Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX, Xbox 360, PS3
ESRB rating: M
Developers: BioWare
Publishers: Electronic Arts
Released: NA: March 8, 201, EU March 11, 2011
Genre: Role-playing
Number of Players: 1
MSRP: $59.99 (for all platforms)
Official website or Wiki page: http://dragonage.bioware.com/
What it's like?: Mass Effect 2 meets Dragon Age: Awakening (Not so much Origins).
Bias factor:
I've played a few Bioware games and I can say I like what they have to bring us, one of which was Dragon Age: Origins/Awakening (Which I may review together at another time). Lets just say for now I had fun with DA:O, specially with the story, but saw its numerous flaws for what they were, for better or worse. I don't really feel bias was really an issue in my assessment of Dragon Age II however, seeing as Bioware greatly changed the style of the series in this outing.
Gameplay:
I found gameplay to be quite the mix between Mass Effect 2 and the first Dragon Age outing. While you still had tactical set ups for your party, you had more actual control over your personal attacks as they stripped out the auto attacking DA:O had and put in a more button-mashy action attack system in. That said, I liked the way the combat felt in this game, because It felt more fluid and less frustrating then both Mass Effect 2 and DA:O.
Since there's no need for a cover mechanic, like in Mass Effect 2, there was much less waiting for the right moment and a lot more action to be had. And because there was no auto-attack system, like in DA:O there was no silly "I need to set up in the proper place to even start attacking, like that game had. Because of that there was also no "I'm going to get knocked out of Auto-combat because an NPC pushed me out of position", like I faced all too often with my Rogue in Origins. To top it all off the controls felt tight and responsive.
Issuing orders in this game is also much better then the last, and even Mass Effect 2. The radial menu given to us really felt like it had everything it needed right at your finger tips, including the much wished for "all move to this point" function, which was a life saver is a few AoE situations. They also moved the "Hold" function to this menu, rather then making you put it on your skills load-out if you wanted to use it quickly, that was a huge plus for me.
I did however run into one bug late in the game that was sort of silly. While trying to jump into one particular fight soon after a cutscene I went into the radial menu to begin to issue orders and the menu didn't pause the action like it should have, instead when I tried to shut the panel down to reopen it the action paused when the panel closed. It only happened once and a simple reload fixed it but it felt comical enough to add to here.
I spoke a moment ago about the parties tactical load outs and I have to say that BioWare didn't really change much with that from DA:O to DA2. The options are mostly all the same, with maybe a few, unnoticeable tweeks. However, I found the AI after setting up the groups tactics to be much better then the one in DA:O, with the party being much more responsive to the preset orders I gave them. There was really only one instance where it pissed me off, however this is more likely my fault then the games and a huge improvement from the multiple times it did so in Origins, and that was when using a certain characters sustained damage boosting mode. Said character can't be healed when in this mode, so obviously I set the sustained mode to be deactivated when they fell below a certain health threshold, and to be reactivated when they rose above it.. Well, this is where I might have goofed, possibly mixing up the greater and less then symbols (I'm shitty at math, okay?), because he would far horribly low on health and never drop the mode in order to get a proper heal, and would often put himself at great risk when doing so.
Another huge change made was the games map, which was dramatically toned down for this game and really only includes the city and a paltry 3 areas surrounding it. This wasn't a huge issue for me when you consider something: Origins and Awakening sort of did this too. More so, Awakening, using Vigils Keep as a hub, but Origins sort of did this to an extent making Denerim a primary focus of the story. I found myself spending more time in Denerim in that game then any where else, and when the shift was made to Vigils Keep in Awakening I quickly harked "oh, the new Denerim".
Aside from that though, by the end of the game, I did sort of wish I had more places to go to, because reusing the same handful of maps, only to mix up the location of a few chests/barrels/bodies that didn't really hold all that much loot got a little tedious. For me this happened in the games final act, where I didn't want to explore everything once again just to make sure I got everything I could find.
