Dragon Age 2 - Why Some Fans Did Not Like It

I think a lot of people hate DA2 especially because of it's potential. The setting is very interesting, the characters are generally cool and the ending of the second chapter is awesome... but then the third chapter happens, exposing all the rushed job and making all the glaring faults way more obvious. The story goes totally downhill, the game barely recognizes your choices and so on. I'll kinda always remember the game with some fondness, but all of the third chapter makes me wanna scream in agony.

Besides, DAO was an awesome, well rounded game and I think most people were just purely disappointed that the game didn't live to the hype.

Hyperion said:

This is a very underrated game. My take on why a lot of people didn't like it is that it's not DAO.

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Nah nah nah. Did you forget about the recycled dungeons? The annoying characters and the watered down combat tactics?
I have to admit it is even worse in DA:I. They changed so much for the worse it is really sad to watch. Everything was adapted to fit on consoles, the combat is really boring - like what is the point if you don't get XP and just some lame crafting mats? They also put in a dash of Assassins Creed who doesn't like to climb mountains/hunt for pointless treasures.
I can go on ranting about crafting etc. - they gutted everything RPGish out of it and replaced it with features of other games that are idiomatic for them. I don't even want to picture how the next Mass Effect will be... shudder.

If judged on its own, I don't think DA2 is a bad game. I managed to get a lot of fun out of it. The problem, however, is that it is a sequel and sequels are naturally judged against the game that came before. And there are so many stupid design changes - both with respect to removal and simplification of RPG mechanics, but also in more overarching ways, like the whole approach to story telling and general game structure - that it does not at all work as a sequel. And that is incredibly disappointing, since DA:O laid such a promising foundation.

I'm getting a little worked up here, but you're supposed to keep what works, improve on what ought to be improved upon and ditch what doesn't. It's not that hard. And then you're supposed to add new stuff, or just expand upon what you got. Not remove what worked like a charm and go all out experimental. You have spin offs for that. Had they only labelled it a spin off, which makes even more sense since the game starts at around the same time as Origins, they could have tried their ideas to story telling and so on without all the direct comparisons to Origins.

Onigiri said:

Did you forget about the watered down combat tactics?

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Also, this was funny



The game did score some funny memes

Just reading these posts is making me relive the nightmare! Lol. That God-awful schizophrenic switch in personality between good/funny/bad Hawke, the horrible devolution of Darkspawn from foul creatures to Japanese B movie extras, the ridiculous sexing up of every female in the game (even the oldest hag in Kirkwall had Playboy breasts) etc. Etc.

Honestly, even as a stand alone game it was woeful. It'd get a 3/10 from me. Genuinely painful to play.

BoboTheMighty said:

Poor, rushed and at times hilariously dumb game all around, but it did have a few redeeming features.
Hawke's relationships with his/her companions were more interesting, plus they played a larger role in the story. Number of good side quests and they did a pretty decent job with Arishok/Qunari and second chapter's ending.
And Hawke was hilarious at times. (' What's a Mekel?')
Wasted potential, but come on, the game was not nearly as terrible as some make it out to be.

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Actually, I disliked that *relationships* a lot in DA2 as well. You start off the game running away with your *family* who I have no emotional attachment at all. When Beth/Carver gets killed, honestly, I was shrugging and felt weird that my *mother* was blaming me for her/his death.

It pretty much continued the same with my other *friends* who I spend good 10 years together. The only one I had shred of attachment was Anders and that was more because of the Anders I remember from DA:A.

Mind-boggling how these journalists just keep writing these same old opinion articles about dragon age 2. Like they were rediscovering a hidden gem or something.

An other similar case seems to be Deus Ex: Invicible war. Almost monthly basis some wannabe gamejournalist begins to wonder why such a fine game wasn't universally liked… How can they be so clueless? There are definitely "underrated" games out there, but some games are just shit and for anyone who understands the medium, it should be obvious why.

But hey atleast we can have forum discussions about these moronic DA2 articles

Dragon Age 2 is the worst RPG of the decade. Dot. If the game had been released by a small editor and not BEAware, noone would still care and there would be no mention of the game anywhere.

It's both underrated and cynical trash. Replaying it years later, the good glimmers through a little more, but it's still under a layer of very cheap tat.

This article puts a strained interpretation on one of the game's real weaknesses. Playing a powerless refugee fighting against hopeless odds could be very cool -- that's not what makes the game's choices feel so empty. The choices feel empty because they are empty.

When the First Enchanter turned psycho killer despite everything everything my Hawke had done to help him, I thought not "Oh, some dooms are foreordained -- yet still we strive against them", which would have been fine, but "Oh, I guess they only had the budget for one series of boss fights in the endgame."

purpleblob said:

It pretty much continued the same with my other *friends* who I spend good 10 years together. The only one I had shred of attachment was Anders and that was more because of the Anders I remember from DA:A.

