Bioware remains one of my favourite game developers, but as of recently, they've fallen down a bit. After Mass Effect: Andromeda, the studios have been steering clear from the formula that worked so well in their classic games. While I have problems with them now, many would argue that Dragon Age 2 was essentially the mark of the end of Bioware, withe Mass Effect 2 being their last truly great game. Now I could argue extensively about that against Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age Inquisitions, but Dragon Age 2 is a much more interesting affair.
Dragon Age 2 took nine months to produce. Now, that might seem like a long time, but lets compare it to other Bioware games. Production of Origins took 4 years, more than 5 times the time it took to develop 2. Granted, the first game in a series usually takes the longest because it has to develop the ideas that are present through these series. But look at Mass Effect 2 and 3, which both took over 2 years to complete. Dragon Age 2 was obviously rushed, and it shows. Dragon Age 2 is a game that, size wise is nothing to Origins. Gone are the multiple origins, instead you are always Hawke. The story is much more linear, forcing you into three acts of the game compared to the freedom of Origins. And the overall game is just shorter - on my first playthroughs of both, excluding DLC, Origins took me at 42 hours while 2 put me at 28. Considering that it has less replay value as a result of removing these freedoms and customisations, 2 is much smaller than Origins.
That being said, 2 is still very good. The combat is much faster paced and more engaging. The storyline offers a lot of interesting world building and ideas that greater explore the world of Dragon Age. As a result of being more linear, the story is more personal to Hawke, meaning it has more importance to the player in some areas. The writing is fantastic, adding a lot more personality to the multiple characters. The companions are probably the best part of the game: Origins was good in this regard, but suffered from a few underdeveloped companions who seemed to be there just to add more classes. All the characters are distinct and interesting, with different motivations to drive them and different feelings on the story.
I think the overall feeling of being smaller world and story actually benefits the game quite a lot. Thematically, in a long series, once you go "ok here's the next world ending bad guy!" the world becomes less real and more just an excuse to justify a game. The darkspawn are barely in the game - the game's central conflict is between the mages and templars, a conflict that while important is never billed as world ending, more just a crucial moment in this world and important to its politics. Which is what the series is about - dragon age is about making difficult choices. Its a world with politics that are never morally obvious. My main concern was that you couldn't make a lot of choices going into this game. That's not true at all - there are quite a lot of interesting dilemmas and choices to make that are never obviously true or false, that do have ramifications for the world. To me, it is only disappointing at customising who your character is compared to the first game, because there are a lot of choices here. I was initially wary of putting the Mass Effect dialogue wheel here, but ultimately they change it up to make it work and not feel locked into being good or bad.
So ultimately, I don't care about it's short length, and I love the world and ideas of this game. So why don't I love it? Well firstly, the story ultimately isn't that good. I think overall it works less as a sum of its parts. Sections of this game are really great, but a lot of it doesn't add up to the main story. I don't mind having side quests that don't add up to the story but more to the world, as the side quests in this game are better than the first. Your main quests need to follow through. This problem doesn't become apparent until the end of the first act. The whole idea of the first act is that everything you are doing is to fund an expedition to the Deep Roads. Now, you would be anticipating that leads to something that leads off into the rest of the story, right? No, instead this leads to Varric's companion quests and the removal of a companion, which although makes a good quests, demonstrates that the plot really doesn't have a focus. I like the development of the mage templar conflict but it is never made clear that this is the big threat. I don't mind that there isn't a central villain, but there needs to be a central conflict that I can go "that needs to be resolved", even if it gets defeated and leads to the next big issue. Lack of focus is a big thing, and the other huge thing is gameplay. Now yes, it plays better than the other game, but the developers really didn't seem to worry about repition. People like to talk down on this game because the graphics are bad and re use a lot of assets. That's not quite true - personally I like the updated design, but the reuse assets isn't quite true because they don't go that low. You see, in a game this big you would expect reusing assets to create environments. But no, they literally use the same level. They have an asset of these levels, and they use the same one again and again. Sure, theyll change where the enemies are, put the exits differently, but you're always playing the same different location. That's bad enough for a game with side quests, but when you also do this for main quests, that's unforgettable. The game quickly becomes mind numbing because you literally are fighting in the exact same place. Dragon Age Origins would have varying environments for visual variety and different challenges, but in this game you know all of them by five hours in. And for a game called Dragon Age, jeez do you spend so much more time in a city fighting bandits than you do in beautiful lands fighting supernatural foes.
