Dragon Age 2

[Devolver]

It seems like I remember being a dick in ME2/DA Origins to be more...fun. Just doesn't seem as satisfying. Also, noticed something on my 2nd playthrough that Sandal says. It's early on (1st act)

Spoiler: show

I didn't catch it or think about it my first playthrough, but the scene where he has the ogre froze, and shows Hawke that stone. He says 'Boom' then follows it up with 'Not enchantment' before running off. Now that you mentioned it Souj, I'm believing more and more that he's got something special going on outside of enchanting

[Yousir]

Could you lose people in Origins? I could have sworn I didn't lose a single dude. Oh wells.

I don't think you can lose them to deaths, just decisions you make. If I recall Alistar, Wynne, and Morrigan will leave if they are in your party when you decide to help someone with something they don't agree with.

Spoiler: show

Well Morrigan will leave you at the end of the game if you decide not to hit it to give her a child right before the last battle

Overall though, I'm mostly disappointed with how overall dumbed down the RPG gameplay is. They basically turned it into Mass Effect 2 with Swords and Dragons. The fact that they are taking a working IP and changing it to another just because the later makes more money shows that Bioware is headed in the wrong direction to me.

The script and voice acting are superb though. I'm enjoying the story, which in the end is the most important aspect of an RPG. I'm only about 8 hours into it right now though so I haven't started slutting myself around, but that'll cum shortly.

See what I did there?

[Odesseiron]

It seems like I remember being a dick in ME2/DA Origins to be more...fun. Just doesn't seem as satisfying. Also, noticed something on my 2nd playthrough that Sandal says. It's early on (1st act)

Spoiler: show

I didn't catch it or think about it my first playthrough, but the scene where he has the ogre froze, and shows Hawke that stone. He says 'Boom' then follows it up with 'Not enchantment' before running off. Now that you mentioned it Souj, I'm believing more and more that he's got something special going on outside of enchanting

I agree. The negative/dickish statements in this game while some of them very funny, really made me feel like a dick for picking them. I guess that's the point, but it feels like they tried a little too hard. Mass Effect 2 you can understand. You're trying to save an entire galaxy. In DA:O It's the whole continent. In DA2 it's a town. There just no reason to be such an ass. To go further, if anyone doesn't originally side with the mages, you must have no soul.

[ZarakiKujata]

not possible. You can spare Loghain and still make Alistair become king, but Alistair always leaves the party immediately upon Loghain joining.

yeah upon thinking about it, I remembered I just unlocked the achievement in a separate save and kept playing w/ alistair..
Also to be honest I didn't mind most of the gameplay changes to make it more ME2ish (and they implemented enough changes to their formula, be it Varric's narration, or characters that are slightly less like their usual stock characters. Where was my heartless evil robot? ) My biggest gripe was the lack of being able to truly customize armor for characters. I'm sorry but the revamped armor system works for ME2, but not the sort of half assed way it was implemented in this game where my inventory is still shitted upon by 50 pieces of mage/rogue armor I can't even use.

The dickish stuff got me laughing in this game more so then in ME2 but the scope of what you're doing is more then the town (deciding the fate of the Free Marches essentially + Circle/Templars), it just doesn't feel that way because it just feels like youre in Denerim or Orzammar the whole fucking game.

[Rivero]

I agree. The negative/dickish statements in this game while some of them very funny, really made me feel like a dick for picking them. I guess that's the point, but it feels like they tried a little too hard. Mass Effect 2 you can understand. You're trying to save an entire galaxy. In DA:O It's the whole continent. In DA2 it's a town. There just no reason to be such an ass. To go further, if anyone doesn't originally side with the mages, you must have no soul.

I was going to side with the mages but

Spoiler: show

Then I found out that bitch Anders killed the Grand Cleric and I was like WTF That was like the only person left who could rule the city, so I said fuck that, I'm going to kill you and your crew.

[Tyrath]

Anyone know if the events in awakening affect the story in DA:2? Like letting the Architect live or something.

