DRAGON AGE 2

the final boss was pretty cool with everything going on, but i was never in much danger of dying or anything. idk, the difficulty felt sort of lopsided i guess. maybe my fault for doing every single sidequest though!

I'm not through the game yet, but I'd have to say that the hardest fight for me was the one against Arishok. Damn, did that guy ever hit my group hard.

author=Crimson_Legionnaire
The Arishok duel was kinda hard, but once I figured out his pattern of movement, he became incredibly easy. Now, the High Dragon and the Pride Demon were only difficult because they had underlings. By themselves, they just have incredibly high defense.

The final boss was epic, but underwhelming. Since I had ten allies, I never had any doubts.

I ran in with five. Show for spoilers.



By the way, if you Dispel the mechanical golem thingies in the final fight, they are stunned for three-quarters of the duration of the Dispel cooldown... so they basically never act.

author=Jude

author=Crimson_Legionnaire
The Arishok duel was kinda hard, but once I figured out his pattern of movement, he became incredibly easy. Now, the High Dragon and the Pride Demon were only difficult because they had underlings. By themselves, they just have incredibly high defense.

The final boss was epic, but underwhelming. Since I had ten allies, I never had any doubts.

I ran in with five. Show for spoilers.

Show

Isabela ran away with the relic. The archer guy who I never used bitched out because he hates mages. I got Carver killed in the Deep Roads. I let him live, but I kicked Anders out of the party for being a terrorist. And, while he initially sided with the templar, I convinced the elf warrior I never used to join me. My main party was me (spirit healer), Aveline, Varric (best character), and Merril.

By the way, if you Dispel the mechanical golem thingies in the final fight, they are stunned for three-quarters of the duration of the Dispel cooldown... so they basically never act.

I had -

I've read a few reviews of this game, and it sounds like the reviewers aren't so impressed with it but they give it like 8.5/10 or higher for fear of the wrath of bioware fans. Honestly, it's hard to pick out the more positive aspects from them.

I'm only about to delve into the first one, however, and if I like it I'll be giving this one a try regardless.

I liked origins, but it was far too clunky for the console. That's one of the things I think was a major improvement in Dragon Age 2 regarding the combat system.

As for my final party, well...

The game wasn't that bad, but it felt rushed. The game itself amounted to

Talk to this person, walk down a street to kill Slavers/Renegade Mages/Templars/Renegade Templars/Demons get to the end, make choice, go back to quest giver, get reward and plot.

Dragon Age one was a bit formulaic too I guess, but at least you traveled around the world and had the off puzzle to deal with. Here, you're in the same city fighting the same enemies and appeasing the same leaders over and over. I also don't really see how it ties into the main story aside from some token mentions of the "HERO OF FERELDEN", and a few cameos dropped in.

Combat felt disjointed and overly flashy. With click to move always getting in the way of targeting enemies, I'm forced to pause the game when switching targets, long animations also diminish some of the usefulness of certain abilities and give a contradictory feel to the whole FLASHY BACKFLIP TWITCHY COMBAT facade... While we're on that subject, I'll also say I could do without the whole aesthetic. There's flashy, and then there's FLASHY. They just went a little too far with it; and by the third time Hawke did his super cutscene slow motion finishing leap stab of death, my face was firmly planted on my desk.

I liked it though, but I think it could have used more time. Also:

Anders is a twat
Why do all of the textures look like shit in "high" quality?
Anders is a twat
Varric is probably the only Dwarf character I've really liked
Some of the actions of certain parties made little sense
The tactics screen can go fuck itself

author=Crimson_Legionnaire
My party was my Main Character (Warrior, damage dealer), Aveline (Tank), Varric, and Merrill (who I romanced).

Wow... How'd you roll without a healer? I can't imagine playing some of the encounters without a spirit healer... though maybe that's just hard mode.

Anyway, my overall thoughts after completing it are that DA:O is a better game overall, and 90% of that decision is because of the recycled environments. If they had made the dungeons with modular graphics like NWN2 where they can make multiple dungeons using the same set of graphics, it would've been way better. The actual mechanics in DA2 are better and it's the best battle system this generation. The difficulty is much more balanced too. Normal was a little easy but bumping it up to hard was golden for my preferences. DA:O's difficulty was inconsistent and downright frustrating until you figured out how unfair Cone of Cold was. I was disappointed with the story for awhile because the scale was much less epic than DA:O, but I really liked the way it all came together in the third act.

author=Nightblade
Must be because you played Hard Mode. I played on normal without a spirit healer because...

Just takes a lot of potion chugging and stuns. (Hawke (Rogue), Varric, Merrill and Aveline)

I only used a handful of potions the entire game and I never used poisons/explosives... Maybe the potion cooldown is good enough to suffice. It probably wouldn't be so bad if Merrill had the Creation skill tree, because an 80% heal is still pretty amazing. Anders' Vengeance tree seems weaksauce compared to the hero's Spirit Healer, but is probably more than adequate. Amusingly, my health regen was so high as a spirit healer I stood and solo'd the Arishok... it just took forever because my DPS was pretty low.

Enchantment.