Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Almost, but not quite"

Bioware is becoming well known for their RPG games with moral ambiguity, vast choices, and great continuity. Dragon Age 2 fits right at home with their games that have came before. However, is it the joy that the first one was? Sadly, no.

Gameplay of Dragon Age 2 follows mostly the same premise as the first. You still have a team of four that you can individually comman with six power slots to equip with various abilities depending on your class. This time however, attacking the enemy doesn't automatically continue. You're forced to continually push the button to attack turning it into a button mashing nightmare at times.

Still, the game is fun. You still have tons of choices on each quest and you can affect your allies depending on what choice you make. You even have more freedom this time around with options to outright deny quests if you choose. Unfortunately though, you're more restricted on certain things like choice of race, background, and armor for allies this time.

One change that is nice is that instead of learning specializations from allies, you have several to choose from the start and two more than are learned at level 7 and 14. This makes the early progression of the game a much more varied affair. You also have some basic crafting, but it has to be done at shops only.

Visually, characters have made a major step up. Facial animations look much more natural and less stiff than Origins. The world of Kirkwall is also much sharper and detailed than Ferelden. However, the constant reuse of locations is lazy programming to say the least. There couldn't be more than a dozen actual maps and you're going to be doing a lot of back and forth between them.

The sound design is about the same as last game. That's not to say that's bad or anything. Origins had a wonderfully voiced cast and this game is the same. Music I thought was a bit more subdued this time around than last game. This time your character, Hawke, talks his choices much like Mass Effect.

Value is pretty solid. The main quest took me about 25 hours to complete and that was with one class. You'll have the option to try a different class and make different choices to experience the game in another way. There's also DLC that can add to the game's story and background. However, there is no game of the year addition so you'll have to purchase them all separately. Still, they can be purchased individually and at relatively low cost.

Still, for all of things that Dragon Age 2 does right, it does some more silly things. First off, the narrative is hit or miss. Truthfully, this game feels like more of a lead in to the next game, Inquisition, than it does its own game. While the political intrigue is entertaining, it doesn't have the epic feel of Origins fight against the Blight.

Secondly, while you still have all the wonderful banter between party members, you can only truly interact with party members at their homes instead of whenever like Origins. One thing I did like though is having the option to gauge a party member's opinion during certain tense dialog moments. Romancing is also a bit more difficult since there are very few gifts to give and getting approval is pretty much down to narrative choices.

There's some pretty decent continuity here. Several Origins and Awakening characters make cameos with Anders from Awakening being a party member. Still, one doesn't need to play the previous game plus expansion to understand the series, but it does provide a more enriching experience and slightly affects certain quests and story elements.

Overall, Dragon Age 2 isn't the revelation that Origins was, but comes much closer to Awakening. It enriches the overall theme of Thedas and sets up things for the next game, but doesn't bring much in itself to the table. Still, it's cheap and kills a lot of time.

The Good: Excellent use of decisions to affect the outcome of the game, improved graphics from Origins, stellar voice acting, good sense of value.

The Bad: Story feels flat, too many reused backdropd, several good things removed from Origins, lots of button mashing.