Dragon Age II Expansion Scrapped, BioWare moves on to the Future
Mark Darrah, one of the executive producers of Dragon Age II, has announced that the team is moving on from the semi-sordid tale of Hawke and his companions for good.
Posted By AngryJoe about 2 years, 2 months ago
Dragon Age II – Angry Review, 7.4 out of 10 based on 9 ratings
Angry Joe reviews the sequel to Dragon Age: Origins. Is it better than the original? More importantly, is it worth your money? Joe details what went wrong in this follow-up to one of the most compelling fantasy RPGs of all time.
Mark Darrah, one of the executive producers of Dragon Age II, has announced that the team is moving on from the semi-sordid tale of Hawke and his companions for good.
What constitutes a good character? Join me in this series that attempts to look at these characters and tries to peel away the layers of depth they have. Join me as we find Characters with Character. This week is Anders.
We knew it was coming…but what details about Dragon Age can be revealed to the players? Read on to find out!
Can the narrative of a game and its gameplay ever co-exist together? Let’s find out by looking at a controversial game, Dragon Age II.
Does this previously unexplored story of the Hawke bring glory to the family name or is it simply another example of good intentions gone horribly awry?
The digital distribution food fight continues with Electronic Arts claiming that Valve’s draconian terms and conditions of Steam have forced them to remove Dragon Age II from the store shelves of Valve’s baby. Does this all amount to egg on somebody’s face?
First came the announcement about some new DLC for Dragon Age 2 and now here comes the (indeed suitably epic) trailer.
While development for Dragon Age 3 is just starting to kick into high gear, fans of the Dragon Age series will not have to wait much longer for some new content, thanks to a just newly announced piece of DLC for intended Dragon Age 2.
It seems that Dragon Age II is certainly no stranger to controversy at this point,
Zeitgeist Game Review – Released only one and a half years following the epic Dragon Age Origins, can DA2 live up to its predecessor?
Posted By Robert G. about 1 year, 2 months ago
Mark Darrah, one of the executive producers of Dragon Age II, has announced that the team is moving on from the semi-sordid tale of Hawke and his companions for good.
Posted By Robert G. about 1 year, 8 months ago
What constitutes a good character? Join me in this series that attempts to look at these characters and tries to peel away the layers of depth they have. Join me as we find Characters with Character. This week is Anders.
Posted By Robert G. about 1 year, 8 months ago
We knew it was coming…but what details about Dragon Age can be revealed to the players? Read on to find out!
Posted By Robert G. about 1 year, 9 months ago
Can the narrative of a game and its gameplay ever co-exist together? Let’s find out by looking at a controversial game, Dragon Age II.
Posted By Shaun K. about 1 year, 9 months ago
Does this previously unexplored story of the Hawke bring glory to the family name or is it simply another example of good intentions gone horribly awry?
Posted By Johnny Maloney about 1 year, 9 months ago
The digital distribution food fight continues with Electronic Arts claiming that Valve’s draconian terms and conditions of Steam have forced them to remove Dragon Age II from the store shelves of Valve’s baby. Does this all amount to egg on somebody’s face?
Posted By Shaun K. about 1 year, 10 months ago
First came the announcement about some new DLC for Dragon Age 2 and now here comes the (indeed suitably epic) trailer.
Posted By Shaun K. about 1 year, 10 months ago
While development for Dragon Age 3 is just starting to kick into high gear, fans of the Dragon Age series will not have to wait much longer for some new content, thanks to a just newly announced piece of DLC for intended Dragon Age 2.
Posted By ZGRDaniel about 2 years, 2 months ago
Zeitgeist Game Review – Released only one and a half years following the epic Dragon Age Origins, can DA2 live up to its predecessor?
Posted By AngryJoe about 2 years, 2 months ago
Angry Joe reviews the sequel to Dragon Age: Origins. Is it better than the original? More importantly, is it worth your money? Joe details what went wrong in this follow up to one of the most compelling fantasy RPGs of all time.
Posted By Shaun K. about 1 year, 9 months ago
Dragon Age II – Angry Review, 7.4 out of 10 based on 9 ratings ![]()
Dragon Age 2 was, for any number of reasons, one of the more divisive games to come out from Bioware in some time. Some people thought it was a brilliant reinvention of the franchise, while others saw it as unnecessary tinkering with an already successful formula. Now the first major piece of DLC for the game has hit the digital shelves in the form of a new content based expansion titled Legacy. Does this previously unexplored story of the Hawke bring glory to the family name or is it simply another example of good intentions gone horribly awry?
| PROS | Good story, enjoyable tweaks to DA2 combat, well designed environments |
| CONS | Only makes small changes to overall DA2 formula, poor ally AI, some bugs present, |
| WTF?! | Whatever insanity is going on with Larius’ hair |
Dragon Age: Origins had a decidedly mixed success rate when it came to the various examples of DLC released for the game. Outside of Awakening (which could have easily been a completely stand-alone game in the first place), the remainder of Origin’s expansions were fairly pointless affairs that did little to add to the overall experience of the original game. So it was with some trepidation that I began my journey through Legacy, the first major expansion for Dragon Age 2. Thankfully, what I got was less the kind of DLC that the original Dragon Age: Origins tended to produce, and instead an experience more akin to the excellent expansions that Mass Effect 2 continuously rewards fans of that game with.
Legacy tells a previously untold adventure of Hawke and company that can be accessed at almost any point in the game, including post-ending. The game opens with the now familiar scene of everyone’s favorite dwarf Varric being interrogated by the dour templar Cassandra. She brings up the fact that Varric has been less than forthcoming about a certain adventure Hawke had undertaken in regards to a previously unknown Grey Warden prison. With a shrug and his trademark grin, Varric agrees to tell the tale, but warns Cassandra that she will likely never believe how an encounter with the mafia-esque dwarven organization known as the Carta would lead Hawke to heretofore undiscovered familial secrets and, ultimately, into a confrontation with an entity out of the darkest recesses of the history of Thedas itself…
Legacy’s story is a well done and highly enjoyable narrative. While it never reaches the depths and complexities of the game’s main narrative, it none-the-less weaves an engaging yarn that has major implications for both Hawke and the overarching mythology of the Dragon Age universe. Depending on which characters a player chooses to bring with them, Legacy also gives the other party members (Varric, the Hawke sibling, and Anders in particular) a good amount to say and do, a fact that only serves to make the expansion’s story all the more engaging. Legacy’s climax also features the kind of tricky choices that Bioware likes to include in their games, with the aftermath of said choices promising repercussions for players somewhere down the line, be it in another expansion or possibility even Dragon Age 3. Overall, Legacy produces a tale that stands well enough on its own while also introducing elements that serve to hint at where the next major chapter in the Dragon Age saga is likely to be heading.
Legacy does not dramatically change Dragon Age 2′s approach to gameplay, but it does feature some significant tweaks that help to freshen up the overall experience. First and foremost, Legacy almost entirely (save for one brief encounter early on in the expansion) does away with the kind of limited and repetitive dungeon design that helped to mar the overall experience of DA2. There is nice amount of visual variety in the various areas that make up the Warden’s Prison, ranging from a desert landscape to crumbling dungeon tunnels to the mist filled caverns beneath the prison proper, and the layout of said areas is similarly less straightforward than what was typically encountered in DA2 proper. While Legacy is still a fairly linear affair, it at least features more than one straight corridor after another stitched together. The expansion even includes a good number of wholly optional side areas to explore, many of which play a part in Legacy’s handful of similarly optional side-quests.
Combat also tends to be both more difficult and enjoyable in Legacy, with a number of interesting new enemy types, such as the Genlock Alpha whose large shield makes him nearly immune to frontal attacks, present to give players new challenges to deal with. The lack of repeated homogeneous dungeon layouts also lets Bioware be cleverer in the placement and makeup of enemy encounters. Frequent ambushes (in the form of enemies positioned so that they blend nearly seamlessly into the environment or by having a smaller force flee and draw the party into larger encounters) abound, while the expansion’s various sub-boss encounters tend to feature more varied tactics than simply throwing a bunch of random enemies at the party. The final boss encounter in Legacy is particularly noteworthy, and it is easily among (if not simply the) most difficult encounters to be had within the entirety of Dragon Age 2. To be fair, this difficulty does arise in part because the game’s finicky party A.I. can easily lead to defeat without careful management on the part of the player, but this is a relatively minor annoyance in light of how genuinely epic and fun this boss fight ultimately turns out to be.
All in all, Legacy is a highly enjoyable experience but that is not to say it does not have its fair share of flaws. Legacy never reaches the level of ambition or accomplishment that the best Mass Effect 2 expansions strived for, such as introducing new/unique gameplay elements or creating locations with an almost startling level beauty. While the aforementioned gameplay tweaks do improve thing to a degree, ultimately Legacy plays near identically to the way it progenitor did. Also, while the Warden’s Prison looks better than most DA2 dungeons did, it never reaches the level of visual design that Bioware was able to achieve during the exploration of the Atlas Station or the exterior of the Shadow Broker’s lair.
In essence how players will feel about Legacy will largely depend on their overall feelings about Dragon Age 2 in general. Personally, I walked away from my time with the expansion feeling like I got my money’s worth, but I also was someone who never found the weaknesses of DA2 ever came close to outweighing its strengths. For someone who absolutely hated DA2, Legacy will do little to change this opinion. On the other hand, for those who enjoyed DA2 but wished it had more closely resembled Dragon Age: Origins, then Legacy could very well be exactly the kind of experience the kind of expansion you are looking for. While Legacy never reaches the heights that such Bioware expansions as Lair of the Shadow Broker or Overlord did, it also never hits the lows of Witch Hunt or The Golems of Amgarrak either. It remains an enjoyable and robust three to four hour experience, one that also hopefully bodes well for whatever future Dragon Age 2 downloadable content is yet to come.
A review copy of this game was purchased on PC by the reviewer. The reviewer spent approximately four hours playing the game and the game was completed.
Without a doubt the DLC which serves as the role model to all overs from BioWare is Lair of the Shadow Broker: it adds to the story, plays a vital to a former squard member, has a plot which which is on par with the main plot, great visuals and music and gives the player quite a bit more once it is over.
Awakening also did it’s job well but it could benefit from having being extended but it’s good on it’s own merits. Owning a land, hiring recruits, taking care of the land, making the fort and forces more powerful and a chance to continue the story from origins was nice. But dealing with a conspiricy with various ways to do so was a woudnerful addition.
As for Legacy any reason to be in a freaking different area and fight different foes is a plus. While I don’t miss the overly complciated chess style of gameplay Origins had I feal that having faster combat a to higher price to pay when everything else gets croped to a bare skeleton.
I’m going to wait until DA2 comes down in price or releases a GOTY edition to see if the love/hate relationship is as deservedly ambivalent as it is.
Yeah,
Bioware said that they would fix the issues the “customers” have with DA II.
And what do we get? Where is the fix for the “normal” game? Not here I guess.
This is bullcrap, this is EA taking your money and you smile and throw your money at their feet.
The same thing that Joe stated for Capcom happens here and with EA in general. Really expensive DLC’s that should be in the main game, fixing issues that annoy the crap out of all gamers.
But what do they do? Nothing! And the retarded ones buy this crap, ruining Bioware, because its working as EA plans.
Biowares dead man. Sold out to EA, just like Blizzard to Activision.
the only thing that made me sad about this DLC is the warden mage armor it is UGLY >.<
Good DLC is hard to make for a story-driven game, because the story in a DLC will never have the epic length or scope of the main quest. This latest DA2 addition sounds decidedly “MEH,” and I may get Legacy provided it is bundled together with all the upcoming DLC in the inevitable “Game of the Year Edition.”
I hated Dragon Age 2. Worst $60 I spent all year. No way in hell I will pay for DLC for it. lol
Zeitgeist Game Review – Released only one and a half years following the epic Dragon Age Origins, can DA2 live up to its predecessor?
Angry Joe reviews the sequel to Dragon Age: Origins. Is it better than the original? More importantly, is it worth your money? Joe details what went wrong in this follow up to one of the most compelling fantasy RPGs of all time.
It’s Bioware. ‘Nuff said.
You waited for it, you played the demo, you finally got the game in your hand and AT LAST… LOL ?
Angry Joe and Jacob play the Dragon Age II demo and provide commentary on the
What constitutes a good character? Join me in this series that attempts to look at these characters and tries to peel away the layers of depth they have. Join me as we find Characters with Character. This week is Anders.
Can the narrative of a game and its gameplay ever co-exist together? Let’s find out by looking at a controversial game, Dragon Age II.
Music Mondays revisits the band that brought us tunes from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Bit.Trip Runner.
one improvement you forgot to mention are the conversations. in this game the main character (you) actually talk and have face expressions during a conversation. in the first game your character doesn’t even move and just stand in the room silently waiting for you to finish reading all the answers you get to choose from.
I second this comment even though it was posted like a year ago. Also, the male voice actor may be meh but the female hawke’s voice i thought was well done.
for the most part i agree with you on all this. the only thing i disagree was i thought hawk was an interesting character. he’s not the best protagonist BioWare has made by any means but i felt he was more compelling the Shepard from Mass Effect. but all around dead on and a good review
No, no, no, no, no, no, nonononooooooo
Dragon Age 2 is everything BUT a good game.
I played it on PC, but as far as I know it’s the same on 360
The UI isn’t better : it is dumbed down.
The gameplay is a SHAME, a HORRIBLE SHAME :
At lower difficulty (Easy and normal), you just have to click on you ability as fast as you could and as fast as they reload. WHERE IS THE STRATEGY ?
You CAN’T have a strategy : In each fight you don’t how many opponent you fight : They constantly respawn WITHOUT REASON. How do you want to fight strategically when in a tiny corridor you are not allowed to know how many opponents you face ????
I don’t speak about higher difficulty level, where you have to give orders to your sidekicks if you want to hope to survive … The ASS of each characters cancel your orders half of the time. And if you set a charcter so he doesn’t follow his ASS, well your order will still be canceled and the character will run in circle WITHOUT EVEN FIGHTING ? WHERE IS THE FUN ? WHERE IS THE IMPROVEMENT ???? (By the way, ASS is for Artificial Stupidity System)
Combats are long, dull and boring … and represent 80% of the game. The best difficulty is the ‘casual’ one that make combats short, dull and boring without removing anything in the … err … group strategy.
So UI sucks, combat sucks …
What else … Graphism sucks !
ONE cave, ONE dwarven ruin, ONE house interior : WHAT ???? Did I travel in time, did I get back in 1995 ??? Great scott ! That’s heavy ! It isn’t technical restriction… it’s just … just … lasyness ? incompetence ? sheer stupidity ? I don’t know, but after being disgusted by the fighting system … once you see THIS SAME CAVE FOR THE EFFING FOURTH TIME ! No, sorry, Joe, I like most of your vids and for the game I played, mostly agree with them. But not this time … 7 for this piece of … game … I cannot even call this game a piece of shit because I don’t want to insult shit …
And I didn’t even talk about the scenario (or the lack of), you did this well : Babysitting a stupid family, stupid quest, no ending … no … effing … ending … anD … NO … EFFING … RELEVANT … CHOICE ! Whatever you do, it WON’T matter at the end.
Look at DAO, the dwarves, the werewolves, the wizards, Loghain … Your choice affect more or less everyone with an ending giving the long term consequence of them. In DA2, NOTHING, the world after the game would be exactly the same wether you did the quest or not ! WTF ?????
I don’t talk about the extra paying character … I’m not stupid enough to buy DLC …
The only thing I like is the fact that your companion has their own house and seems to ‘live their life’ while not with you. It’s far for perfect, but it’s here and can give good idea for the future… The fact that Varric tell the story was a good idea underexploited …
But the rest is just crap …
I became bored half-way through … switched the difficulties of during the last chapter because the rythm of the boring pointless fight increased (!) and saw the ending with a disgusted face on my … err … face.
