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[Deleted member 47027]

Wrapped the game tonight. Endgame spoilers, and my thoughts:

Spoiler

I've never seen a game fuck its developers over so hard. I'm really upset that EA forced them to EXTREMELY rush this game, but it happened, and the game suffers for it, hard.

At the very end, they do a cop-out and force you to fight two endgame bosses, instead of giving you a definitive finish. Sad, but a lot of the things going on surrounding the fights were so poorly fleshed out and sped through, it kept there from being any kind of impact with ANYTHING. It was so glaringly obvious how rushed it was that it took away the thunder from things like the statues coming to life when fighting Meredith, etc.

Another horrendous waste was the end of the story. By the end, I had sided with the mages...sort of. And what's the ending? "The Champion vanished into the wastes, never heard from again." What? So Kirkwall burns and I just kinda pass on in the night. Horrible ending to this.

There are only two endings to the game, and each of them is 'solidly' on one side or the other, yet this happens. What garbage. There was so much potential to this game, but it was wasted. Dropped headfirst onto a stone like a baby, only after picking it back up at the end I realized how broken and poorly done this game was.

I sat through the whole game, even with the problems I was having early on, in the hopes that the character development would be interesting and good. Sadly, this was not the case, and I regret buying this game at full price, and I regret having EA string me along for 20 or so hours in a rushed piece of shit. I feel for the developers most. I could tell in the game that they had wonderful ideas, but forcing this game out so quickly is a slap in their face. I'm sorry.

They had the potential for some great characters, but they were stuffed at developing them properly. The most interesting character of the game, Varric, ends with a whimper, and never finished developing. His interplay with Merrill was great, but they refused to make it any part of the story and relegated it to quips made while walking. A huge waste.

Fenris is on my short list for biggest waste of space of a character. Argh. There was a glimmer of an interesting character, when I talked to him about not wanting to be free of his current situation, but he quickly destroyed that by ignoring it completely.

Aveline is a wasted opportunity. If you know me, you know I highly approve of strong women characters in games that buck the usual trend. She goes through the whole game like this. Except...her romance quest, where she tries to woo another guardsman and acts like a child. Completely killed most of the goodwill I had for her by tossing her into this stereotype.

I suppose I'm a little bitter, but you would be too if the final boss battles ended up with poor animation and glitches, causing them to be stuck in place for over 5 minutes at a time, and useless combat that doesn't require ANY thought. Add in cheap enemies spawning behind you, completely negating the purpose of positioning in battle, and it becomes an idiot's game. Mash A to win. And sometimes Y, X, or B (depending on how quickly you want the battle to be over.)

Really disappointed in this game. Its strengths were not nearly enough to save it from the many, many pitfalls. I will be hesitant to grab Dragon Age 3.

 

[Loto1226]

I truly apologize in advance if my question derail a bit, but I have to ask. I'm using headphones, and whenever I click save or load, I hear the "smoke monster sound" from Lost. Am I crazy?

No, you are not crazy. Since I save quite often I hear it all of the time. I'm glad someone else mentioned this!

 

[Pollux]

Pretty sure my dog had a stroke. He'll fight if I summon him during battle, but he no longer follows me. He just spawns, then stares off in whatever direction he was facing when he was spawned.

Wait a second...how do i get a dog? this isn't fable...

Spoiler

horrible joke I know

 

[HadesGigas]

Wait a second...how do i get a dog? this isn't fable...

Spoiler

horrible joke I know

Download The Black Emporium (code comes free with new copies).

 

[Pollux]

Download The Black Emporium (code comes free with new copies).

K thanks.

 

[Frankenstrat]

I didn't even know you couldn't choose/equip/manage your companion's armour anymore.

That's just fucking sad.

wait, really? christ.

 

[HadesGigas]

wait, really? christ.

It's really annoying.

The characters other than Hawke are also restricted to one weapon type. Aveline can't go two handed warrior, Fenris can't go sword and shield.

Really limits the usefulness of most of the loot.

