I think Dragon Age 2 gets a bad rap. It's not Dragon Age: Origins. We can all agree on that, ok? It's just not. But what it is, is a tight little adventure. I think I would've been mad if I paid full price for this game when it came out. Back in like, 2011 or whenever, we had this expectation that a sequel should be bigger, grander. There should be more Things!
Dragon Age II does not have a lot of Things. It even has less Things than Origins, I bet. But that's ok, because Dragon Age II knows that it's about the motion in the ocean, not the size of the vessel. Yes, most of the dungeons are blatantly reused over and over. Whatever. I mean, I don't really care about that. It doesn't scratch the exploration itch, but Dragon Age II isn't a game about exploration.
Dragon Age II puts you in a city, and you go around exploring it kind of. You fast travel to certain hub spots, and there are places that branch off from those hubs. It's not very big. BUT. The city changes (kind of). At the end of each chapter, you advance in the timeline some amount of years. This moves the narrative of the city along, but doesn't bring about any physical changes to the city (that I noticed). I think that would've been cool - you have a time skip, and now something is physically different.
The combat is fun. It's faster than Origins was if I'm remembering correctly. It's also loot based. The numbers go up. You can still pause if you need to, which is something I'm sure you have to do on higher difficulties. I didn't play on a high difficulty because I didn't want to have to think about the combat.
So the other thing about the time skip stuff, is it gives all your companions believable character arcs. There was one in particular that I really loved. I'm not going to spoil it, but like, man, what a bastard. Of course that is what that character would do.
And you actually have the opportunity to interact with your companions in ways that change the overarching narrative of the game. I'm don't know how much actual depth there is here, but the game gives the impression that each playthrough can be very different narratively.
Overall, Dragon Age II is like a really good AA game. It has a vision that it realizes. It's really tight. And I think it was something that was hugely disappointing to people when it first came out. It's really interesting to see Inquisition as a reaction to Dragon Age II. "The players want more Content?" says the dev. "Well, time to buckle up, motherfuckers. If you want Content, we'll give it to you."
You should play this game.
Dragon Age II does not have a lot of Things. It even has less Things than Origins, I bet. But that's ok, because Dragon Age II knows that it's about the motion in the ocean, not the size of the vessel. Yes, most of the dungeons are blatantly reused over and over. Whatever. I mean, I don't really care about that. It doesn't scratch the exploration itch, but Dragon Age II isn't a game about exploration.
Dragon Age II puts you in a city, and you go around exploring it kind of. You fast travel to certain hub spots, and there are places that branch off from those hubs. It's not very big. BUT. The city changes (kind of). At the end of each chapter, you advance in the timeline some amount of years. This moves the narrative of the city along, but doesn't bring about any physical changes to the city (that I noticed). I think that would've been cool - you have a time skip, and now something is physically different.
The combat is fun. It's faster than Origins was if I'm remembering correctly. It's also loot based. The numbers go up. You can still pause if you need to, which is something I'm sure you have to do on higher difficulties. I didn't play on a high difficulty because I didn't want to have to think about the combat.
So the other thing about the time skip stuff, is it gives all your companions believable character arcs. There was one in particular that I really loved. I'm not going to spoil it, but like, man, what a bastard. Of course that is what that character would do.
And you actually have the opportunity to interact with your companions in ways that change the overarching narrative of the game. I'm don't know how much actual depth there is here, but the game gives the impression that each playthrough can be very different narratively.
Overall, Dragon Age II is like a really good AA game. It has a vision that it realizes. It's really tight. And I think it was something that was hugely disappointing to people when it first came out. It's really interesting to see Inquisition as a reaction to Dragon Age II. "The players want more Content?" says the dev. "Well, time to buckle up, motherfuckers. If you want Content, we'll give it to you."
You should play this game.