Author’s Note: This is a hard game to review as there are two very distinct ways to look at Dragon Age II. You can either view this as a stand-alone title or as a sequel to the first where you compare and contrast the differences. For the sake of fairness I will grade it under the former while making small comparisons throughout. I will be writing a comparison article in the near future going in depth with these two games.
With a large promotional campaign full of commercials and in-game pre-order items from every outlet under the sun, BioWare has definitely gone out of their way to make sure that you throw down your hard-earned cash for a copy of Dragon Age II. Given the fact that BioWare doesn’t make mistakes, it’s easy to see why many geeks have been salivating to point and click their way to victory with this next entry in the Dragon Age saga.
Dragon Age II has little ties with the original in terms of story and to make matters worse, the game only does an average job of giving any previously made choices a sense of visibility. The up side to this is that players of the original will be happy to see several random, yet purposeful cameos from several of your favorite Dragon Age Origins characters, providing they lived on your playthrough.
Click the break to read the whole review.
Instead of playing as a silent protagonist, you are thrust into the role of Hawke, a person attempting to save his family from the Blight mentioned in Origins. Once they have fled the area, the family takes residence in the nearby kingdom of Kirkwall and from there the real story begins.
As usual, BioWare gives you a large amount of room to develop your central character with a bit of wiggle-room for your companions. They all have their own distinct personality and they will have to trust you before they will fully agree with you. While there are several likeable characters, there aren’t any truly memorable characters in this lot. A further bring down is the fact that the companion cast is much smaller than Origins.
The overall story takes place over three distinct acts. Each act is several years apart from the other, all with separate but connected storylines. This is in great contrast to the majority of BioWare’s current RPGs. Most of the time the structure has been such: an introduction, several missions to recruit your characters, optional side-quests and then endgame.
Outside of Hawke and his companions, the main story involves how the mages of Kirkwall are treated as threats to humanity due to their tremendous power and the fact that they are closely monitored (or even outright eradicated) by the Templars, a militaristic order of knights run by the Chantry (church).
What really makes this tale one worth hearing is that there is no clear-cut version of Good vs. Evil. This ‘choice versus consequence’ is a dynamic change that works out incredibly well. It creates a refreshing change of pace that will make you stop and think about your actions before blindly choosing a side. It’s an incredibly innovative feature that is lifted right out of the pages of The Witcher as your choices do not immediately manifest themselves. It may take two to four hours for the gravity of your actions to be felt. Because of this, players can no longer quick-load if they don’t like this one particular outcome of a quest.
For as good as the plot is structured the inverse is true for the design of the game. The vast majority of the game takes place in Kirkwall with seldom ventures outside the city for a quest or two. What makes this even worse is that when you DO venture out into a cave or the coastline or even the occasional haunted mansion, you will find that every single one of them is identical. They all have the exact same map with different passages open and shut for each.
There is no nice way to say this – BioWare clearly cut corners with Dragon Age II’s design. To further drive this point home, the original game took me 88 hours to complete and Dragon Age II took me 37. Disappointing, considering I went for 100% completion on both playthroughs.
The biggest difference with Dragon Age II and the original is the combat. Due to Mass Effect 2’s success, it seems the intricacies of Origins have been completely toned down to suit the average players gaming style rather than cater to the average RPG fan. The top-down view is gone and the battles are designed to the point of if you aren’t fighting a high level boss, you more than likely won’t need the pause-and-play feature as you can just mow everything down.
Don’t be discouraged by the overly simplistic combat as there is a slightly hidden play style that actually runs pretty deep. There are cross-class combos in the game that if mastered, will make your playthroughs all the more satisfying. For example, warriors like to inflict a status called ‘Staggered’ and rogues/mages absolutely love to inflict serious damage to enemies afflicted as such. On the other side, mages can make enemies ‘brittle’ and warriors can take advantage of that as well. Mastering this is by no means a necessity for victory – it simply provides a much deeper experience for those that want it.
Despite the refreshing fast-paced gameplay, BioWare really pigeon holes who you take with your on your adventure. There is one tank in the game, one healer in the game, one dual-wielding rogue, one mage, etc. Considering how every party needs a healer this means you will be seeing one character, like him or not, for about 85% of the game (unless you make Hawke any of these classes).