 

[Yurt]

I hear that the combat is broken on the PC version ? Is that true ? I played DA:O on the PC, I don't want to be forced to play it on a console.

I stopped playing Oblivion because of the copy/paste dungeons. What a shame, DA:O was one of my favorite games in 2009.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Also finished the game.

Spoiler

I am very torn on this game, some of the things they did are a ton better than Origins, but the rest feels like it was badly rushed and not near fleshed out where it could have been.

I have a question to start, Flemeth plays a big role in the beginning of the story, and pops up a bit later in, but where does she go? I was under the impression that she was going to be a big part of the ending.

The things I liked about DA2 were: The new combat system, it really gives you more eye candy and feeling behind the combat, even if you are just hitting A. The characters, the only people I didn't like were the brother and the elf-assassin. The brother was a huge crybaby the whole story, and the elf assassin put me off just based on the fact that he wasn't a rogue, and they didn't do anything with his side story.

I played as a mage, but at the end I sided with the Templars, and apparently it doesn't matter. The end scene said all mages followed after me a rose up in other cities, when I didn't really rise up I joined with Templars.

I didn't mind the single city for the game, but I would have liked to see other bigger zones like DAO had. Instead of the outside world just being a few branching paths, make other small cities with zones within them (Deep roads, Fade, etc)

Basically, if they could take the combat and a few other things and overlay it on DAO style story and location for 3 it might be much better.

 

[gdt]

I just love this Mage War that's building, and how it could tip all of the other kingdoms to war.

Also, little tidbit about DA3 (Bodain/Sandal related),

Spoiler

Bodain just told me that they're leaving for Orlais, which makes me think DA3 takes place in Orlais. I would've thought Tevinter (especially right after the war in Kirkwall), but Orlais works too.

 

[Pollux]

I just love this Mage War that's building, and how it could tip all of the other kingdoms to war.

Also, little tidbit about DA3 (Bodain/Sandal related),

Spoiler

Bodain just told me that they're leaving for Orlais, which makes me think DA3 takes place in Orlais. I would've thought Tevinter (especially right after the war in Kirkwall), but Orlais works too.

Spoiler

Orlais was not where I wanted to go with DA3....I was really hoping for Tevinter. Bodain just mentioned that as well. Oh well. As long as they don't rush the game and take their time, and as long as the overall story is better than DA2. The story was good, it just felt rushed.

 

[gdt]

Spoiler

Orlais was not where I wanted to go with DA3....I was really hoping for Tevinter. Bodain just mentioned that as well. Oh well. As long as they don't rush the game and take their time, and as long as the overall story is better than DA2. The story was good, it just felt rushed.

Spoiler

Isn't Orlais the seat of The Chantry? That would play a massive role in a Mage war.

 

[Pollux]

Spoiler

Isn't Orlais the seat of The Chantry? That would play a massive role in a Mage war.

Good call, I completely forgot about that. If true that makes complete sense then.

 

[Gvaz]

Download The Black Emporium (code comes free with new copies).

AFAIK it only came with the signature edition.

Also finished the game.

Unless something happens in about the ~10ish hours of the game I have left, then I'm going to say Nope, she never shows up again.

 

[Frankenstrat]

It's really annoying.

The characters other than Hawke are also restricted to one weapon type. Aveline can't go two handed warrior, Fenris can't go sword and shield.

Really limits the usefulness of most of the loot.

that's just

I can't even

WHAT

 

[SerArthurDayne]

I just wanted to say that its bullshit that the endgame starts by reading a letter without any warning. I wasn't done with quests yet and had to go back and beat the

Spoiler

High Dragon

again in my previous save. Fortunately I just turned the difficulty to casual and was able to get it done pretty quickly.

 

[TeK-DeLorean]

Just did the qunari leader and his packs during the blackpowder promise quest, and what the FUCK was that?

Fuck that fight, reloaded at least 20 times on Hard, the mage would pop with instant death lightning orb crap and wipe me almost every time.
Dropped it to normal and paused every 5 seconds.

