Dragon Age 2

2011 seems to be a year for Western RPG's. With Elder Scrolls 5, Mass Effect 3 and Dungeon Siege 3 all arriving this year, fan's of fantasy and adventure are spoilt for choice. Leading this charge of Western RPG's is Dragon Age 2, the sequel to the best selling Dragon Age: Origins. The question is how does it stand up to its predecessor.

In DA2 you take on the role of Hawke, a refugee from Ferelden, whose tale as he settles into his new home of Kirkwall and his adventures afterwards is the basic story. Interestingly enough, the story is told from the perspective of a dwarf called Varric who is forced to tell his story of how he met the champion of Kirkwall to his captors, a tale within a tale as such.

The first thing you'll notice is the huge graphic overhaul that DA2 has. The first game, while not ugly, was not the most stunning game graphically. This time around much more attention has been paid to the characters and enemies within the world. Whether this is because your playing from a much closer perspective than the first game is hard to say, but in the dialogue scenes you can really see the detail. You'll also notice the character design has been radically changed.

Darkspawn now look more like Locust than Orcs and the Qunari have grown an impressive set of horns giving them a much more intimidating appearance than the first. The main characters while still maintaining a realistic feel but are stylised somewhat, reminding me curiously of the art style of Genndy Tartakovsky (Samurai Jack).


Also noticeable early on is the gore level seems to have been ramped up considerably. In Dragon Age: Origins, you'd sometimes end an enemy with a short animation depicting a gruesome death by decapitation or repeated stabbing. This time around enemies literally explode apart, often with comical effect such as when you disintegrate a body to leave a pair of shoes just standing there. At least now when you see your characters drenched in blood during a cut scene you can see where they got it from.

The second major change to the game is the battle system. There have been reports from several people about the fact that DA2 has a dumbed down combat system but I saw little of this. In fact the combat system is pretty much identical except now you have to repeatedly press A to attack rather than just the once in DA:O. Swapping between characters in battle is easily enough done, in fact holding down LT then switching between characters with the bumper buttons allows you to give orders without time passing.

However in battle it seems using abilities can be quite difficult. At times I would find myself standing next to an enemy but not being able to lock on to them to use my abilities as I was not literally on top of them. Also due to the closer camera angle finding your comrades can be difficult in the heat of battle. On more than one occasion I had to pause and switch characters to find out their location so that I could run over and help them with my main character. These weren't consistent problems but occurred enough to cause annoyance.

The menu system is also a great deal more user friendly. Opening up to a radial menu allowing you to go direct to the screen you need making the game a lot easier to handle and a great deal less cluttered. Compared to DA:O where you would always have to end up spending time switching between countless pages to get to where you needed it makes a pleasant change


Similarly the attributes and abilities pages are easier to use. The attribute page is broken down in such a way so you can see the direct effect each attribute has upon certain traits of your character which for less hardcore gamers will be a godsend. Abilities are also easier to see with the new flow graph layout and allowing you easily see which are going to be of the greatest use. The Tactics section, which allows your characters to follow a set routine when not being controlled, seems a lot smarter and updates itself as you gain new abilities. On a personal note though it still amazes me you have to manually put in a tactic to use potions when your low on health/stamina/mana!

The game itself also strikes me as a lot friendlier than DA:O. I remember having to turn the difficulty down to Casual to really make any progress on its predecessor, while in DA2 playing on normal although a challenge at times was a lot easier to handle. Many have put this down to dumbing down of the game, though I'm inclined to believe that an improved character AI and tactic system may well be the reason behind this, as characters support your character a great deal better than before.

This leads to the factor which is dividing DA fans. The set-up for the game is very different. DA:O had you travelling across Ferelden visiting very different areas of the world solving all manner of problems. DA2 however is all set around and in Kirkwall. As you can guess this limits the amount of locations available. Bioware don't help this by using the same layout for all the side dungeons so by the time your halfway through the game you'll know the layout of all the dungeons within seconds of stepping in.


However, I didn't personally find this too much of a problem as it seems that Bioware have concentrated on fleshing out all the characters instead. The main character Hawke has been given a voice this time round. The dialogue options have been changed as well to a similar system to Mass Effect with a pleasant twist. Next to all dialogue options a symbol will appear suggesting which type of answer you will give, pleasant, hostile, sarcastic etc. Not only does this allow you to really personalise your choices, it affects your character as they will automatically start to act according to your dialogue choices s. Personally I chose sarcastic answers pretty much all the time and by the end of the game Hawke was making snide, sarcastic comments whatever choice I made.

