It's done, I'm over it.

My feelings exactly why are there still threads about this awful game?

 

[Cecilo]

Origins isn't that great of a game. But for some reason everyone loves it to death. Dragon Age 2 was a rushed sequel which switched things up and angered the nerds. CHANGE BAD! That's all you need to know for why people hate Dragon Age 2.


Honestly I found Dragon Age 2 to be more interesting then Dragon Age : Origins. Origins felt like I was picking up an encyclopedia, lots of interesting stuff explained in a boring contrived manner. Dragon Age 2 felt more like one of those crappy Fantasy books. Where a lot of the time it misses the mark, but sometimes it just does something so interesting that you sit there and go... well that was actually fun.

Both have flaws a plenty, but I tend to overlook DA2 flaws because the parts that work in DA2 are so fantastic and fun. Where as DA:O while interesting and a good experience tends to trudge through mediocrity.

The way I like to see it is that anyone that prefers Origins to DA2 hates things that are fun and interesting.

In all honesty, I like them both. But DA2 holds a special place in my heart for being the first game to create a character that I actually found interesting and endearing.

It isn't just that change is bad. It is that change for the sake of change is bad. Change for the better is quite nice, and often accepted after a brief period of hate. But Dragon Age 2 does not offer up positive change. It changes the combat to appeal to more people, not because more people asked for it, but because they wanted to draw more people in who weren't going to buy the game in the first place.

It's story is pretty decent, and the characters in both DA:O and DA2 I felt were fine, they had personalities of their own, though again in both I could have done with a bit less "This is my way of thinking, It will never change, if you don't like it don't bring me along". At times it felt more like I was doing things I wouldn't do just to please my party members, because their approval made them do better in combat.

Really when it comes down to it, it's all subjective. People will always hate things, If you want to find out if you like it or not, the only real way to tell is to play it for yourself. No one else can tell you if a game is good or bad.

 

[Creator002]

I don't get it either, to be honest. While there are points about it I don't like, I find that it ties with Origins in terms of general quality.
I liked the character of Hawke (and, yes, I know that can be variable depending on your responses), Varric and, to a certain extent, Merill and Isabella. Being confined to Kirkwall wasn't a great design choice as were the dungeons being repeated a lot, but I found the combat animations absolutely amazing and just that made it more fun to play than Origins' combat.

 

[Frozengale]

Origins isn't that great of a game. But for some reason everyone loves it to death. Dragon Age 2 was a rushed sequel which switched things up and angered the nerds. CHANGE BAD! That's all you need to know for why people hate Dragon Age 2.


Honestly I found Dragon Age 2 to be more interesting then Dragon Age : Origins. Origins felt like I was picking up an encyclopedia, lots of interesting stuff explained in a boring contrived manner. Dragon Age 2 felt more like one of those crappy Fantasy books. Where a lot of the time it misses the mark, but sometimes it just does something so interesting that you sit there and go... well that was actually fun.

Both have flaws a plenty, but I tend to overlook DA2 flaws because the parts that work in DA2 are so fantastic and fun. Where as DA:O while interesting and a good experience tends to trudge through mediocrity.

The way I like to see it is that anyone that prefers Origins to DA2 hates things that are fun and interesting.

In all honesty, I like them both. But DA2 holds a special place in my heart for being the first game to create a character that I actually found interesting and endearing.

It isn't just that change is bad. It is that change for the sake of change is bad. Change for the better is quite nice, and often accepted after a brief period of hate. But Dragon Age 2 does not offer up positive change. It changes the combat to appeal to more people, not because more people asked for it, but because they wanted to draw more people in who weren't going to buy the game in the first place.

It's story is pretty decent, and the characters in both DA:O and DA2 I felt were fine, they had personalities of their own, though again in both I could have done with a bit less "This is my way of thinking, It will never change, if you don't like it don't bring me along". At times it felt more like I was doing things I wouldn't do just to please my party members, because their approval made them do better in combat.

Really when it comes down to it, it's all subjective. People will always hate things, If you want to find out if you like it or not, the only real way to tell is to play it for yourself. No one else can tell you if a game is good or bad.

Change for changes sake is bad, yes. But it wasn't for changes sake. It was to clean up the combat, make it flow better, and to give a better feel to the way you can build and play characters. I personally think the combat is one of the few almost flawless things in the game. It's fun, its exciting, it's strategic, it's just all around good. DA:O combat was fun at times but only on boss battles really, the rest was boring and irritating. Even the boss battles could drag on and become irritating.

Everyone always says "OH BIOWARE IS JUST TRYING TO MAKE COMBAT APPEAL TO MORE PEOPLE!" And to that I say, "GOOD IDEA!" Making your game enjoyable to a lot of people is a good idea. The one thing that I have viewed in every Bioware sequel is that they try to streamline the annoying spreadsheet style management that some people have a hard on for and make it more around choices having a bigger impact. Big impact combat choices are much better then 1000x tiny choices having the same impact. As far as I've seen Bioware is getting better and better when it comes to combat. Button Mashing aside.

