I been seeing so many posts about the game being crappy or just huge let down of the original...and am wondering why!? Now I have played dragon age 2 first and then the origins and I will admit the first one was better than the sequel but dragon age 2 did pretty well as well; it didn't hit origins standards in my mind but never the less it was a good game that further develop the series into dragon age 3. So I ask again why is the game so bad? Also I want specific details why is it bad instead of just one liners.

Well, if you have to ask..

It wasn't what people expected. That's the main problem.

As for actual faults, there are many. Reused maps. Constantly spawning waves of enemies that make tactical positioning a complete waste of time. Armor and weapon customization for companions, or rather lack thereof. Ambiguous dialogue wheel - icons for brain-dead players, because who needs words when you can click at the fist and be done with it? The game completely ignores that you're a mage, you can use blood magic in front of templars and nothing happens. You don't relate to the protagonist - you're just an observer, you're supposed to feel things but you have no reason to (especially visible in the very beginning when your sibling dies).

Most of all, the story just falls apart - half of it feels aimless, the other half doesn't make a bit of sense and only the Qunari part is well executed. Even worse, your actions don't have any meaning. You're swept by the events and whatever you do, the end result will be the same. One could argue that mages vs. templars is an important choice, but even then the final scenes prove that everything both sides were accused of is entirely true. Again, the battle is pointless, that which you were trying to defend doesn't exist.

Also what they did to Anders is inexcusable. I never liked him, but he was a good character in Awakening. In DA2 he's... ugh. I don't even want to go there.

It wasn't Origins 2.


Oh. Well then: Origins was an old-school RPG, and people expected 2 to continue in the same fashion. Instead they redid pretty much everything in the game, and that wasn't well recived by the people. Though to be fair, using exactly the same maps for most dungeons (well, all of them except Deep Roads) did not earn it any favors.

Also originally DA2 was supposed to be a spin-off called Dragon Age: Exodus instead of a sequel, that propably partially explains why it is so different from Origins.

They're the biggest issues for me. The other things would've been irritations in terms of being unpolished, but the excessively reused maps and endless three-wave attacks just made it really unrewarding to play. These and most of the other issues seem to be as a result of it being very rushed: given another year or two it might've been a different game, but another year or two of waiting for the sales to come in doesn't cater to EA's greed.


Oh yeah, and that. It's bad enough that they gave him a total personality transplant, but to do that... was it really necessary to change the likeable joker in Awakening to one of the whiniest and most self-obsessed videogame characters of all time?

There's no question it was rushed, but issues that stood out like a sore thumb in DA2 are present in most of Bioware's games - linear areas, reused maps, delivery quests, smarmy romances, lack of customization.

Its simply because people had incredibly high expectations, then we find that it just didn't do anything as good as Origins.

I love Origins, but I still like DA2 as well. I like the story, the characters, the lore it adds and it still puts a focus on building up a team that works rather then just one uber character.

This being said it annoyed me how many environments were reused, I hate the dialogue wheel with the strength of Betelgeuse, the combat seems too flashy to me, I really don't like the talent tree compared to what was used in Origins, it annoys me that I can't change the armour of my companions, I don't like where they took Anders and I have to reiterate that I hate the dialogue wheel with the strength of the eighth-brightest star in our sky.

Since Disney is giving EA the license to publish Star Wars games, I think there should be a Star Wars/Dragon Age crossover in which Anakin Skywalker and Anders have a sulking competition.

That would be something to behold! Though I'm not sure it would be entirely pleasant.