User Review : Dragon Age 2

Ups

• Combat is more fluid and can be tactical if you choose to not play it cheaply
• Characters are fleshed out and have interesting interactions built into the storyline
• Characters are fleshed out and have interesting interactions built into the storyline

Downs

• Repetitive corridor designed dungeons rather than open areas to explore like DAO
• Annoying overall storyline that forces a roleplaying perspective upon the player
• Class mechanic overhauls result in drastic limitations compared to DAO

Further streamlining leads to an enjoyable game, but with less RPG focus

In Dragon Age: Origins, you enter into the world as one of many characters and quickly are left with the mantle of one of but a handful of Grey Wardens left in Ferelden. The decisions you made throughout the game led to who was left to lead the realm as you either died at the hands of the Blight or lived on to fight many more days thereafter.

Dragon Age 2 has chosen to not only move away from the main storyline presented in Origins, but has also chosen to "enhance" the character class and skill system. Many see this similar to the changes made from Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2, and in some respects they are correct.

You start off the game as a human rogue, mage, or warrior. The choice of your background is made for you and the option to play as a dwarf or elf is no longer possible. You are at least able to customize your character's looks; and if you choose to go with a darker skin tone, your family actually looks similar to you. But, you are Hawke, one forced to take refuge within the walls of Kirkwall and who is destined for greatness. You begin the game with your mother and twin siblings, fighting your way through darkspawn towards the sea that will lead you to Kirkwall.

These first encounters with the darkspawn get you a bit accustomed to the combat and your class abilities.

Warriors come in two flavors, the two-handed wielding warrior who wades into the center of combat in order to perform area of effect maneuvers and shield and weapon warriors who act as bastions of defense to draw the ire of the opponents while others do all the damage. Warriors gain the ability to stagger one or more opponents with some of their skills, which can be taken advantage of by rogues and mages to perform more damage against them with specific attacks, though mages gain much more from this effect than rogues with a few devastating area of effect spells.

Rogues also come in two flavors, the dual wielding specialist who pops into combat (sometimes literally) and focuses on a single target with their deadly daggers or the archer who stands back and pins his targets to the ground so they won't move and opens up with special arrow attacks that affect a large area. Rogues are able to disorient their opponents with certain attacks, allowing warriors and mages to take advantage of this as well. Once again, though, mages gain more benefit from this effect with higher damage dealing potential against disoriented opponents.

Mages, the last of the class options, can come in many flavors. There are multiple damage lines, from elemental to spiritual, and a few support options thrown in that benefit party members. Mages are also the healers of the party, a necessary role for the most of the game unless you like to spend a lot of coin on potions and injury kits. Some mage attacks are able to apply the brittle effect on one or more targets, allowing rogues and warriors to take advantage of this for attacks that may shatter the opponents. Warriors gain the most from this with area of effect attacks that can shatter a group of opponents under the brittle effect.

Combat is fluid, no matter what class you play. Rogues and warriors literally leap into combat with gusto and mages deal damage with their magical staves from afar. Getting a mixture of these together in your party of 4 is always important. Based on how you play, you most often will fill in the last spot with an extra warrior or an extra mage. While rogues are fun to play, the staggered effect from a warrior is more beneficial alongside any mage while mages in general provide the best utility out of all the classes and offer the most damage potential.

Clicking to attack an opponent puts the character into auto-attack mode and will continue until the opponent is dead or another action is assigned. Many of your skills will be accessible from the hotkey panel at the bottom of the screen and you can choose to utilize these abilities on the fly or take advantage of pausing combat to set up a chain of actions. If you are playing on hard or nightmare difficulties, you more than likely will be spending a lot of your time with combat paused as you work to get enemies in the right area to apply one effect against them so that another character can take advantage and do increased damage against them as a follow-up.

Unlike Dragon Age: Origins, there is no longer an isometric camera display due to claims of it causing the need to do double work on graphics for the intended viewpoint. The reason I bring this up is because there are more than a few times when you are paused and are trying to set a command for a party member but it is very difficult to select your target because they are behind another opponent or around the edge of a corner and are unable to be selected. A free moving camera in this element of the game would have vastly improved one's abilities to properly control your party's actions in combat.

One of the new things about combat is that enemies will now come in waves for many encounters. This presents you with a need to ensure that your party can last through the first primary wave of combatants with enough to take on the one or two typically weaker wave of follow-up opponents. As you will note, I said weaker waves, which is a somewhat jarring design decision in the layout of combat. Most players are used to encountering the main boss of a battle after killing off the weakest of opponents in an attempt to wear you down prior to encountering the primary opponent. Dragon Age 2 does this backwards and instead forces you to encounter the hardest opponents in the first group of enemies. Because of this, it's practically assured that if you defeat the first wave, the rest will only serve to act as a way to waste time with much weaker opponents who won't pose any true threat in comparison.