 

[Agayek]

Change for changes sake is bad, yes. But it wasn't for changes sake. It was to clean up the combat, make it flow better, and to give a better feel to the way you can build and play characters. I personally think the combat is one of the few almost flawless things in the game. It's fun, its exciting, it's strategic, it's just all around good. DA:O combat was fun at times but only on boss battles really, the rest was boring and irritating. Even the boss battles could drag on and become irritating.

This is both true and blatantly false at the same time.

DA2's combat was, simultaneously, amazing and absolutely horrendous. On the one hand, the core combat mechanics are really, really well done. It flows great, there's some real depth to be had with the effect-combo system, everything felt right, the controls were responsive, etc etc. I could go on all day about it.

Unfortunately... the combat encounters in DA2 were so horrifically bad that it's a struggle just to enjoy the combat mechanics. Almost every single encounter in the game boils down to: Walk into room. When you get to the center, you trigger combat. Wave after wave after wave after wave of mooks spawn from every direction and run straight at you. The only viable tactic is to stand in a clump in the middle of the room and AOE spam until everything is dead.

If they had kept DA:O's thing of a set, obvious-ahead-of-time style encounters, where you could actually take advantage of the fancy, deep combat system with clever use of tactics, it would have been fantastic. As it is, it's a painful slog with a few brief moments of fun.

The combat mechanics are one of the few things DA2 got right. Just about everything else (except Varric) is as close to objectively terrible as a piece of entertainment can be.

 

[Frozengale]

Change for changes sake is bad, yes. But it wasn't for changes sake. It was to clean up the combat, make it flow better, and to give a better feel to the way you can build and play characters. I personally think the combat is one of the few almost flawless things in the game. It's fun, its exciting, it's strategic, it's just all around good. DA:O combat was fun at times but only on boss battles really, the rest was boring and irritating. Even the boss battles could drag on and become irritating.

This is both true and blatantly false at the same time.

DA2's combat was, simultaneously, amazing and absolutely horrendous. On the one hand, the core combat mechanics are really, really well done. It flows great, there's some real depth to be had with the effect-combo system, everything felt right, the controls were responsive, etc etc. I could go on all day about it.

Unfortunately... the combat encounters in DA2 were so horrifically bad that it's a struggle just to enjoy the combat mechanics. Almost every single encounter in the game boils down to: Walk into room. When you get to the center, you trigger combat. Wave after wave after wave after wave of mooks spawn from every direction and run straight at you. The only viable tactic is to stand in a clump in the middle of the room and AOE spam until everything is dead.

If they had kept DA:O's thing of a set, obvious-ahead-of-time style encounters, where you could actually take advantage of the fancy, deep combat system with clever use of tactics, it would have been fantastic. As it is, it's a painful slog with a few brief moments of fun.

The combat mechanics are one of the few things DA2 got right. Just about everything else (except Varric) is as close to objectively terrible as a piece of entertainment can be.

Yes I agree that the never ending battles got old really fast. It was obviously there to make you be more strategic about how you engage but they threw it in there so often that it became a chore. Honestly if it was just ONE reinforcement wave every 4 or 5 battles then it would have been fine, most likely.

 

[Agayek]

Yes I agree that the never ending battles got old really fast. It was obviously there to make you be more strategic about how you engage but they through it in there so often that it became a chore. Honestly if it was just ONE reinforcement wave every 4 or 5 battles then it would have been fine, most likely.

Nah, it was less the actual reinforcements and more that the enemies literally don't exist until after combat starts.

If you don't know what you're facing, you can't plan for it. If you can't plan for it, you can't employ strategy. If you can't employ strategy, all you can do is mindlessly push buttons and hope it doesn't get you killed.

They could have easily have had the same number of enemies to kill, even triggering in waves in most cases, as long as the player could see them coming and could devise plans for it. It would have been preferable to have less mooks and more tougher opponents, but if you really want the player to feel like a badass (which the rest of the game seems to imply they wanted), nothing's better than mook waves.

They just needed them not to spawn after combat already started.

 

[Mausthemighty]

Dragon Age 2 was very bad compared to Dragon Age: Origins.
- The combat was quicker and more spectacular, but IMHO too spectacular (exploding bodies from a backstab?).
- The waves of enemies, spawning out of thin air, threw every thought about protecting your mages out of the window.
- The characters were very annoying and differed a lot from their DA:O counterparts. Anders for example was really nice in Dragon Age Awakening and I loved his quirky humour. He was a good replacement for Alistair. In DA2 he became a whiny, possessed mage with terrorist tendencies. I hated his changed personality so much that I killed him off. Merrill was a stupid naïve elf, and should not have been a love interest. The only character I did like was Varric.
- The main character was bland
- The art direction was bad: I hated what they've done with the Qunari. Sten was a really cool character in Dragon Age: Origins due to his dry remarks and he looked normal. In DA2 the Qunari were changed to some kind of demonic giants.
- The story was bad. First story was going on a treasure hunt, second story the growing tension between Qunari and humans, the third about Mages and Templars. At the end of the game I didn't feel Hawke had accomplished much except getting a champion's armour, and getting filthy rich.
- Speaking of armour, why did they remove the option of equipping the other characters. I liked how I could put my old Blood Dragon armour on Alistair, while I got my new Black armour instead. In DA2 this option was removed.,
- The ending was bad. I hated how both choices were bad choices. The templars were evil, but so were the mages. It felt like my actions had no effect at all.
- The blatant reuse of the same dungeon, over and over again is inexcusable.
- No mod kit what so ever. What made the PC-version of DA:O really great were the mods. I liked how you could change the appearance of the characters. You could even install a nude mod if you were into that kind of thing! Dragon Age 2 had none of that.
- The DLC was really not that good. Dragon Age Origins had at least a few short extra missions and an expansion which mad it a bigger game. DA2 only had the Julian DLC which was no more than Day 1 DLC, and a few weapon packs.