DA2 has been rushed, without flavor and dumbed down. I finished it once, and while I may play DAO and it expansion again, I won’t do this for DA2.
A notation ? 4//10
A summary ? Epic Fail
My two cents.
Okay, I have to say this now… When I hear Joe so Fantastic, I INSTANTLY think of Frank West from Deadrising when you get a good picture. Just saying.
Well, I’ve played through DA2, too, and… yeah, I agree with most of those things. But! There’s something you didn’t mention that’s neat, too, and I hope Bioware carries it over to Mass Effect.
Hawke can have 3 different ‘personalities’ depending on your dialogue choices in the game, diplomatic, sarcastic, and aggressive. The Personality affects in-combat dialogue, and some other lines throughout the game. Plus, some things you can only do with a certain type of personality, for example, there’s at least one person you can only adequately threaten if you have an aggressive personality.
ok, you didn’t pay very much attention to the game did you? Fenris’s “tribal tatoos” are actually Lithium runes burned into his flesh against his will and are the source of his powers, and you can actually romance Aveline.
And only one gay character hits on you once, you have to initiate pretty much all the gay options in the game. besides, wouldn’t you be upset if you were rejected? honestly is having a gay character hit on you so offensive? how do you think gaymers feel when skimpily dressed women keep hitting on them in games? i wonder how you would react to a game where all the relationships were gay with no hetro option and all the guys were topless and in speedos whilst the women were in very frumpy armour…
Bascily my thoughts can be sumed up in 1 word, repetition. Its always the same areas with the same foes and the same borign sound affects. Although playing games since a kid has made me more used to repetitive noices.
However along with Varric, the only other character I do like is Merrill…but I guess that since she constintly reminds me of Liara T’Soni from Mass Effect and knowing she was voiced by Torchwood actress Eve Myles helped, in fact I was compeled to plow through the game soley on the latter fact. I know odd huh.
Biodrones make me laugh
auto attack I agree is boring. I never care for grinding I agree with Egoraptor that grinding is a way to make a game feel longer in the fals sense of accomplishing something. I prefer a story over gameplay to be honest, A band of heroes saving the world is so over done and uninspired. I prefer some drama or political intrigue. Granted I haven’t played this yet but really thi sounds more enticing.
Well… I tried to like this game, but it was kind of a let down to me.
What bothered me most was how it could get -really- repetitive. Most of the side quests were the “go to location X and kill a bunch of guys/monsters” kind. The same enemies, in the same recycled areas… and it got old fast. It was also annoying as hell how I could not take a step at the city at night without getting attacked by some lameass random thugs.
Also, the main story seemed a little vague. Sometimes I would forget things like, “why I have to go to the deep roads again?”.
But I actually enjoyed the characters. Varric was pretty awesome =).
I definitely agree with you in regards to the city’s overall blandness — because of the lack of detail, most of it looks the same and that makes it not only boring to look at but easy to get lost in. And, as you say, much like a prison. Further, they still didn’t sort out those texturing issues on armor, or even with skin. A lot of it looks pretty plastic; still, I know their budget is still not the highest, as Dragon Age is still, in some ways, an experiment Bioware is running to test the interest of “traditional” rpgs with its fan base. The move toward Medieval Mass Effect is kind of unfortunate, since my favourite thing about Origins is trying out all of the beginning options and seeing how people treat you differently according to those… well, origins.
What I don’t think is necessarily fair about your review is the complaint about too many male party members. Technically, you have an even distribution of men and women you can romance — and all characters are romance-able by either gender. Which is being considerate to LGBT players, since they now have options as well instead of the one bisexual option for each gender in Origins.
I play games for the story and the characters. I finished it last night and I was so let down, I had trouble going to bed haha..
I played a female mage, ended up with anders, which totally became an ass in the end, send him off, had to kill him.. and I ended up with no healer.. GREAT. Aside from all that.. the gameplay was a lot more interesting…. But what happened to Morrigan?! Why was Flemeth in the trailer AT ALL? She was part of one shitty quest, it could have been so much more than that! .. Actually, a lot of the premium Da1 content had a lot of plot potential. In Da2 you have no real goal, you’re not really fighting against.. evil and it has no build up at all.
are any huge game breaking bugs in this one like in the first games dexterity bug? I am not interested in this one since i never beat the first game because of that bug.. which NEVER GOT PATCHED! I had actually vowed to never finish it until it got patched, and it never did, so.. ya, never beat it =P
Still i may pick it up down the road when its 20 bucks or less possibly. Honestly Bioware has started spiraling downhil after Mass effect 1. That was their last really good game.
wait for it to reduce to $5 like civ 5 on steam. It will happen!! xD
I’m largely conflicted about DA2. I enjoy it as a game, but I acknowledge its flaws. The story, I think they could have done more to immerse you in the setting and give it more of that “home town” feeling. Also, I can appreciate what they were trying to do with the break from the “Save the world” ploy in the story motivation, but not having a driving goal did hurt this game’s plot, I think.
As for Hawke, I played through with a chick Hawke and I have to say, from what little I’ve played as a guy Hawke, and from watching other people play a guy Hawke, chick Hawke is a much better character. Voice acting is much better, design is much better, just enough “sass” to make her more interesting than guy Hawke. Also, played as a warrior, and Bethany was generally more likable as a character than Carver was. Also, you don’t feel as far removed from the central “mage vs templar” story as a warrior or rogue because while it doesn’t effect you as an individual, it is something that effects your loved ones. Your sister, your late father, 50/50 chance of affecting your love interest. It’s certainly something you have an investment in, regardless.
As for the party members, Anders annoyed me for multiple reasons. He’s less a character and more a mouthpiece for the “plight of the mages”. Fenris is this to a slightly lesser degree. I liked Fenris more than I thought I would because I was thinking he’d be that whiny, emo final fantasy character, which he kind of is, but between his voice actor(who does a great job) and the fact there’s enough of the Conan the Barbarian esque brutality in his character, I didn’t mind him nearly as much as Anders. Me and my friends have noticed that it is way easier to romance the male characters than the females, regardless of whether or not you’re playing as a male or female Hawke. Literally every conversation with Anders and Fenris has a flirt option, sometimes it backs you up into nothing but flirt options or rivalry options. Compared to maybe every other conversation you get a quick, minor flirt with the females, doesn’t seem balanced. Aveline bored me for the most part. Isabela was basicly Zevran without the horrible secret, and between being hot and funny as hell, I liked her. Merrill had a surprising amount of depth and despite having a singular obsession. Normally I don’t like the “cute, sweet, adorable but troubled” girl but I think this was pulled off well, especially with a nice balance of absolutely hilarious dialogue from her. Varric certainly is the best of the companions, and he’s right up there with my favorites from Origins.
But for the most part, yea, the companions are weaker characters than Origins. There wasn’t anyone with the emotional depth of Sten, Oghren, Morrigan, or Leliana.
I have to strongly disagree with this review, jus because everyone’s complaints were the same problems you had in Orgins. Alistar was whinny as hell, they just didnt play it up as much, God vs. Evil is not a great story. And the only characters i really remmeber from the first game are Alistar and Morrigan. I kind of emember the other characters like Oghren, but he was the same chracter as Varic, though Varric was way better, Meryll was incredibly cute and the Isabella was the same charcter as the elf from the last game.. I had way more fun in this game because I felt like i mattered. In the last game I felt like no one really needed me and i never proved myself till the end. Andyet half way thru the game everyone said i was a hero. In DA2 I thought I proved myself, which is why i was the center of everything. The dialog was more stream lined and i enjoyed having a voiced character. Male voice actore for bioware are always worse than the female, at least in my opinion, THe “unresolved issues” were resolved for the momment, the blight was never wiped out completly its always a threat, just like in this game. It also made fun of th fact that no one else could do your job. There where plenty of ways to avoid gayness as long as you never picked romantic options. Point being if you are expecting DAO or DAA youy will be disapponted for it wasnt good vs. evil it was choose a side and deal with the consequences making it much more realistic
Sorry for typos in the last comment and this one. I really enjoyed the simplistic art styles and it looked fine for me and i love the over the topness of Fenris, i think oversized swords are cool
I don’t think the fact that this game was obviously rushed and released in early March (right before fiscal year end of April 1st) is a coincidence. It seems the stories you hear of BioWare hemoraging money into The Old Republic may be true, and that BioWare needed some income to be going into it’s accounts by year end to try to balance the books. Everything about this game screams of a quick money grab, from the encouragement of preorders to purchasable DLC at launch.
Now that I’ve officially completed the game I can speak about it more confidentially.
Yes this is a good game, but this is a bad dragon age game. If this was the first release in the series it would be a wonderful game, and would really kick start it’s franchise, however being a sequel to a near perfect game it’s more 2 steps back then 2 steps forward.
First off I don’t think anything should be removed from a game period if it is working. They removed a lot of the “class customization” in this release. The only class that’s pretty much the same from the old game is the rogue. You guys really don’t lose that much, other then if you chose the Duel Wield Spec, your doing single enemy damage as opposed to the Area of Effect you got in the last game.
Warriors and Mages however are a lot different, for instance Warriors can no longer Dual wield, which for me was a big deal. See my comment previously, now your stuck in a more traditional sword and shield build, or the two hander weapon build. According to the bioware forum they took out the duel wield option for warriors because they were to similar to rogues in the last game, and that is true. However bioware you guys are the ones developing this game, make the duel wield tree for the warrior different. That’s why I don’t think that is a valid excuse. because of that you find yourself stacking really only strength and constitution when you level up, because dexterity, while it provides critical chance, is no longer relevant for your warrior.
Mages are different in the case of you can ONLY use a staff. Gone are the days of making yourself a spell sword, or a dagger wielding mage. Which again really cuts down your options, and your playability. One thing I liked about mages is there mana pools refill if your not controlling them, thats nice when you have a support healer that you want to leave on auto pilot.
The combat is alot simpler and more involved which I liked, the story was fun, and I liked interacting in the world with my character. The thing I didn’t like that much was the responses were hard to figure out. I don’t know what the gavel always means, sometimes my character answers rudely, sometimes he answers angrily. Or the sarcastic remarks don’t always answer sarcastically. This made chose my characters reactions sometimes unsatisfying, and not what I wanted to Role Play at the moment.
My last gripe about the game is for those with 80gig systesm. I don’t know how many of you with the 80gig system have noticed this but the game freezes alot, also some quests glitch and won’t activate. I myself was unable to complete Isabela’s last quest because it did not activate. I returned the game to see if the disc was the problem, and the person at the gamestop informed me that it is an issue that the 80gig system (ps3) is having. The problem is I don’t want to put the completion of the game off because bioware hasn’t gotten around to patching this glitch.
So like I said, a good game overall, but alot of problems, and definitely a setback in this franchise, hopefully whenever dragon age 3 comes out (please take your time bioware) it will be an epic tale reminiscent to it’s more glories installments.
Well, I have just finished Dragon Age 2, and I had pretty much the same opinions as Joe.
The repeating dungeons was really annoying. It’s not very exciting to go to the same location about a dozen times in the game. I also agree that some of the characters tended to whine a lot. I thought Anders was alright at first, but once the game got to the mages vs templars thing he started to get on my nerves. I also never liked Fenris. Lol, and right when I saw him I thought, “Oh no…it’s a Final Fantasy character! D: NO! ” I thought that Varric was completely awesome though. I would always have that guy on my team! XD
I also agree about the combat. It was MUCH better! I too don’t like the point and click style of combat, but this was so much faster and more fun!
I did highly enjoy Dragon Age 2, and I may play it again in the future, but I do hope that they improve the story for Dragon Age 3, cause running around doing Kirkwall’s chores is not as fun as becoming a Grey Warden and saving the world from the Blight. But they should defiantly keep the improvements in gameplay!
You know, when I first heard about the recycled dungeons before I played I thought it wasn’t going to bother me much, but now that I’m playing it’s really getting on my nerves. The demo was exciting, and the plight of your family is very engaging for a while, but I can’t help but feel that something’s missing, and I’m not sure what it is. I just find that I’m enjoying it less.
I agree with Joe here, this game needed more time in the oven.
I gotta say, the biggest bonus – in my opinion anyway – was the art style itself. Primarily, the battle animations. For once, it was nice to have the ability to run from enemy to enemy without doing that half-squatted hunchback of Notre Damme run to the bathroom.
I was a tad disappointed in the lack of Blight, but I enjoyed the story personally.
I’ll say it, Dragon Age 2 was to short. I finished in 15 hours, and the only side quests I didn’t do were involving Isabela. Wanna know why? Cause I never met her in the game.
I loved the new combat, but thought the skill trees were a bit more limiting due to the restrictions for each character. I also miss setting up awesome armor for me and my teamates, but I gotta say it was quicker. Once again though I never found anything cool looking for my mage.
Part of me thinks they made the steps back in this game so it would be easier to move forward in the next, such as playing in only one city in this game to five maby?, in the next game. it certainly looks like it will be easier to top this game than Origins. Sounds like a cheap move on their part but I can definetly see how it would work.
Well, I would say it’s the Revenge of Baldurs Gate 2 *joking*
I mean in BG2 you only could date one guy and the dudes got three (elven) Chicks..
..Wasn’t really fair.. no, no…
(But to be fair, the Romances from the guys weren’t all so good.. well, and three times a woman with Elven Origin.. yay.. but at least one had the choice and didn’t have to wait for Mods..)
Dragon Age 2 seems like a nice enough Game. I can’t say how the first one was, yet, but this one did seem from the review a bit less.. great.
But it will probably still be enjoyable.. I actually want to play it XD
And I smell a “Date your Sister”-Mod coming.. I mean in Baldurs Gate one could date Imoen and Sarevok..
*giggle*
Yes, yes.. Fanmods are something^^ (haven’t actually played the Romances yet, so can’t say if dating your Half-Siblings is fun or not..)
Great review, that’s a perfect score for this game!
but it seems like it disappointed me more, i felt like the strategy factor also was forgotten
in Dragon age Origins there was battles which you may think it was impossible but with some strategy you could overcome it, even if took a few tries. Here is just hack and slash.
Dragon Age II was a complete change from Dragon Age origins. DA:O had that nostalgic RPG feeling like when I played Knights of The Old Republic on the original Xbox (I still do). However Dragon age II was an enjoyable experience. I did wish that your warden character from the first game played a much more bigger role in DA:II instead of just only being mentioned a few times. I was appreciative of the cameos though. However I am looking forward for some DA:II DLC. Hopefully the equivalent of DA:O awakening comes out.
AND IT”S NOT FOUR HOURS.
Dragon Age II: 8/10 on my scale
The good:
1. Graphic look better.
2. Better UI.
The bad:
1. Useless drops.
2. Useless “junks”.
3. Boring quests.
4. Lack of places, reusable dungeons.
5. Useless golds.
6. Useless armory.
7. Lack of crafting.
8. Questionable story of the companions.
9. Why do you need to go to companion’s proper place to talk to them when they are right behind you?
10. Lack of interaction with companion.
11. Casual difficulty is unnecessary.
12. My rogue can do 4k dmg 1 hit.. bugged?
13. DLC way too expensive(felt like forced to preorder).
14. Potions/healing spells are a joke.
Okay my complaints about this game is:
1: Combat I miss the top down view. On consoles such as PS3 and XBOX360 i can understand that they haven´t included it a joypad just isn´t that well equipped to handle that kind of strategic view, its more of an up close and personal type.
With PC well you got a bloody mouse perfect for strategy games so why not include the top down view from the first game?
It worked quite well and could be a godsend to you in some battles where you really wanted to get a good view of things.
2: Companion AI: I nearly screamed at the PC several times after my mages and archers for the 100th time ran directly into the thick of combat and got slaughtered.
That´s what i want my Melee Charecters to do, you know the guys who have the constitution/health to take that amount of punishment , not my bloody mages whom i want to STAY as far away as possible from the thick of combat while they rain spells on my foes.