The games conversation system was toned down a ton from Origins and made tighter, like Mass Effect 2's. I liked this, as I liked Mass Effect 2's system, mostly because it didn't feel like I was making any wrong choices in getting the most from my conversations. The only thing about it that I felt wonky was how some of the things i choose didn't have the same sort of outcome I imagined it having, sometimes having NPC's say things completely contrary to what I had said to them -like freaking out more when i tried to calm them, or something similar. Sure, I think it could be argued that those times it could have been justified by the situation or whatever, but it lead to some head scratching and making me wish I wasn't trying so hard to stick to one set path. So I think maybe this game had a much better sense in making you react to things in varying ways then just sticking exclusively to a calm and harsh path. The only thing that bothers me about it most is that some of the party members you get, while having some clearly defined personalities, also seems to waffle a bit towards the beginning of the game on certain issues, which made keeping them around and choosing right from wrong a bit of a chore for myself, someone who was looking to gain favor instead of rivalry, and found myself gaining praise only to get it quickly taken away with my next choice.
That doesn't, however, mean that all the choices are watered down. I actually found at the end that I wish I had made choices as far back as the first chapter differently, in order to get even the smallest outcome changed. Which to me just seems like a testament to some subtle, great, writing by the BioWare crew.
Oh, and those symbols they used for speech choices.. I liked the concept, but the symbols really needed to be explained better.. I had some issues trying to figure out what a Diamond (which I think means charming) was doing in place of the snarky comment, sometimes.
As for equipment, I'm a little torn on this one. I like that they greatly toned down the games equipment so that you only really have to make hard choices for the main character, thus keeping the action coming, but I didn't really like staring at the same models of some of the NPC's through 75% of the game, until they decided to change cloths because I happened to do a companion quest (or in some cases became romantic with them). I also didn't like the amount of trash weapons and accessories there were. I mean at the end of the game when I was all decked out with what I assumed to be the best armor in the game for my main character I had little more then a two star ranked ring, a 3 star ranked staff (albeit i think it was a legendary staff. The color coding, like the speech symbols, also needed a better explanation) and a few other crap accessories on me that had no real better upgrade that I could find, and it made me feel far less then a champion.
One last thing to mention. This game had an enormous amount of tie-in promotions involved that allowed you to get some pretty great starter items in the beginning of the game. I have to applaude EA and BioWare for seamlessly adding these things into the game without taking away from the game or its story. I went and hunted down nearly every extra item I could get and not once was there a hiccup with attaching those items to my EA account or retrieving them in game and never once did it take me out of the experience.
Graphics:
This is something a lot of people seem to be angry about, but I have to say I liked the direction taken with the graphics of this game. Sure, its not perfect, but I think even the blandest areas are initially beautiful the first few times you go to them, I think its the fact that they become over saturated because you keep going back to them over and over again that ruins it.
The cutscenes, and even the dialog in the game are highly detailed and made me wish for a fully animated Dragon Age movie. They were integrated into the game perfectly and aside from the few animation hiccups you'll find from a game trying to piece together long streams of interactive dialog, flowed together well.
The characters themselves were fully realized and their models, for the most part, were really amazing and made you feel like even the dwarfiest dwarf was real (well, except for facial hair, somehow they still haven't gotten it to where it doesn't appear to be glued on a characters face). A huge step up from Origins where everyone felt sort of flat.
Speaking of flat. I'd like to say I didn't feel the game was a dreary as I've seen a lot of people mention along with the directions change. I think Origins was just as dreary, it was just harder to notice when you weren't in the same areas all the time. This game suffered very much from cabin fever, I'm afraid.
I definitely have to say that, despite there being a lot of them because of the amount of area changes you'll do sometimes, the loading screens were really amazing and in some cases fun to watch. I really liked the art direction taken with those.
Sound:
Sound to me felt as next to flawless for a game with as much dialog as this, and especially for a game that has a main character who's a big talker. Sure, there's some hiccups, mostly with how the dialog meshes together between player choices, as in: You pick a clam/good choice and the main character sounds like he's going to hug you for days, then you pick an angry/bad choice right after and he snaps into this mean, "I'll eat your heart" voice. This is more so something with the limitations the industry still faces and I believe BioWare did as good a job they could with that looming over their head.
