So I finally finished DA2, a bit more than 100 hours, for DAO it was a bit more than 116 hours, I certainly spend more time in pauses in DA2 but that mean something anyway.
Overall I'm a bit disoriented by DA2, overall the 3rd chapter destroyed quite a lot my general feeling about the game. For me this whole chapter 3 is one more point to add to the list of the rushed elements.
In front of a such uneven quality along the whole game it's very hard to get a figure of the game. For sure I had many fun with it but for sure I end with it not really satisfied and a bit disappointed, not even in comparison of DAO but in comparison of better points I found there and there in the game.
For me the fights and classes are the best point of the game despite there's a clear abuse of repetitive waves and more significant fights would have been better, but DAO was worse on that last point.
The companions, well half good but I haven't explore some of them much. If there's really as much companion material than DAO as I read in some posts, then the whole is less efficient than in DAO and I don't like at all the camp approach of DAO.
The story writing, there's few great parts and quests but overall it's very average and the third chapter is rather awful. You can't put so often the player in a situation of failure inside the story, that's very ridiculous. I don't know who wrote that but he's not a talented writer. Also from a game design point of view, the game make you feel you have to make choices and then put you in failure and contradiction with those choices, lol some people at Bioware got mad.
More than the fights, the better element is the whole combat system. If design of each fights isn't always at top, the combat system is improved a lot when compared to DAO and this includes the build choices for classes, the new balances, more distinct classes, and more. For sure the tactical view lost is a comfort nuisance but DAO tactical view with no fog of war management and many spell you could cast through walls was far to be a very good solution. For the speed I wish at least there's a an option to slow down it. For the Friendly Fire there's too much AOE effects and it's just a pointless element.
If it's about stupid rate on 20, I'd give roughly:
Overall I'm a bit disoriented by DA2, overall the 3rd chapter destroyed quite a lot my general feeling about the game. For me this whole chapter 3 is one more point to add to the list of the rushed elements.
In front of a such uneven quality along the whole game it's very hard to get a figure of the game. For sure I had many fun with it but for sure I end with it not really satisfied and a bit disappointed, not even in comparison of DAO but in comparison of better points I found there and there in the game.
For me the fights and classes are the best point of the game despite there's a clear abuse of repetitive waves and more significant fights would have been better, but DAO was worse on that last point.
The companions, well half good but I haven't explore some of them much. If there's really as much companion material than DAO as I read in some posts, then the whole is less efficient than in DAO and I don't like at all the camp approach of DAO.
The story writing, there's few great parts and quests but overall it's very average and the third chapter is rather awful. You can't put so often the player in a situation of failure inside the story, that's very ridiculous. I don't know who wrote that but he's not a talented writer. Also from a game design point of view, the game make you feel you have to make choices and then put you in failure and contradiction with those choices, lol some people at Bioware got mad.
More than the fights, the better element is the whole combat system. If design of each fights isn't always at top, the combat system is improved a lot when compared to DAO and this includes the build choices for classes, the new balances, more distinct classes, and more. For sure the tactical view lost is a comfort nuisance but DAO tactical view with no fog of war management and many spell you could cast through walls was far to be a very good solution. For the speed I wish at least there's a an option to slow down it. For the Friendly Fire there's too much AOE effects and it's just a pointless element.
If it's about stupid rate on 20, I'd give roughly:
- 13 to story and story writing, this includes the merging of story and gameplay.
- 15 to overall structure, I appreciate the effort of originality even if it s only half successful.
- 11 for exploration, DAO would get even less, and without the duplicate area it could have been better but hard to imagine what the result would be.
- 13 to companions, would be more something like 16 for DAO
- 15 for fights, would be more with a better chapter 3 and more overall diversity
- 18 for the combat system and classes (yeah I don't care the lost of the poor DAO skills)
- 16 for graphics, I get used to the style and overall consider it an improvement.
- 18 for music, it's rare I appreciate how the music is used in a game, here one of the rare example I find quite good and closer to how well this can be used in movies. And also I found the music itself quite good.
- Overall a 14 or 15 on 20 seems a fair rating. But I'd say it's really a special RPG to play that worth the curiosity. And if you enjoyed a lot DAO fights there's material in DA2 to get more fun even if probably this won't be for the whole game.
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