What exactly do you mean by that? Like, he could have indeed been a well meaning mage just trying to live under templar thumbs? Instead of also being exactly the smoking gun?
The Orsino fight doesn’t make much sense if you side with the mages - there was no reason for him to go Akira monster when he did. Even BioWare acknowledged how little sense it made, in a conversation you can have with Varric in Inquisition.
If they hadn't reused the maps it'd been remembered as one of the greats.
I also thought the balance on Nightmare or whatever was an atrocious mix of ubertank enemies and getting one-shot by rogues but the actual story and companions were fantastic.
Listen, it might've looked cheap as fuck, but I found a certain charm in the "every dungeon interior is just one of three dungeons with different parts blocked off". Plus the combat flowed really well. I played that whole game through like... 5 times. One right after the other.
If you play it after coming off Mass Effect 1, the “every colony bunker or mine is one of three options” regardless of the planet just becomes part of that Old BioWare’s aesthetic.
Great ideas, cool combat system, great art style and graphics, ruined by writing that was somehow chaotic and utterly predictable at the same time and stupid ass kill ten rats/fetch 10 letters filler quests.
Calling DA2 serviceable is probably some of the highest praise it's received. The game is steaming dookie. It took out every single thing that made Origins a masterpiece and gave us a dialogue wheel and an entire game made of 5 copy+pasted rooms. Also a nonsensical main plot with no real player agency and the most forgettable ending of all.
DAI is mid af but it looks like a God damn masterpiece next to DA2.