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Dragon Age 2
Mar. 12th, 2011 03:07 amWell, I suppose that Bioware had to disappoint me some day.
( Haven't finished it yet, but I wanted to vent (spoilers up to somewhere in Part 2, I guess, though it's mostly just gameplay complaints. Haha, as if there's much of a story to spoil!) )
tl;dr/spoiler-free version:
On the bright side... well, they did make all the romances Hawkesexual, so there's no complaints about how one is a het-only romance. That was a good step. And I guess the conversationsystem animations (I don't know why I typed system there at first, it is absolutely worse) are better. The first one had characters that moved like they were made of wood. Granted, a lot of animations are blatantly stolen from ME, but it's still something of an improvement.
It's not really a terrible game, as much as I'm raging at it. It's just... an unnecessary one. One that ignores the good thing about the original. One that probably should have been in development for a little longer. One with quirks and poor design decisions I would have forgiven if it had been made by an indie publisher. One that undeniably fails to surpass the original in any way.
( Haven't finished it yet, but I wanted to vent (spoilers up to somewhere in Part 2, I guess, though it's mostly just gameplay complaints. Haha, as if there's much of a story to spoil!) )
tl;dr/spoiler-free version:
- They took a decent combat system and rather than improve on their work, chose to change it to something that, once again, is just a decent combat system and might be improved into something worthwhile in a future game. Assuming they don't just trash it again, too.
- Bland environments are turned from boring to annoying when they're reused constantly ("Hey, this mine looks awful familiar... maybe because it's apparently been teleporting around the world just for us to explore it for the dozenth time.")
- Awful writing. It's... it's just awful.
- Why even have a predefined character if you're just going to make him Lord/Lady Bland of Genericland? Just so you can brag about your fully-voiced game? To give us fewer options? To "surprise" us with what our character will actually say? Bah.
- The storyline is... experimental, I suppose, in the sense that they don't follow the Bioware four hub formula. Alas! The four hub formula works really well for them, in the sense that it forces them to have a plot. And interesting locations. And a sense of tension.
On the bright side... well, they did make all the romances Hawkesexual, so there's no complaints about how one is a het-only romance. That was a good step. And I guess the conversation
It's not really a terrible game, as much as I'm raging at it. It's just... an unnecessary one. One that ignores the good thing about the original. One that probably should have been in development for a little longer. One with quirks and poor design decisions I would have forgiven if it had been made by an indie publisher. One that undeniably fails to surpass the original in any way.
