Same with Divinity 2. It wasn't a masterpiece. I didn't even *try* to be a masterpiece, because it wasn't *meant* to be a masterpiece. It didn't try to tell a deep and involving story or portray a deep and involved world. It simply promised that its devs had a lot of fun playing with the cliches and conventions, and that you, as a player will have at least as much fun playing the result. It's one of the last games built around the old philosophy pre-dating suits and shareholders and CEOs, that making games should be fun and that by selling or otherwise making the game accessible you share this fun with the others. And fun I had - Larian certainly delivered on their promise.
Which cannot e said of Bioware, which tries to be first and foremost a storyteller, but ends up regurgitating the same shit story, lately sprinkled with awfully written romances over and over again.
Actually that's pretty much what Bio did with DA2. They went for self-irony. The many quoted "I want to be a dragon" was actually one such case.
Whether the irony was simply too subtle for the average codexer, or was never experienced in context, or was taken seriously because it was easy to use against Bio, or was taken seriously because one expects such bad dialogue in seriousness from Bio, I can't tell.
Fact is: Such self-irony permeates DA2.
Which might be one of the reasons the Bio-fans were not amused.
Bio also tried to break their own mold in other places:
No more "visit 3-4 hubs and collect stuff to open up the final hub".
The relationships to your companions evolve over a far longer time-span (but this didn't work for me at all).
There were also some small improvements in character development, tactics management and UI, all of which were nothing to write home about. BTW, gay romance options could be pretty much squashed before awkward moments arose. I don't really get what everyone's issue with Anders was. They probably gave him a carrot and then whined about him wanting more... *shrug*
To me DA2 was the most enjoyable Bio-game since HotU and the most enjoyable "choose your own adventure" ever. But I'm probably pretty much the only one on the co'x to think so
(I don't know if what Konjad does, counts as "thinking".)
I was just too lazy to write a real review and never found a thread where a comment like this fit but I wanted to express this opinion at least once.
Disclaimer: DA2 is by no means a "good" game and I don't consider it an RPG at all, it's a pure "choose your own adventure". It also has massive flaws.
Re-use of areas.
Encounter wave mechanic.
Melee-classes were unplayable to me due to shitty gameplay.
The self-irony didn't really come into the main-quest leading to an at times jarring experience and a shitty main quest.
Re-use of areas.
Switching between mass murdering "enemies" and suddenly caring about one life or another was also jarring. As were the quiet(, serious) conversations while being splattered in blood.
Encounter wave mechanic.
Level scaling.
Re-use of areas.
Few unique items that stay useful for quite a while = good. One dimensional item progression with the choice of best item always being obvious = shit. Level scaled generic loot to complement the unique loot = shit.
Encounter wave mechanic.
Re-use of areas.
Shitty graphics that looked worse than DAO even after the graphix patch.
/derail (? Only time will tell.)