The issue is the missing story elements, bugs, and serial lack of favorable outcomes for animals. As you said "obvious dialog choices are missing" and it gets annoying being confronted by it every hour or two down the narrative.
I agree about some missing dialog. That's a different issue from missing "favorable outcomes", which is a matter of taste. Game writers have to strike a balance between giving choices of outcomes and preserving the tone of the story line. If you always had choice for all possible outcomes for every mini story, that would dilute the dark feel of the game, which is intentional. You're probably right that it's much different from DOS1, and DOS2 may not be right for you.
Are you justifying the lack of dialogue progression with the undead cat guardian after saving the girl?
The lack of additional dialog, sure I'll give you that. But you also said you wish you could take the cute undead cat back to the ship, and cuddle it and give it all your love, etc etc. Setting aside the logistics of what you want, if we take that to an extreme, maybe we should take all undead or otherwise suffering creatures, of ANY species, from all side quests, back to the ship and take care of them. I met a group of talking fire slugs in a cave that were cursed by some bad guy and got brainwashed. Should we take them with us?
Are you justifying the KOS for the stray cat first thing in the game? Does that make sense to you?
This one is easy. Yes! Absolutely. It's justified as being part of the story. The killing of that cat by the magisters serves to show their vile nature, and it also shows that not everything is under your control. For me that was an eye-opening moment which started to set the mood and tone for the rest of the game for me. That instance served its purpose well, as a plot tool.
Now, if you're asking whether killing a cat on sight is morally justified, in a general sense, the answer is obviously not, but I don't think that's what you were asking here. You just seem to hate the fact that it's in the game, and how it made you feel, which is the whole point of having that scene in the game. The writers rely on the fact that most players are decent kitty-loving people who will feel sad when they see that. To a large extent this game is about wrongdoing, evil, feeling helpless, and that bad things happen, etc. If you can't handle these things, again, this game is clearly not for you.
How about that necromancer dog (that wants to take over the world?) that you have to kill. Is all this necessary for a tragic story line? Hint: It's not. I can honestly say this is the first time in a game I had to slay an evil wizard dog, I thought it was silly and just part of a larger trend.
And when I first watched the movie Cujo, I can honestly say that was the first time in a movie I saw a rabid dog go on a killing frenzy. Was it necessary to make a horror movie about a frenzied dog viciously killing people? I'll let you answer that yourself, but obviously that's not a movie for everyone.
Overall, I haven't really seen more violence or cruelty perpetrated on animals compared to people in the game, so I wouldn't say the game goes out of its way to make animals suffer, exclusively. It doesn't discriminate much. This is coming from someone who loves animals and who's had cats most of my life. I felt sad to see the black cat get killed, and that was the point.
Good discussion!
