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Many fans of BioWare’s Dragon Age game have expressed upset at the changes made in the sequel, Dragon Age II, despite the sequel achieving widespread positive reviews.
Scooping a raft of high scores around the world, including 94 from PC Gamer who called the controversial new action combat style "the best RPG combat ever", the PC version is riding high with a Metacritic score of 84 per cent.
However set against the 16 critical reviews averaged in the Metacritic score, 642 users rated the game with a surprisingly low average of just 3.7. 326 took the time to express their views on the site.
A selection of them follows:
"Very saddened to see the game go this way, the game itself is an ok game but from what the original Dragon Age was this is terrible."
"How the mighty have fallen. Bioworse does it again. Making a really great game, then completely destroying the sequel."
"A slap in the face for fans of DA:O… Everything’s dumbed down and simplified, what on earth were they thinking."
"The way Bioware changed this franchise from DA:O is devastating."
"Really don’t like what bioware and EA have done to this game i really liked the first game but this one doesn’t fill like an RPG to me it feels more like a action game."
Hundreds more can be found on the site while more balanced arguments rage on the Bioware forums between fans and upset gamers alike. Comments on critical reviews also seethe with controversy.
However critical reviews have also sought to highly the differences between the RPG original and the sequel.
"It really seems like the biggest mistake is calling it ‘DA2’," wrote 1UP in a review. "It’s just different enough from Dragon Age: Origins to not feel like a sequel, but more like a reboot."
BioWare’s strategy of making the Dragon Age RPG franchise more accessible has clearly won fans among critics and players alike.
However such sweeping changes also risk incurring the wrath of gamers expecting a sequel to deliver the same much loved RPG elements from the original.
Dragon Age II launched on Tuesday in North America and today throughout Europe. It’s available for PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and Mac OSX.
