It’s been one year since Awakening and nearly a year and a half since Dragon Age: Origins (Elder-Geek’s 2009 Game of the Year) first graced our lives back in November of 2009. Therein lies the first of many glaring issues with a game that feels anything but complete. Be forewarned, this review isn’t going to beat around the bush.
The game begins by taking a unique approach that was touted by BioWare early in the revealing of Dragon Age 2. The entire story is told by a dwarf and soon to be companion named Varric, who’s in the process of being interrogated sometime in the future. As such, some of the events you play through are embroidered quite a bit. When such exaggerations are occurring you find yourself taking on ridiculous hordes of enemies and blowing them to pieces… literally. Hey now! Who hasn’t heard a story that sounded a little too far-fetched to be true? As alluded to, the first time you’ll experience this is at the start of the game in what is more or less a tutorial for your selected class. The second time is an utterly hilarious moment in the game. You’ll notice I don’t say, “third time,” because twice is all you’re going to get with this highly underused game mechanic.
Underuse and overuse is the name of the game when it comes to the Dragon Age 2 experience. Not too long into the game most of you will find yourselves murmuring,”haven’t I done this enough,” or, “why was this simplified so much, I want more!” For those of you who basked in the grandeur that was Origin’s homage to classic cRPG’s like Baldur’s Gate, say goodbye! Goodbye? Origins picked a fight with the wrong templar and has been made tranquil.
There's a lot of it!
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity, because that’s what everyone said was the biggest problem with the last game, right? It wasn’t simple enough? Yeah, I don’t remember that either. The logic in adjusting some aspects of the game to cater to console gameplay is understandable. There’s actually been some solid moves in terms of combat to cater to controller usage. Sure it’s not quite as pause-play tactic based as Origins was, but it’s far more active and in your face. I, for one, found the change grew on me as I gained more abilities, and before long I was perfectly fine with it. What’s not fine however is the loot and armor changes, repetitive areas, dialog and analogous non-resonating stories.
The loot in this game has been streamlined to the point where there’s an entire category for ‘junk.’ You’ll be looting quite a bit of junk in this game… also armor; most of which you’ll sell since you can’t use it. Your companions won’t be able to equip it either since that was apparently deemed too complex for fans of the RPG genre. At least you’re able to share amulets, belts, rings, and weapons amongst your party.
Get used to this!
Repetitive areas. Why? I mean this. Why the heck is this an issue from a proven developer? I am still completely floored by how cyclical this game is. In the twenty-nine hours it took me to beat this game top to bottom (that’s sixteen less than it took me for Origins) I saw a few hundred load screens (yay immersion) as I traversed back and forth to the same… areas… over… and over… and over. The movie Waterworld had more variety in locations. Be prepared to do ‘different’ side-missions in the exact same cave, dock or sewer. It flat out destroyed the immersion the game had for me because it was so damn unbelievable. It was like constantly waking up from the matrix, only I didn’t know kung fu. Don’t expect much variety in the types of enemies you encounter either.
If you’re illiterate this is the dialog system for you. Top right = good, middle right = joke, bottom right = bad, bottom left = romance/cop, middle left = investigate, etc. Each choice even has a symbol just to make super sure you know what you’re doing! I really don’t need to go much further into this. Any semblance of gray area or thought that went into deciding which dialog option to go with has been butchered. The wheel works fine in a game like Mass Effect 2, not here. The addition of voice acting to the main character was definitely a smart decision though.
Yes you are...yes you are.
Stories have always been a hallmark for BioWare. When something is even a bit off, they’ve always had an engaging story to make you turn the other cheek. There were some bold decisions made with central characters that may or may not die, which was a good change of pace. Other than that, the amount of whining, stupidity, and overall predictability from both the mages and templars made the central story far less impactful. Witnessing characters turn on their core beliefs in a whim never makes sense to me.
Where’s the section about graphics? Good point! There was skimping on that too. Kind of a theme really if you haven’t noticed yet. Particle effects, fire, ice, etc. looked better in Origins. Poor textures persist even with the HD pack. Lots of low quality, stati0nary NPC’s hanging around too. For a city that’s flooded with refugees it’s rather fascinating how empty it is. Being frank, graphics really aren’t that big of an issue. They don’t carry a game like this, and for what it is it’s fine and shouldn’t sway you’re decision whether or not to play this game.