Another feature that was prominent in Mass Effect 2 is the dialog system. Rather than seeing all of your responses as in the original, you see a brief statement that describes the gist of what Hawke will say given the paragon/snarky/renegade responses. The downside to this is that it doesn’t always work. The brief statements don’t always match what Hawke will say and it could possibly lead to a big change with your companions.
The process of leveling up your character is another change that works for the better. In an attempt to relate to the MMO fan-base, talent trees emulate World of Warcraft more-so than the original. This helps create a more defined character as all warriors of the same class were essentially the same in the original. This coupled with a much improved crafting and inventory system show that just because it’s updated, doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.
However, BioWare takes a step back by removing some of the little things that RPG fans love about the genre. In Dragon Age II you are restricted to playing as a human which is a large downside considering how many fans like playing as dwarves, elves or perhaps an occasional darkspawn.
As BioWare always does, they hit a homerun with the presentation. Voice acting is top notch as almost every single voice actor plays their part perfectly – the only downside being that several returning characters don’t reprise their role from the original and the subsequent expansions.
Along with the excellent voice-work, fans can expect an orchestral soundtrack that will set the tone for every single map and encounter. This, coupled with an updated artistic style that works well for the most part will satisfy you but won’t turn any heads.
Your enjoyment of Dragon Age II will depend entirely on how well you can appreciate this as a separate game. If you are too jaded of the games large amount of simplicity, then perhaps you should wait. If you want to look at the game for what it is and the enjoyment factor that it contains, it is very hard to pass this up. When at its best, Dragon Age II gives an RPG experience that will surely entertain. At its worst, it gives you an overly simplistic and repetitive mess, but the good here far outweighs the bad.
Dragon Age 2 was released on March 8th, 2011 for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. Review is based on the PS3 version.
Nice review, although this reads more like “Two steps forwards and two steps back”.
Also, DA:O had 8 companions and the mabari hound.
DA2 has 8 companions. (The mabari hound in DA2 is not much of a companion). So is 8+1 that much higher than 8? No, not really.
Overall, this felt like a third or half the game it should be, story-wise, content-wise, everything-wise. Not awesome at all, EA and BioWare. Should have called it “Dragon Age: The Interlude”
DA:O had 10 companions: Alistair, Dog, Leliana, Morrigan, Oghren, Logain (even if it is late in the game when he becomes available), Shale, Sten, Wynne, and Zevran.
DA2 has 8 but one of them is your sibling that leaves by the end of Act 1. While you either have a fighter or mage sibling, you can’t have both at the same time since one *always* dies in the prologue, so I won’t count that. There are really 7 1/3 companions (as opposed to 9 1/3 from the first).
Even though it’s only two less, the impact is easily felt and considering it’s a sequel if they kept the SAME number of companions, it would be a disappointment. There should be more. Period.
Well, you should discard Shale from the list of characters, as she’s DLC. If you do count Shale, then add Sebastien to the list of DA2 characters. As for their uses and purposes, in Origins you had two mages, one offensive (Morrigan), one defensive (Wynne). Two Rogues, one archer based (Leliana), one dual wielder (Zevran), and then fighters, of which Alistair was the only tank and then other four variations on the theme (Sten and Oghren for damage dealers, Dog and Shale for slight weirdos). So there’s hardly that big a difference there, just more illusion of choice in origins.
Characters I found them to be a mixed bunch. I loved Aveline, Varric and Merrill (particularly the last 2), felt meh for Isabela, liked Anders but felt he could use some of his perkiness in awakenings (oh, and have a cat), and found Fenris to be completely annoying. But at their best, the characters are just as captivating as usual for Bioware, and are in fact the company’s biggest strength.
As for combat, I don’t find it dumbed down, just easier. when switched to hard, I had trouble even dealing with street thugs. And am in the middle of act 2 and clocking at 40 hours, so I am actually getting a lengthy experience from the game.
By and large, I agree with you, though. The game could, and should have been better. It’s great, amazing even, but Bioware are RPG’s MVP, and have a standard to uphold.
I counted the DLC characters for both (Shale and Sebastian)
I definitely think you need to look at this game as something completely separate and unrelated to Origins. If you don’t, you will be pretty disappointed.