They dont necessarily come into play, but when you load your files it does say whether or not you let the Architect live. Im sure this will pop up in future DA games.

[Krazy]

I don't really see much point in importing a save, it changes virtually nothing in DA2. I really wtf'd though when I first started this and saw

Spoiler: show

Anders. In my Awakening file I used, he died at Vigil Keep.

[Uzor]

It seems like I remember being a dick in ME2/DA Origins to be more...fun. Just doesn't seem as satisfying. Also, noticed something on my 2nd playthrough that Sandal says. It's early on (1st act)

Spoiler: show

I didn't catch it or think about it my first playthrough, but the scene where he has the ogre froze, and shows Hawke that stone. He says 'Boom' then follows it up with 'Not enchantment' before running off. Now that you mentioned it Souj, I'm believing more and more that he's got something special going on outside of enchanting

Spoiler: show

Yeah, I've been thinking Sandal may be the first dwarf with magic... They even mention in the game that Sandal's acting like tranquil mages.

[Souj]

Spoiler: show

They even mention in the game that Sandal's acting like tranquil mages.

That... doesn't make sense. Who said that? lol

[BadKarma]

I don't really see much point in importing a save, it changes virtually nothing in DA2. I really wtf'd though when I first started this and saw

Spoiler: show

Anders. In my Awakening file I used, he died at Vigil Keep.

Justice spirits can inhabit dead things.

[Odin'sLaw]

That... doesn't make sense. Who said that? lol

since my memory is terrible with name's in sure in DA:O his "father" says he's a bit dim like them tranquil mages and he's been like that since he found him in the deep roads

when i saw what he did to the Ogre in DA:2 i kinda got "yeah this mother fucker would have been fine if you left him in the deep roads"

but on that note if he is the first mage dwarf, does that mean the Lithium in the deep roads have slowly warped his mind into a tranquil? its mentioned in DA:O that Templar's that endure to much Lithium over the years slowly turn tranquil (the Bald Templar before the circle i believe)

[Uzor]

since my memory is terrible with name's in sure in DA:O his "father" says he's a bit dim like them tranquil mages and he's been like that since he found him in the deep roads

He also compared him to tranquil mages in the second game. When I talked to his father in one of the acts, when talking about how he can enchant things since dwarves don't have access to magic, his "father" says something along the lines of "In the circle, it's those Tranquil Mages that does the enhancing. Come to think of it, Sandal sort of reminds me of them", or something along those lines.

[Atreides]

I really like this game but...

A) I know it was discussed but the whole streamlining thing is really fucking annoying when it comes to your mages and healing, especially considering the only 2 healers (unless you play mage) can both leave your party permanently. I get that they want to make combat more exciting but having precisely 1 healing spell with a shitty cooldown (unless you're using anders) is just stupid, as is taking out all the entire Rejuvenate line of spells. It wouldn't even be so bad if they didn't add a horrendous cooldown to health potions on top of it. I would much rather have to open the menu a few more times and have a boring time playing a healer if it means not having to wonder if I can stay alive through harder encounters on any difficulty above Normal.

B) I hate having to constantly shuffle people around for quest reporting and cutscenes so I can actually get friendship points. I've reloaded so many times now just because I got a random +5 rivalry from Fenris or Aveline for no reason. I really don't want to lose Fenris so half the time I'm too afraid to take him with me, which means he's not getting nearly enough Friendship points since he's sitting in his house. I would have at least liked to have your party members say a bit more when you go and visit them too, even if it was just to develop their characters. It seems like your party members never want to talk as much as DA:O either, when I visit these people in their houses they usually have nothing to say.

C) Is it really that hard to find the room in the description window for "Ring of Mana" or "Belt of Strength"? I mean, does every single accessory in the game need to have the same name? I don't get why they'd try to cut down on inventory management headaches from DA:O by making things simpler, even though it's arguably more annoying to have to open your inventory every time you loot a corpse just to see the stats of the jewelry you picked up. Zaraki is spot on about ally armor too, I end up selling off all sorts of useless Rogue/Warrior armor while my party members get like 4 armor upgrades and no customization, which is bullshit for just about any RPG.

