Posted on 14 October 2024

Halfway through Dragon Age: Origins, I started thinking about the kind of character I'd like to play in Dragon Age 2. I didn't want to play another warrior, so it was either rogue or mage. I was leaning toward rogue – mostly because I kept running directly into traps – all the way until the late game of Origins. By that time, I'd been impressed enough by Morrigan's high level spells that I settled on playing a mage in Dragon Age 2.

This was without any knowledge of the Mage-Templar conflict that made up most of the game. Needless to say, my roleplay decisions were as affected by playing a mage as they were by playing an elf in Origins. It made for a story that felt very personal.

I don't think I encountered any bugs in my playthrough, unless you count characters getting stuck on the environment and not being able to path their way out of it. Since they end up teleporting to you if you move too far away, it's more of a minor annoyance than anything else. I did experience a few random crashes, but half of them were provoked by a f.lux notification popping up (this has actually crashed a couple of games on my PC, not just Dragon Age 2). I'm not sure what caused the others.

Dragon Age 2 plays largely the same as Origins did. Both games use the same engine and have the same key bindings and controls. Combat is better; it's much faster-paced and easier to follow. Combat animations are greatly improved, especially for mages. A mage will even start hitting an enemy with their staff if the enemy gets into melee range, rather than just using spells. I thought that was a neat touch.

I used tactics maybe twice in both games, so I can't say if there was much of a difference or improvement there. I always found it easier and quicker to micromanage companions rather than create a new tactic.

There aren't as many skills and abilities as there are in Origins, but they feel more manageable here. In that game, it felt like I needed at least one of each class in the party at all times – one mage, one warrior, and one rogue. That felt less important here; there were times where my party was three mages and one rogue, and I didn't feel like I was missing something critical by not having a warrior.

Much to my delight, lockpicking was no longer linked to a skill. It became linked to an attribute (cunning) that you'd be increasing on your rogue characters. Opening locked chests was no longer an issue as long as you had a rogue in the party.

This game has a different companion approval system – rather than approval and disapproval, it's friendship and rivalry. Companions that disagree with you and don't approve of your actions won't leave your party – they'll stay, and their attitude toward you will change. They also get access to different abilities depending on whether you push them toward a friendship or rivalry. I think this contributed towards me liking the companions in 2 more than the ones in Origins.

I thought this was a massive improvement on the regular approval system. It had an actual impact on combat! I hadn't seen that in a game before. Admittedly, I've only been gaming seriously since 2018, so I haven't really had the chance to play that many games. This might not have been a new or novel thing in 2011. I genuinely have no idea. I was impressed by it, though.

Graphically, there are quite a few improvements over Origins. Aside from better textures on just about everything, there's also unique art direction! Elves and Qunari no longer look like humans with pointy ears or gray skin – they actually look like different species. I'm not a fan of non-humans looking exactly like humans except for one or two odd traits, so this was great.

Instead of having a list of dialogue choices, there is now a Mass Effect-style dialogue wheel with three separate options: diplomatic/peaceful (blue), sarcastic/comedic (purple), and violent/aggressive (red). Choosing a majority of one type of dialogue (blue, for instance) will affect Hawke's general personality and comments. Hawke ends up having more of a set personality than the much more blank-slate Warden of Origins, but that's fine with me. I'm not the sort of person who needs a blank slate in order to roleplay a character.

Now on to the negatives. There are a lot of repeating maps – a single cave, for instance, that is used in a lot of missions, with the only changes being that some areas are blocked off – and the game is largely confined to the city of Kirkwall and the surrounding areas. There are fewer "major" decisions you can make, and most of them limited to the endgame.

The third act is much less fleshed out than the other two, with one boss fight (Orsino) not making much sense if you sided with the mages rather than the Templars. The reveal of the final villain (Meredith) is very sudden, and the ending of the game itself is quite abrupt.

Overall, this game felt like it improved on Origins. The scope of the story was much smaller, but much more personal. There are fewer choices, both in character creation and in the game itself, so replay value for the sake of seeing different paths is much lower. It really could have used another year or two in development, but it's a good game even though it was rushed. It introduced mechanics that I thought worked very well, and I was very interested in seeing how those mechanics could evolve in future games.