One of the other elements of combat are traps, an element kept in from Dragon Age: Origins. In some situations, these can be the most deadly of opponents due to the infrequency in which your rogue, even with a high cunning skill, detects them soon enough in order to disarm them. In addition, some special traps can cover a wide area of combat and present continually damaging effects to AI controlled party members. One of the biggest offenders of this, though not often encountered, are the spike traps that take up large areas of space and once activated cannot be deactivated. You will be required to pause and give specific movement commands to your party members during combat to prevent taking high amounts of damage or, worse, wasting time with the knocked back animation instead of dealing damage to an opponent.

While you're not killing tons of enemies, you will spend the majority of your other time talking your way through the storyline. This means working your way through a wheel of conversation options that should be extremely familiar to those who have played Mass Effect. While you may have heard that this conversation system only presents three options, this is not true and there still exist many options out of the three main responses with which to gain new information and expand on the storyline of the game. Having said that, there are three main manners in which you can respond to story driven situations.

The more diplomatic Hawke looks to resolve things with words rather than swords and tends to be more helpful to all those he encounters, even those who have slighted him in the past. The more humorous Hawke tries to make life out to be a big joke and looks to charm his way past the quips of those he encounters. Then there's the aggressive Hawke, who is really just looking to urge everyone to fight him or run away in fear. How you approach people is reflected in your companions, who adjust the way they interact with you and others based on your previous actions. Sometimes, there is also the option to look to a party member that is currently with you to respond to a situation, such as Anders and his ability to provide additional help when it comes to the Fade. So, it's important that you keep an idea of who you take with you and for what quest.

Of course, all of this talking and fighting helps to develop the storyline of the game. A storyline that has its strength not in a strong overarching concept, but in the smaller elements that are specific to the individual party members. This is in direct contrast to what many experienced with Mass Effect 2, where the many sideline stories of the characters were found to drag down the main storyline. In Dragon Age 2, though, the side stories are integral and representative of the main storyline, but more importantly impart a true feeling of immersion and caring into the game that the main storyline doesn't provide.

The lack of a focused and strong primary storyline is the biggest weakness in Dragon Age 2. Weighed down even further by certain perceptions forced upon Hawke that are relevant to pushing forward an unwavering focus relevant to the overall storyline. I am unable to go into detail as to what this is and how it unfortunately gives way to knowing early on who you will be going against in the final act of the game because it would be a major spoiler. Those who are used to the flexibility of Dragon Age: Origins may feel tied down to a specific story and goal in Dragon Age 2.

Overall, Dragon Age 2 is a game with some improvements and some additional problems. Combat is more fluid, but other than the mage your role is limited. And, even then, the ability to focus on two different weapon types (two-handed and sword and shield or dual wield and ranged) are limited by the decision to remove any ability to easily swap weapons. The graphics are improved, but dungeons are designed with practically no exploration in mind and are focused on mostly underground designs that are repeated often. The effect that your decisions have in the game are more subtle at times but can have major effects on the storyline in regards to your party members, and yet the main storyline still feels singular in its focus and direction and actually ends without much fanfare.

Author's Note: My score below is lower than the average of the sub-scores. Not reflected in those sub-scores are the RPG elements of the game. While I believe Dragon Age 2 to be an RPG, it is a much lesser RPG than the original game. Being a lesser RPG does not mean it is a bad game, but there were changes made from the first that actually reduced gameplay and I find it important to note this with the lower than average score.

Score

7.0

Graphics

Dragon Age 2 looks much better than its predecessor, though it's to be expected considering how much of the art assets get reused.

8.0

Sound

Tone and atmosphere are appropriately conveyed throughout the game.

7.0

Gameplay

With some enhancements to making combat more fluid and making skill trees less linear, they are still dragged down a bit by the removal of the option to customize from DAO.

8.0

Fun Factor

Unless you focus too much on what you don't like rather than trying to play the game for what it is, there's no reason you won't enjoy the game for what it is.

Overall

7.0

[Christopher]

Point of Reference, here is how I rated similar RPGs.

Dragon Age: Origins: 8.5/10
Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening: 6.5/10
Mass Effect: 8.5/10
Mass Effect 2: 8/10
Fallout 3: 8/10
Fallout: New Vegas: 8/10

I do not consider a 7/10 to be a failure of a game. As I said, DA2 is enjoyable, but based on its predecessor it does not hold up to the standards one expects from an RPG.

[byeGollum]

I think I like your scoring, you don't dish out 8.5 and 9s easily.. you give realistic scores.. 7 is good score...

I never played dragon age:Origins cause I didnt like the art style and the combat system looks like It would make me fall asleep.. but DA2 however, I liked the gameplay and the mass effect style dialogue wheel.. will be getting DA2, plus it isnt a direct sequel, thats even better

[lex-1020]

To each his own. As you said, I like his reviewing style as well.

DA:O was an RPG at heart with action elements second.
DA2 is an Action game at heart with RPG elements second.

It's not my type of game, but than you're not the same as me. That's why they make different types of games. So again to each his own.

[Izanagi-no-Okami]

Awesome review, congrats cgoodno.

[Myst]

I agree with Izanagi good review.

[-Alpha]

Maturely written, informative, and fair, very nice, man.

And I agree, I like that you consider 7 a good score and that you don't dish out 9's so easily

[orctowngrot]

Fair and decent review. When I write em I tend to be neither, so appreciate it.