The voice acting was pretty amazing and really drew you into the characters. A big kudos go out to the voice actors for really making me want to be friends with these people, as well as making me understand their plight. Verric was fun to talk to no matter what he was saying, and Isabella, even at her raunchiest, was pretty sexy. I even found the much bashed Merrill to be a great character, specially once I hardened her and she stop babbling all the time. The only character I actually took issue with was Anders, but that was more from a scripting standpoint, because he really did whine far too much for his own good (he made me switch my mage to healer just so I could stop taking him with me). The interaction between the characters, even when the main character wasn't involved, was great; You really got the feeling that Aveline and Isabella were at each others throats most of the time.
The background noise in the game felt toned down from that of Origins and I'm pretty thankful of that. Don't get me wrong the background sounds of Origins were great, and added tons to the immersion of the game, but it got old by a certain point to hear the same guy coughing, or the same dog barking, in the background for the thousandth time.
The music in the game is pounding and really brings you into the experience that your fighting your way to the top. I didn't feel the music was as beautiful as it was in Origins, but the fact remains that this game isn't Origins, its a different beast and that beast is MUCH more volatile, and the music of this game conveyed it well. Some "common thread" tunes were used to, or as I felt, tie the games together and its nice to see them, but I didn't really feel they were there often enough to either add or take away from the game (mostly just main menu, pre-game, stuff).
As with Origins there was a real world song played at the credits at the end and.. I have to say it was as curious as their pick of 30 Seconds to Mars' "This is war", in Florance and the Machine's "I'm Not Calling You a Liar" . I mean, at least 30StM had the whole "war" thing going for it, albeit making war feel a bit lighthearted in the way it was sung out. But "I'm Not Calling You a Liar", which is a remixed version meant to be Verric's theme (which by name alone does make it feel sort of fitting) only sort of detracts from the idea that the game was very much a fight to survive in a harsh new land. Sure, it could be argued that this beautiful song has its place simply because we don't know if Verric is lying or not, however when you take in the over all feel of the game you just played, it doesn't feel like its in the right place being at the end of the game -unless of course Verric really did fall in love the main character, I suppose. I'm not saying that BioWare should have sought out a heavy metal act, like Slayer, to get a song of theirs on the games soundtrack but something somewhat heavier would have been somewhat better fit to the games tone. But, like I've hinted earlier in this paragraph, "This is war" felt too light for the end of Origins too.
Its a small thing to make such a big deal about, I know, but when your capping off your game, and a players/movie goers/tv watchers experience, your really want to keep them in those feelings you mustered in themselves with your narrative/gameplay just a little longer so it creeps into their veins, not displace them completely from the experience.
Technical Integrity:
Its a BioWare game, the game has bugs, but I'm happy to say that that the bugs -for me- were few and far between. I know there are a few people who have been stricken with game changing/breaking bugs, even after the few patches we've gotten, and I'm sorry for that. But aside from the radial menu bug I mentioned above and one game freeze, I didn't really have any issues that I'd say made the experience any worse for me. This was a huge improvement from the massive collection of bugs I ran into while playing Origins.
Story:
I mentioned earlier the toned down map and areas.. well, the story is where this actually makes a lot more sense, because like Awakening the story is much more centralized on a single plot then it is on making you do a bunch of long side things to further the plot, like you were asked to in Origins.
The story is about a man or woman who needs to run with his family from a problem only to find that when they're safe, they're never actually safe, and more problems will always creep up, while survival is always the primary issue. In a way, the story is the story of every immigrant that's ever been. People will hate you for being in their land, few may welcome you, but you will always be under the watchful eye of someone while you try to make this transition. And how you deal with such a transition is really very much up to you, you can get angry and alienate all your new found allies/friends or you can be calm and try to find a higher ground. But any way your going about it, you always want a little more out of life, and when you reach for it you get thrown into things that aren't always what they appear, and depending on your choices, may or may not have anything to do with you really. In the end, you achieve greatness, and in some small ways, maybe even pangs of a greater inner defeat.