Dragon Age: Origins set the bar pretty high, but that is to be expected of BioWare. If you play Origins and then Dragon Age II, you’re going to see why exactly everyone is so frustrated. They basically created one of the most in-depth, immersive RPGs of all time with Origins, and then decided to try to sell to a more casual crowd. More corners were cut than this review has pointed out. The game was obviously rushed. The composer for Dragon Age II even said in an interview that “his score was rushed” because “EA wanted to capitalize on the success of the original”.
I humbly agree with Seyen, although in my opinion, it’s two steps forward and twelve steps back.
That is one of the main reasons I won’t be buying this game right away. I put over 100 hours into DAO and I loved it. From what I have seen and played of DA2, I am dissapoint.
Sounds like the biggest disappointment from this game is the regression back to Identical Dungeon sidequests. I thought Bioware had moved past that part of their life. I’ll still buy it…one day.
The worst part is actually how distinct the identical dungeons are. If they were bland open areas like in the first Dragon Age it wouldn’t be so noticeable, but they all have these narrow, detailed pathways and you immediately know you’ve been to the same place as soon as it loads.
I genuinely blame EA for any of DA2′s shortcomings at this point. I enjoyed the demo I played, but for the usually pristine Bioware standards, I could tell DA2 was being rushed. Couple that with EA channeling more of Bioware’s efforts towards the Mass Effect franchise to push out ME3, rather than give DA2 the time and effort it clearly needed.
I don’t see DA2 as a “bad game” per se, just a disappointment considering how grand it could have been, given a proper investment of time and money from EA.
EA ruined DA2 on their way to ruin ME3.
I won’t be buying this game, where my opinion of DA:O is that it is one of the best RPG’s of all time. DA2 was a huge let down for me. They really stifled the game play and it feels like i am forced to play to a scripted storyline, if you actually haven’t played DA:O do yourself a favour, go buy it, instead of this let down.
When I played the demo for DA2, I was extremely excited. While the battle system was different and seemed a bit dumbed-down, I figured it was just early in the game and it would get more complex as it went on, as is the case with many RPGs.
Now I’m 26 hours into the game and while there are brief flashes of awesome, it just doesn’t have the magic of the original. The combat system is merely serviceable and the story is just not very gripping at all. The original had me absolutely hooked by the battle at Ostagar but after taking a 2-day break from DA2, I couldn’t remember important details of the main cast.
Overall I would say DA2 would have worked better as a side-story than a sequel.
What group are you using? If you use avefail as tank and anders as healer the game is very easy and very boring.
If you up the difficulty and switch to a less standard group, it becomes a hell of a lot more fun.
Try an all Melee DPS group using potions for heals, made the game a lot more intense.
However, at level 26 pretty much everything is easy unless you have it on Hard or Nightmare.
I think the problem is that people are using a cookie cutter group when they dont have to, then they complain about simplicity.
And most seem to have not even played the game. How many here even know what the Nexus Golem is without looking at a guide?
And the same with the story. There is a ton of story related quests in the game, but most people dont even notice them because they expect everything to be pointed out to them like it was in DAO.
The end result is that people had to use tactics in DAO, and they dont in DA2 if they use the cookie cutter group and leave it on normal.
Now, you can blame Bioware or you can blame yourselves for being unoriginal. I just beat the game using no magic users and having no dedicated tank. I beat it on hard. That required a lot of tactical thinking and effort. Most people wont ever get far enough into the game to actually play it because they get to the first deep roads encounter on normal, with a cookie cutter group, and decide the game is easy and boring.
This game is highly rewarding if you take the time to actually learn about the different classes and different characters. Sadly, most people will not do that and just assume it is shallow and boring.
Oh, I also take issue with you saying there are no memorable characters.
You must have played it muted. I would play the game 3 or 4 more times just to hear varric’s conversations and hear isabela mock avefail.
Memorable dialogue and memorable characters are two different things to me. There were plenty of snappy comebacks and quips but in terms of personality, there wasn’t anything incredibly original. Aveline seemed to be the most human character while everyone else was a stereotype I’ve played before but unfortunately, Aveline was quite boring to listen to outside of jawing back and forth with Isabella.
Playing through it now. I’m kinda disappointed in the map system.