To be honest, gameplay has never been their strong suit in any of their games. Baldur’s Gate was fun because it uses AD&D2 and is just exploitable as all hell.
No, but I never felt older titles leaned so hard on gameplay. Inquisition especially has pitiful amount of story content compared to required non-completionist playtime - as such combat to me became unbearable, as it was the main course rather than the thing you do before story bits.
I think it also makes difference that completionist playthrough of KOTOR1 or Jade Empitre takes me about 25 hours, compared to 60-80h of let’s say Origins. I think I might have disliked DA2 the least out of the trilogy as it doesn’t outstay it’s welcome.
I think DA2 is a really tragic mishap. There are some good ideas there. Some terrible ones too, for sure. “Every time a player pushes a button something AWESOME needs to happen,” is not a coherent design philosophy and why does Kirkwall have spikes on everything? But I think if that game had been given a proper 2 or 2.5 year development cycle it could have become something much greater than it was.
Sometimes I feel like I want to replay it but then I remember how uninspired the encounter design is and how much a slog getting through it was and I change my mind.
But this is so much dunking on BioWare that even I am feeling bad for them.
How about upcoming game?
I have big hopes for Dragon’s Dogma 2. I’ve purchased the original three times (PS3, PC, and Switch) and I am really excited for a new entry.