The NPC's don't seem to react to anything...ever.
One often wonders how such a radical change can occur. I doubt this is how it went down, but after playing through the entire game this is truly how it made me feel as a gamer who spent $60 for this regrettable experience.
Some Guy: “…you know what would be really quick to make for that crazy short deadline we have?”
Another Guy: “What?”
Some Guy: “We take a page from Origins. Let’s just redo the entire social and political class thing we had going on in Orzammar and then take the mage and templar feud from the Circle Tower and make an entire game out of that!”
Another Guy: “That would actually be pretty neat for the main story.”
Some Guy: “Main story? No, this is going to be the entire game. Oh, and to speed things up for level design let’s just make everything take place in a district divided city like Orzammar, but make it human dominated instead!”
Another Guy: “Won’t people get tired of being in one heavily separated city for an entire game?”
Some Guy: “Yeah, but to lessen that glaring issue we can have a few linear path driven zones outside of the city to give them some fresh air.”
Another Guy: “This sounds like it’s going to weigh people down after about ten hours in.”
Some Guy: “Well… we can add a few identical instances for people to do their side-missions in when they’re not fighting on the streets of the city. Lots of people enjoy grinding the same thing over and over. Look at MMO’s!”
Another Guy: “Yeah… ok, I guess. A lot of the fans of the past game aren’t going to be too happy with this.”
Some Guy: “This is a business, not a dream factory. We have a deadline and unfortunately cutting corners is the most realistic rout to achieve it.”
We all have to live in the real world. Game companies exist to make a profit and this game comes off like nothing more than a cash-in for a series that shocked BioWare with its success in late ’09. I have an immense respect for people working in the game industry. They’re everyday people like you and me, and most of them have an intense passion in what they’re doing. It’s always a sad sight to witness a game such as this; especially from a respected company that’s had one of the best track records in the entire industry. It’s easy to want to stick in BioWare’s corner and give it more due that it deserves, but how does that help?
Origins was an amazing game, but it wasn’t perfect. No game is. However, instead of releasing a game that evolved upon its foundation, we have a shell of its predecessor in nearly every way. Even if Origins had never existed, this game would still be frowned upon. There’s simply no excuse for the fundamental flaws that permeate throughout this game.
Here’s hoping this is a fluke they learn from and Dragon Age III isn’t coming out for a few years. In spite of how much I’ve lambasted this game, I’d recommend renting it just to witness what I’ve seen so you can condition yourself to avoid such products in the future, regardless of the attached franchise name. I guess that’s still denouncing it! A purchase is out of the question unless you’re the kind of person who absolutely adores supreme repetition, in which case this game was made just for you. To the fade with this one!
I just started it today and I’m enjoying it so far. The combat is fun and the locations haven’t gotten old… yet. I am kind of annoyed about the way they changed how you equip armor because my character is a mage and I have no use for the Blood Dragon Armor, or any other heavy armor for that matter.
Also, the load screens are slowly killing me.
I really wanted to love this game. I saw the reaction from the public when it came out and told myself that I’d ignore what they said and make up my own mind. People have gotten rowdy over games before and it wasn’t as big as they made it out to be.
DA2 wasn’t that bad to start out, but like I said…eventually it just wore me down with the onslaught of repetitive environments that no amount of story within could alleviate. The combat is definitely more quick and engaging than it was in the past. That’s a plus at least.
Dragon Age 2 is just Mass Effect 2 minus the production values. If this were made by anyone other than Bioware, it wouldn’t sell sh1t and get 1s in Demonoid and the likes. Good to see it’s at least getting some well deserved flak.
By the way, i don’t know how you managed to beat it in 29 hours…i’m 36 hours in and i’ve just begun chapter 4. I’ve now installed a mod to run faster outside of combat…maybe that’ll help with the tedium…
I have a strict policy that when you have to install mods to increase basic values like character walking speed, the game has problems deeper than I may be able to handle.
