pokoko said:
This one I don't understand. I read people saying that DA2 had no strategic game-play and it honestly puzzles me. I know that I played DA2 the same way that I played DA:O. I switched characters constantly, more often than DA:O, actually, because of the improved pace of the combat, I set my moves up in advance, and I used stategic positioning at all times. The only real difference I can think of is that in DA2 you had to be more mobile and not over-extend yourself, because reinforcements might show up behind you. I loved the waves of enemies idea, it was so much more dynamic. You couldn't just pull enemies and pick them off at your leasure, heal up, then pull again. Is this perhaps a console thing? I played both DA:O and DA2 on PC, and the style in which I played was nearly identical. That's the only explaination I can think of. I suppose the auto-programming in DA2 was so much improved that you could switch characters less if you WANTED, but, honestly, I like using all my characters, and setting most of their moves myself. I can't see allowing different playstyles as a negative. Of course, normal mode ends up being a lot easier if you control everyone, but that's rectified easily by simply increasing the difficulty. |
I also played both on PC. I don't know what to tell you. I tried playing DAII the same way I played Origins and I just couldn't get on with it. The limited viewing distance/mode annoyed me greatly as did the constant waves of enemies. I don't mind a few reinforcements here and there but the games over-reliance meant every battle just became a high speed melee. If you have a few battles with reinforcements then it keeps you on your toes but not all the time.
It also means you don't ever plan your battles in terms of character positioning because every battle will just descend wave after wave of enemies comming from all directions. You position your archer and mage on higher terain? No point doing that as a bunch of rogues will just jump from fall from the sky and land behind them. The waves further ruin the pacing of your abilities as it's near impossible to judge if a stronger opponent(s) will appear at random. Can you afford to use up your best abilities on that lieutenant or are two more going to appear randomly with further backup leaving you to hold on for the abilities to cooldown? Heal now and risk the cooldown if a bunch of enemies will suddenly appear?
Other factors include stuff like a lack of traps (stealth a rogue and set traps at choke points), inability to detect stealthed enemies, and a lack of friendly fire on all but the highest difficulty (which basically means every battle descends into your tank gathering melee units whilst your mage spams large area spells). I personally don't enjoy playing on the higher difficulty level because the waves mean I can't plan my battles as I did in Origins and the fact that nearly every battle is identical is plain lazy (actually that's a bit harsh, I think they probably had a very tight deadline and had to cut corners to meet it).