Also I'm about 35 hours in, act2, Hard mode except for that fight and Rock wraith BS. I do idle in the game at times, but I wouldn't imagine it to be about 5 hours total that I've just left the game running while afk at this point.

 

[SerArthurDayne]

Qunari mages are horseshit. If they manage to wipe me I always put my warriors where I know they will spawn on my second try and stun/knock them down immediately. Never had to go down from hard though to actually win a fight. This game (obviously and amongst other flaws) has some HUGE balancing issues. Especially on bosses. And enemy waves does not lend itself to tactical playing. I have almost no problem (aside from the aforementioned mages) in actually surviving on hard with a warrior/rogue/mage/mage party. I think nightmare would be ... well a nightmare with friendly fire.

There is a distinction between fair hard and poorly designed hard. This game would be the latter.

 

[Crazymoogle]

AFAIK it only came with the signature edition.

Came with the Steam edition too.

 

[HadesGigas]

AFAIK it only came with the signature edition.

No, the Signature Edition exclusive content was The Exiled Prince, a downloadable soundtrack (in untagged .wav format), and five exclusive weapons/armor/accessories.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Fuck that fight, reloaded at least 20 times on Hard, the mage would pop with instant death lightning orb crap and wipe me almost every time.
Dropped it to normal and paused every 5 seconds.

Also I'm about 35 hours in, act2, Hard mode except for that fight and Rock wraith BS. I do idle in the game at times, but I wouldn't imagine it to be about 5 hours total that I've just left the game running while afk at this point.

God that was the most BS fight. Like the only time I've died playing on Normal was that bit. Game was so goddamn easy until that.

 

[Yurt]

I hear that the combat is broken on the PC version ? Is that true ? I played DA:O on the PC, I don't want to be forced to play it on a console.

I stopped playing Oblivion because of the copy/paste dungeons. What a shame, DA:O was one of my favorite games in 2009.

Anyone ? I'm gonna buy the game today.

 

[SneakyStephan]

Well I just quit the game, half way in, during the deep roads.

I just got out of the mmo quest 20 hours of the game and the story was starting to get going, but now It's just boss after boss with health bars from here to china and back, wittling away at them while constantly pause babysitting my party out of harms way.
Ducking behind pillars, positioning to avoid cleaves and fire breaths...
I didn't know I bought world of warcraft again.

After boss nr3 I had enough of the tedium and am moving on to greener pastures.

 

[chase]

Worst thing about this game is the lack of dialogue options (and the actions that can follow from them). The fact that I had almost always had conversation options in DA:O that were what I wanted to say was my favorite part of that game.

With this game though...there must be 25% of the dialogue that the first game had. I couldn't believe it when my character answered a question put to him without my input. If this is what happens when you have a talking protagonist then give me back my mute, BioWare.

 

[HadesGigas]

Worst thing about this game is the lack of dialogue options (and the actions that can follow from them). The fact that I had almost always had conversation options in DA:O that were what I wanted to say was my favorite part of that game.

With this game though...there must be 25% of the dialogue that the first game had. I couldn't believe it when my character answered a question put to him without my input. If this is what happens when you have a talking protagonist then give me back my mute, BioWare.

What I'm missing is the amount of trivial NPCs you could engage in dialogue with. Like how in this game, pretty much every shopkeep, you go to talk to them, you just get the floating text bubble. In Origins you'd be able to talk to them, ask questions about things, respond appropriately. It generally didn't matter at all, but it makes the world feel far more dead when pretty much the only people you can really talk with are those directly related to quests.

