I think its safe to say that when it comes to the Dragon Age games, Dragon Age 2 was a big disappointment compared to the original RPG masterpiece that was Dragon Age: Origins. Gone was the country-spanning scope of the first with its varied dungeons, customisable companion armour and real sense of danger that would see your entire party ripped apart by a Darkspawn ambush at any moment. Dragon Age 2 felt very much like a rush-job as the pressure was on to continue this great new IP that its predecessor had started and with the news that Dragon Age 3: Inquisition could be just under a year away, many are demanding about what needs to be fixed.
Many things should be fixed. But… believe it or not, I think there are a few things that Dragon Age 2 did well and should find their way into the third entry. Such as…
5. Varric
Quickly now, think of your archetypal fantasy dwarf. Chances are you either thought of Oghren, Gimli or one of the seven that helped out Snow White. And what do they all have in common? Beards, axes (or picts) and a very direct approach to obstacles.
Varric is different. He’s a smooth-talking, clean-shaven, narrative spinning dwarf with a crossbow named Bianca and the whole game is better off because of it. Now Oghren from Origins was bad-ass in his own right, but lets be fair, he was cast from the same mould as every other Gimli clone and there to fill an expectation.
No one was expecting Varric or that the story of Dragon Age 2 would be from his point of view. He was interesting, funny and a breath of fresh air in a stagnant genre. Even a cameo in the third game would be much appreciated, or better yet, him and Oghren for some double-dwarf goodness.
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8 Comments
Why no voice? (?<–required to be a question)
Besides all of the extra work, and space those two voices take up, that takes away from the rest of the game, It gets old, fast, it was OK the first time through, but it was frustrating that no matter how different you made your character, the voice would never change. Then we have how bad the lines were (and how unrelated they were to what you were told you were about to say) and how inappropriately timed some of them were. At least with a silent PC you can pretend you worded it better.
The ending? really? The ending in 2 was one of the worst parts of that game, no matter what you do throughout the game, you just pick ending a or b. And there is really no difference between them (one minor variation). You get to make almost no decisions throughout the game (I can count the ones that matter on my fingers) and most of the NPCs all make bad ones.
There is no resolution, no epilogue to speak of, it just ends. And no matter what, you run away. No exactly heroic, but then nothing about Hawke was. Hawke was generally ineffective and who's life peaked with the invasion. Which all could have been prevented if you could have done what one of the so called options said you could do back in act 1, and kill a certain person.
Hawke: "I should kill you now!" '…Buuuut, they won't let me, because I am Fail Hawke the Ineffective. They will sing songs of my near triumphs and almost rescues for generations.' Best part of the ending was when Meridith calls Hawke out for being useless (not that she has much room to talk, she didn't prevent it either and it's her job).
Even with Varric's ability to lie it's hard to make some of it look good.
I can only hope that there is more diversity in action and choices, DA2 was event driven with little input from the player influencing as to how most things turn out. Most events would have the same resolution with the difference being Hawke tells a joke or Hawke shouts and no one takes notice.
Plus they do need to adda option to kill a person if your character wishes to kill them instead of being held back by some invisble force.
I loved having the voice. I loved that the game molds to my choices and my character joined the party banter with comments that went with the character I built. I LOVE that I got a chance to run around with an obviously snarky character. Who ACTED snarky even outside my decisions. I hope they leave that in. I agree with Varrick. I also hope they tie up the ending and show some conclusion to Hawke. Running away and then what? I was greatly disappointed when they dropped the last dlc. I also hope they keep the friendship/rivalry. I liked that we could HATE each other and still respect each other. Made relationships (not just romances) much more dynamic.
Replace Varric with Isabella!
Just like TheDevian, I high disagree with the ending of DA2. It felt rubbish!
We shouldn’t be much optimistic as the hype train is already in motion. The game should not inherit nothing from DA 2. It was a joke, a Final Fight Arcade game full of stupidity and dumbness. No matter how PR they inject with the public I won’t trust this game will be “great”. EA is in for the buck, not for quality.
What do we have in exchange for the voice of the main character? They removed the feature of choosing what race you would come from whether elf, dwarf, or human. I would rather lose the voice of my main character as TheDevian said and have the choice of picking my race. With that DA would have an identity of its own rather than being a mass effect game with a different name. My god even the paragon renegade thing was in DA2. Origins made scripts that would react to whatever you say and it made a difference as you go along with the conversation. Also by picking a race, it gives you a different backstory as you play along and people will treat you differently whether you are a noble or a lowly city elf. In DA2 you had HAWKE period. I didn’t replay the game since the story would just be the same unlike origins where a playthrough could be that you are a noble and then another as a city elf you rose up and become a warrior, or a mage you shackled the bonds of the circle and became a warden each with a different foundation as how the story starts but all with a single goal, to end the Blight.
In truth, I didn’t think DA2 was as awful as people made it out to be. Was it as good as the first game? No, but I still kind of liked it. It was different in a lot of ways in comparison to other games of its genre. I LOVED that you could have a voice. Silence was okay in origins, but only because it was so typical in other rpg games that I was used to it. The banter that I could actually participate in was either hilarious or very serious, and that was fun to me. There are so many games where you can decide your shape and size, but having a voice is relatively new.
That being said, of course, it was hard to tolerate the rest of the game without cringing. The teammates were kind of nice ( except for Fenris, my god, I hope they get rid of him), and the story was nice. I liked how nicely it incorperated some of your teammates. I hated having the same enemies over and over and the repetitive background, but in the end, it wasn’t terrible, just really different.
I loved DA2 and it confuses me how people can talk so much crap about it, even the few friends that have played both agree DA2 was the better game. Now this doesn’t mean DA1 wasn’t great, it was great.
1. The voice, loved having the voice… Sarcastic female Hawke was such a great choice, if u didn’t have a female sarcastic character then u missed out big time. The no voice crap pissed me off, it likes ur a souless mute. I can see the argument about putting ur own voice in the character, but thats not for me.
2. The companions, Varric, Isabella, Merrill… Those 3 were epic companions, all the companions were great. Even the guy u end up hating, does a great job in making u really hate his charcter. Yea there were some great ones in 1, but half were duds too.
3. The combat, faster pace and comboing to make using ur groups skills at certain times for the best dmg was great. The slow pace in 1 got boring, though it did get better in the expansion.
4. The story, each chapter ends with a dramatic emotional scene. Though I did love the ending, I will agree with the complaint about the 2 different paths endings being practically the same. And also the fact that almost all mages seemed to turn into abominations was annoying.
Stuff I loved from 1 is the world, being able to travel all over was great… Way better than the one town in 2. and even though u did fight alot of dark spawn, u had a good variety of enemies.