It's not just Hawke who has a great deal of effort spent on them but a lot of the support characters seem quite fleshed out too. I found myself growing quite attached to my regular choices in characters. This led me to actually genuinely care about the characters and what happened to them, even to the extent of making decisions which went against my usual gameplay style just to help those characters out.

The supporting character banter also still occurs while your walking around and I'd recommend everyone take the time to listen to them. Often these are quite funny little conversations which add depth and personality to the characters making them much fleshed out than your average support characters. The humour also follows into the main storyline, whether this was due to me choosing the sarcastic position every time or not, but I often found myself laughing out loud at some of the comments between Hawke and his companions.


For people worrying whether they will need to play DA:O first, you can stop worrying. Although you can upload your save game from Origins, it has little impact on the game itself except for a few side quest involving characters from Origins. In fact due to the more accessible aspects of the game this may be a great starting place for many newcomers before heading into the more tactical Origins.

However it's not all good. The first thing you notice is that the customisation of secondary characters is very limited. The character comes with a set armour which can be upgraded only through the story or through add-ons bought from vendors. This leaves you with being able to choose which accessories they can carry and in most cases which weapon but that's all. Although this removes a lot of headaches when setting up characters it will annoy fans of the in depth customisation.

Another problem is that the side quests are not the most inventive. Halfway through the game I got tired of the same go here and kill or speak to so and so. However as tiresome as they are they do tend to expand the city and its people. This creates a feeling of a living breathing city full of people living their lives separate from the main story line especially as the way you finish quests will affect future options and quests available to you.


Another issue is the story. For an RPG you expect a n in depth story with twists and turns, but the story here seems a little drawn out and predictable. It is still well written and will keep you interested throughout though you'll probably see how its all going to end pretty early on in the second part of the game. Whether this is due to Bioware attempting to flesh out the world introduced in Origins, while setting up a story arc which will continue in future games, it sometimes feels more like an expansion rather than a full game.

Achievement wise, the game is pretty straightforward. You'll gain at least 500 GS through just playing through the game. However some achievements will require multiple playthroughs, especially if you haven't don't import your Origins save. Most of the other achievements will just require you to explore every nook and cranny in each of the acts. Alas several achievements can easily be missed if you don't know which choices to make, which is a little unfair, so to gain them you'll probably have to refer to a guide. So not a taxing list but to get all 1000 GS your going to need to play every single last sidequest and more than likely have to complete two full runthroughs, and at around 40+ hours a playthrough this could take some time.

Overall, however Dragon Age is a great game. Although there are some repetitive side quests and the lack of variety in areas will annoy fans of the first game, the overall experience is just as good as Origins. In fact the depth of the support characters and the more fleshed out main character actually led me to enjoy the game more than the first. Although it may well end up being a game which just bridges the first and future games in the series, this is a great starting point for newcomers to the world of Dragon Age due it being a great deal more accessible than its predecessor.

Score: 9/10

Nice review
I preferred Origins while I had this game. Then my son accidently knocked my 360 while I was playing DA2 and it irreparably laser burned the disk . Now I can't play it, it's taken on almost god like status in my mind and I am filled with seething envy every time I see someone on my friends list playing it.

Ouch, I have great sympathy for you. Its definitely worth playing if no more than to see the events leading up to DA3, but after that it may be worth waiting for a drop in price to replace it. At least if you got the signature edition you'll still be able to get all your goodies

Nice review Tenlo

Although this is a very good game it's no where close to the quality of Origins. Unlike you I found myself really not caring about the characters in this one, except Isabela in my second run through. I would quite happily swap the improved graphics for the involving stories and characters of Origins.

On a positive it is a quite straight forward game to max for gamerscore and it has really set the tone for a hopefully awesome number 3 which I am hoping will have a good mix of characters from both games so far

Great work mate.

I really must play the first one!

the interludes don't help the predictability of the story.With Varric seeming to signpost major plot points. It is as you say a very good installment to the series

On a separate note the achievement are now fixed for The Exiled Prince DLC. You need to delete then redownload the content for the achievements to be unlockable. I left myself a game save just before each achievement is due so I have an easy job to go back and unlock