3: Healers are FUCKING USELESS!! I had Anders as my healer only problem is he´s bloody useless. When combat is particularly nasty i want to be able to count on my healers to buff and heal my party members.
Unfortunately the healing spell recharge so slowly that you´ll get your ass handed to you long before its finished recharging.
Then there´s the potions remember how in the old game you could rely on potions to get you out of trouble? Well you can´t anymore because the exact same thing that makes healing spells useless also counts for the potion the moment you you chuck one down whola you´ll have to wait for it to recharge.
This wasn´t a problem in the first game since you had multiple potions and while one was recharging you could always rely on some of the others sure they didn´t give you nearly as much health as the bigger potions, but they kept you alive long enough for the bigger potions to recharge fully and give you the vital health needed.
Here you have one maybe 2 and they both needs to recharge, which leave you only one option if you want to stay alive.
Run around like your ass is on fire and pray to everything that´s holy that their mages or archers doesn´t take you out before the bloody potion has had time to recharge.
Then there is the enemy AI you remember how i complained about my Mages running in and being slaughtered? Well fortunately for the enemy AI it doesn´t have that problem their mages teleport around the battlefield like it was nobody´s buisness throw up shields that makes them impervious to harm, and when they aren´t doing that well i get a spell thrown in my head that kills off most of my party. which forces me to run around after them while the stronger melee characters kill off my companions.
And then there is the Retreating of the same ground over and over and over again, i could understand this practice if this game had been released before Mass Effect 1 or at the same time because that game had much the same problems.
BUT then we had Mass Effect 2 And Dragon Age Origins and Awekening and none of them really had that problem as such at least not to a degree that it was noticeable.
So why Bioware why the fuck are you going a step backward to a standard you long since yourself have surpassed?
Also there´s the graphical issues and art directions: 1: The Qunari And Darkspawn, you could get away with it the looks if we hadn´t already seen them.
We spent the whole first game slaughtering our way through Darkspawn in the company of the Qunari Sten. We know how both the Qunari and Darkspawn look like and its not like this!
Graphical issues these are minor since my Pc (yeah i need to get it and update) Only have the power to run it only Direct9 medium settings
But it looks nice though there´s still the annoyance or Armor parts sliding into one another hair cutting into clothes beard washing, into your throat or your tung going through your lower lip and armor stretching like it was made out of cloth.
Then we have the Weapons in Mass Effect 2 at least they looked firmly attached your hip and back, here especially with the pirate lady they are floating a few inches from her back, This could have been solved by perhaps making a scabbard or something that they placed the weapons in.
It would have been nice to see those corrected or at least diminished so it wasn´t quite so obvious.
And finally the decision that you can´t upgrade your party members armor, which means that over half the shops in the game and half the loot you get from your fallen enemies is well USELESS!! since only Hawke can use armor it doesn´t do the game any favors when you constantly get mage robes and hoods or leather armor.
Wow this armor is really powerful it would look good on my mages and protect them but no i can´t use them on any other then Hawke and since he´s a warrior well he can´t use any of those armors AT ALL.
They are wasted worthless.
Now some might say you couldn´t use Armor in mass effect 2 either nope but you didn´t get armor on the missions either you got ammunition, weapons, medigel and a few things here and there that you could sell on the market and get something else for.
And there was no restrictions on what weapons your companions could use either.
Finally a little plot hole Anders and Justice, when did that happen? I´ve read the endings you can have with Justice and Anders and although i might have missed something, no where that i could find is it even hinted that the two joined.
The bad ending in awekening will have Justice standing in the ruins of your keep his last words Now i know what i must do and then he disappears leaving the corpse or the warden he inhabited behind.
Then we have the ending i got where i defended the city and left my keep to defend itself, in that ending Justice got his head ripped of by a horde of Dark Spawn, i suppose that Anders and Justice could have combined there if not for the fact that i had Anders in my group during that attack.
Then there´s the ending you´ll get if you stayed and defended the keep, in that ending Justice lives on for many more years until he one day appears at the doorstep of his “Wife” smiles and collapses.
From the endings including Anders none even hinted that those two would join. If the sequel had remained true Anders and a familiar woman would have been what we had seen when we meet him in DA 2.
All in all this game reaks of a rush job made by people who didn´t do their homework probably or just didn´t have enough time.
Which considering that BIOWARE is owned by EA doesn´t come as any particular surprise to bad really it had potential to be just as great if not better then the original, even with the Mass Effect influence on it.
Reads like you’re bad at combat. Even on hard I found DA2′s combat easy.
Also, the reason you see weapons floating off a characters back in every game (including ME2) is so they don’t clip through the characters body while he moves.
I usually play on hard mode because on normal mode combat is a joke.
So i either play on hard mode to get some sort of challenge or on normal and feel cheated all the way through.
Also about the healing spells, i´m reminded of Mass Effect 2 here the combat on the more difficult level was great a lot of challenges yes but not impossible, the healing in that game worked.
You had your team mates backing you up most of the time and none of the weaker characters ran that much into a group of strong opponents, the bloody well stayed in cover and blasted from there.
This game reminds me TOO much of Mass Effect 1 and while it had a good story its gameplay was broken and it main mission was FAR TOO short and your companions was completely and utterly USELESS.
Alot of those flaws was corrected in Mass Effect 2 and DA:O and Awekening didn´t seem that plagued by those problems, so naturally you could assume that they had found a way to work passed those problems, so again why do they show up in DA2??
Another problem the introduced relationship with the different characters and if you get max friendship or hate you´ll get a bonus of some kind, that´s all fine and well however there´s a problem.
To get max out of those relationships you have to have those particular characters in your group.
That would be well if not most of the characters i want in/mages are all pussys when in comes to fighting in combat.
Your strongest mage from the get go is either yourself or your Sister/brother problem is you already have maxed out your relationship with him/her (though she/he doesn´t have any bonuses like the others) so taking her in would mean that your missing out relationships for the other characters who actually gets bonus´s.
This is a serious flaw If you want to have the player take the different characters in your group in order to get a good relationship out of them, make them matter make them a strong asset to your team.
Do not make the sibling the strongest character, if you plan to max out the relationship with her from the start.
I still stand by my statement this game allthough not a complete and utterly waste of money is a serious step backwards for a company that used to set new standards each time the released a game.
Seriously i remembered back in the day when Mass Effect 1 came out on the 360 it was heralded as the definitive reason as to why you should go buy and Xbox to play this new and awesome game.
Now take a look at this game, had it come out back in 2006 or maybe 2007 before Mass Effect 1 or at the same time it would probably have received praise back then because it hadn´t been seen before.
But at this day and age with previous Bioware titles such as Mass Effect 2 and Dragon age Origins and Awakening, this game come out as awkward and seriously flawed. Because from previous titles we KNOW Bioware can do ALOT better then they have done in this game.
Ill say first on that I played through the PC version of the game.
I agree with the review except for a few point.
I did like the character we could recruit in the game. Isabella, Merril and Varric being my favorite.
The big thing I really didnt like about this game is that except for a few boss fight they were no strategy involve like in the first one (at least on PC). You could go through almost any fight without caring at all about placement of your team or witch combination of spell to use for full effect. In the first one I had to keep thinking where to place my character and actually had to protect the casters or else it would have been nearly impossible to win any fight. I did enjoy the challenge without having to keep switching between difficulty settings.
I do disagree on the story part, while DA 1 had a good story, I found the blight to be weak enemies.. I’m not a big fan of the BIG BAD BADDIES clichĂ© and prefer to have more human conflicts in my storyline. Nothing wrong with saving the world, but I do find opposing ideals to be a much more interesting plot point.
Take Loghain from DA1 for an example, people should remember him instead of the Arch demon since he actually had a personality, In this its Templar Vs Mage, Qun vs Chantry.. opposing ideals that could have been fleshed out more. But they still make for a better story than “Woe is us, darkspawn, oh no. We need spectr.. uuh, Grey Wardens!”
However.. i think this game would have needed another chapter with Hawke as Champion, defending Kirkwall from an impeding invasion (human or qunari, something with more personality than your avarage darkspawn)
.. oh and Merill is awesome, as is Sebastien, and He would have been free if you pre-ordered the game before .. somewhere in January, which I did. And promiscuous pirate chicks are good as well.. Although I do think the general cast is a wee bit weaker, but not by much..
In my book, its an 8/10. I do hope the next game do improve in the generic dungeons and cities. I’m guessing it will be Tevinter Imperium vs Orlais, Ferelden and the Free Marches. With Guest Appearance by Qunari!
I’m only just getting to the end of the first chapter but I’m still loving it. I still wish I could just turn the combat off though. On PC it is basically the same as the first, exept some buffs seem to untarget your charecter. So I’m thinking of renting it on PS3 to see how the combat there is. As it stands I find the combat looks nice but is incredably tedius.
As for the story, so fare I’m loving it. So fare I really like all the companions, perticularly Merril and the Dwarf. I thought Merril was incredibly cute and I liked to bring her allong as much as possible just to here her off beat asides. I was also surprised to see Anders back from the expansion.
I have to agree about the evnironments. Not so much that they look bad per-say, I thought they looked really good, just that they are over used and repeated so much. Also for some odd reason the beards on human charecters looks really odd.
DUDE I agree with you, they are doing to much games.. for no reason. if they can focus in one to get it right, then they would have a good game, because we all know bioware can do amazing games, and about me2, i love me2, is on my top 50 best games ever, definitly, AND, lol faggotry in videos games, they just added it for fun, because is somenthing completely unexpected and, believe me, can cause some LOLs from nowhere,i did a gay comment once to a guy, lol i never EVER would imagine i could, but well, curiosity… the other guy took it pretty well tough… =*, well, why would someone buy a game , better saying, a medieval combat-focused RPG, because of sexual relationships, don’t matter if its straight or gay…
I like ME2 overall; it’s a good game.
Interacting with dead bodies as you go through a level to get weapon upgrades is much lamer than buying/looting poison ammunition mods then adding them to your pistol. The combat’s improved but some of the changes are for the worse.
I’m annoyed by gay choices. In a game like Fable it doesn’t matter b/c none of the townsfolks are characters. Random dudes falling in love with you on-sight’s just silly. But in KotOR it was annoying to have Carth or Atton keep hitting on my female playthrough characters. Made me feel harassed and I would’ve rather killed them (didn’t use em anyway) then have it keep coming up. So I sympathize alot w/Joe on being annoyed that even as a guy you’ve a guy party member constantly coming onto you.
The only other potential-romance I remember bothering me some was Jaheira. Bioware reused her plot for DA2′s Aveline.
“I was just widowed and you could sure help me deal with the grief…”
it was creepy.
You’re right; I don’t think romance subplots (or a lack thereof) motivates a notable # of people to buy RPGs. I prefer a romance subplot to no character depth but often it’s a the bulk of a party members depth.
I wonder how many folks who voted me down weren’t logged in…
ALRIGHT, SORRY TO SAY BUT, WHATAHELL,”Joe details what went wrong in this follow-up to one of the most compelling fantasy RPGs of all time.” ANGRY JOE, DO YOU EVEN KNOW ABOUT THE EXISTANCE OF ELDER SCROLLS. PLAY ANY OF THEM AND YOU WILL IMEDIATLY UNDERSTAND WHY THIS STATEMENT IS WRONG…
I have to admit, the review made a lot of good points. I still disagree on a number of the negatives, but this was much more fair than a lot of the response has been.
My biggest complaint with Angry Joe is the companions. Personally, I found them much more appealing and full of depth than the original crew from Origins. In my first play-through, I remember logging off for the night genuinely worried about Merrill, the cute naive elf mage. I loved her personality and found almost all of her dialogue to be golden, but despite being adorable and kind her back-story reveals her to be a blood mage, having done business and contract with truly dangerous and evil things (albeit for a good reason). I was torn between helping her restore a potentially dangerous artifact for her people for her approval and happiness, and refusing her for her own safety… and then I began worrying that sweet naive girl might be hiding horrible depths, or ultimately being manipulated by the literal demons of her past.
And then I realized how many novels I had read that didn’t have a single character that interesting or likable. Merrill is just one example; most of the characters left me anxious to see their personal plots play out at one point or another. Even Carver, who I fully expected to have to confront and kill as his mage sister by the mid-game, had me wondering how the whole bitter sibling relationship would resolve itself. I didn’t like him, but I got involved in his story, and that’s a hallmark of good writing.
The plot is very different from Origins, and even conventional RPGs, in both structure and pacing. I’ll admit that the ending is lackluster and acts II and III seem a bit disjointed, but I must admit I’m a fan of how the whole thing worked. Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation commented in his review of Oblivion that, although the game offered a colossal amount of side-quests and content not directly related to the main plot, it doesn’t really give you a way to explore it without discarding the main plot in a truly awkward role-playing fashion. Either you ignore the world-shaping events after you finish the main plot to crawl up the ranks of the guilds, or you table the dying requests of the Emperor of the World while you’re off stealing stuff for the thieves guild. DA II is really heavy on the side quests, and it does so in an extraordinarily functional way that resolves the Oblivion trouble; you start out without a Grand Design World-Saving/Damning Quest, which means doing the side jobs actually make sense for your hero, especially in the beginning. There’s no spending a couple weeks running messages across Ferelden in the face of the advancing Blight like Origins had, and instead the side-quests have a tendency to feed into the central plots and conflicts, developing new tangential and related plot-lines.
It’s a very different plot structure from Origins, and for the most part I think it works. It does kind of falter in Act III, and the actual ending is a fairly obnoxious cliff-hanger, but it leaves me wanting to know more. It seems things bigger than the Blight are afoot, and I really do want to see what comes next. I suspect an expansion is in the works; in development Bioware said the story of DA II would be told over ten years, and at release the game only covers seven. It’s well positioned for a tour-de-force follow up better than Awakening, but that doesn’t change the fact that the game’s actual ending isn’t satisfying.
I do LOVE the changes that were made to character development. I simply cannot bring myself to mourn the passing of Origin’s Skills (poorly implemented crafting and artificial ceilings for AI control). The new ability trees, more reminiscent of WoW’s Talent Trees than anything else, are exceptional. You have to carefully choose between unlocking new abilities, improving existing ones, branching out into multiple disciplines, specializing in a couple, and rounding out your party. You can’t just tell your Tanking warrior to take all the shield-focused talents and write off that character’s development; you need to examine the various trees and balance decisions about the warrior’s survivability, ability to gain threat and attention of enemies, and utility abilities to set up cross-class combos. I wholeheartedly agree with Angry Joe; the combat in this version is superior to the original’s, doubly so on consoles.
On a lesser note, I personally like Kirkwall. Hightown is beautiful, Lowtown is appropriately drab and lower-class, Darktown is suitably depressing and bleak, and I felt the city as a whole was well handled. The game as a whole lacks a lot of environments, but what is present is much more lovingly rendered and detailed than anything in Origins (of the original Dragon Age’s many strong points, environment design was certainly not one). It is obnoxious how often they reuse maps and dungeon designs, but the few higher-quality environments seems about as agreeable as Origin’s many low-quality (in both technical and creative terms) environments.
I’m inclined to say Dragon Age II is about as good as the original. Many, many things have changed and the two games play very differently, but I’m honestly at a loss at which one is objectively better. Certainly, Dragon Age II has less re-playability, and I’ll doubt I’ll give it the number of play-throughs I’ve given Origins, but it’s still very high quality and loads of fun.
I’m suprised that the fact that there was purchaseable DLC on LAUNCH DAY isn’t a bigger topic of discussion. That’s just downright shady. I was expecting an appearance by Corporate Commander.
I’m equally surprised that the contents and pricing of the DLC isn’t discussed, either.
I suppose Wardens Keep and Shale were discussed back in the day because there was content WORTH discussing…
I just finished the game an hour ago. It left me with a WAT TEH HELL WAS THAT!? feeling.