 

[Duki]

Anyone ? I'm gonna buy the game today.

huh?

its not broken, its just shittier than da

still fun tho

 

[Almak]

What I miss most from DA:O is actually environmental details. You come into a house in DA:O and there is all this wonderful clutter. Books, clothes and food on the table. The space looked like it was lived in. Environments in DA2 feel barren in comparison. Even when filled with NPCs, they always feel sterile and empty.
Also I really wish they would have played around more with time passing and how that affects the world around you. Sure you usually change in some minor ways but the world around you, the city is always the same.
I mean in the end DA2 is not a bad game by any stretch of imagination (wouldn’t have spent 25 hours playing it otherwise) but it is just disappointing that a sequel would have less, instead of more.

 

[eek5]

Anyone ? I'm gonna buy the game today.

Nothing is broken about it. It can feel a bit awkward at times because it's like they wanted to go full action but only went half way but it is still a lot of fun imo.

 

[Yurt]

Alright thanks guys.

I dunno I got that impression after reading Game Informer's review. Oh well as long as it's fun. I'm gonna miss the flashy finishers.

 

[JordoftheDead]

I finished it today and feel torn like many others. There are things about it that are huge improvements over DA: O, but for every improvement there is a sgnificant step back.

For example, I loved the first dungeon design, but I liked it a lot less when I had visited it 15 times from supposed different locations.

I thought the Hawke talking to his squadmates made for more intereting conversations, but that was tempered by the fact that I thought there weren't any real standout characters I found as interesting as Morrigan or Shale, for example. Many of them just felt underdone.

I know a lot of people felt that they weren't following a main plot a lot if the time, but I actually liked that. It was much more subtle, and most of the sidequests just alluded to the general feeling of the city and the direction it was heading.

A good game overall that doesn't deserve a lot of the negativity it gets, but I didn't feel anywhere close to the emotional investment I had developed by the end of DA: O.

So add me to the on-the-fence group.

 

[Slackbladder]

I've noticed what seems to be a bug. You can make potions that revive your comrades when they're ko'd. However, pretty much every time I do this the ones revived seem to lose they're Tactics and just stand around like lemons getting killed, again. Not noticed this using Anders Regroup spell though.
Also, the game crashes when I change the AA options. Apart from that I like the game.

 

[Darkone]

So i started the game and i am only 4 hours in, so far the combat system is really an improvement and teh abilities are much more fun and awarding, one thing that pisses me off is the LACK of CGI movies in this game, the first one had the opening and thats it but i was hopeing maybe some more in DA2, but putting the comic style images as cut scenes is assulting.

 

[kinoki]

This would have worked excellent as DLC. Perhaps it started out as such and was only later made into a full game. That might explain some of the re-using of locations. As a €19.99 expansion to DA:O it would have been a steal. And it would set up things toward a real Dragon Age 2 proper.

As it stands it's a failure. BioWare has some of the best writers in the industry and even they can't make coherent plots. First off introduce your antagonist at the start of the game, make us care why the protagonist should overcome this obstacle, etc, etc. It's 101 writing and they've failed terribly at it. There's nothing to keep us going with the "plot" except some OCD questlog clearing.

This game was supposed to take place over 6 years but it there is no sign that time plays any part and the gimmick of the game is lost due to lazy developers. All games that take place in one locale needs to show that the player is making progress (see: Silent Hill 4, Majora's Mask, etc). The locale is supposed to be the 3rd player in the drama. But it isn't. It's just 4 or 5 scattered blocks of cityscape that's hard to tell if they're supposed to be the same city.

At the end of the day they've created a structure that's easy to patch DLC into, not a game.

 

[eek5]

This would have worked excellent as DLC. Perhaps it started out as such and was only later made into a full game. That might explain some of the re-using of locations. As a €19.99 expansion to DA:O it would have been a steal. And it would set up things toward a real Dragon Age 2 proper.

As it stands it's a failure. BioWare has some of the best writers in the industry and even they can't make coherent plots. First off introduce your antagonist at the start of the game, make us care why the protagonist should overcome this obstacle, etc, etc. It's 101 writing and they've failed terribly at it. There's nothing to keep us going with the "plot" except some OCD questlog clearing.

