Dragon Age II

ducklings
Jun 12, 2011
3
I am not a long-term Bioware fan (I have to admit never played BG or Neverwinter back in the day) but I am a lover of RPGs and Dragon Age: Origins was my introduction to Bioware's games. Needless to say I was very impressed. It was a fantastic, well-written and beautifully executed game that I fell in love with. Despite being warned that Dragon Age 2 will not live up my expectations, I had to give it a go. How can another Dragon Age be so bad? So I went into this game with a fairly positive yet cautious attitude. And... well... it's disappointing. Not just as a sequel to Origins, but as a roleplay game in general. Especially from a company like Bioware who I'm led to believe is a bit of an authority on the genre. The combat is tedious. It's altogether less tactical and more hack-and-slash. There's no tactical camera, and wave combat with enemies appearing from all angles and even dropping from the sky that makes it pretty impossible to place companions, manage potions and generally devise a battle plan. I may be hyperbolising here, but this sort of combat is fit for games like Serious Sam, not Dragon Age. I have no idea why they dumb-downed the combat in this way. It's obvious that a lot of fights were added in as filler combat. There's various encounters that are just waves and waves of uninteresting unimportant enemies that last far too long and then just as you finish up and turn the corner... another one. And another. It gets boring. To add to that, it looks ridiculous. Perhaps Origins' combat needed to be speeded up a bit, but not like this. It feels like a JRPG, and instead of looking cool it looks stupid. Also, far too much blood. And exploding bodies. The companions are okay. I wouldn't say they are as well-written as Origin's characters, but they're okay. Interaction is quite horrible though. You only ever get to speak to your companions in their house, and that's only when they have something to say to you, usually involving a quest, or when you give them a gift, of which there about 2 for each. You get a very limited amount of these brief scenes with them, and that's it. For a romance, you get a sex scene and a couple extra conversations - well, I say /sex/ scenes - Origins' sex scenes may have been a little comical, but at least their was some nudity. For an M rated game, I expected a little more than a bit of making out. I don't know about others, but I felt a lot more distant to my companions than I did in Origins. And I think that being able to speak to your companions when you want, for as little or as long as you want, is important. It's something that felt missed in Awakenings, and it's worse in DA2. Party banter, however, is just as golden as it ever was! Hawke was an awkward invention. It seems Bioware couldn't decide on creating a blank-canvas character that can be almost fully imagined and created as your own (like the Warden was) or a pre-defined personality (say like, Geralt from The Witcher). And so they went with... both. Hawke felt half like your own creation, and half like a pre-defined character. This was difficult to contend with. It was hard to imagine Hawke as you wanted as you never knew what he was going to say or how he was going to behave. Sure you could choose 'good/funny/bad' but that isn't enough freedom. You also couldn't assume Hawke's personality and roleplay him, because you weren't given enough definition for him. Because there was hardly any of it. As a result, a lot of the time it almost felt like watching a film. You can dictate what Hawke does, but you can't really invent him and you can't really roleplay him. It just didn't work. The story was very messy. I liked the idea of the game being retold by a character, but the time skips were awkward to deal with. There was some interesting writing, but instead of being pushed along with a sense of urgency to an important goal like in Origins, it felt very much like you were just dawdling around a city and falling into trouble. Companions felt more like hirelings going along for the ride or using you now and again, then people devoted or forced into aiding your cause. There's no real drive to do anything except at the end of act 2 and the end of act 3. Not to say the story wasn't enjoyable, it was, but it wasn't great. Overall, I enjoyed the game. But I wouldn't pay for it. Perhaps in a year or so for a knocked down price, or bundled in with an expansion or some DLC, but not now - it's not worth it. And although I feel I shouldn't compare it to Origins, surely I am allowed to, as it's supposed to be a sequel. It not only failed to improve on Origins, it failed to even reach it's level. In fact, it was considerably worse than the original Dragon Age and that is not a success. Oh, and I think the graphics got worse. The eyebrows in the game are frightening. And Zevran - poor Zevran. Collapse