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Aw. I really liked Aveline and Merrill.

DA2's short coming have been done a thousand times. To the article I'll just say that the story was not one of my problems with the game.

As for the game I'm over it, I just wish I could play through it. I've tried several times because I want to complete it before playing DAI but have gotten bored and quit every time.

I know story wise it's not a big deal and I could just answer the questions on the web thingy for save importing but I know it will bug me if I don't finish DA2 first.

one of these days I'll have to force myself through it.

That anders-hawke strip is spot on lol. Any other topic being so forced upon the player and you'd have accusations of an agenda going around

purpleblob said:

Actually, I disliked that *relationships* a lot in DA2 as well. You start off the game running away with your *family* who I have no emotional attachment at all. When Beth/Carver gets killed, honestly, I was shrugging and felt weird that my *mother* was blaming me for her/his death.

It pretty much continued the same with my other *friends* who I spend good 10 years together. The only one I had shred of attachment was Anders and that was more because of the Anders I remember from DA:A.

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Well, I was just glad that Carver got killed 'cause I needed a mage at the time.
I think they overdid it a bit with delivery, but their was better relationship dynamic and I liked how they did not feel like they were under your control.
If nothing else, I'd like to see BW improve on that in their future games.

Hexprone said:

It's both underrated and

When the First Enchanter turned psycho killer despite everything everything my Hawke had done to help him, I thought not "Oh, some dooms are foreordained -- yet still we strive against them", which would have been fine, but "Oh, I guess they only had the budget for one series of boss fights in the endgame."

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Yeah, guys like this really give mages a bad name.

Did you really had to post that picture? Ugh!

sakichop said:

I know story wise it's not a big deal and I could just answer the questions on the web thingy for save importing but I know it will bug me if I don't finish DA2 first.

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There's no true save importing for DA:I anyways. Or at least that's the impression I had.

JDR13 said:

There's no true save importing for DA:I anyways. Or at least that's the impression I had.

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That's true. DAI only grabs whatever entries you have made to the Dragon Age Keep and you do not have to play any of the games to tamper with the DA Keep as you please.
One just needs to make sure to update the Keep before starting a new game. DAI will not accept "on-the-fly" changes to the Keep. It imports the world state that is set at the Keep upon starting a new game only and that's it.

Still, after finishing DAO and keeping my character's history up to date on the Keep, I personally found a lot of motivation in continuing the Keep tapestry while slogging through Dragon Age 2. Like a game outside the game.
It was quite fun to update the choices and decisions after a couple of play sessions (best done when fresh on one's mind).
I'm not even sure if I could have finished DA2 without that additional motivation and in hindsight, i.e. now that I have started DAI, I'm very glad I played DA2 and know who's who and what's what.

Previously, when I played the DAI free trial, before I had finished DA2, I was thoroughly confused about the Seeker (Cassandra), why Leliana was there and who was this Varric and so on… it all made TONS more sense after playing DA2.
I'm sure there are excellent plot summary videos on YouTube for DA2 by now though so if anyone really can't stand the game at all but still wants to play DAI, then I'd recommend to hit YT.

The game isn't actually that terrible though… just pretty mediocre. It gets real fun towards the end of each Act and I actually enjoyed the end game quite a bit and ended up playing through both endings (mage/templar).
The problem is the utterly boring parts leading up to these conclusions with the really lame recycling of the day/night maps each Act. I love exploring in RPGs and this game was terrible with its very limited set of locations.
It's definitely mostly the story that keeps you going and some of the characters' back stories (Merrill's was real good).
Other than that: Meh. It's best to just kind of plow through it and just do the main plot and the character stories. The vast majority of the side quests are completely forgettable or even outright retarded.

Lack of character customization and re-use of locations were my biggest problems. Also the excessive use of romance and having homo-sexual relationships being thrust on the player without even realizing it (as alluded to above) were also painful.

I hate DA2 not because it was a "bad" game, infact I thought it was a "good" game and better than average.

I hate DA2 because with it died my hopes of ever having another "amazing" top-down party based AAA quality c-rpg.

Pillars, Wasteland etc are OK, but their low budget limitations do not give me that same massive amount of pleasure and awe that I had when first playing BG, NWN, DA:O etc for the first time.

Back on topic. No nice way of saying this, but I thought the suppositions of this article are completely idiotic. Having your own opinion is fine, but the way they have written this article suggesting their views as the common view makes me feel like they are really out of touch.

Cannot agree more with the posters above criticizing the games journalism industry.

I have been watching the small youtube channel of a user called "Morgannin". He has made a few Piranha Bytes commentaries. He is clearly a past PB "fan" but he is still able to be very critical and level-headed about their flaws. Why can't we get "professional" journalists like this!

bjon045 said:

having homo-sexual relationships being thrust on the player

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Lol & chortle, I see what you did there...