Overall, Dragon Age is a game that lacks clear focus and suffers from repititive gameplay. But if you can forgive this game for this, you will experience some of the most interesting world building that any media has to offer.
Dragon Age 2 took nine months to produce. Now, that might seem like a long time, but lets compare it to other Bioware games. Production of Origins took 4 years, more than 5 times the time it took to develop 2. Granted, the first game in a series usually takes the longest because it has to develop the ideas that are present through these series. But look at Mass Effect 2 and 3, which both took over 2 years to complete. Dragon Age 2 was obviously rushed, and it shows. Dragon Age 2 is a game that, size wise is nothing to Origins. Gone are the multiple origins, instead you are always Hawke. The story is much more linear, forcing you into three acts of the game compared to the freedom of Origins. And the overall game is just shorter - on my first playthroughs of both, excluding DLC, Origins took me at 42 hours while 2 put me at 28. Considering that it has less replay value as a result of removing these freedoms and customisations, 2 is much smaller than Origins.
That being said, 2 is still very good. The combat is much faster paced and more engaging. The storyline offers a lot of interesting world building and ideas that greater explore the world of Dragon Age. As a result of being more linear, the story is more personal to Hawke, meaning it has more importance to the player in some areas. The writing is fantastic, adding a lot more personality to the multiple characters. The companions are probably the best part of the game: Origins was good in this regard, but suffered from a few underdeveloped companions who seemed to be there just to add more classes. All the characters are distinct and interesting, with different motivations to drive them and different feelings on the story.
I think the overall feeling of being smaller world and story actually benefits the game quite a lot. Thematically, in a long series, once you go "ok here's the next world ending bad guy!" the world becomes less real and more just an excuse to justify a game. The darkspawn are barely in the game - the game's central conflict is between the mages and templars, a conflict that while important is never billed as world ending, more just a crucial moment in this world and important to its politics. Which is what the series is about - dragon age is about making difficult choices. Its a world with politics that are never morally obvious. My main concern was that you couldn't make a lot of choices going into this game. That's not true at all - there are quite a lot of interesting dilemmas and choices to make that are never obviously true or false, that do have ramifications for the world. To me, it is only disappointing at customising who your character is compared to the first game, because there are a lot of choices here. I was initially wary of putting the Mass Effect dialogue wheel here, but ultimately they change it up to make it work and not feel locked into being good or bad.
So ultimately, I don't care about it's short length, and I love the world and ideas of this game. So why don't I love it? Well firstly, the story ultimately isn't that good. I think overall it works less as a sum of its parts. Sections of this game are really great, but a lot of it doesn't add up to the main story. I don't mind having side quests that don't add up to the story but more to the world, as the side quests in this game are better than the first. Your main quests need to follow through. This problem doesn't become apparent until the end of the first act. The whole idea of the first act is that everything you are doing is to fund an expedition to the Deep Roads. Now, you would be anticipating that leads to something that leads off into the rest of the story, right? No, instead this leads to Varric's companion quests and the removal of a companion, which although makes a good quests, demonstrates that the plot really doesn't have a focus. I like the development of the mage templar conflict but it is never made clear that this is the big threat. I don't mind that there isn't a central villain, but there needs to be a central conflict that I can go "that needs to be resolved", even if it gets defeated and leads to the next big issue. Lack of focus is a big thing, and the other huge thing is gameplay. Now yes, it plays better than the other game, but the developers really didn't seem to worry about repition. People like to talk down on this game because the graphics are bad and re use a lot of assets. That's not quite true - personally I like the updated design, but the reuse assets isn't quite true because they don't go that low. You see, in a game this big you would expect reusing assets to create environments. But no, they literally use the same level. They have an asset of these levels, and they use the same one again and again. Sure, theyll change where the enemies are, put the exits differently, but you're always playing the same different location. That's bad enough for a game with side quests, but when you also do this for main quests, that's unforgettable. The game quickly becomes mind numbing because you literally are fighting in the exact same place. Dragon Age Origins would have varying environments for visual variety and different challenges, but in this game you know all of them by five hours in. And for a game called Dragon Age, jeez do you spend so much more time in a city fighting bandits than you do in beautiful lands fighting supernatural foes.
Overall, Dragon Age is a game that lacks clear focus and suffers from repititive gameplay. But if you can forgive this game for this, you will experience some of the most interesting world building that any media has to offer.