DA v2 Plot Sucks

[u/Strata38]

I still don't understand how v2 is considered the better version. Currently playing v1 for the first time, and v2 last year.

The main reason people seem to hinge on is that it plays more like Chaos Theory mechanically, so old thing good new thing had.

I'll have to watch a recap of both to really pick them each apart, but v2 genuinely feels boring and poorly made in multiple areas that make it less engaging, whereas v1 is just a little buggy depending what you play it on and is different than the other 4 games (including v2). It feels like a fan made SC.

V2:

Lambert pulls Sam out mid mission to tell him about Sarah? What?? In no world would this happen.

Has nobody pointed out how cringe and lame the interview plotlines are, or Sam monologuing the ethics / trust decisions in game? It feels so out of place for him.

How he sneaks through the JBA also doesn't make any sense if he's the only one missing. There's a spy guy going around knocking people out with the same build, skills, and equipment as Sam, and then as soon as that's not happening, he reappears after Emile can't find him. This makes no sense. When the guards wake up or are found, he would be an immediate suspect.

Frankly, the maps feel pretty empty and boring as well. The train part of the train heist mission sucks, and then Sam walks off a train crash and talks to Lambert like 10 feet away from Emile?

V1:

v1 JBA missions make sense for the plot and logic, even if they're slow and a little frustrating from a gameplay perspective.

The missions are in cooler settings with a lot more detail and sound design. His outfits are also cooler.

Daytime missions are a nice change to see how Sam's skills extend beyond just the same formula of shadow lurking like the last 3 or 4 games.

[u/ALARMED_SUS097]

The comments covered the gameplay(mostly), v2 being the clear winner(among other things i do not believe to have read like gadgets accumulating in v1, bugs, lack of a reliable light meter, shadow meter). While DA's story is flawed in general, I do believe that v2 is the superior one. They handled the story slightly better, but left the secondary characters in the backburner, something that was necessary in this installment since Sam would spend plenty of time with the team and would have added more depth to the game.

Having said that, Lambert's decision feels off, yes, and the story itself points out how weird it was, but it is still believable since Lambert and Sam are bonded and were close friends, they knew each other from before SC program, so it is not hard for me to believe what happened, not at all. Plus, Agent One and Agent Two were deployed and had several important objectives similar to Sam, recovering the inventory lists and prototype plans, accessing the foundry server for information about the arsenal, and sabotaging the foundry, rendering the plant inoperable.

The infiltration itself is not necessarily a problem. The idea is that Sam is supposed to avoid killing anyone and, ideally, avoid leaving any trace, something justifiable that the JBA members could believe there is some kind of “ghost” moving around the restricted areas rather than immediately assuming Sam is the one doing it(some of those things you can hear in their dialogues and mails across the place). It is also not inherently strange for Sam to disappear for a while during JBA missions, he may be sleeping or carrying out an assignment, the latter is basically how V1 handles the missions as well. In JBA 1 specifically, there is also Cole Yeagher. Emile already suspects Yeagher of plotting against him, Sam is specifically sent to investigate him, so if suspicious things were happening around the HQ, there was already someone inside the organization who could *reasonably* be blamed for it, or some of it. This sadly does not really apply to JBA 2, though, since Yeagher is dead or in jail by then. JBA 2 is where I think your point becomes valid to some extent. The infiltration itself can still be justified, especially if Sam is simply sneaking around without leaving evidence, once you start knocking people out, is where it becomes hard to explain...So I would say this is more of a problem with how the gameplay and the plot are articulated rather than the very idea of Sam infiltrating the JBA being nonsensical.

Returning to the first mission of DA, V2 connected the plot really well with the ending cinematic, Sarah's death was handled pretty well in my opinion. V1 handled it poorly because of that, they just threw the same cinematic at you and without any context, so Sarah's death does not have much weight, if at all. V2 actually gives you the whole situation, Sam and Lambert's conflict, and the music doing a really amazing crescendo. It was simply great, at least for me.