Was anybody able to enjoy Dragon Age Origins after playing Baldurs gate II?

Im only a few hours in... but the game just feels like a worse version of baldurs gate in every way...

BioWare has always been awful at constructing their own rule set. BG2 was great because they translated the rules from D&D really well, and the result was deep, tactical gameplay. But every time they try to create their RPG mechanics from scratch you end up with easy, unbalanced garbage. Games like ToR and DA illustrate this particularly well. I enjoyed DA well enough, but then, I didn't have much of a choice seeing as western RPGs are few and far between these days.

Yes, but that's because there was a seven year gap between the two. I don't know why the hell Bioware didn't use the D&D ruleset, or pathfinder, and just give the game updated graphics and some proper real-time gameplay, within the ruleset.

i never played BGII, but i did play BG and preferred dragon age. each game has its ups a downs, but i had more issues with BG. there were weird short term balancing quirks like how it was advantageous to make wizards use slingshots instead of staves. worse for me was how bioware used the D&D license and basically assumed i knew everything about the forgotten realms. i'm sure some of it was just weak writing like how the first time i would hear anything about nearly any given boss would be right as i fight and defeat them. still, more of it felt like bioware was leaning on the license without going into detail (or adding detail if it was lacking).

like there is an early quest about troubles in an iron mine where the player can piece together what happened through item drops as they go along. i wish there was more of that going on.

I played a sh!t ton of it. It's great.

Real question is: was anybody able to enjoy Dragon Age II after playing Dragon Age I ?lancea34

I think DA2 is in many ways better than DA1Black_Knight_00

[QUOTE="Black_Knight_00"]I think DA2 is in many ways better than DA1chicknfeet

That said the environments were too limited and the party members were fairly meh, but the combat was a lot more balanced and didn't throw you into impossible situations like DA1 occasionally did.

[QUOTE="chicknfeet"][QUOTE="Black_Knight_00"]I think DA2 is in many ways better than DA1Black_Knight_00

That said the environments were too limited and the party members were fairly meh, but the combat was a lot more balanced and didn't throw you into impossible situations like DA1 occasionally did.

There are some things that were better in DAII, but all together it wasn't nearly as good as the first one.

On topic. Baldurs Gate 2 was about the best western rpg ever created. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy a great games like DAO though.

The story was fantastic, it was this brilliant escalation of the "mages vs templars" tension, touching on themes such as racism, religious fanaticism and prejudice and was written in a way so that neither side were the "good guys", it was such a refreshing premise after the "go kill the evil demon dragon" of DA1.

That said the environments were too limited and the party members were fairly meh, but the combat was a lot more balanced and didn't throw you into impossible situations like DA1 occasionally did.

Black_Knight_00

Real question is: was anybody able to enjoy Dragon Age II after playing Dragon Age I ?lancea34

I haven't gotten around to playing Dragon Age 2, but I refuse to believe that it could be any less enjoyable than Dragon Age Origins. The last two-thirds of that game was like pulling teeth.

[QUOTE="Black_Knight_00"]

The story was fantastic, it was this brilliant escalation of the "mages vs templars" tension, touching on themes such as racism, religious fanaticism and prejudice and was written in a way so that neither side were the "good guys", it was such a refreshing premise after the "go kill the evil demon dragon" of DA1.

That said the environments were too limited and the party members were fairly meh, but the combat was a lot more balanced and didn't throw you into impossible situations like DA1 occasionally did.

chicknfeet

Other examples: battles which are alternately easy or impossible, like the Sloth Demon, or the highwaymen ambush, or the werewolves ambush: play them the exact same way twice and depending on the "dice rolls" the outcome will be drastically different, the wolves may instakill your whole parrty or may wail at you like fools as you cast your spell, for instance. DA2 fixed this, making combat a little more logical and predictable in a good way.