LogFAQs > #893074039

WarGreymon77 posted...

And the gameplay is a downgrade too.

I'd say it's more of a side-step, in the same way Mass Effect 2 was a radical departure from the gameplay of ME1, which was intended to make the game more accessible to mainstream audiences.

Which is something I'm always sort of bothered by. A lot of the criticisms of DA2 are things that absolutely applied to either ME1 or ME2, yet no one ever complains about them there (and in the case of ME2, plenty of people). None of the people who complain that all the minor sidequest maps in DA2 are basically the same never complained when every minor location in ME was exactly the same pre-fab assets and designs over and over again. People whine because DA2 made a conscious effort to become more hack-and-slash as opposed to traditional RPG, but ME2 does the exact same thing and you'll find tons of people who say it's the best game in the series.

About the only valid criticism I can see for DA2 is from people who were bothered by the fact that they felt like Hawke wasn't really initiating events as much as just sort of being pulled along as a minor witness to major happenings, but even that's sort of a weak argument because the franchise can't really afford to have earth-shaking crises every installment in the same way that the Elder Scrolls games do (and, in fact, a TON of the problems with DA:I stem from BioWare actively trying to cater to people who complained about that, and screwing everything up worse).

Elder Scrolls can get away with it because they skip centuries ahead after every game, but in Dragon Age, you are literally having world-breaking events every couple of years. Which gets even worse when you realize they've only got 50 years or so left before the literal "Dragon Age" of the title is over.



WarGreymon77 posted...

I played Inquisition on PS4, so that may have affected my gameplay. I thought combat was really bad. The worst of all three.

This I'll happily agree with.

Though I'll point out the problem was mainly that they were trying to appease the people who complained about DA2 combat and claimed they loved the more traditional RPG gameplay of DA:O more, while simultaneously trying to avoid alienating anyone who liked the more streamlined DA2 gameplay and the mainstream audience in general, and thus created a sort of hybrid abomination that appealed to neither group.

Ironically, for all their talk about how much they loved Skyrim and were looking to it for design inspiration, if they'd let THAT influence their combat mechanics instead they'd probably have been far better off.


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