Dragon Age 2 Review

Bioware released the sequel to their hugely popular game Dragon Age: Origins on March 8th, 2011. Expectations were soaring, the trailers looked great, and many people were pumped - as was I. These are my thoughts on the game. This will contain spoilers. I'll put the word (SPOILER) in every headline which underlying paragraph contains plot information beyond that which is detailed trailers and interviews. The spoiler-alert ends with the following headline.

(SPOILER) The plot

The plot is less apparent than in the first game, where your goal was clear from the start - save Ferelden from the Blight. This time you are thrust into the action as a refugee, fleeing the chaos at Ostagar with your family. You run into a few people along the way, and quickly make your way to the city of Kirkwall. This is where the action takes place. Part of the main plot, which I won't detail here, is clear to you all along, but it will take a long, long time until you realize what the final battle will be all about. Some may prefer this over the predecessor, some may not.

(SPOILER) Game play

Where Dragon Age: Origins offered a large map of Ferelden, with several different locations to visit spread out all across it, Dragon Age 2 gives you a more consolidated location. Most of the action takes places within the city of Kirkwall or around the nearby mountain of Sundermount. The party members are no longer found in a camp, but are instead spread out across town, living in their own houses, suites and locales. This made it a bit more costly, time-wise, to talk to all of them, but made for added realism.

The classes are the same as before, they are Warrior, Rogue and Mage. Improvements have been made upon them, and I, personally, think they are all fun to play now - in the previous game I found rogue and mage to be rather dull.

However, and this is a big however, this game suffers quite a bit of tedium as well. Many of the surroundings, such as caves and mines, are very similar - sometimes identical - and the same locations are often used for several quests. It's an odd feeling when you dispatch several groups of ill-doers from the same hideout. Makes one wonder how the law allow that to happen!

The graphics

What the first game lacked was graphics, it was simply not a visually impressive experience. This game has quite few improvements on that aspect. The textures are more detailed, the scenery is more vivid, and everything just looks more impressive. The game bears a distinct resemblance to Bioware's Mass Effect games in terms of graphics, which was a pleasant improvement from Dragon Age: Origins.

The combat experience

Dragon Age 2 offers a completely revamped combat experience, and now the characters will actually do things - as opposed to the first game, where they pretty much repeated the same dull motions over and over again. Now the characters leap about, rogues jump in, strike and backflip out of danger, even the mages have gotten some pretty sweet moves. All in all, the combat experience is, to me, the most noticeable improvement.

Ambience

The city of Kirkwall has some bustle, but it's not much. A few NPCs walk around talking to each other, or, at least, exchanging brief chats or anecdotes. However, you cannot talk to most of them. In fact, the only people you can talk to are people who have something to do with a quest - I found this tedious. People upon people just standing about, with no option to interact. Made the city feel dead where there was no NPC bustle (which was only every so often). You'd often run into a bunch of thugs on the streets at night, only to have some old man just standing there, staring into space while you are slaying people by the dozens. It felt unrealistic and empty.

Much like Dragon Age: Origins, there is a decent amount of party banter, and you can hear quite a few hilarious gems exchanged among your party members. Some quite naughty!

(SPOILER) The party members

Varric: A dwarf merchant who hates the Deep Roads, and loves drinking at the local tavern, 'The Hanged Man'. He felt like a definite replacement for Oghren in the first Dragon Age game. Varric is a likable character, and adds much humor to the game.

Aveline: Aveline is a capable redheaded warrior, and a member of the Kirkwall guard. Or, as Isabela says, a mannish do-gooder. Aveline is generally on the side of right and law.

Isabela: The naughty pirate queen who made a brief appearance in Dragon Age: Origins is one of the major characters of this game. She's always up for a rumble, in every sense of the word, and is a highly capable rogue. She's quick-witted and, as such, she provides much humor to the experience. She tends to argue quite a bit with Aveline, as they reside on either end of the spectrum.

Merrill: An endearing, confused, socially awkward Elf mage with her own dark little secrets. Having dabbled in blood magic, she can cause quite a stir.

Anders: A human mage who played an integral role in Dragon Age: Origins' Awakening expansion. Having fused with a spirit of Justice, he loathes templars with a passion, and he has some solutions that are, well... let's call them "radical".

Fenris: An Elf warrior, capable with a greatsword, and scarred by Lyrium-infusion. He loathes mages and slavers, as his history had him kept a slave to a Tevinter magister.

Bethany/Carver: Only one of these will be used, depending on which class the player chooses. If you choose warrior or rogue, you get Bethany, who has a close connection with the player character, and if you choose a mage, you get Carver - with a thorn in his side towards his mage sibling (you).

Several characters from the first game make a brief cameo, such as Alistair, Leliana and Flemeth.

Summary

Combat is great, the characters are interesting, the graphics are quite good for an RPG, and the RPG elements are quite alright, as well. I doubt they'll sate the needs of the most hardcore RPG-veterans, but for most of us it's quite good enough. The game loses points for its lack of ambient chatter, interaction, defined storyline, and for its repetitiveness.

Score

I'll give it 7/10. It's a good game, make no mistake - but its repetitiveness makes the replayability quite poor, and that's a bad thing for an RPG game.

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