Preview Dragon Age II Review Tidbits

[Grunker]

The amount of options you have tacticswise in DAO are very limited in comparison to other games, like good old BG2 (which hardly set a high standard for tactical gameplay).

It's no BG2, that's for damned sure - but then again, what is?

@Teh other peoples:

Anyway, I'm having fun with it... It's what I'd call an okay game (good for what it is hurr durr).

There's good RPGs (PS:T, Fallout, BG2, Wizardry, M&M VII), there's trash RPGs (Oblivion, Fallout 3, Realms), and there's okayish RPG (Dragon Age, for instance). I am by no means saying it is RPG gold, but it doesn't have to be to be entertaining for while. It's the same reason I can watch Zombieland when I have a hangover.

 

[deus101]

The amount of options you have tacticswise in DAO are very limited in comparison to other games, like good old BG2 (which hardly set a high standard for tactical gameplay).

It's no BG2, that's for damned sure - but then again, what is?

@Teh other peoples:

Anyway, I'm having fun with it... It's what I'd call an okay game (good for what it is hurr durr).

There's good RPGs (PS:T, Fallout, BG2, Wizardry, M&M VII), there's trash RPGs (Oblivion, Fallout 3, Realms), and there's okayish RPG (Dragon Age, for instance). I am by no means saying it is RPG gold, but it doesn't have to be to be entertaining for while. It's the same reason I can watch Zombieland when I have a hangover.

Oblivion and Fallout 3 were better RPG's then Dragons Age......

The last refuge of an RPG is to have varied content and details.

DA fails on that aspects with HUGE margins!

 

[GarfunkeL]

On the high difficulty "spam abilities and hope for the best" is not a viable strategy, period

Oh yes it is. Granted, I never finished the damn game since Derp Roads killed me but what I had seen so far (on Hard, btw) didn't convince me to keep trying in any case. Majority of combat was Cone of Cold, whack slash whack and that's it. A big room with plenty of opponents? Fireball first, then CoC and whack slash whack. "Special" opponents, like... Revenants, where they called? Focus fire, maybe have tank drink a healing potion, then CoC and whack slash whack. The large courtyard fight in the castle with two of those revenants and a dozen other mobs? Fireball, tank&spank, CoC on trash mobs and rinse and repeat the whack, slash, whack part. If the only difference are the miserably few, true "boss" fights against Flementh in dragon form and the Arch-demon-dragon, that's not nearly enough to keep me going.

Contrast this to even BG1, where the plethora of various enemies with special abilities/equipment made for a large selection of different fights and no wonder that experienced players were frustrated with it. Considering that you can play BG1/2, IW1/2, ToEE, KotC, Gold Box or even PST or NWN 1/2 (with all their mods), I see no reason to play DAO for combat or character development.

As to its other flaws, TalesFromTheCrypt nailed them head on. Small&soulless are good adjectives.

Ninja-edit: If someone says that what I described above is anything more than common sense and bareboned tactics, I'm gonna strangle them.

 

[Volourn]

"plethora"

Name them.

 

[Brother None]

"plethora"

Name them.

Here ya go

Man you'd think of all people out there Volourn would be the last to need a refresher course on BG2.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

you link does not work bn, here is the correct one: http://mikesrpgcenter.com/bgate/bestiary.html

 

[Xor]

Contrast that with DAO, which had (off the top of my head, of course):

Darkspawn
Darkspawn mages
Human rogues
Human mages
Human warriors
Wolves
Revenants
Ogres
Some kind of cave monster I think
Maybe spiders, I don't really remember
Werewolves

And that's all I got, not counting 4 or so bosses. Baldur's gate beats that with unique human NPCs alone. In Nashkel.

 

[Volourn]

So... you are counting the 5 different type of bears as 'plethora of various enemies with special abilities/equipment made for a large selection of different fights'

LMFAO

 

[Brother None]

As far as I can tell at a glance, removing subcategories BG still has 36 types of enemies.

I know counting is hard and all Volo but you should've been able to spot that one.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Suffice it to say, I disagree. I find the gameplay quite fun (obviously, you have to play on hard/nightmare difficulty). On the high difficulty "spam abilities and hope for the best" is not a viable strategy, period . I'm not even playing this game from a storyfag-point-of-view, 'cause the story and characters are pretty bad in my opinion. Overall I agree with VD's review except for his praise of the characters...

The only thing I said about the characters was:

"Standard party members setup with all the banter and drama you can expect, but this time you can kill a lot more party members, which is a must-have feature in a Bioware game"

I liked the golem though. He was fun to hang around with.

... and his claim that it is the best RPG since Arcanum (I think that tribute goes to Bloodlines, The Witcher, and KotC before there's any chance of Dragon Age even being mentioned).

KotC is a pretty cool dungeon crawler but I don't think it's in the same ballpark as Arcanum or Dragon Age.

The Witcher is meh at best. Clickfest combat, painfully linear story, pretty graphics, good atmosphere, fucking amazing journal. Unfortunately, journals, even the fucking amazing ones, do not make a game.

Bloodlines isn't bad, but it's an action RPG. Here is my opinion, circa 2004.