That cliffhanger was really….really bad. Nothing about what happened with my companions, and no matter what I chose, the cool first enchanter had to die while the whole corrupt idol thing felt forced just to make knight-commander Meredith go coo-coo for Coco-Puffs.
I do agree, combat was better because fights don’t last as long (and thus become boring), but it would have been nice to allow a free camera mode + zooming out more. That way, it would satisfy the strategic fans along with the action console fans. Simple solution but they didn’t do it =/
I agree with the maps being reused over and over. Annoyed me a bit, and made me feel the game is limited in scope.
Didn’t Bioware wanted to have multiple endings depending on your choices? I found an old blog that said Bioware PROMISED to have that. I guess either EA said NO, they ran out of time, ran out of money, or ran out of…I don’t know… cookies?
I had to restart the game because I got sick of listening to emo Carver. Accidently found out that if you start as a warrior/rogue, Carver dies. If you start as a mage, your sister dies. I found the sister to be a lot less grating, but felt generic in personality. Maybe she would be more interesting as a character if, again, the story didn’t FORCE the decision to kill her or remove her away from you one way or another. Also, if you left her behind like I did, and she was forced into the Circle……when you reunite with her later, she reacts like she only saw you yesterday, instead of being TORN from you for YEARS.
I heard people say that gold is useless, and I agree. Most of what I see in stores are sub-par compared to what I get from monster drops/chests, so I never really had to buy anything besides a few mana pots for my healer.
It is annoying that, after finishing with a boss battle at the end of some quest way up in the mountains, you have to run back ALL THE WAY BACK down to get to the selection map screen. Seriously….why? What benefit does running back the way you came give you? There are no new monsters that spawn or new loot for you to get. Solution: Make the Map selection screen available to you (with a message telling you Map is available at end of that boss fight). But nope. They force you to jog back down the (same) mountain that you’ve been to the past 20 times for a few minutes just because they are too lazy or didn’t have money, or didn’t care to put it in.
Ill be honest …..i agree on a good deal of things you said except for the charchters and story , i found myself enjoying the story and lets face it as an overall plot it was a better concept then become a grey warden and save ferelden from mordor…i mean the blight .
So it wasnt as epic but it was enjoyable , the only charchter i maybe can agree with is the charchter design for the slave elf ….but thats about it , i actually liked the charachters AND i found them to be quite amuseing most of the time toghether .
Yeah the slut charchter was ….what else a slut , shes a pirate , a bucaneer and the sexual reffrences always kept me laughing
Myrell was the sort of sweet but sorta naive charchter like Leilana was , and can you honestly say that you had more females in origins party members ….there was like at tops one and one was a granny.
Overall joe fair review charchters and story usually differentiate from person to person .
But the games overall city design could have been better and more open to exploration .But thats about the main gripe i had with the game , and i didnt think that Hawks vocie actor was horrible….at all quite the opposite i thought he was decent i mean horrible usually means tehy make your ears bleed….i found no such thing .
But yah liek said overall fair review
I think the issues with the characters is that many of them are only fleshed out for the purposes of the story. Anders beats you over the head with the fact that he’s a mage and he’s oppressed. Fenris (stupid name by the way) beats you over the head that he was oppressed by mages. Merrill beats you over the head that bloodmages are people too. In Origins most characters had backgrounds and motivations for participating in your group completley independent of the darkspawn and blight and their personalities reflected this. Even Morigan, who’s purpose for following you involved the ending of the blight, did so for a motivation completly different from the main character’s. They were fleshed out as more than just tools for the writers to highlight the conflict that your character faces.
As for the story it would be nice to have some people’s motivations be more than they were possessed by magical mgguffins or demons (which I guess are magical mcguffins too). In Origins I was waiting to find out that Loghane was possessed by a blood mage, or a thrall of the archdemon or something. I was pleasantly suprised when I found out that he was doing what he thought was right, and I could see his logic of “even if we beat the Blight we’ll loose our soverignty to Orlais”. He was a great war hero so I could understand his hubris of believing that he could fight both wars and win. Storytelling in DA2 was downright lazy.
If you wanted me to rate this game not as a game but as being an advertisement for Dragon Age 3, I’d give it a 10/10. I think that was the intended purpose of the game anyway. They expected everyone to buy the game before anyone realized that we’ve been had, even to the point of encouraging preorders by providing two pieces of DLC for free if you preordered (I’m still wondering how they justify having DLC at launch instead of including it in the game as it should be). One of those DLC is included with a new game so anyone thinking of buying the game used is SOL, because you’ll still have to drop 15-20 bucks afterwards for both DLC’s that SHOULD have been included in the game. Lots of incentives to preorder or buy the game at launch to hype DA 3. Plus I’m sure DA 3 was being developed alonside DA2 (Like ME2 and ME3) so when DA3 launches with a much longer development cycle they’ll say “hey look, we listened to your feedback and made a better game. See, we do listen to our customers because we’re BioWare, the game company that cares”. Releasing a rushed game just to hype the next one. Pure corporate EA genious.
You think second hand buyers are screwed… In Aus, they are charging -$40- for the two DLC packs and our dollar is STRONGER than the US dollar for the first time in history. Second hand buyers in Aus are RAPED.
To be honest, after the (justified) rant about Fable3′s serious dumbing down, I’m suprised this example of the very same trend got a free pass from you Joe.
Looks like its getting set up for a bunch of DLC scenarios. think i’ll wait for the complete collection version that they will eventually release a year from now.
i played it at my friends place and i enjoyed the upgraded (yes, upgraded) battles. I also don’t care for the mmorpg auto attack style of the original games. i understand a lot of ppl quite enjoy it but it still sucks when a direct sequel plays differently then the one proceeding it. it’s not as drastic as say a rts having a sequel that’s a fps but its still pretty bad especially to slow poke pc gamers who can’t do anything in real time (joking guys).
Whats really funny about the comments you made about Fenris is that he’s voiced by Gideon Emery, who also voiced Balthier in FFXII. Guess they couldn’t get Cree Summers to do it (look it up ppl).
Actually, I’m enjoying this game a lot more than Origins. I like the characters and I’m kind of tired of the whole, ‘saving the world from the big bad’ thing anyways. I love when a game has lots of gray area with their moral decisions. It pretty much fixes most of the things that usually make me roll my eyes at RPG’s.
I’m also pretty sure I’m the only person who likes being stuck in one city. Reminds me a lot of the first chapter of Neverwinter Nights.
It’s obvious that Bioware’s pandering to the yaoi fangirls, but even as a non-yaoi fangirl you certainly won’t hear me complaining about having more boys in my Dragon Age. ;D
I feel thoroughly compensated for having to sit through a ridiculous amount of nearly-naked female Asari in both Mass Effects.
(And I can’t believe people actually want to have a romance option with the SIBLINGS. That can’t possibly be true…)
The male to female ratio comment threw me off for a second. In the original you had two males and two females who you could romance, and the party had three women (one of whom was old enough to be a grandmother), three guys, a dog and a gender-neutral golem.
DA II has three romancible women and three romancible men, with a ratio of three women party members to four guys, plus or minus one depending on which sibling survives, and even he/she’s not there for a lot of the game. Seems fairly even to me.
That said, I did get the impression a lot of the characters were designed for women fans. Fenris screams bishonen, in particular, while Anders and Sebastian seemed designed to appeal to different traditional sub-sets of hunky guy. I don’t really mind, honestly; I got Merrill, so that’s all that really matters.
kind of spoiler but any DA fan should know this;
Well technically Shale is or as she puts it “was” a women and the other companions refferred to Shale as “her” when its been revealed. not to mention she has the hots for Sten and Sten even asked how strong her teeth are but you have to get Morrigan and Sten to talk about that first so yeah, I count Shale as a woman.
I think that you were spot on the review, and i personally would give it an 8/10, because i just LOVE playing it. And also, I like the characters, especially Merrill. I kinda think that Anders should be less “justicy”, if you catch my drift.
I don’t know, Joe… there’s a lot of parts of me that WANT to agree with your assessment, but…
…well, I had a really, REALLY hard time getting into DA 1 at all, but one hour with DA 2 (a friend’s copy) made me buy the game. Admittedly DA 1′s characters eventually got me interested in seeing the game to completion, but I still like DA 2s enough to want to see all of their stories through. Also, the pirate was awesome, so faq you!
Oh, and stop complaining about the LGBT options – admittedly, they could have been handled better, but do you remember the gay option in KOTOR? That’s right, Juhani didn’t do anything more than hint at the possibility of maybe becoming friends some time in the future (and have an annoying accent, so there was that). There could have been more than the two extreme options (pirate slut versus elf housewife) for female characters, but at least what was there was done better than before – and as Bioware keeps working on their formula you can bet it will get even more satisfying.
Here are my pros and cons of Dragon Age II:
Pros:
* Better Gameplay
* Better Sidequests
* Better Graphics
* More Interactive playable character.
* And personally I liked the playable characters, even though they were nowhere near as “deep” as the ones from Dragon Age: Origins.
Cons:
* Story elements that don’t go anywhere.
* Story ended too soon.
* No conversation trees with party members like the first one. (The ones you had in the campsite)
* Not enough outer areas.
(SPOILERS)
One thing that bugged me was you end up reviving Flemeth only for her to walk out of the game. All this time I thought she was the central plot but instead it’s just glanced over and probably be saved some upcoming expansion, DLC or for Dragon Age III.
Plus there are too many glitches. When characters eyes are glowing you can easily see the glowing parts not aligned with the eyes. Plus some characters act like static by shaking for no reason.
All in all though, I’m glad I played it and I hope Dragon Age III comes out soon. Maybe as a prequel to the first one.
Hi Joe!
I’ve never left a comment before, but i agreed with absolutely everything you said..So much so that im compelled to create an account and back you up. Fantastic combat…Honestly in the original dragon age i seemed to groan every time enemies appeared, it was just so dull. Great user interface…..Dreadful party members.
I liked Merrill i have to admit, but im a sucker for the sweet and innocent girl (yes i chose Aerie…And Tali…Obviously) Accent grates a bit but she’s otherwise sweet and amusing. Luckily i got the PC version so im expecting a mod anytime now to keep the much nicer sibling, Bethany, whilst playing as a mage, instead of the whiny little brother. Ah yes..About Bethany. Im not surprised if people want to romance her, because she’s actually an extremely likeable character, and in a way it is a chore that she’s your sister. But of course, Bioware completely misjudged the audience by ————————SPOILER ALERT————————————————-
-Taking her from us in act 2, one way or another, so that again was annoying. Honestly it feels like they keep promising us another Baldur’s Gate 2 and just…Missing the mark in silly little ways. All the romance options being bisexual is kind of odd i suppose, there should be one bisexual option of each gender. Its just kind of silly otherwise. And yes, more female characters please. There just wasn’t enough. A complete sausage party, though i kind of Like Prince Sebastian, and, surprisingly, Varric, which was odd because i absolutely hated Oghren with a burning passion i’ve rarely felt before. Anyway…Im rambling. I agreed with everything you said. Oh, and it was a particularly hilarious review too. Keep up the good work.
Joe i think you were correct in giving DA2 what i believe is your slightly above average score for games;i believe the game was Very well made for it’s shorter than average development cycle; Admittedly the games environs are a little lack luster and do repeat quite often (yeah ok every quest) but i believe Bioware made up for this by the fact that they made each mission relatively short in each area so yes that does mean you go back often but your only there for a short time, also i believe that the characters were relatively well written Varric and Anders are my favorite characters, in closing to though i want to state that like 343 studios was doing for halo why did EA not have biowares other departments work on a separate game to release allowing dragon age 2 to be in development longer.
IMO DA:O was the superior game in almost every respect.
Hmm… I did actully find the characters enjoyable. Also it did blurr up the good vs. evil parts of the world. Anders being possessed by Justice but still was in a way evil, but Merril even as a blood mage is one of the kindest characters in the party. Also I liked the siblings or at least your sister still haven’t played a Mage. All around it felt like I could connect to the family there. Games interface was well as mentioned I was feeling around 8 or 9 out of 10 before the very end.
(Spoiler Warning don’t say I didn’t warn you)
The end of the “war” between mages and templars just was lame. I mean I felt like it would actully start something more and not end the game there. In my mind the comparison from Origins would have been that when you are going to Denerim to battle the Blight the monitor turns black and only white text is there “To be Continued”. That was the feeling and with that it killed my mood totally. Dropping down from saving a nation (Ferelden not the whole world) to being a running boy in a city and being part of two major insidents in the city.
PS. Also did anyone else find the Qunari chief hard as hell? I had tough time winning against him with my Warrior. Though I did skip some quests in the 2nd act so I might have been little low level.
well my opinion of the game is pretty much the same as yours joe it isnt as good as origins but that is a very tough act to follow, i havent played much of the game yet havent even gotten to the deep roads yet but i do have one complaint about it but this was also in da origins if a game has romance options they need to show nudity the first one we at least got a down to bra scene but form what ive seen so far in the second it fades to black and when it comes back the chick is gone game developers like to copy god of war so much yet only a few have shown nudity to, and no im not some super perv i just think why not have it the game is already m rated. i had igh hopes for the game and so far im liking it especially since my blood dragon armer that came with my first game carried over that was awesome
From the looks of things, I’m guessing Bioware released DA2 with the intention of polishing it up with DLC. I guess it’s a good thing I still haven’t finished playing Origins so I can focus more on that and I suppose I’ll get to playing DA2 later, maybe when after I’ve finished playing Mass Effect 3 (assuming that one doesn’t end up the same as DA2), Uncharted 3, Catherine, Devil Survivor Overclocked, both ef games, Demonbane, Aselia the Eternal, and the Ar Tonelico trilogy.
why is everyone reviewing the console versions? why can’t we get review of the pc versions.
you know when i saw your postings on twitter and then saw the score i thought we had some differences. Not that i didnt agree with you on every point you made but how the effected the overall enjoyment of the game. After seeing the review i have to say that you hit the nail on the head though i did still have 1 or 2 things that i dont agree with. i grew to like the characters over time though ya some or annoying (Carver and Andres…seriously that guy was hilarious in Awakening and now hes Squall…sigh). I actually like the new art design and when it came to the environment maybe i just keep lookin at the mini map to figure out where i was going so i never noticed it. But overall that was the best way to put this game a disappointment even if it is a slight one it isnt as good as the original. Also Varric is awesome the most redeeming thing in the game IMO
I think this game is at least an 8/10. I don’t agree with Joe about the characters being forgettable. Not being able to equip them with any armor you find adds a sense of characterization to them; like they’re all unique – same as it was in ME2. I like the redesigns of the elfs and the qunari, and it’s much easier to connect with your character this time, because he/she IS ACTUALLY A CHARACTER! Meaning that he/she doesn’t just stand around and stare blankly into space during conversations and cutscenes. The main character actually has a voice this time around!
A year and a half isn’t normally enough time to make a great game. That’s more like the development cycle of a movie license game. Which, now that I think about it, makes this game sound like it’s a lot closer to awesome.
DA1 compelling? Check your sanity Joe. Just because it had sex and blood doesn’t mean it’s mature or compelling. That’s what Bioware thinks.
Didn’t actually talk to any of the party members in Origins, did you?
I’ve been occasionally glancing at your vids for along time now, Joe, but with this review you have definitely gained a new fan. I agree with you on nearly all accounts. Game play is great and I didn’t mind (that much) that I couldn’t change my ally’s armor and the crafting I found much simpler and easy to manage. Though I didn’t find the characters as annoying as your did (I played Rogue first time) I must admit that (with the exception of Varric) they aren’t nearly as compelling as the ones in the last game, specifically Alister and Morrigan. I liked the story all in all, but again I never felt a sense that I’m stacked against the odds like I was in the previous one. Probably the thing that disappointed me the most though was the lack of references to your character’s deeds in the last game. You did so much to the world as the Warden in DA:O, but you’re hardly ever mentioned outside of as “the hero of Fereldan”. Very disappointing since Bioware did such a great job in this aspect with Mass Effect 2. I plan on playing it again as a mage next time, but like you said it’s not going onto any top 10 lists of mine anytime soon. Looking forward to your next review!!!