This game was supposed to take place over 6 years but it there is no sign that time plays any part and the gimmick of the game is lost due to lazy developers. All games that take place in one locale needs to show that the player is making progress (see: Silent Hill 4, Majora's Mask, etc). The locale is supposed to be the 3rd player in the drama. But it isn't. It's just 4 or 5 scattered blocks of cityscape that's hard to tell if they're supposed to be the same city.

At the end of the day they've created a structure that's easy to patch DLC into, not a game.

All will be forgiven if the DLC is REALLY good though!

 

[delirium]

Spoiler

Orlais was not where I wanted to go with DA3....I was really hoping for Tevinter. Bodain just mentioned that as well. Oh well. As long as they don't rush the game and take their time, and as long as the overall story is better than DA2. The story was good, it just felt rushed.

I'm sorry but

Spoiler

Orlais would be great. Image having all these female NPCs talking to each other with their sexy French accents.

 

[Trickster]

How to I get access to the black emporium? I've read there is supposed to be a letter in the writing desk at gamlens home, but there isn't one for me. Does it take until a certain point in the game before it appears? Because I bassically just ran there first thing i could.

 

[Hixx]

How to I get access to the black emporium? I've read there is supposed to be a letter in the writing desk at gamlens home, but there isn't one for me. Does it take until a certain point in the game before it appears? Because I bassically just ran there first thing i could.

It should be on your map. Bottom right somewhere on Kirkwall night/day, it just appeared really early on in the game for me.

 

[Xater]

I have now played this game for around 18 hours and I don't think I like it. If you ask yourself why I have stuck with it for so long, it's because I am sick and have nothing better to do.

The biggest problem this game has is the story. There basically is no storyline. It's just a bunch of event that are sometimes connected. There is absolutely no goal to work towards. They should have called it "Dragon Age: Episodes" or "Dragon Age: Times of my Life".

The other big problem I have with this game is the re-use of locations. They basically just created a couple of them an use them other and other again for the different quests. I also don't ever get the sense of exploring the world. Everything is mapped out and you just quick travel between the locations where you need to be.

These two points make the experience of DA2 totally dull. Nothing really exciting is happening and I see the same shit over and over again. I don't know what the guys at Bioware were thinking here.

The combat system is actually alright, and I actually like the characterization of the companions.

 

[Trickster]

It should be on your map. Bottom right somewhere on Kirkwall night/day, it just appeared really early on in the game for me.

You didn't have to read a letter/note in gamlens house ?

 

[Hixx]

You didn't have to read a letter/note in gamlens house ?

Honestly can't remember. Though when I first got Gamlen's house I just sped through everything cos it was mostly all the pre-order/social crap.

And Xater, the story does get better in Act 2 but I can't shake the feeling this is all to set up DA3 whereas DAO was a pretty self-contained game.

 

[Xater]

Honestly can't remember. Though when I first got Gamlen's house I just sped through everything cos it was mostly all the pre-order/social crap.

And Xater, the story does get better in Act 2 but I can't shake the feeling this is all to set up DA3 whereas DAO was a pretty self-contained game.

If by Act 2 you mean the Qunari stuff, that was nice but then was over again quickly. It's just one small episode like kinda everything in this game. I want my big, epic RPG storyline. So far I got bullshit.

 

[Lostconfused]

If by Act 2 you mean the Qunari stuff, that was nice but then was over again quickly. It's just one small episode like kinda everything in this game. I want my big, epic RPG storyline. So far I got bullshit.

Yeah Act 2 is definitely the best part of the game.

 

[Xater]

Yeah Act 2 is definitely the best part of the game.

If they somehow took that stuff and made a story for the whole game out of it, that might have ended up being something cool. This way it was just non-consequential like pretty much everything else in this game. Even my father just told me that is not liking this game and he played more Origins than me.

 

[eek5]

How to I get access to the black emporium? I've read there is supposed to be a letter in the writing desk at gamlens home, but there isn't one for me. Does it take until a certain point in the game before it appears? Because I bassically just ran there first thing i could.