The game is bad, if you compare it to its predecessor. It's abominable if you compare it to real RPG's like Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment.

After this disappointment I set my hopes on ME3, hoping that it was a onetime mistake of Bioware. Sadly... it wasn't.

 

[ForstyNick]

I don't intend to read the whole thread, just to check if someone else have alreadt written what I'm about to say, so here it goes.

Dragon Age 2 isn't a bad game... If it wasn't for the fact that it was made to follow Dragon Age Origins.
I mean, DA:2 didn't have huge problems any more than ME:3, since they just seemed so much the same.

My main problem with DA:2 was the simple fact that: No matter what I chose, it would always end in the same! I side with the Mages and I end up killing them. I side with the Templars and BAM! I slice the throat of the knight-commander.
No matter what I did in the game, it all ended in some kind of repeating story...

Which is also the reason for me not being able to complete the game more than once.

 

[iseko]

I liked what they were trying to do. Telling a story of a man who isn't pre destined to do something great. But who is sort of thrown into it against his wishes. Doing what he must to build a life for him and his family. I liked that part of the game. Eventhough the first act: collect x amount of gold at a very tedious rate, kinda sucked .

What they didn't do right was the following. You had like 5 different dungeons which got reused 100 times over. That is just you being lazy. I wouldn't mind revisiting a dungeon after 10 years in game have passed. But not every fucking time.

Combat sucked. I don't hate console's, for same games they work perfectly. But DA origins was developed for pc users and had a much better combat system. DA2 just had a crappy combat system. It reminded me of god of war ffs. A lot of people would say it was more fluid. Yeah... in a sense that it required no strategy whatsoever and was mainly just a button mashup. I liked that you had to pause the game and issue orders in the first DA. Strategy baldur's gate style. This just doesn't fit with a RPG. But thats my opinion. If someone else liked it, that is theirs.

The fucking loading times...

Overall it felt like a rushed out game with a crystal core, wrapped in shit. They wanted it to be playable by a broader community (I got nothing against that bit), but in doing so destroyed core gameplay. The game's story felt like a prologue to the third dragon age, rather than being a story that can stand on its own and lead up to the next chapter.

Conclusion: it sucked and i'll be very wary off buying DA3

 

[putowtin]

Firstly, I love the game, but even I have some issues, I'll stick to character comments (lets ignore the reused area chat)

There's the good,
Fenris: I like his backstory and he doesn't immediately want to jump into bed with you (unlike most of the other companions)
Varric: Always in my party, tells good stories, doesn't kiss you're arse (or you... damn shame!)
Aveline: Solid character, good fighter and seems to care in a "big sister" kind of way.
Bethany: less annoying than her twin, (who I end up with more often as I tend to play DAII as a mage)

The bad,
Anders: Annoyingly annoying.
Merrill: Everyone she cares about dies.... and it's all her fault!
Anders: Did he invent hair dye? his eyebrowns are black and his hair is blond!
Isabela: put em' away love, I'm not interested.
Anders: I've spoken to you once and you're bithcing at my boyfriend that "you'd be better for me" Go jump off a cliff!

 

[iseko]

- The story was bad. First story was going on a treasure hunt, second story the growing tension between Qunari and humans, the third about Mages and Templars. At the end of the game I didn't feel Hawke had accomplished much except getting a champion's armour, and getting filthy rich.

I pretty much agree with you 100% on everything you said except for the bit I didn't cut out. I agree that the story wasn't what it should have been. But what I did like about it was that Hawke was never supposed to be a 'hero'. Not in the traditional sense of a hero anyways. He was just a man trying to flee with his family and start a new life. In happenstance he becomes someone of importance in the city. And at the end he is thrown in the centre of a tragedy. Not because he really chooses to be there. Rather because he doesn't really have a choice.

That is the core of the story for me anyways. The execution of the story however does suck. Your choices don't really matter. You are just along for the ride. But I do like the concept they were trying out. If that matters for anything at all .

 

[LiquidGrape]

It's my BioWare favourite. The Isabela/Aveline relationship alone is the best thing to ever come out of that studio.
It's also one of few games to explore a theme of disempowerment, something I'd love to see a lot more of. Shame the marketing tried to sell it as something completely different. The game was infinitely more interesting than anyone had any reason to expect.