Yeah 2 really is dissapointing so far. Seems they took many steps back with this one…hopefully if they make a 3 it’ll be leagues better than this sequel….great, now i’m going to go play Dragon Age: Origins for the fifth time to help me forget about this sequel.
They could have done so much better with the Story but now it’s just “try to survive and do random stuff until something major happens”.
I know how you feel. I love Mass Effect, it’s certainly one of my favorite game series and I’ve played both games multiple times. But Origins was meant to be a throwback to Baldur’s Gate. I thought the oldschool feeling of it really fit the setting.
Now I both like and dislike the new art direction in DA2. On the one hand it definitely is more distinctive and unique, on the other hand there’s some weirdness and laziness about it.
The gameplay changes are fine. I’m still playing it on PC so the auto-attack is okay with me because honestly it’s more practical on a computer. Though you can change it to the hit-for-hit system.
That is one thing, the over-the-top animations make me feel like Bioware was making a JRPG. I kind of works though XD
My only problem with the UI is that… well… it reminds me I’m playing a video game. I sort of liked the fantasy-themed decor of the Origins one. It is more organized though.
No it’s not a bad game by any stretch but.. I really do miss the Origins characters. I’d have liked to have been my Warden. And you know, Awakening didn’t cut it. If Awakening had been stronger, and continued on with the Origins party members, I think I’d be more okay with not having them in 2.
I think one of the big problems in the character development area in DA2 is you can only talk to your party at their houses. Okay sure maybe it’s a little silly in Origins when you stop for a chat after a battle still covered in blood and gore, but you could also talk to them when wandering around any city. Now it’s like you can only get dialog out of your party at designated times.
I think like in Mass Effect the female voice actor is better, though male Hawke is nowhere NEAR as bad as male Shepard.
I don’t mind Merrill, her awkward dorkiness is kind of cute. But she’s not that interesting a character just like all the others.
Yeaaaah I had to admit when I saw Fenris my first thought was “They really DID make an JRPG.”
I kind of like how Varric isn’t a typical Dwarf. You’d think surface Dwarfs would adopt a more human look and attitude, and I think he was born on the surface or something so it makes sense. I also like how he’s a bullshit artist, but even he manages to be boring most of the time.
I haven’t beaten it yet but I can’t say it’s not an enjoyable game. I just hope DA3 is a return to form… and with race selection damnit!
I think the blight of genericism and sales came to claim Bioware’s soul.
I don’t like the characters, don’t like the story, don’t like the environment, don’t like the graphics (that still look like the last game), don’t care for the combat, and don’t want Mass Effect Jr. They could have made this some sort of extra chapter instead of titling it a sequel, or at least kept it in development, I don’t know. Then you got all the DLC-whoring on the way… since I’m no fanboy I’ll refrain from rewarding their laziness.
I’ll wait for Skyrim.
I was actually very pleasantly surprised on the depth and realism of several of the minor characters. For example, the guy whose wife you’re trying to find, or the ex-templar who’s helping apostates escape. For such minor characters, they were very well done. Now, the main characters had little depth and development, yes, which is somewhat backwards, but hey, I like to look on the bright side. (Also, your starting gender determines the sex of some of the other characters, like your sibling, so if you play as a girl there are more girls, and if you play as a guy there are more guys. I don’t know if that means Bioware is trying to appeal to the homosexual and bisexual demographic or what, but it’s interesting. Also, smuggler-chick is HOT.)
I’m probably about halfway through the game. So far, I’ve gotten pretty sick of Kirkwall. It is so damn claustrophobic and doesn’t feel even close to a sprawling city. The reused assets for every dungeon are also very bothersome.
The framed narrative is, in my opinion, a weakness. The plot doesn’t feel as compelling so far. Sure, it isn’t your typical clichĂ©-ridden RPG story, but what’s here feels jumbled and unsatisfying to me. The companions are pretty piss poor. I was actually looking foward to Anders returning, but all he does is whine now. In Awakening, he was the mage equivalent to Alistair and always very amusing. Justice is completely wasted here. The only characters’ dialogues I enjoy are Varric and Bethany.
The romance options leave much to be desired. None of the females appeal to me much. I finally ended up with Isabelle because she has nice sweater puppets. I guess my Hawke has herpes now. There was never any indication in Awakening that Anders was gay. Nope, I’m not interested dude. *Barf*
What mainly pissed me off is none of my questions being answered from the last game. I want to know what Morrigan did with my child. Flemeth only gives her a passing mention. I’d also like to know what my Gray Warden ended up doing. Origins still has some wrapping up to do. This wasn’t the sequel I wanted.
The only improvement is the combat, but everything else feels like a step back. I hope the rest of the game changes my mind a little. The glaring problems, I believe, have to do with the short development time. This was a rush job and it shows.
Disclaimer: Contains spoilers to DA2, Origins ME1 and ME2.
Aside from the problems with the combat i still found it enjoyable. But DA2 just didn’t deliver what Origins did. Or even Mass Effect 1 and 2. It’s missing memorable moments, characters and enviroments.
The scenery is absolutely lazy designed, there are literally 2 or 3 caves in the whole game which you enter from different angles or are closed partially off, but are still the same. There is one city in the game, a mountain and a bit of deeproads. No changing environments. You might blame that on the short development time but I’d much rather they took some more time.
The characters plain suck. There are some interesting ones like Varric and Merril but the rest of the party is just boring or annoying. I literally played the whole game on hard difficulty without a tank in my party because Aveline is such a stupid character. Having almost no chance to actually interact with your party didn’t help. They just aren’t very fleshed out characters. For each party member there are 3 or 4 options to have a conversation in the whole game. Aside from these you can’t even talk to them. They are limited to right-click-oneliners like some random “nobleman” or “patron” you might find in the streets.
There is no role playing in the game. Hawke will always be the same Hawke. With Mass Effect you had at least 2 clear options, Paragon and Renegade. In DA2 you get no options what so ever. There are to few options to have an impact on the story. The story doesn’t branch out at all, and the main story is missing it’s sense of epicness. There is no world-saving and epic battles. There isn’t even a real villain instead we get 2 1/2 maybe villains. I might be playing the game again when some good mods are out, but for the time being it just isn’t worth the time I would put into it.
The graphics almost haven’t improved since Origins. Which is a shame if you look at other AAA titles on the market. Sure there was only 1.5 years development time but they had to use the time somewhere and I don’t see where.
Between all these flaws I’m seriously underwhelmed by DA2 as a whole. Fun combat aside it delivers absolutely nothing. And from a Bioware RPG I just expect a compelling story, fleshed out characters and great settings. Where Mass Effect 1 had you running up the Citadel Tower, Origins had you fighting through Denerim while chasing the archdemon and Mass Effect 2 had you kill a giant human-reaper, DA2 has you sitting in a single small room with your companions fighting 2 models of templars or mages and finally the end boss in the same room you were planted in when you first reached Kirkwall all the while being whined on by annoying party members.
Despite these flaws I still put in about 3 days of nonestop playing into the game and it might draw you in if you can overlook such problems. But it probably won’t.
Last but not least I want to thank Joe for giving such honest and well thought out opinions in his review. DA2 has praise coming from “professional” sites, magazines and shows at the moment, giving it a metacritic score of over 80 (PCGamer even declaring it “RPG of the decade” 1 year into the new one). And it just doesn’t deserve it.
It’s a mediocre title with a rushed EA release written all over it.
I haven’t played the game yet, and while I plan to, I’m really upset by how you can’t customize Hawke. My character in Dragon Age: Origins was Voovles Aeducan, a dwarven prince. He was a gentleman and a kind soul, but still a dwarf who loved battle, and often found ways to combine his sense of justice and bloodlust. And that’s because I played him that way. Just giving Hawke a voice feels like I can’t do that anymore.
I think there are 2 sides for Dragon Age 2. If you’re a console player the gameplay changes probably work much better than on PC. Now I’ve only played PC version so I’ll be going at it from PC player perspective.
First thing first, PC still has autoattack.
Lets start the real arguments now. PC players usually look for strategic gameplay in games like Dragon Age and while Origins didn’t have the best strategic depth it was very good in that aspect. Dragon Age 2 on the other hand feels like Diablo, which in itself isn’t bad but imagine Diablo 3 was redesigned to play like Origins and you see where the anger about the changes comes from. Another thing is that any sensible strategy can’t work because of ANOTHER WAVE syndrome where enemies spawn all around you and ALWAYS the extra spawn go for your ranged characters forcing you to switch to that character and run around with him like a maniac to not let him die. And there can be even 4 waves in one battle.
That leads to another aspect that makes this game impossible to play stratrgicly: Crowd control skills are very underwhelming. Tanks have only one way to generate enough aggro to keep enemies on them (taunt) because their attacks never pose enough threat to AI for the warrior to hold enemies focused on him (unless it’s 2h warrior). Rogues have best threat menagement skills but if you pick them up you’ll gimp rogue’s ability to do what he’s supposed to do (deal damage). Mages should excel in controling the battlefield if you chose skills that are supposed to do it. The most effective one (sleep) is being messed up by AI which insists on hitting the targets I used sleep on even when I’ve ordered all of them to attack the boss. Yes there are tactics but you can’t set “DON’T SWITCH YOUR TARGET” meaning I have to constantly click on intended target to make sure no one messes things up. As a mage there’s only one way to go damage, damage, damage then you won’t have problems especially that most damaging skills trigger stumble animation on enemy that lasts at least half the time petrifying that guy would.
Oh and no overhead camera making tageting area skills on nightmare (only difficulty with friendly fire) trully a nightmare of frustration.
In short: Not enough strategy in gameplay is very disappointing for PC players.
I would judge the game 5.5/10. You will have some fun killing stuff but it’s not what was expected from Dragon Age 2
What this game lacks is closure. The ending was a cliffhanger and there never was any big main quest mission like in the Origins. I was pretty pissed off after playing through it, since shit was just starting to get real and epic when the game ended. The DA 3 better be mindblowingly epic.
Still in the end, it IS a solid game to any RPG fan. I had fun with it and am going to play through it at least one more time. Just didn’t live up to my incredibly high expectations.
Are they going to realise a feastday gifts pack like the first game? cause if the companions really do complain as much as Morrigan if I were to try to and save a little girl from a demon, that would be useful.
Oh and the female elf mage would intrest me I like it when the romance acts nervous like Liara and Tail and Alister.
great review joe, love the Anders parody(but hey, he was the only character that did that)
but here are the reason why I think that DA 2 story wise is better than DA:O
I am getting tired of the BioWare plot of “big bad thingy is comming,gather a army/team/mythic powers to kick its ass”plot. From KotOR on all the games follwed the same main storyline, where your main character was ether a savior of rainbows and cookies or a crusher of childrens hopes and dreams…
DA2 bring us something new, being just a guy who tries to make a living and then was caught in a world changing event
DA2 is a true DARK FANTASY and is not for every one(espacialy those who are used to Lord of the Rings typ Fantasy stories)
I found that the ending had me make the biggest choice in an RPG yet…. and I still question my desiction on many big to little choices, not since the Krogan/Salarian genophage talk from ME2 have I question myself on which was right and which was wrong
the characters were weaker, I give you that,but they were likeable:
Varric of course steals the show, being funny and not your Gimli-stereotype
its actually realy rewarding when Isablea redeems herself and find a new typ of live in the end(not even romanced,just side quest’s)
Merill is one of the most tragic characters out of the BioWare characters(and thats saying something)
Aveline should have left hawk after she got her new job and acted more like a side character,I give you that
Brother/Sister and the prince guy were just forgettable
Anders and Fenris were REALLY dissepointing….. Anders was my favorite from Awakeing…..
I think when it comes down to it it all depends on what kind of story you like, this is DAAAARK
though I think we can all agree Mass Effect 2 it is not^^
I definitely agree on the part about it being a ‘guy caught in the wheels of change’ plot. And in that aspect, I really like it. Much more than Mass Effect, Dragon Age 2 reminds me of a Tamora Pierce novel, specifically the Rebekah Cooper series. Aveline in particular made me think of a mix between Keladry of Mindelan and Alana the Lioness, with only a little of Beka’s guardswoman persona thrown in. Actually, I would love to see a movie or video adaptation of the Tamora Pierce novels )if they were done ACCURATELY…).
Joe and all, I don’t know if you read Tamora Pierce, but you really should. Even if you’re not a big reader, the stories are easy enough to comprehend and quite captivating, while if you ARE a big reader, the interesting and realistic takes she has on even the nitty-gritty aspects of knighthood (like being made to sand armor free of rust as a page for getting into a fight, or having to take care of your horses properly, or how specific injuries affect your ability to move, etc.) really draw the reader into her world and its particulars. Also, she has some of the most interesting characters EVER.
:D
If only DA2 had developed its main characters as well…
I’ve actually read the Bekah Cooper books and I really love them. It’s like fantasy Law and Order. That comparison didn’t occur to me, but now that you mention it, yeah I kinda see it.
Wow Joe. . . You kinda said everything I posted on the demo. O_o It’s so odd that an internet persona actually agrees with me.
Still I’d knock a point off the score. Then again what do I know? I haven’t played the game yet and won’t for some time to come.
Oh right! So why knock a point off? Because I think Joe is sentimental and has a soft spot for Bioware. Think about it. Really.
DA has MMO mechanics but when you compare the encounters to the encounters in WoW or any other MMO you can tell Bioware puts less effort into them that Blizzard. Bioware had an excuse when their engine was only capable of rendering 2D. Now they have no excuse. Bioware needed to step up with DA2 and create thought out and ballanced encounters (among other things) for the sequal but instead they churned out a quick cash grab. Or perhaps a fallback in case the orginal DA turned out to be a lemon sale-wise.
I’d say rate it as a 6.0 (or 5.0 if you’re feeling cruel) and add a point for every 10$ off of MSRP.
This was exelent review from Joe. He told us clearly what are both good sides and bad sides in Dragon Age 2 so we know what to expect.
Doesn’t look impressive. and Just one City? Nah. Think I’ll stick with the original thanks.
based on your review, I might play this one if i find a cheap second-hand copy on ebay or something. Won’t spend 60€ on it.
I’m sure I m in the minority here but I really don’t mind the lack of an over arching story. For me it is often the case in RPGs, particularly western style fantasy RPG’s that the over arching story gets lost or falls the wayside while I’m actually playing anyway. This was definitely true for me in the original Dragon Age. I felt the stories and problems surrounding each of the groups you go to for aid and dealing with the landsmeet were each so interesting that I generally completely forgot about the blight and the arch demon. So far as I’ve gotten through DA 2 each individual quest I’ve done has been compelling in it’s own right and I think having someone become renowned through a career of heroic service rather than for facing down the apocalypse of the week is a refreshing change.
Of course I’m saying this from the perspective of having heard about these complaints pretty early in my play through. I can definitely see how if you played through without having any idea what to expect you’d spend the whole game waiting in anticipation for the main story to kick in only for it to never happen. It’s not so much a matter of the story being weaker as it is not being the story people were expecting.
Yeah, the archdemon stuff wasn’t very imaginative anyway. What had me hooked on Origins were the characters. Like Leliana – when you get to know her, she’s this innocent acolyte and good-hearted. When you get to know her better, turns out she was a thief and spy who’s trying to escape from her past in another country. And what I liked most, you could turn her into a ruthless bitch after you killed her mentor.
Stuff like that is what grabs peoples attention. The main story is simple in most movies, games, novels, etc. What interests us is how the protagonists deal with the situations they experience, how they change over time. Dragon Age Origins not only had interesting characters but let you control their fates. That’s what makes characters exciting and fresh and makes you remember Leliana and the others long after you played through the game. (if you care about this kind of stuff anyway)
After Joe’s review, I fear that Bioware didn’t continue this great feature in Dragon Age 2. And I don’t need another game with a basic fantasy storyline, that I playthrough once and then forget about – no matter how good the controls and ui are.