You can get there the first time you're able to see the map overview

 

[cleveridea]

Playing on 360 and finding the game ridiculously easy now level 10 still in Act 1. I mean I took down a

Spoiler

mature dragon

like it was nothing. Same with sub-boss enemies etc. Its so easy its boring as many enemies just die so quick.

So I am thinking of restarting on Hard. But can anyone mention if the game starts getting hard after Act 1? Things are hard to judge because

a) Its Act 1 so could be easy by design at start of game to help newbies

b) With all the cool armor and equipment unlocked from DLC etc I have super high quality armor and weapons.

So can anyone comment?

Also does anyone feel like playing a warrior is like a berserker in Too Human ! The way you can auto-slide to close the game to enemies is like Too Human right-stick-makes-you-close gap system.

 

[Coxswain]

I just finished the game. Clocked in at just under 59 hours, playing on Nightmare and doing every quest that became available to me (I'm sure I missed a handful here and there); I expected a couple more hours at the end, but Act 3 is kind of abrupt. I'll probably let my thoughts crystallize for a bit before I do a bit more of a full writeup, but for now, after seeing the highs and lows of Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2, this is my immediate impression:


Dragon Age Origins is what happens when you give a development team years worth of time and all the budget necessary to create exactly the game they aspire to create, but they don't aspire to anything other than bog-standard mediocrity, in just about every respect. It's exactly the game it was meant to be, and it was always meant to be the most nondescript fantasy RPG around.

Dragon Age 2 is what happens when you have a development team with good ideas and a desire to create something interesting, but you choke back their budget and their timeline to the point where the game is releasing 1.5-2 years before it was meant to come out. It's got some heavy, heavy flaws dragging down some very nice ideas, and you can trace many of those flaws almost directly back to issues of time or budget constraint.



I pretty solidly preferred DA2 to the original, although a lot of its flaws are such that they grate more and more the further you get into the game, and I'm not as entirely taken by it as I was in the beginning. Still, if I'm going to be dealing with elements of mediocrity in my games, I'll take the one that's mediocre because the execution didn't do justice to the concept over the one that's mediocre because nobody bothered trying to develop anything interesting.

Edit: One more thing, Gamlen wins the "Best Creepy Uncle in a Video Game" award for the line: "So I hear you're slipping it to that pirate wench. I always wondered what it's like... Two women." It's creepy even without the fantasizing-about-your-niece angle, but that's given it a pretty commanding lead.

 

[Trickster]

You can get there the first time you're able to see the map overview

Doesn't appear for me, do I have to be logged in on my EA account for dlc to work ?

 

[Enduin]

Playing on 360 and finding the game ridiculously easy now level 10 still in Act 1. I mean I took down a

Spoiler

mature dragon

like it was nothing. Same with sub-boss enemies etc. Its so easy its boring as many enemies just die so quick.

So I am thinking of restarting on Hard. But can anyone mention if the game starts getting hard after Act 1? Things are hard to judge because

a) Its Act 1 so could be easy by design at start of game to help newbies

b) With all the cool armor and equipment unlocked from DLC etc I have super high quality armor and weapons.

So can anyone comment?

Also does anyone feel like playing a warrior is like a berserker in Too Human ! The way you can auto-slide to close the game to enemies is like Too Human right-stick-makes-you-close gap system.

You can just change difficulty with your current game and not have to restart, unless thats not an option on consoles, though I would be surprised if it wasnt. Anyways things get harder sort of, most of the boss fights introduce some pretty noticeable difficulty spikes, but outside of them normal encounters dont really vary too much especially if youre careful and manage your party and positioning.

 

[Interfectum]

Anyone ? I'm gonna buy the game today.

The game isn't broken... it's fully playable. The problem is the game itself is garbage. So buyer beware.

 

[Kyoufu]

I don't think the game is garbage, but it is many steps backwards compared to DA:O. You'll enjoy it if you go into this with an open mind, but if you're expecting DA:O levels of quality then you're going to be sorely disappointed...