Or at least that's what I got from it in my play-through, which may or may not have been different for other people depending on certain choices. However, I do really feel like the narrative given to us is much tighter and flows much better here, then it ever did in Origins. Even when you go out and quest on your own whim, everything comes together in a nice package at the end of the games sections that moves the story forward at a crisp pace (a pace greatly helped by the quick flowing combat and conversation systems). Through this I found myself enthralled by my journey and growth, as well as by the lives of my friends, being deeply moved by some of the things that occurred around my character, whether it be things that I was directly involved in, things I only stumbled upon, or things that crept up from the past. Even the politics set forth in the game kept me engaged and at the edge of my seat, which was something I started to yawn at well before the Landsmeet in DA:O.
The story also ran fairly seamlessly with my DA:O save, allowing me to see and hear certain small things that made me feel proud of what I did in that game. I felt the level of cross contamination between the two games was at just the right level and I was excited to hear or see the things I did.
2 things however that bothered me a lot by the end, which really can't be spoiled at all given the characters they involve were announced to be in the game long before its release, were as such:
1) Flemeth: The game starts off big by having players run into her (in a new, almost attractive, form) and are asked to do her a favor in exchange for help... Then when you do that favor you see her once more then shes gone from the rest of the game. While I understand greatly how her involvement overall hooks into the greater narrative of the series, I can't help but be annoyed that they built up her return as a huge deal only to have her appearance be, essentially, so unimportant. While I'm positive that the next, and supposedly final, game will clear this up, I would have appreciated to have seen more input from her, if only to guide the hand of the games events in a deeper way then just making sure we got to the port okay.
2 Anders: Yeah.. I just had issues with the character all together. I really liked him a lot in Awakening but here he just.. Made me angry all the time.. And even though I was a Mage I couldn't give two shits about his cause (despite siding with it all the time due to how I wanted to play the character out) because he made it just so utterly unattractive. But what really bugs the crap out of me is his status as a warden and how its sort of a big deal at the beginning only to be shrugged off later.
Make no mistakes about it, this game is hardly about the Wardens at all, but the game does make sure it injects small doses of them in there so you at least know they're still a faction in the games universe. There's actually certain small choices (ones I've mentioned I wish I had made) that lead you to have a little more, and deeper, connection with them. But what about Anders? The few times you meet them, even some reoccurring characters from the prior game(s), all they really do is shrug off Anders presence after saying hello to him.
I might be missing the point that the Warden's are more of a volunteer army, but I could have sworn that it was made pretty clear that once your in, your in, and that Anders had a big problem with that when he joining; remarking about how it was maybe worse then the circle because the taint would ultimately kill him no matter what (which there was zero mention of in this game).
So yeah, I didn't even have an issue with the open ended way the game was finished, like many others did, I think it set up well for another one and we'll hopefully see big things because of how it ended -in which case it did its job by making us want more. I mostly just had issues with a few loose threads.
Price Factor:
While I do love this game, and I'm super happy to have gotten the signature edition, I don't totally know if I would have gotten the game at release price otherwise. I think, knowing what I know now, I'd have paid $40 for it.
Final Verdict:
I played this game right after I finished the entirety of the Dragon Age:Origins Ultimate Collection and I have to say, even though I've just spent literally months in the world BioWare set out for us, I'm itching for more and its very much because of how this game reinvigorated things.
I think the game improves greatly on the series but I can see how the changes were far too heavy for most people to stomach in one sitting -like downing half a bottle of jagermeister and hoping not to throw up. I think if the series weren't touted along as a trilogy, BioWare would have been better off stretching these things out across at least 2 titles but it is what it is and people are kinda up in arms about it.
I think certain little things were unfortunate (the choice of credits song -despite the song being great on its own, the inclusion of Anders as a whiny idiot, ect.), I personally loved it from front to back, especially the combat revamp.
Disclaimer: Played the game on the 360. The game has 4 difficulty settings: Casual, Normal, Hard and Nightmare; The game was played through on Normal. The game was played (I believe) for around 60 hours, as to be sure as much as I could find/be done was done and to try all the classes out. I gained 51 of the 55 achievements during my play-through. This game does not have any online functionality but does ask to be connected to the EA servers for various background things. The game was pre-ordered and purchased personally and was not provided by the developer or the publisher for the review -I assure you they have no clue who I am.
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