The game is broken. If it was released in 2013 or 2012 it would have been better. Its just not finished.
Same enviroments no changes dumb boring combat with never ending waves of enemies with stupid tactics.
I really liked Merril Isabela and Varric though. Also my sister Bethany. Female hawke rogue or warrior is best. You dont need to be a mage to feel the story. Your sister is a mage too so … yeah.
Broken unfinished game. Only mods will fix it.
Waiting for The Witcher 2
Hey Joe, great review, goes into a lot of detail, which I’ve always liked about your reviews. Given what you said, I think I might give this one a pass for now, but I may play this eventually.
Hay joe i totally agree with you bout alot of things you said. I love the new combat for the 360 and ps3 but believe it or not that improvement didn’t carry over to the pc version I was so disapoint and the sad thing is that the way the battles are set up now you almost need that hack and slash control to keep up. I The reason i think they left to story with aclif hanger if because they are probably going to make an expantion pack still no excuse but ehhh.
Oh, and care to explain what is so bad about clifhanger ending?
nothing i love clifhangers when done right the ending was just sub-par for me. i was just saying that they were probably just going to make a $60-$35 expansion that we will have to get to find out the rest of the story.
Joe, are you fucking nuts saying Origins is a better game then DA2? Fuck you man, DA2 is the greatest CRPG I played for the last 5 years.
Dam man you were right on the money, except that you liked the new interface and combat, while i did want to see these things improved I did not want them changed so radically, I mean I love Dragon Age: Origins, but the sequel…… I tried I’m serious I tired to play it for 2 hours, I made 4 characters but when the game started and I was fighting, I just stopped I couldn’t do it, I was supporting this crap, because I had love its classic RPG style of game play like KOTOR or Jade empire, and I love the characters, they were so thought out, It seemed this game was more of an add-on to the original, where they decided, forget the story people like action, lets make it like Mass Effect, and I’m not sure why, also I hate the circle of options for your speech where your guy does not say what the choice said, always bothered me on Mass effect now on dragon age. Overall I am scared, its Fable all over again (gulp)
Okay my last point, if this game wasn’t a dragon age, if it was called, Hawkes Quest (sounds like a corny RPG skateboard game lol) I bet you it would of been just another failed RPG, because it is uninteresting, Id give it a 5/10 only cause it is unfaithful to the original, but Hawkes Quest I’d say would get a 7/10, so if you look at this game and compare to the original, it is a huge let down, but if you look at it as an original game, its pretty good, but not great.
Joe, you like to say that you speak for gamers who cant speak for themselves. So here is what you need to tell EA; STOP MEDDLING IN GAME GENRE’S THEY HAVE NO BUSINESS MEDDLING IN!!”. They are single handedly ruining Bioware’s reputation.
First there was Mass Effect 2 and now its DragonAge 2. Now before I get the usual “MASS EFFECT 2 WAS AWESOME” replies. Consider this, if you compare the change from Mass Effect 1 to ME2 in the same light that you compare DA1 to DA2, you’ll see what Im talking about.
Weak story, weak characters, too many of the unique parts of the first game was either removed or dumbed down, the majority of the game was side quests with no real focus on the main storyline. Sure some of the changes were for the better, but for the most part its the negative stuff that really pulls the game down. Sound familiar? Without any context would you know which game Im talking about?
Ultimately I blame EA. It cant be a coincidence that the two games Bioware has put out while being completely under EA’s control has been significantly inferior to the prequel title which was released without EA’s influence. Please tell me Im not the only one that see’s the connection here!
you have a point, but it is not just one game company, remember Fable and Fable 2?
Haven’t finished the game yet, but you touched on a lot of issues that I’m seeing:
-The side quest dungeons are almost all quite literally the same, even down to the map, which made things really confusing when I was trying to go through doors that didn’t really open or didn’t exist at all.
-The background textures are all boring as hell, really felt like the grittiness of the first game was lost in a lot of the scenes (with some exceptions).
-My main complaint as far as characters go is Fenris, due to the fact that he looks completely out of place, and Anders coming back. Isabella’s kind of a stock pirate character, but she’s still a lot of fun, and Varric’s great.
-The individual thing I liked about the original game the most was the buildup to the high dragon in Haven. The one in this game was just kind of crammed in there, as if to fill the quota required of a game with “Dragon” in its title.
-Where are the genlocks?
-Where are the shrieks?
-Where are the emissaries? I must’ve fought a grand total of two so far.
-My biggest issue with it so far is that no matter whether or not you pick the good-guy or bad-guy route, Kirkwall is still a scumhole. The previous game’s hero saved a country in 1-2 years. This one can’t even change a city in a decade, other than kill off a few hornheads.
Yeah, this game IS the DA series’ “The Empire Strikes Back. Saw it coming even before it came out. The project director DID say it wasn’t going to be a “thou shalt deal with an ancient evil that threatens all the lands” kind of game, so it shouldn’t have surprised anyone who was paying attention. Still definitely a great game, regardless of the above. The improvements to gameplay = huge.
…oh yeah, since when do Qunari have horns?
the thing your not seeing is that it is not about the blight, so it won’t have the classic enemies, but your right why can’t it be another grey warden tale, why not tell of the last blight with the griffins not this stupid rags to riches story, its a boring concept, so expect a boring game
I agree with everything on here, and I thought I’d mention a few problems myself.
1:Story. First, let me start by saying that I enjoy the story, but I was REALLY looking forward to dealing with another Blight, or maybe dealing with the same one, but at a different area or something similar.
2: Spells. I really enjoyed the mage class, but one thing I noticed was a lack of damage. Maybe it was just me, I dont know, but I was doing decent damage at best, while my bow rogue and two handed melee guy hit a hell of a lot harder. What’s the point of mageing it out if I’m not as powerful as a bow?
And, honestly, those, along with Joe’s arguments, are my only real complaints. But something occurs to me. BioWare is NOT a stupid company. They are good at what they do, and I dont think anyone will argue with that. So what went wrong here? I thought about it, and came to a decision. This wasn’t intended to be an amazing world changing sequel. They are testing waters. People really loved Mass Effect 2 (with damn good reason), and complained alot more about Dragon Age. They wanted to see what they could change and keep a DA feel that was good, and clearly, the answer is not much. I think they’ve learned. When the third comes out, I can gurantee it to be amazing.
And that is my 2 cents. Thanks for reading (If you did, lazy bum.)
-Joe
I predicted this review about 5 days ago so Not much else to say, I agree with every single point you made and have no reason to go on more about them.
Worst thing about it was the DLC being announced before the release which considering it is an extra quest line and one archer who his a dick tbh not worth the money at all regardless of what you think it might add to the game…which is nothing…..at all
I agree with your points on the reused dungeons and the flat graphics, but I want to say something about the companions and story. Personally, I liked all of the companions with the very possible exception of Carver. They all had reasons for their personalities, such as Fenris’ life as a slave and Merrill’s little knowledge on other races cultures. As for the story, sure it may not be as grand and epic as Origins was, but I think it was still good in its own right. It’s about a person trying to make a name for him/herself in a new country and the tragedy he/she endures throughout this journey. Am I saying the story is better than Origins? No, but it’s acceptable to me. I see DA2, despite the 2 in the title, as more of a side story, building up to something bigger and grander alongside Origins. I’m glad to say I am looking forward to more from the franchise.
Oh, and Sebastian was announced as a free character if you pre-ordered the game. He isn’t necessary to the story, he’s just a bonus character with his own story kind of like Shale from Origins.
Great review Joe, I’m personally gonna wait for an UE that has all the DLC. I’m not a fan of Bioware’s continued use of day one DLC.
I guess a few people do like day one DLC, why pay 60, when you can pay 70-75 bucks to get the full game on day one?
I wish people would have the guts to actually reply to me, and tell me why they like day one DLC, instead of anonymous thumbs down.
Hey Joe, how did your mage equip the Dragon Blood Armor? Did you purposely boost strength in order to do that?
lol got him there.
I’ve gotta be honest here Joe…
When I first started watching your videos about a year ago or so, you didn’t really appeal to me. And that was primarily because I felt that there wasn’t enough meaty parts to your videos.
But looking at this video here, I must tell you man, you have grown a lot. This is your best video so far and I have been impressed enough to create an account just so I could comment and commend your splendid work.
The review is excellent. Balanced, informative, funny and very well put. Even if I didn’t agree with your points, but I do, each one is an thoughtful analysis of the game elements, it’s strengths and weaknesses. Let’s just hope that someone in Bioware will take to notice some of this criticism and feedback.
Anyhow, thank you for the awesome video and keep it up!
Awesome review, you really mirrored some of my thoughts.
1. Main story is weak and fragmented, agreed
2. UI is much better, agreed
3. Combat is awesome, agreed (I still pause a lot and play it tactically)
4. I don’t think the companions are that bad but there are some issues. Basically Varric, the prince and Isabella were the most fun characters IMHO….. but they’re all rouges so you’ll have to pick one for a ballanced party. Mage wise both Anders and Merril start of pretty strong but then taper off, they’re both winy and unsecure and need to be led like across the street like little school children. Avelin and Carver are both super dull and why anyone would pick them is beyond me. Fenris, despite his FF-Cloud-styling, has great potential but never really grows in the story, he’s always “the angry former slave tevinter fugitve”, even after killing his former master. So basically companion progression is really weak.
5. Graphics are not bad but they need to look at what can be done these days in terms of lush environments, a lot has happend.
All this beeing said I AM enjoying the game a lot, but I’m also surprised at some of the choices Bioware has made. Would it really hurt that much not to reuse the same cave 30 times? Or to let you AT LEAST change between some different armor looks and colors for your characters? Also – the fade and desire demons deals are sadly lacking… buho
Frankly I never played the first, but from what I’ve heard the story is a bit of a step back, I didn’t mind the characters (Why must 2/3s of the male characters be so whiny?), I loved the gameplay and overall it’s a fine game, I agree with your final verdict.
I am enjoying the game but. I am dissapointed with many areas. Like Joe said the areas are repeating I dont know how many caves I have been through but they all are identical the only changes they make is blocking up a passage or opening one. Also okay improving gameplay and ui, but what is with getting rid of all the old cool spell combos like the grease fire and the shattering of frozen characters to replace it with some lame little inflict class status effect then get another class to use special skill to inflict extra damage. plus its like suddenly a group of 4 people can take on small armys easily while in da it was often hard to take on a group of a similar size.
Another thing enemy mages are a lot more useless, in da there werent many but they could do some real damage like using crushing prison on your mage effectively killing him, now they do just damage and not that great amount when considering how strong some of the other enemies are. Also friendly fire while i never played easy on da as far as I am aware friendly fire was always there while now on normal at least there is none.
Plus I remember seeing a comment from bioware how for pc at least that the whole birds eye viewpoint like in baldurs gate was going so they could make pretty skies and ceilings, yet most of the time you cant see the sky or at least not without looking straight up and it doesnt look all that impressive either especially when 90% of the time ive looked up all there was were clouds.
I will be the first to admit that not having to save the world from an evil threat in an rpg is a nice break like in breath of fire 3 one of my favourite games where the story is more based on finding the reasons of existence than anything else, but with this I often find myself wondering which is the main plot as most of the quests main or not seem just as non-important. I’ll wait till I finish my playthrough before giving a final verdict, but the biggest problem is the fact that it is a dissapointing sequel, if i hadnt played origins I probably would have enjoyed this more I think.
I have just played the game for a day so I cannot tell for sure but things that are obvious are…
1. I play the PC Version and the combat system seems the same just more fast paced and refined..That is really good…
2. The simplification in inventory,looting and in the general micromanagement are stupid…Bioware just did this to make the console gameplay easier but took out out a huge part of the fun….
3.The story I like so far…The changes for a more everyday experience that does not include killing the ultimate evil is actually refreshing…But I will see if in the end I get bored…
3.The only real problem I have with the game in the difficultly scale…Godammit the Normal difficulty is too easy and the hard is actually too difficult. Especially if you are accustomed to the first dragon age that healing was much stronger through many types of potions and the group healing the mages had.If i put it on normal it is boring and in the hard it becomes tiresome after a while. Maybe in latter levels with more skills it might be fine but dammit I don’t want to have to do grinding in a single player RPG…
It is a great game…Don’t no if it is better than the first…I have to finish it first…
A few things I hate about this game.
1. No dual wielding warriors WTF, that was what I played every single playthrough almost of DA origins and I loved it.
2. Rogues can DW longswords again fuck you bioware for taking that out why,
3. other classes are forced into the typical architype, mages can only use staves rogues only daggers and bows and tanks 2handers or sword and board. Thats not customization thats boring.
4. I can’t upgrade my parties gear, how gay, o yay I can give him a belt wooptie doo.
5. Naming of items (belt or belt) they do different things
6. I constantly freeze
7. the sensetivity of the joystick, I can’t count how many times I wanted to choose one thing and then I accidently chose another thing because my figure slightly shifted on the joystick
8. I’m sorry anders I don’t want to stick my dick in your poophole why should I lose 10 friendship because of that?
9. like joe said lack of pussy. I got butch girl, meek girl, or slut girl. Oh an my sister character who is the only interesting female, but thats wrong. Were the fuck is the kind hearted lelliana character or the mysterious Morrigan character?
10. Potions suck ass, the fucking reuse on them is shit, and they don’t give you good healing support form mages either, so what ends up happening alot is on a hard boss fight I end up wiht only 1 character left alive. I remember for a fact that potions wheren’t that retarted in DAO.
Thats ten reasons and I haven’t even finished the game. but in the end, do I not like the game… no, I still enjoy it, but like joe said, I will probably try the game once with each type of character and go back to playing DAO until Bioware decides not to fuck up a working formula. The story is inetersting, I enjoy the polotics, but meh the rest is shit compared to the original. As a fantasy game it’s good, but as a dragon age game… lets just say I was happier with awakening.
I haven’t beat the game yet (part 2 of the game) and i really agree with most of what issues you had with it joe, but this games story is more of a bridge to the next game, it’s more about how hawk became this great hero whos is going to maybe help the chantry in the next game…but yea, so far its not a fantastic story
I love the game and all of it’s glory but some of the characters I didn’t like, In fact Varreck and Isabella are my only favorites, Fenris (The annoying emo elf) pissed me off so much, I don’t play him any more…I’m dead serious, I don’t even touch the guy, unless he has something to do with a side or main quest, In fact I hope I can kill him off just so he’s out of my sight, I have never hated a character so much that I wanted to kill him off.
The combat is unbelievable, I love the combat with a passion.
Oh and bioware, I want a quanari for the next dlc character :p
personally i loved this game and can’t wait to play it again. I would give it an 8/10 overall. I loved the combat changes and i like the much darker story, but the ending and how it tried to tie together some of the other plots into the ending felt really forced. I wish they had had some quest that hinted that it was going to play out that way or that the other parts of the story would come back and have an effect on the ending(more on that below, beware of spoilers). I wish they had put more work into the level designs and not force you to run thru the same cave 15 times or the same warehouse over and over again. the music was awesome and varric was by far the best companion. I liked merrill in that she was so innocent and clueless, but overtime seemed to grow and become more mature. hated emo elf and anders was annoying, it made me wish i had another healer to replace him with since if you aren’t a mage you almost have to use him so you don’t have to chug potions thru most of the game to stay alive. Overall i thought the voice acting was good and loved the interactions between the qunari and learning more about how they live and do things. I wished we could have another qunari companion and hope we can have one in the next game.