It’s not that i’m lazy either…i’ve lasted 35 hours of running between the same 4 areas and the same 4 dungeons again and again and again…I wanted the game to end at chapter 3, actually, but there’s a chapter 4 and guess what? It’s more run around 4 areas and 4 dungeons sidequests!
By the way, the modding community on this game is pretty great. Check the dragonagenexus.com for mods like the one i installed.
Funny part is that “haste” aura from Origins gave you the movement buff. Now it’s just a cooldown move that can only be used in combat…in fact you can only use your moves in combat.
I am liking DA2 a fair bit. It is ten thousand miles better than the storiless garbage that was DA1.
I loved the combat system in DA2. It is so much more engaging than the DA1 system. I loved the new skill trees, they definitely were more fun to play with. I loved the fact that the game had an actual story as opposed to the open ended crapfest of DA1, having a real character with a real story made the game feel much more enjoyable and solid. I liked the embellished sequences, and agree that they should’ve been present more frequently.
I don’t have a problem with each NPC having their own special armor that you can upgrade but not replace, I don’t have a problem with the dialog tree(hell the ME2 style dialog tree is the ONLY dialog tree system I’ve EVER seen in any game that didn’t make me want to punch the developer in the face, so I’m glad they used it), I don’t have a poblem with the graphics(I played for the ps3 and found the graphics to be less frustrating than DA1’s graphics), I don’t have a problem with the junk category(it saves time).
That said, I do thoroughly agree that the repetitive nature of the dungeons, the caves, the BUILDINGS, and many other things is painful. Especially since they didn’t even adjust the minimaps, and they put awkward cement walls over the doors that you can’t go through or un-pickable locks on the doors to the areas you couldn’t reach, or ankle high lines of rubble on paths you weren’t supposed to go down. I also disliked that they opened prettymuch the entire region to you in the first ‘chapter’ and then just had you going back and forth between these areas over and over again. I wish they’d had a few more areas and had them open up to you in later chapters.
How can you say DA1 had a shitty story? I thought it was pretty cool. The only thing I didn’t like was the unexpected outcomes of some of the decisions you make at the end of the game. Like Alastair hating you for making him king when he would obviously make a really awesome king. I haven’t played DA2 though, (and probably won’t) so I don’t have a comparison in that regard.
@”the ME2 style dialog tree is the ONLY dialog tree system I’ve EVER seen in any game that didn’t make me want to punch the developer in the face, so I’m glad they used it”
Please elaborate.
I hate dialog trees. I always have. In fact, seeing a dialog tree is about 90% of the time enough to make me automatically turn down a game. I don’t want to have to pick the exact sentence and wording from a pre-selected set of 3 or 4 choices, none of which reflect the attitude I’m trying to get accross with the character I’m playing. It really just makes me feel just like I’m voting in an election. I’m stuck with a bunch of stupid, idiotic choices. None of them are right, all of them are terrible, and I have to pick the lesser of the evils. DA1 was PARTICULARLY bad for this. I HATED the choices I had in DA1, at EVERY single conversation I got to before I gave up the game like 15-18 hours in out of sheer frustration, tedium, and torment.
Until I played ME2, I was actually convinced that there was NO way anyone would ever come up with a dialogue tree system I wouldn’t hate. ME2’s concept of picking the tone in stead of the topic made it feel more natural. In stead of picking between pre-determined sentences and knowing the exact wording, I picked a tone. Was I angry, determined, happy, flirtatious, or whatever? Well, pick that remark. Sure I still got the wordy full sentence in the end, and sometimes it wasn’t perfect… but at least since I knew the tone of the phrase, I knew it was at least trying to match the feel I was going for, which made it a lot more fun to play with.
Seems to me you have a problem with the writing more than with the system. Which games are you taking as reference?
I have no such problem with most traditional dialogue tree games, while games using the icon based system usually frustrate me because what i pick sometimes doesn’t correspond with what my character actually says (in DA2 this is specially frequent). Some other games, like Alpha Protocol and (to a much lesser degree) Mass Effect 2, have done wonders with the system.
