I can only get one: Xenogears v FFVIII v Chrono Chross

[RyuRoots]

Eh, I liked DA2 for the most part. Yeah, I hated the recycling of environments, and the story completely fell apart in the third act, but overall it was still good. It certainly wasn't complete trash.

Personally, I don't think it fell apart in the third act even, excluding one choice which was immersion-breakingly railroad-ish. The environments thing was annoying, but the DLC (Legacy, at least; haven't played others) showed that they got that feedback and made some great new visual areas. DA2 is honestly one of my favorite RPGs. I went into it almost totally blind and had a blast. I had no idea what the overall fan-reaction was since I only saw a small microcosm of reviews before diving into it. I was positively aghast when I realized how hated it was! I seem to like a lot of terrible games.

 

[Skywalker]

I think a lot of hate for DA2 came from the ending, which was also poorly received (but not nearly with as much hatred as ME3's ending was). People probably would have been more forgiving of the game's flaws if it hadn't ended the way it had.

I completely agree with you about Legacy, by the way. I thought it was a lot of fun. Mark of the Assassin was also very enjoyable, IMO. While I prefer the Mass Effect universe over the Dragon Age one, I think the Dragon Age development team is better at taking feedback and criticism and using both to improve things.

Oh, and I thought DA2's conversation system was fantastic. The various tones you could use led to a much more nuanced development than Mass Effect's less versatile Paragon/Renegade system. And of course the Friendship/Rivalry system was also great. There's a lot of replay value in DA2 just because of the dialogue and F/R systems.