Spoilers: stop reading here if you don’t want to know more about the ending, i don’t say anything else that is relevant to how i liked the game after this
I would have liked if they gave you a side quest line that let you investigate what happened to the relic after you met up with bartrand. atleast let us find some clues to hint that meredith turned the relic into a sword and that it drove her crazy, instead of it coming out of the blue that bat shit crazy lady becoming the final boss and saying “yea that thing you found in the deep roads in now my weapon and it drove me crazy”. A quest or two where you try and track down what happened to the idol and find out that bartrand sold it and varric runs thru his contacts and you have to kill people and find someone that knows that it was sold to someone in the gallows or something. just anything that would hint that meredith got it and let the final boss not seem so forced. it almost seemed like they wrote the boss fight and made it cool and epic but then thought, “but why does meredith have all this power? hey we can say she got the idol and made a sword out of it!” at the last second.
I totally disagree about the characters. Granted I spent the bare minimum amount of time with the guys, (mostly focused on Isabella and especially Merrill [she's so fucking cute]). I loved the story. True it’s a total departure from the usual Bioware (something’s threatening the world/galaxy), and goes for a more down to earth story about someone who becomes a local celebrity.
Also weren’t there fewer female characters in comparison to males in DA:O. DA:O had Lilliana, Morrigan, Wynn, Sten, Alistar, Zevran, Ogren, Dog, Shale (4 males, 3 females, and 2 others). DA:II has Isabella, Aveline, Bethany (I only played through with a rogue, so I got Bethany), Merrill (my personal favorite), Anders, Fenris, Varric, and Sebastian. (4 males, 4 females)… it seems better proportioned, especially when you consider that you can end up with both Isabella and Merrill while playing as a female Hawke.
Granted I do have my complaints. The textures did suck, there were a few glitches (like telling Merrill the death of her clan wasn’t her fault before you killed them), The lack of female Qunari (they had the illustrations of one, why not have her as a companion?), and the lack of non-quest related conversations with your companions. Personally I would have given the game an extra year to fix these things, but overall I think it’s a better game than the original.
I was hoping to atleast see a female qunari, but lore wise female qunari are only given minor roles in their society due to them seeing them as a weaker sex. I think they can still be diplomats and stuff, but there really aren’t any female qunari soldiers. I could see you getting one that wasn’t raised by the qunari, or that rebelled against their society and left to see other parts of Thedas. In DA3 i really really hope they bring back qunari companions. and a female one would be awesome. My only concern is that they could either write a female qunari companion as completely cliched “outcast of society that hates where she came from and how they treat people” or they could do a really good job and make her interesting and fun to talk to and see her opinions on how things are. It could go both ways very easily, but i hope they handle it very well if they do put her in because she had the potential to be one of my favorite companions if they write her character well.
Despite the smaller negative points littered throughout the game, I still love it to death.
While DA2 is fine, the removal of the many of the RPG elements and customization was a bit more grating to me than Joe.
Maybe its because I read this article shortly after starting it… http://www.nowgamer.com/news/5141/bioware-we-want-call-of-dutys-audience
Bioware wants the CoD audience, and while CoD is a fun and great game, what they mean by ‘CoD audience’ kind of rubs me the wrong way.
I like the more understated story, RPGs where you have to save the whole world are a dime a dozen these days.
The combat annoyed me in a lot of ways. The respawning enemies made it completely impossible to smartly position your people or really strategize unless you had already died a bunch of times on the same fight.
Mages are so gimpy in DA2, I really hate it. Their damage is pathetic, once you go to the higher levels of difficulty, especially on nightmare where friendly fire is enabled again they just turn into a total joke, because here is sort of the thing: NPC on Nightmare have upward of 1000 hitpoints, even the most basic useless ones, and your party members have somewhere between 100-300 hitpoints, depending on how much constitution they have. So, when friendly fire is enabled and you lob a fireball into a fight that does 100 damage your enemies just laugh at it and your party members die. Total BS.
I think the PC version should sadly be scored much lower. The UI was quite clearly designed to be controller friendly, its been slightly adapted for PC but it doesn’t actually benefit from a mouse and keyboard like DA:O did and it just looks bland and characterless.
Even though the PC can use an Xbox360 control pad they don’t give the option and the PC suffers for this. If you try to play it fast and fluid like the console the mouse and keyboard is just too cumbersome and lacks the immediacy of the console controller but the combat and game design doesn’t feel right if you try to play it tactically like DA:O or Baldur’s Gate.
Now for me the most important aspects, the community aspects, have been ripped out of this game. Its been a standard of Bioware Fantasy RPG titles that modding is king and in DA:O they even provided toolsets for easy implementation and dedicated forum space and Bioware support for projects. In DA2 they’ve flat out said that mods are a no go and are not supported in any shape or form. The there’s the disastrous forum moderators and interviews. Bioware and EA have temporarily banned people from playing the game that they purchased because they made negative posts on the Bioware forum, one guy was not able to play DA2 for two days just because he called EA the devil on the Bioware forums. Days after its release the lead designer gave an interview with Eurogamer.net, shocked at some 6/10 reviews and blamed it on people being resistant to change.
While DA2 is good on the consoles it just does not compare to its competitors within the PC market, it is akin to Joe’s complaints over MvC3. Core gameplay is the minimum we should expect from this type of game and the absence of extra features, especially in this day and age is unjustifiable for such a title.
The heck game were you playing?
The UI on the PC version is fairly similar to the ME UI, and it is very, very easy to either play the game tactically or as an action game. I’d know, I’ve tried to do it both ways, though I prefer action myself. It does not look bland and characterless if you have a good enough pc to actually take advantage of the high res texture pack and DX11 settings, if you do not, then it looks average, maybe even inferior to the console version, I haven’t done or seen any side by side comparisons.
If you actually bothered to look into the issue where they banned ONE guy, not multiple people, it’s not because he called EA the devil. There were other reasons, you will find an article giving the complete situation here: http://www.blisteredthumbs.net/2011/03/ea-bans-user-from-bioware/
Not saying I agree with it, but the fact is he wasn’t banned for calling EA the devil, that’s been happening very frequently on the forums and none of the people saying it have been banned.
It’s a disappointment that there is no mod tools this time around, but I never found any decent mods for the game anyways, I don’t feel that subtracting that feature is really all that big of a negative. Why spend time on a tool set that few will use remotely effectively when you can put that time toward the game, especially with what limited time you have.
I’d also dispute your claim that it doesn’t compare to competitors on the PC.
And because it won’t let me edit.
Disregard that passage about the banned user, though you are still misinformed, I am as well. The article I linked has been updated with new information that I have just read over.
Basically: They banned someone else, and it was a mistake in the first place, that guy got unbanned and is happy with the situation as it is.
Still, isn’t right, but no one was banned for calling Bioware or EA the devil.
so, you weren’t the only one that played a male character and felt like the game was trying to push you towards a romance with one of the guys.
When you turn them down and want to keep it professional, they get pissed and you get +10 or +15 towards rivalry. just because you don’t do the poop chute boogie.
The main reason i picked this title up was to continue the story of the world itself and the Blight and tying up the loose ends of Dragon Age Origins; such as the possible ending of Morrigan and the male Wardens kid, what Flemeth was really planning, if the remaining archdemons may show up, etc…but these were barely even mentioned. The story of the Grey Warden stopping the apocolypse is what drove me to finish Dragon Age Origins in the first place, but Hawke just seems like the typical RPG errand boy in the sequel. Even the character interactions were bland at best and the humor is hit and miss. Aside from the enhanced combat experience, Dragon Age Origins was definitely the better if the two, and the 1.5 year development diffenetly showe. In short: very dissapointing.
FYI the Morrigan tale ended with Witch Hunt, the last DLC released for DA:O.
I also want to add that I really liked the story. As good as it was in Origins, it was a cliched as it could get. The chosen one against a great evil that threatens the whole world. Enough with that. This made the sequel feel more fresh even though as Joe said in the review there wasn’t a decent closure to any of the plot points of the game
Oh.. you didn’t even bring it up well I feel like an idiot well anyway I havn’t gotten this game yet the importing saves meaning I have to play Awakening and I only played the first few minutes and decided to just do anouther origins story and I haven’t played any of the other expansions wired considering I got it all for free. I would rather wait for the ultamate edition with all the DLC its bond to happen if somehow it doesn’t well crap I better find the ones that are worth downloading. But given how the story is setup I can see were theirgoing with this and I can accept it but for a video game to do this, that would not be easy as for all the othe men hitting on you well you can blame Zeveron and the yowi? yoei? (that term for men on men love) gamer girls (I’m still at shock on the INTERNET namely youtube thats its as popular as it is) but at least gamer boys get the same deal and have their girl on girl fun aswell well kinda, from the looks of it it seems your only going to have 2 women in your party for the whole game?
It looks like the main character voice acting has the same deal as Mass Effect male voice is lame and Female voice it better from what I can tell maybe its a Biowere thing I don’t know
A DLC archer? the first game DLC character was a Golem in this game its an archer, that is so underwhelming
I did play the demo and I can atleast say the combat does feel much more free but the going from down to earth “Lord of the Ring” like combat animations to over the top slasher series that shall not be named, annoying for me
I will be getting this game just not right away thats what I did with the first game and it turend out to be a hell of a deal.
I’m a few minutes in, but I have to say joe, if you had been playing the PC version you would have a lot more to complain about, you are playing (strangely) the definitive version, on the consoles.
A lot more to complain about such as…?
The interest in the siblings is a bit understandable since A. there aren’t many characters to romance* and B. it felt hard to actually connect to them as siblings. Sorry BioWare, but it did. I still don’t get why anyone would ask for it since obviously it’s never going to happen but that’s people for you.
Will agree on gameplay and story telling points. Feels like I’m comparing .Hack to .Hack G.U again…
*Yes, I know there weren’t that many in the first game either.
Havn’t seen the review yet but I’m gonna bet you will take off points for not having co-op
then I’ll make a more normal comment affter
I do hope at some would notice that I made another comment about the review above I doubt it but I only when but I did, seems like the comments like the one I’m replying to seem to get any attention at all
AngryJoe
I could not agree more. Dragon Age is everything i want from RPG and just seeing the sleek UI on Dragon Age 2 PC version got me very excited playing the game for the first time. Could this be the ultimate game from my favorite developer?
Well it wasn’t and you said all the exact reasons.
Still i bought Two Worlds 2 last week and i haven’t touched it after Dragon Age 2. Dragon Age 2 is great game that i would definitely buy again, but it could have been something amazing coming from Bioware.
see to me this is yet another half baked port of a console game, on PC it’s still got that KOTOR method of click on an enemy and it will keep attacking till it’s either dead or you give a new order, that makes the gameplay sub par to me cuz strategy is almost absent
in addition, this is a bioware game, it lives or dies by it’s story, the story in DA2 is just so crappy compared to the rest of bioware’s library of games that it’s embarrassing
the dialogue system is also pretty broken as far as i’m concerned, it’s been reduced to a good or evil system where as DA:O was a bit more interesting due to it’s different shades of gray
the DLC is also broken and the DRM is BS
in conclusion i’d recommend that people wait till this game has a DA:O ultimate edition like release, it’s flaws are just too great to overlook because at the end of the day this is a sequel, it has to do better then the first
The Dialogue system is not a simple as you claim it is, as I address in my post. And there is no DRM in the game besides an initial release date check. Some sites have been making the claim that there is, but if you go to the bioware forums, you will find that the issue is actually different and is being addressed by Bioware.
Link to Bioware’s post on the matter: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6509752
only tbig thing i had a problem with is the pc version didnt give me the option to use a game pad to play the game… oh and the inverted attack/ move mouse clicks was annoying
Well lets see, I’m going to preface this with the following first: I’ve only just completed the deep roads and the first act. I have the pc version and a rather powerful pc so I can use the high res texture pack, DX11, and everything at max with no issues. So graphics are much better for me in terms of character models at least, the cityscape is slightly better but I don’t think by much.
Personally I like DA2 much better than Origins, I find the pacing to be far, far improved, and at this point I’m more than willing to play through the game multiple times, whereas in origins I wasn’t even compelled to finish the game, stopping JUST before I completed the landsmeet. In fact the only reason I finished origins, was to have a complete save for DA2. Whereas in DA2, so far, (and for reference I’m doing every quest before the main acts)
I feel the pacing is excellent, the side quests are much, much improved and they give me reasons that appeal to me more when I perform them and they don’t seem like little unnecessary things. Because of the 10 year time structure, actions that you take in side quests can and will affect you down the line, moral choices that I’ve made, bad or good, don’t necessarily mean that I get continuously bad or good results just because it was the morally correct thing to let a murderer live. So DA2′s story structure allows the side questing and the whole moral choices to come across in a much more realistic fashion.
As far as the characters go I agree that they arn’t as good or as appealing as they were in origins, sort of. The way I see it, roughly a third-half of the cast is better in some or most aspects than the cast in origins. The cast seemed for family oriented, as they interacted amongst themselves both at their home places and walking around more frequently, and gave you a better feel for the dynamic amongst them. There’s no characters as good as Alistair, Morrigan, or Sten this time around. (Leila or whatever her name was, was pretty meh for me). But there are no characters like Wyn, Zevran, or Oghren, who I feel fell rather flat in Origins. I’m liking Anders so far, but again, not quite too far in the story yet, and I haven’t played Awakening, so this is my first time encountering him.
Combat this time is much improved, I’m playing the pc version so the system itself is basically the same as it was in origins, the combat on pc is an entirely different system from console. And I actually semi-enjoy the combat this time around, it doesn’t feel nearly as much as a chore as it was in the first game. The pacing in the combat itself is sped up quite a bit so I don’t spend forever fighting a few Hurlocks when I’m level 14, and thanks to the large improvements to the archery Varric is probably the best party member in the game thanks to the large amount of damage and effects he can dish out on a whim.
The UI and leveling system is better, there isn’t really much else I have to say on that. Though I wish in the tactics menu when you’re choosing abilities and modes, that it would give you a subtitle of what some abilities did exactly so you could better set up a situation to use them from there, instead of having to exit out entirely and look at the skills section to know exactly what they did.
AI is…rather the same, actually. At first I thought it was improved, because, unlike origins, they were using skills without being told to do so. THEN I looked in tactics and noticed they were just pre-configured to do so, and wouldn’t use anything outside of the pre-configured ones unless you set it up to do so. Though on the bright side Varric and any of my mages don’t need to be sheparded around all the time and can take care of themselves unless there’s more than 3 enemies attacking them. So I don’t have to worry about keeping them alive too much.
I think that’s basically it, don’t think I’m forgetting anything else…So, where I to rate the game, based off of my experience so far in the story (maybe it’ll change after I complete the game for the first time, we will see) I’d give it an eight out of ten.
I guess you missed the whole plot point about gathering an army and that the archdemon is just an mindless dead old god that doesn’t really have mind of its own besides destruction?
Don’t see what that has to do with my post but okay?
This review seems quite different than the ones on IGN and Gametrailers. For one thing, Joe seems completely unafraid to tell about the game’s negative aspects. I especially appreciate the candor about the characters and what whiny bitches they can be.
I this game on day one because of the news that the gameplay was similar to Mass Effect. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. However, I can’t play it just yet, not until I finish the book I’m writing. I can’t afford distractions! Wish me luck … or click on the thumbs-down button if I’m a chump.
Joe, you do know auto attack was a feature that they meant to put in but was somehow left out accidentally for the console versions?
I think I’ll wait for a game of the year edition that comes with all DLC before I think about picking this one up.