Well not entirely. Its partially the writing, but its also partially the system. I don’t WANT to pick from exactly what they’re going to say. You end up trying to awkwardly predict what the intent of a certain sentence is, and then trying to awkwardly gauge how a specific npc will react to it, and then trying to find an option that comes even remotely close to the character you’re trying to portray.
It is just awkward. Whereas while the wheel sometimes says thing that aren’t exactly what you want, at least you KNOW the tone of it – and really, the tone is more important than the words in most cases.
Sure, the icon makes things instantly obvious (even if it messes up frequently when done wrong) but i fail to see how showing the sentence in full damns its intent/tone to be less clear.
And it’s basically the same, i’ve had many occasions in DA2 that the red swords icon had an unfitting text attached to it or that it the voiceacting didn’t convey the ruthlessness i’d expect from the option. Or something like that. The fact that it’s written by someone else invariably leads to you guessing on what they wrote/icon they chose and if the implementation is poor, you’re f*cked one way or the other.
So i ask again, besides DA:O, which games are you taking as reference?
It’s not the icon, its the summary. The icon isn’t even really necessary, the summary provides the tone. AND it speeds up the discussion. You still can think about what tone you’re trying to convey, but you have an instant representation of what the tone is, rather than trying to mystically divine the tone from an entire sentence. It speeds up the discussions, makes it more instantly apparent what the general idea of what you’re saying is, and allows you to pick tone more easily.
As to other games… god there’ve been so many I couldn’t even possibly list them all. Basically if you name a game that had dialog trees, I’ve either played it, or played a demo and hated it because of the dialog trees. There aren’t very many that fit into any other category.
And i think quite the opposite, the icon is what matters. The icon gives me a perfect representation of the result of what i’m gonna say. I know Merril is soft and sweet and innocent, so i never go red with swords. Even without reading what it says, i know it’s a bad choice.
The text is what confuses, because it’s often out of context with the icon next to it.
On the other hand, i never had any problems with, on top of my mind, Fallout 1&2, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights 1&2, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura, The Witcher, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, KOTOR, etc.
I never had any problems with, on top of my mind, Fallout 1&2, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights 1&2, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura, The Witcher, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, KOTOR, etc.
Any of those giving you trouble?
If you tell me it’s those, then alright, but if not, then you’re probably just playing games with shitty writing.
And i think quite the opposite, the icon is what matters. The icon gives me a perfect representation of the result of what i’m gonna say. I know Merril is soft and sweet and innocent, so i never go red with swords. Even without reading what it says, i know it’s a bad choice.
The text is what confuses, because it’s often out of context with the icon next to it.
On the other hand, i never had any problems with, on top of my mind, Fallout 1&2, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights 1&2, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura, The Witcher, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, KOTOR, etc.
I never had any problems with, on top of my mind, Fallout 1&2, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights 1&2, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura, The Witcher, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, KOTOR, etc.
Any of those giving you trouble?
If you tell me it’s those, then alright, but if not, then you’re probably just playing games with sh1tty writing.
I played a bit of Planescape, most of NWN1, a demo of Witcher, KotOR(which was one of my least favourite games in history), and several others.
Alright, then. Glad you found a dialogue system you enjoy.
Offotpic: am i wrong or now the site’s comments are justified?
I clicked on the wrong comment to reply to, so it pushed it back a tab meaning your comment was able to be indented from my post there. lol
Oooh thats what you mean… wow I’m tired today. And yes, they are full justified… look at my post on the warriors of troy topic 😉
Just beaten it. Felt like my actions had less of an effect than in Heavy Rain. The third act is decent, mostly because 90% of it consists on bosses and getting rare loot. Also because it’s the shortest. The end boss (i don’t think it changes between playthroughs but i dunno) was pretty cool, too.
DA2, in my book, is trash. From the combat to the writing to the choices to the plot, it’s all either uninspired or underdeveloped. This is what you get when you don’t poor boatloads of money in a ME-like game.
Did anyone else had trouble remembering any character’s name (aside from my party)? In the maze of sidequests and running around like an idiot i couldn’t manage to remember a single NPC name. Now that i think of it, i didn’t even get the ending. Ugh…i should better go back to learning to mod New Vegas….