This review contains spoilers
I truly understand where this game went wrong and where this game went right unlike most games. I will stand by it to the very end.
To make this not a million pages of text, I shall keep this to a cohesive pros and con's list. Along with a few other side notes.
In my mind, this game does what a sequel should do, while also doing quite the contradictory. It shrunk the world. Origins went for such a large-scale conflict, to turn it to one city is a pretty gutsy move. In my mind what people enjoyed about Origins is how much decision's mattered in a much grander scale, and this game does definitely lose some of that decision making, because for the most part, it is your party approval that is effected and not anything else.
But at the same time, I feel like along with the terrible 9 month development cycle, focusing on the cast and Hawke's rise to riches was actually an incredible idea. What we ended up with was a little rushed, fantastic character driven story about a small town, and everything that went wrong with leading it.
Pros:
- The combat is fantastic. It absolutely swamps DAO out of the water. I enjoy playing almost every class of this game, due to the speed mainly, and the impact. There are not many fights that feel like they drag on for super long, it still has that lovely tactics menu, and the micromanagment I enjoyed.
- Replay value is always good in this series. The Bethany/Carver along with the Mage/Templar decisions lead themselves nicely into a second run.
- Hawke is a fantastic lead. An absolute laugh riot. Insanely charismatic. Making the main character talk was an incredible idea.
- Asides from Hawke, I do think the cast is a lot more well-rounded than the first game. That may be up to personal preference, but I do enjoy how the characters for the most part, connect to the main conflict to some manner.
- I do enjoy that there is less inventory managment with the armor. Just a nice little quality of life thing to make management a little easier.
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Cons:
- The dungeons, it has to be mentioned that the dungeons are all the god damn same. You will become one with generic cave, and generic wooden shack.
- I don't really enjoy the inventory with backpacks, didn't really enjoy it in the first game as well.
- I do think one flaw with the story is all of the bad mages are blood mages. It's just kind of weird to have all of the bad apples be from the same patch, if that makes any sense.
- There's no Dragon Age Origins villains here. The villains are decent, but they fail to reach the heights of people like Loghain, who are just incredible.
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I understand why this game is decisive, but I can't help but be smitten with it. Flawed, but great in it's own completely independent ways.
To make this not a million pages of text, I shall keep this to a cohesive pros and con's list. Along with a few other side notes.
In my mind, this game does what a sequel should do, while also doing quite the contradictory. It shrunk the world. Origins went for such a large-scale conflict, to turn it to one city is a pretty gutsy move. In my mind what people enjoyed about Origins is how much decision's mattered in a much grander scale, and this game does definitely lose some of that decision making, because for the most part, it is your party approval that is effected and not anything else.
But at the same time, I feel like along with the terrible 9 month development cycle, focusing on the cast and Hawke's rise to riches was actually an incredible idea. What we ended up with was a little rushed, fantastic character driven story about a small town, and everything that went wrong with leading it.
Pros:
- The combat is fantastic. It absolutely swamps DAO out of the water. I enjoy playing almost every class of this game, due to the speed mainly, and the impact. There are not many fights that feel like they drag on for super long, it still has that lovely tactics menu, and the micromanagment I enjoyed.
- Replay value is always good in this series. The Bethany/Carver along with the Mage/Templar decisions lead themselves nicely into a second run.
- Hawke is a fantastic lead. An absolute laugh riot. Insanely charismatic. Making the main character talk was an incredible idea.
- Asides from Hawke, I do think the cast is a lot more well-rounded than the first game. That may be up to personal preference, but I do enjoy how the characters for the most part, connect to the main conflict to some manner.
- I do enjoy that there is less inventory managment with the armor. Just a nice little quality of life thing to make management a little easier.
--------------------------------------------------
Cons:
- The dungeons, it has to be mentioned that the dungeons are all the god damn same. You will become one with generic cave, and generic wooden shack.
- I don't really enjoy the inventory with backpacks, didn't really enjoy it in the first game as well.
- I do think one flaw with the story is all of the bad mages are blood mages. It's just kind of weird to have all of the bad apples be from the same patch, if that makes any sense.
- There's no Dragon Age Origins villains here. The villains are decent, but they fail to reach the heights of people like Loghain, who are just incredible.
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I understand why this game is decisive, but I can't help but be smitten with it. Flawed, but great in it's own completely independent ways.