I’m tempted to play this one based on gameplay tweaks alone. The first one had an excellent story in so far as what I saw, interesting characters and a fleshed out world. The problem I had with the first game, the reason I’m reluctant to go back and play it and still haven’t finished it, is the really wierd difficulty spikes I encountered. I play the game on the PC, so it might be different for consoles, but it feels to me as though the game is designed for you to play either a warrior or a mage. The dwarf rogue character I created feels like he gets shafted and I die from the stupidest things in that game (yeah, I know that Dwarves you’d expect to be warriors but I’m proude of my dwarf rogue). That asside, the warrior and mage characters I’ve created have several times where they just seem to squeeze past getting killed. When you said that DA2 has a nightime segment that allows you to level grind, I wanted to buy the game then and there. DAO gave barely any opportunity to level up your character beyond the story quests and a few option quests here and there (ones that sometimes wound up getting me killed just as easily as the storyline events. This not only made it hard for you to get stronger if you were too weak at a certain pont of the game, but it made it hard for me to get items to sell or money to use to purchase the healing items I needed (ironically because I was weak and needed more exp to level up my health. Go figure.)
I’ll have to reserve my judgement for this game, but I might just wind up waiting until it gets discounted, or until I beat DAO.
Lol Joe, the last thing I did in the game before watching this were those two quests you mentioned around 10 minutes in that order. I’ve only gotten near the end of part 1 (i think) but I do agree with everything. Except that I think the characters are at least on par with the characters in DA:O.
People are crazy and it’s much better than the original. Well, not really, but I think that a lot of people need to reevaluate how good Dragon Age Origins really was.
In Origins, you start off with your… origin. Then, you get to Ostagar and fight the Blight in a battle that has absolutely nothing to do with anything you just did. Then you let Lothering burn down, pick a new King for the dwarves because apparently, it’s easier for them to let a complete stranger decide who will rule Orzammar than it is to work things out on their own like adults, you fight an undead invasion in Redcliffe, demons in the Circle Tower and werewolves in the Brecillian. Then you find evidence to oust Loghain. For a Grey Warden sworn to defend Thedas from the Blight, you just let the darkspawn burn down Ferelden until the very last hour of the game. You spend upwards of 80% of the game completely ignoring the Blight. The Archdemon never does anything to oppose you and you never do anything to oppose him either.
Compared to that, Dragon Age 2 has a much more personal approach. You need cash and power to take care of your family and friends. It’s simple and effective and because the scale is smaller, it’s easier for me to be invested in the game emotionally. In Origins, when I played a mage and saved the Circle, I didn’t feel like it really mattered. I wasn’t saving my home, I was just recruiting another army. In Dragon Age 2, when I played a mage and rescued an apostate and told him “I am you”, that felt really powerful because it really conveyed who Hawke was as a character. He’s not just doing this because of some ulterior motive, he just wants to help out a fellow mage who’s going through the same thing he went through. Dragon Age 2 is a lot like Planescape: Torment or A Song of Ice and Fire. The story is all about Hawke’s rise to power. It doesn’t have an antagonist nor does it really need one. It’s just Hawke making decisions that will affect Kirkwall’s balance of power. The story just feels better to me than Origins.
I also think that the companions are a lot better in Dragon Age 2 than in Origins. In Origins, it felt like the companions were only there to fulfill the standard party functions. At times, it felt like they weren’t even capable of making their own decisions without the Warden telling them what to do. The companions in Dragon Age 2 feel more like real people. They have their own jobs and homes. They have their own objectives. By the end of my first playthrough, four party members had ditched me at various points and every time, it made sense why they would leave. They’re not just satellites that revolve around Hawke.
I also thought that Hawke was a huge improvement over both the Warden and Shepard. Having a voiced protagonist really made me feel like an active participant. I don’t need sit by and watch one of my companions make a speech to the troops I’m leading in battle, Hawke can do it himself. The personality tracking is also an absolutely amazing mechanic.
Replayability also seems like it’s much higher than in Origins. In Origins, nothing you do has any consequences. Whether you side with Bhelen or Harrowmont is completely irrelevant until the slideshow at the end. In Dragon Age 2, decisions have consequences that affect you personally. Your mistakes will bite you in the ass. Combined with the companions and the personality tracking, it really makes me want to play the game again and again to see how things can turn out differently.
What Dragon Age 2 really fails at is the ending. I was willing to give the game a 9/10 up until that point, but now, I can’t justify giving it more than a 5/10. Cliffhangers aren’t necessarily bad, but this one leaves the game unresolved and doesn’t make me excited about what might come next. It’s just a massive disappointment, by far the absolute worst ending I’ve ever seen in a video game. Even Knights of the Old Republic 2 had a better ending. After Awakening, the sub-par Origins DLC and this, I have serious doubts as to whether or not the Dragon Age team can deliver a game that’s consistently good. Unless Dragon Age 2 gets some really amazing material in the future, I think I’ll wait for an Ultimate Edition package before I get Dragon Age 3.
I guess you missed the whole plot point about gathering an army and that the archdemon is just an mindless dead old god that doesn’t really have mind of its own besides destruction?
The whole “gathering an army” had more to do with putting out a bunch of random fires than actually gathering an army. And so what if the Archdemon is an unthinking force of destruction? There’s no point to an antagonist that never poses a threat to the protagonist. If Dragon Age Origins was supposed to be about fighting the Blight, there should have been more time spent actually dealing with the Blight. For starters, the dalish could have been under attack from the darkspawn instead of werewolves that had absolutely nothing to do with anything else in the game.
DAO should have been built exclusively around the human noble origin. You start off in Highever, lose your family, travel to your King’s side to fight the Blight, get betrayed by Loghain, build an army by calling on your father’s bannermen and friends, use your name and status to gain an audience with the dwarves and promise the elves privileges in exchange for their help. The Circle could have been about forging an alliance with certain mage sub-faction, offering them freedom from the Chantry in exchange for their help against the Blight, instead of making Uldred a generic Saturday morning cartoon villain. You could spend the game managing a war on two fronts against Loghain and the Blight, moving your forces across Thedas, hiring mercenaries and conquering villages to increase your military, choosing which villages to protect and which to sacrifice to the Blight and ultimately taking the fight to the Archdemon. Your companions could have been representatives from the groups you allied yourself with instead of random people. Morrigan could have been the leader of a group of apostate mages, Leliana could have been a representative of Orlais and Zevran could have been there because you hired the Antivan Crows to help you. That’s the game Dragon Age Origins should have been and that’s the game Dragon Age 2 tries (and ultimately fails) to be. That game would have been awesome.
KOTOR 2 has a better ending? KOTOR 2 doesn’t even have an ending! The game action just sort of stops, and Kreia just does a vocalized version of the “where they all end up” montage. That’s Lucasarts’ fault – they deliberately rushed the game to market, forcing BioWare to drop many of the concluding story arches just to get it done. And it’s why, instead of a KOTOR 3, we’re just getting an MMO set centuries later instead of another great stand-alone game to complete the trilogy.
My point is, if DA2′s ending is worse than KOTOR 2, then we’re in for a ride with this one. That’s all I got to say.
I find it hilarious that people are so afraid of change, they would bash something because it does a lot of things differently.
Ok, the ending is kind of abrupt. But you know what, it makes sense. Because of what happens in the endgame it can basically dictate what the next game will have. This is not a simple “too abrupt and anti-climatic” moment, this is a “oh shit…we just changed the future” moment. The ending, and a LOT of dialogue in game, hints at big things happening in the future and in sequels. So it makes sense that the tale of Hawke ended where it did, and we will probably see more of it through DLC.
The ending is perfect to the story that was told. Is it a grand epic that 90% of fantasy RPGs play out as? Hell no. Instead, it is a political and racial conflict that has intensified in the entire world of the game, and all because of the actions of several characters in one place. This is a game that for once goes beyond the stereotypes of what you would expect, and yeah, the gameplay dues suffer. The inventory screen sucks and roaming the same areas all the time is kind of boring (although to be fair it makes sense since it all takes place in one city, for the most part.)
But you know what. The game is still better than most stuff that has come out this year. Joe is wrong on this one in one aspect, and that is the characters being forgettable here. If ask me, doing the sidequests and dealing with the group dynamics was part of the fun of the game. The friendship and rivalry system gave it fluidity to act how you would act, yet retain people either out of friendship or respect, if you were careful enough to get it. It also made for interesting group dynamics if you retained all the characters, which I sadly didn’t. Hell I lost Isabella, Anders and Carver because of my actions in the game, and I hated to lose them all, especially Anders, but it left me no choice because of the way the story played out, and how I played my character.
And The three different Acts are interconnected through the sidequests. It is subtle but it is there, since acts done in year one affect year seven, sometimes significantly. Finally the point is that it is not supposed to be resolved. In the beginning Cassandra said they were at war. Now we know why. Maybe Joe got the right score on it, but he has the wrong reasons behind it, at the very least.
Origins started something great, Dragon Age II just made it legendary, and if you look closely you will see it.
BioWare didn’t make KOTOR 2.
The dude problem got to me, I was kinda put off when Anders started hitting on my male character X-X
Personally, I had a blast playing this game. I didn’t have the dude problem seeing as I played as a bi-curious Lady Hawke. I enjoyed it’s redone fighting mech’s but I can completly understand your problems with the story. I rather enjoyed the campanions, but i guess thats a personal thing. The story kinda feels like they didn’t intend DA:O to have a sequel, and when it became apperant they were going too they just didn’t know where to go with it. Finally, I can’t believe you didnt think/mention how epic the Arishok was. Dude was a total badass and I actually got tense when I went to talk to him.
Overall though I agreed 100% with Joe’s rating, the 7/10 seems just right.
the hidden romance scene is just epic xD
now for the game for far y play i kinda find it a little disapointed the history is actually don’t feel as strong like origen the gamplay was a great improvent, but i keep think the first time i saw the first triler i was thinking that we going to play whit the warden son or doughter that we have whit morrigan, now could been a exelent game playing has his son using the power of the archydemon to stop the dark spawn or even control then
but o well we still have hope that dragon age 3 (yes bioware we know will be one xD) will have the best of the two games
now we only have to wait for mass effect 3
My opinion: Yea, characters were nowhere near the cast of the original game, though they weren´t bad in my opinion(except for the brother who was a whiny little bitch).
Graphics i rarely note in games unless its extremely good (FF 13 level, it still had good looks) or extremely bad (no good example now) i wont pay much attention to it. Still re-using the same areas over and over is unexcusable unless its only done few times (act 1 and ive seen same dock arehouse 4-5 times) and the graphics are amazing enough to make us forgive it. Didn´t happen here.
Combat is what i feared to be worst in this game. And it turned out to be improved.
Customization is better in the game even if you can´t change every armor piece for companions. Their skillset and rings/necks/belts/weapons still provide enough variety AND the abilities have more decicions to make now since you could pick that brand new spell for Firestrom in an area or you could upgrade Cone of Cold to make them brittle and set them up for triple damage with your warrior.
Story wasn´t worse for me, it was just different. More about the character and his personal rise to power rather than fate of Fereldren where you just go kill big evil or he kills everything.
Still it didn´t have the old-fashion rpg feel like the old one: using cunning and persuading people to your will, having multiple means to do one quest in some cases, crafting, exploring areas that aren´t quest related. Wins in some areas, but loses in what counted and made Dragon age: Origins stand out most.
For my opinion where Origins was 93/100, this one falls lower with still strong 84/100 since even though it had flaws, i still found myself comming back to this one and spending hours for it in one sitting. Im still looking foward to Dragon age 3(which they better make) but hope they adress the issues that were critisized here.
Great review but I want to make a few corrections to what Joe said. Firstly, the game on the normal difficulty, didn’t take me more than 25 hours to finish, making this a relatively short RPG, especially if I take into account that I spent almost 50 hours on the first DA without actually finishing it (damn format!). Secondly the auto-attack wasn’t removed as part of the improvements Bioware made to the battles in DA2. In PC it still exists, even though you can disable it, and in the consoles’ version they simply forgot to add it, something they will do with a future update.
I know I’m gonna get flamed, but I found Origins boring. I bought after hearing so many good things about it and ended up being dissapointed. I only tried the demo for 2, but the combat was exciting for ten minutes. Then it got as boring as the first. I just hope that Mass Effect 3 isn’t as rushed.
I agree with most of your points Joe, weak leveldesign, the repeating quest-areas, weak characters, lazy graphics (and the WTF-disappointing ending). But i disagree in one point, the gameplay. Before you go nuts on me, see my point.
Personally i liked Origins so much because it was one of the few games these days which used the oldschool RPG formula. Now that element which made the game special for me is gone, instead it turned into a more hack’n'slay style of gameplay. And if i want to play such a game, i stick to the ones which do it the right way and go full force on it, like Devil May Cry or God of War. I do see that it works way better this way on consoles, but i’m playing on PC and this is not what i wanted.
Don’t get me wrong, i still think it’s an above average game (for me 6/10) but it’s just no Dragon Age anymore.
Personally I loved the characters in this game, for the most part they felt much more real then most of the DA:O cast though that’s just my personal opinion. That being said you called Sebastian Vael a “We forgot the archer so pa $7 for one”. Umm, I love you Joe but you used Varric almost the entire game and *suspense* VARRIC IS AN ARCHER. Forgive me but I’m not quite sure how you could have made such an obvious mistake considering you get Varric before Sebastian anyway.
As for textures I can understand where people are coming from with them being somewhat plain but since when did a game have to be extravagant looking to be good? Honestly I think the game looks its part the way it is considering Kirkwall’s History of being a Slave City in the past so only those who live in High Town and above could afford any luxuries. Again, that being said, there is no excuse for the repeat textures.
It was also mentioned in the review that most people expect sequels to be better, which is true, but isn’t it the case that MOST sequels are worse then the original and it isn’t until the 3rd in a series that it makes huge leaps and bounds? This isn’t to excuse BioWare/EA but I’m just saying. Speaking of saying comparing the game to TW2 in such a department really isn’t fair. I’m not saying TW2 is a bad game or anything but considering how bad the FIRST game was I don’t see how its possible to say TW2 was anything but the single best sequel game ever made in the history of ever. Bad —> Good = Amazing. Good —-> Good = Good but not impressive.
Overall, if I was to rate the game, I’d give it an 8/10 but not because its Dragon Age or a Sequel to a good game but because I believe a game should be reviewed on its own merits, not someone elses. I honestly believe DA2 is much superior to DA:O in every way except for story.
In case of DA i felt more like Amazing —> Good = Meh..
joe use the example of TW2 for how to be sequel because tw 1 was bad but when tw2 come along they make a huge improvement of evrything and that how have to be done in dragon age 2 improvet evrything
So, i haven’t beat the game yet and i completely agree with the overused settings and dungeons. i do no’t however think the story is all that week. Remember, this is Hawke’s RISE to Champion. he needs to be known throughout the city as it’s possible defender. where others fail, he rises.
and really, i don’t think the Templar/Mage thing goes away if you are a melee class, it’s just from a different perspective. in that, you’re trying to protect your sister.
Anyway, those are just my thoughts.
Oh, no I didn’t mean for you to interpret the mage/templar thing going away – I’m saying that playing as a Mage makes this conflict more personal for your character. If you are a Warrior or Rogue you dont really have as much vested interest in the conflict.
Well, you do have your sister……
I disagree with that, Joe. I haven’t played as a Mage yet, but I’ve found myself very invested in the mage/templar struggle because of the sibling character. I don’t want to spoil anything, but certain events really drew me in even without being a mage myself.
I also disagree about the characters being weaker; I found them to be enjoyable in their own way (although granted, I’ve never brought Anders along for the ride). Besides those two disagreements, I’m pretty much for everything else you said. It has it’s flaws, but it’s a good game overall.
actually, depending on a choice earlier in the game, you have A LOT riding on your decision. SPOILER:: if you leave your sister in Kirkwall, she’s found out by Templars and will usually come up as a small, but important choice, same as your brother if you’re a mage. Take them with you and it’s off to the Wardens with them to fight Demon Joe. leave them and they’ll choose a faction(or it’s forced on them). one to the mages, one to the Templars. Is the story better as a mage? Don’t know, haven’t got there yet, but probably. but the push IS still there, if only slightly(or greatly in some cases) if you’re a melee class.
Firstly, I’d like to say that this was a great review
Second of all, I completely agree on all points made. This felt more like a hasty cash in to me than anything else