Now, what do people praise Arcanum for? Deep tactical combat? Fuck no. Stylish visuals? Nope. Character system? Nah. Low combat and pure diplomatic path? Yeah, I wish. So, what's left? The options and choices. Like it or hate it, Dragon Age is the only game that comes close. Yeah, sucks, I know.

 

[a budda]

wow, me2 looks like a masterpiece compared to that

to sum up, i'm speechless, see it for yourself
i survived through DA1 somehow but still regret that time and definitely wasn't even thinking of repeating the story this time, but... i still would have wanted to torrent it and have a look at it for a few hours to know what to bash that game for for the next year
but after an hour or so of the demo...
i don't even

and how they made it run like 22fps on gtx460? well, who cares

 

[kris]

My main gripe with modern Bioware games is how small, lifeless and uninteresting everything is. I mean BG 2 had a frikkin huge ass city with several big and diverse districts plus all the other detailed locations you could go to. You had unique descriptions for most of the more poten magical items and weapons, and while most of the stories were silly, it kinda drew you into the gameworld.

But modern Bioware games? The main hubs consist of 4 or 5 areas, one tavern/cantina and some other locations that only exist because they are part of a specific quest. Take Mass Effect 2 for example. What a wasted opportunity the Citadel is, supposedly a big-ass space station with douzens of races and millions of individuals living there, and then you get what? Some small and uninspired areas that you can explore within 10 minutes max. Starting with KOTOR locations in Bioware games have become so limited, every level consist of one or several interconected tubes, with invisible walls blocking you from exploring the fake vistas in the background. There really nothing left to explore.

I most certainly agree with this sentiment, but I would like to mention that this really began to show in Jade Empire. Yeah, I know Jade empire is a console first action-RPG, but that was the game were their current area design started to show. You basically walked the "tunnel" for most of the game, at least that game had some nice art direction at times.

I suspect DA2 will make DAO look like a game with loads of freedom and open areas.

 

[Volourn]

"You basically walked the "tunnel" for most of the game,"

No.


"still has 36 types of enemies."

OMFG That's a plethora? LMFAO

 

[Vault Dweller]

Contrast that with DAO, which had (off the top of my head, of course):

Darkspawn
Darkspawn mages
Human rogues
Human mages
Human warriors
Wolves
Revenants
Ogres
Some kind of cave monster I think
Maybe spiders, I don't really remember
Werewolves

And that's all I got, not counting 4 or so bosses. Baldur's gate beats that with unique human NPCs alone. In Nashkel.

Beats what? What you think the game had?

DA - 29 without counting subcategories and humans.

Abomination
Arcane Horror
Archdemon
Ash Wraith
Bear
Bronto
Broodmother
Corpses of all kinds
Deepstalker
Desire Demon
Dragon
Drake
Genlock
Ghoul
Golem
Hurlock
War Hound
Ogre
Rage Demon
Revenant
Shade
Shriek
Skeletons
Sloth Demon
Spiders
Werewolves
Wild Sylvan
Wisp
Wolf

BG - 30

Ankheg
Basilisk
Bears
Crawler
Dogs
Doom Guard
Doppelganger
Dryad
Ettercap
Flind
Ghast
Ghoul
Gibberling
Gnoll
Half Ogre
Helmet Horror
Hobgoblin
Invisible Stalker
Kobold
Ogre
Ogrillion
Skeleton
Slime
Spider
Tasloi
Wolf
Worg
Wyvern
Xvart
Zombie

 

[GarfunkeL]

Umm, the names don't really matter, the abilities do - almost all the enemies I encountered in DAO were melee fighters, melee rogues (only difference to fighters was that they started out stealthed), bow fighters and very, very few mages. Not to mention that on low/medium GFX, all humanoids pretty much looked the same anyway.

In DAO I was never poisoned, turned to stone, disintegrated, mazed, charmed, confused, blinded, level-drained or cowering in fear. Neither were there enemy casters using protective spells that I would have needed to take down first. Only potion I ever had to use was healing potion for the tank and even that happened maybe thrice or four times. I never encountered a pack of kobold archers with fire arrows that could decimate even a strong warrior with little bad luck. I never walked into a web-trap where teleporting spiders would surround me and poison me. I never had to utilize terrain for my advantage and the one time I tried, I noticed that mobs can "glide" through your characters if your caster has aggro. I never had to use buffs for that matter - was there anything else but the "fire swords"-thingy? I think my tank got stunned once or twice but it didn't really leave much of an impression.

And aside from the maze, everything above is from BG1, not even BG2 which brought even more enemies and options to the table. So there is really no justification in defending DAOs combat, for any reason. DA2 might actually be an improvement by going pure hack'n'slash and leaving aside all pretensions of challenging, tactical combat.

Again, maybe there were special encounters further down the road but I did 2/3 of Derp Roads, rescued the damn village from the zombies, did some "quests" in Denerim and all the origins and my experience was of a very, very lacking combat both mechanics- and encounter-wise.

Ninja-edit: and the fact that I'm using MMO-terms to describe DAO combat should be enough of a reason by itself.