Still having a blast with the game but god damn they are smoking some serious crack over there

[Odin'sLaw]

i find Isabela just rocks back and fore sometimes she's in a perma "lets piss everyone off" mode other times she's "no no we must save everyone with giant boobies !" crazy bitch stop flip flopping!

[fren.]

What's the trade-in-value of this in gamestop? Walked in the other day and they had it listed as $20 on their billboard behind the register. That's an error, right?

[TheTaru]

What's the trade-in-value of this in gamestop?

Kind of interested in this as well. I didn't really like DA:O, yet someone bought me Awakening for Christmas (which I also didn't really like), and another person bought me DA:2 yesterday (haven't opened it, but I obviously don't have the receipt, and also hate selling online). The graphics give me extremely bad, almost nauseating, headaches--probably the reason I'm not a big fan of the series.

[Devolver]

Ok, am I going fucking crazy, or do I hear a fucking *ding* (like from a bell) ring just one time at random intervals in the game? I thought it might have something to do with the EA network or something, but I'm not even signed in.

[Elcura]

Just finished it, overall I loved it, issues aside.

Spoiler: show

The story was great, felt much more personal than saving the world from Darkspawn (which I liked as well). Though it may be less epic in the short term, the long term implications are pretty grand. If you help the mages, all the circles rise up. The events at Kirkwall affect the entire world as Alistair said, and your decisions likely have a great impact later on.

As for characters, I love Isabela, Aveline and Varric. Those guys have such good chemistry, either with each other or with Hawke. Varric is easily my favourite, with Isabela and Aveline coming in later. It's a shame what they did to Anders, though I don't feel like they destroyed his character entirely, he got a lot less fun and a lot more mopey. Merrill is cute and all, but entirely too stupid for me to like that much. Fenris is just... angsty, like I was playing a JRPG lol. Luckily the cameos were true to DA1, reminding my why I love characters like Zevran and Alistair.

Battle wise, I loved it. The boss design was fantastic and the final few bosses were quite intense. Flashy spells and moves, though not as deep as DA1 (in abilities and tactics) it felt less automated.

Generally the game could have been designed better, the enemy waves were mostly uninteresting and couple that with stupid long recast times on most abilities and your capacity to handle wave after wave diminishes greatly (especially on hard). Repeated areas are a shame, and no matter how short the development cycle I can't condone or praise or even justify it.

[Atreides]

Also uh... for my fellow Mages, how did you allocate your skills? Is it just me, or are Mage Specializations useless this time around? Blood Mage seems like it's ok if you're running out of MP but it's not like I have tons of HP to work with, Force Mage is flashy but only marginally useful...and shares a little redundancy with Arcane. Spirit Healer's usefulness (although necessarily if you lose both Bethany and Anders) is severely hampered by having to take the time to activate a mode before you can even use Group Heal and Revive, and you can't use offensive spells while it's active.

Currently I'm maxed out on Elemental but I'm seriously considering saying fuck it to all 3 specializations and just focusing on the Spirit tree next, since that will give me walking bomb/death syphon and another Mana regeneration+10 trait. I'll probably end up with the bottom half of the creation tree (heal, heroic aura, and haste) but I really don't see the point of bothering with Spirit Healer if I have Anders, especially considering I have serious doubts that the 2 of us would even be able to keep up with healing on Hard difficulty for bosses or harder waves.

[Souj]

My mage run ended with me at lv23 and I only used 1 specialization point into the Healing tree.
I did all the lighting/earth tree. The force repulse type thing, regular heal +upgrade, and much of the Healing tree. Probably a few more loose abilities and passives here and there, but that was most of it. Blood Mage tree looked retarded because I really didn't have much HP like you said, and never really had too much of a problem with mp in the 1st place. Force stuff looked pretty stupid too. I really wish I had access to Merrill's specialized tree though.