Dragon Age 2

[Spectral Paladin]

I 'll take the initiative to open a topic on this game again. Even though I like not having to share a single player rpg with anyone, it 'd be a shame if the only thread in its honor was the last one.

My last post in that was responding to Dante's point about Isabella's bisexuality, for which I found this Bill Hicks quote:

Have you heard about this? These new grade school books for children. To help explain to them the gay lifestyle. You know what I'm talking about? One of them is called Heathers two mommies, the other one, daddies... new... room-mate. Folks I'm going to have to draw the line here and say I find this really fucking disgusting. You know, it's abhorrent, I think it's fucking evil, alright. And I'm talking of course about Daddies new room-mate, Heathers two mommies on the other hand... wow! Quite a fetching read. "Ohh they're hugging on page seven... ohh. Go mommies go! Heathers' such a lucky girl. I wish I had two mommies. Ohh they kiss on chapter eleven." You know there's actually people in the world that consider that a double standard.

Comedy aside, this is how the majority of people see it.

Since I have a brand new topic, I might as well go on. This is a fantasy world so I 'm not sure we need homosexuality to make it realistic (like Dragoon argued I believe). Besides, I don't buy that in medieval times there were that kind of relationships. There were no mages or mage slaves for instance, in other words, I would expect non-nobles to be a lot less refined.

Which brings another issue to mind (one Origins suffered from as well), that all characters in the game are pretty. I would expect the poor people in the slums to be missing teeth and war veterans to bear terrible scars, but this is not the case. Definetely an effort to stay mainstream by a game that tries to come off as dark & realistic.

Unrelated to the above, my biggest complaint (and mild spoiler):

That the game ruined my party setup in the climactic moments of the game, particularly the end of act 2 that I had long been waiting for due to the trailers. What's worse, I was playing a 2-handed warrior on nightmare and virtually the only group that worked was him as the tank and the rest ranged. It was thus very annoying to be saddled with Aveline and basically have to 3-man the Arishok.

All that aside, overall I enjoyed the game quite a bit. I will play through it again, probably when there's more DLC out and patches to polish it off (there was at least one quest that was bugged and couldn't be completed).

[Dragoon Knight]

[colour=#005FFF]I didn't argue that. I simply stated that the issue had been addressed by BioWare directly and observed that there would likely be no complaints if a female character was to "come on" to a male one. I commented that BioWare push the boundaries of gaming experience by removing taboos that are outdated and unnecessary. They don't always do it perfectly, but they do it well.

The issue regarding party dynamic isn't one that I've encountered yet, but it seems silly that BioWare have restricted classes as they have; one person, one role? That's not something I particularly like. There are unofficial mods available for the PC that address this issue, allowing a much more Origins-esque freedom of spec, but it doesn't speak well of the overall design decision in the first place. Some people go as far as saying we're playing "Dragon Effect". :P[/colour]

[Spectral Paladin]

Hm yes. I wouldn't mind that much if I was able to use my favored party setup without it being ruined for no serious roleplaying reason (ie being the consequence of an important decision). Not to mention that for a certain important decision the player may feel forced to a choice because there is exactly one member able to fulfill one of the roles. (vague enough? maybe we can discuss it when more have finished their playthrough).

There are valid complaints about the game feeling rushed. I poured 75 hours in my savegame anyway, but my enthusiasm may have compensated for the lack of content we 're used to in a bioware game. Since our very own administrator is involved with the game, I wonder how he feels about this.

On a related note: THE BARD: Saviors of Queens – New project announced by CD Projekt RED

[Dante]

I'll take the initiative to open a topic on this game again. Even though I like not having to share a single player rpg with anyone, it 'd be a shame if the only thread in its honor was the last one.

I actually agree with that entirely. I didn't post anything in depth for this long solely because I prefer to treat games like this as very personal experiences. They're not the kind of thing one dissects on a slab.

Since I have a brand new topic, I might as well go on. This is a fantasy world so I 'm not sure we need homosexuality to make it realistic (like Dragoon argued I believe). Besides, I don't buy that in medieval times there were that kind of relationships. There were no mages or mage slaves for instance, in other words, I would expect non-nobles to be a lot less refined.

Which brings another issue to mind (one Origins suffered from as well), that all characters in the game are pretty. I would expect the poor people in the slums to be missing teeth and war veterans to bear terrible scars, but this is not the case. Definetely an effort to stay mainstream by a game that tries to come off as dark & realistic.

I wouldn't say "pretty," exactly, but it's true that there was nobody around with a tumour hanging off their face. While it's a legitimate point, I never found my immersion broken by people who looked a bit too healthy (though several older characters did enjoy a Wynne-like firmness of body which I found a bit peculiar).

I'm not sure where you're going with the other question. We're agreed that the male/female thing is a double standard, but other than that I'm honestly not sure what your point is. Non-nobles, refinement, medieval history, where are you going with that?

The game didn't feel rushed to me so much as it felt... I'm not sure, like a prequel. It played like Dragon Age 1.5, setting us up for something even bigger and ensuring that the correct plot points were hit along the way. I'm not saying that this is necessarily good or bad, and I for one would be delighted if Bioware ignored the modern habit of making everything in trilogies and just kept releasing titles in the franchise ad infinitum (I may have misinterpreted the signals, but this looks to be happening, unlike in Mass Effect which seems very much like it's heading for a finale in its third installment). It's kind of too bad that continuing the same plot through DLC can only go so far...

But anyway. I don't feel like I should criticise the game, I liked it so much that any negativity just strikes me as... petty. Like complaining about a discoloured leaf in a delicious salad.

...My metaphors need work. Regardless, I'll do what I can. The caves and dungeons felt same-y, and I found it really weird that there were bits of mining equipment in some of them when they clearly weren't mines. I never got tired of walking the same streets of Kirkwall, but it could have been spruced up even a little by, for example, clearing the ivy off our house or changing the flags now and then. One can't expect slums to remain stationary for long either. I also thought that power came a bit too easily to me, but then I play on normal mode for first playthroughs. Will up the difficulty next time, which I would have started by now excect I wanted to play through Origins and Awakening again first...

Yeesh. I don't want to overexpress myself, but I really loved the game. It's no Origins, but it's still wonderful. What other people see as problems, I see as challenges or stylistic choices. More detail on that when we've all played through and I can safely put things in spoiler tags.

I'm not sure what it is about Bioware, but everything they touch seems to be gold. The characters, the plot twists, the hard decisions, all presented beautifully and with some niftily upgraded combat so the adrenaline junkies don't get bored.

Next playthrough: female rogue. Fenris won't know what hit him.

[Spectral Paladin]

The point was that the romances in DA are not what I picture them to be between adventurers in the middle ages. Not that it matters that much really.

Bioware seems a bit too concerned with the gold part lately. Yes, their games tradionally have lots of depth and suggest a lot of love put in their creation. But they seem to have acquired a commercial tint as well. Like some external force is influencing them. Everyone on this board should be familiar with the pattern - *cough* westwood *cough*.

I will agree to no nitpicking though, given that DA2 was a good game anyway. Like I said, we got DLC to look forward to, then possibly DA3. Then we 'll know.

Edit 14/4: I 've neglected to mention what I did enjoy about the game so here's one: I 'm one of those who enjoyed the new combat system and the faster pace. Particularly the boss fights; several memorable ones whereas there were hardly any in DA:O.