 

[Volourn]

The above post is all about making up bullshit and lies.

 

[Hegel]

The above post is all about making up bullshit and lies.

I agree

 

[deus101]

The above post is all about making up bullshit and lies.

 

[Xor]

Obviously I missed a few enemy types, but that isn't the point. In Baldur's Gate every NPC felt somewhat unique. Every fight with a spellcaster required thought because there were so many spells you never knew exactly what they'd have in their arsenal. In DAO, every single fucking mage I fought used the same fucking spells. Every time. Tedious does not even begin to describe it. Also what GarfunkeL said.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Now, what do people praise Arcanum for? Deep tactical combat? Fuck no. Stylish visuals? Nope. Character system? Nah. Low combat and pure diplomatic path? Yeah, I wish. So, what's left? The options and choices.

You forgot the setting(lore, storyline, coherence) and writing(dialog, characters, quest variety and design). Those are pretty big in some rpgs.

If the final trump card here was left to options and choices of paths I may as well go back to reading a two-decade old gamebooks that aren't by Joe Dever. (not that the Titan setting in Fighting Fantasy is at all shit, far from it).

The reasoning here being that if you don't particularly care for your party, the world the game takes place in and the current situation thereof, any major quests will feel less like entertainment and more like a chore with a decision that you don't even care about at the end. Should I save Megaton? I barely fucking know Megaton, you fucks. I do not get intellectually stimulated from the mere act of choice like this is some fucking candy aisle willywonka disneyland shoppe out of narnia and I am a five year old in his pajamas deciding on cherry or orange or lime, this is supposed to be a little more than that.

A good personal case example for me would be the mistake of DA's human noble origin and FO3. For fuck's sake I just started playing and now I'm supposed to feel tragedy and emotional attachment to a character or characters(human noble origin managing to be even worse than bored Liam Neeson in this regard with especially stilted deliveries)I seriously can not even begin to care about?

I barely said hello to my parents and good night and blam I wake up we're attacked and oh now I have to leave them to die, all while getting to grips with the setting and game. My father tells me about my dead mother's love of a bible quote. Flash. I have a birthday party and he gives me a bb gun. Flash. He tells me to take my aptitude test and that the vault is good for me. Flash. He's fucking gone. No. No.. No..

As a final note I have to say that using BG1's creature diversity to bash DA's with is not the way to go here. BG sprites looked a lot less muddy though. Unless you honestly played through DA in zoomed in third person view all the darkspawn, demons and undead looked like armored humanoid blobs. Oh, I know that one's a hurlock and that one's a genlock. That one's an abomination because it's a bit hunched over and that one's an arcane horror because it's skinny and kinda floats. What distinctiveness of features they had close up not scale well when zoomed out, compared to BG sprites which you could of course only view at one level of detail and that made it hard for circumstances to fuck up the presentation.

Fuck.

 

[deus101]

Problem with Bio's game is that they are trying to hard!

They hire professional writers when any PnP module writer would do.
These hollywood faggots completely removes the fantastical aspects in the scripts and dialouge.
They are trying to hard to win awards!

It might have been tolerable, but games like DA rubs your nose in it with full voiceacting and cinematics.

 

[Volourn]

"In Baldur's Gate every NPC felt somewhat unique. Every fight with a spellcaster required thought because there were so many spells you never knew exactly what they'd have in their arsenal. In DAO, every single fucking mage I fought used the same fucking spells."

Bullshitz.


"You forgot the setting(lore, storyline, coherence) and writing(dialog, characters, quest variety and design). "

DA's writing, characters, quest variety, and design is way better than BG1. BG1 doesn't even have fukkin' quest design for the most part. Now, if you were arguing BG2 than maybe you might have a good point. A for world design, BIo gets no points for that since BG is a D7D game hence the world is predesigned.


"good personal case example for me would be the mistake of DA's human noble origin and FO3. For fuck's sake I just started playing and now I'm supposed to feel tragedy and emotional attachment to a character or characters(human noble origin managing to be even worse than bored Liam Neeson in this regard with especially stilted deliveries)I seriously can not even begin to care about? "

You went there? You went fukkin' there? Oh my fukkin' god, you actually went there when trying to claim BG is better than DA? OH MY FUKKIN' GOD... You do realize that this is the same BG that had Gorion die right at the beginning of the game, right? RIGHT!?!


My god, BG fanboys are fukkin' hilarious in their bullshitz hypocrtiical nostalgia.

Stick with BG2.. you might have a fighting chance (except in terms of role-playing and character depth).

But, BG1? No fukkin' way. No fukkin' way, indeed.

 

[Xor]

Don't mistake my comments for BG fanboyism. I like the BG series, but the games are hardly among my favorites. I'm mainly bringing BG1 up because DAO was billed as the spiritual successor to the BG games.

Anyway.

I'd say BG1 had quest design on par with DAO when you consider that most of DAO's side quests feature next to no dialog and you get them from fucking billboards. Not that BG1 had stellar quest design, but it's not hard to compete against fucking billboards.

 

[waywardOne]

You have successfully added Volourn to your ignore list.

 

[Volourn]

YES!