Dragon age 2

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Personally, I love the game. I don't think it's better or worse than Origins, and both games will always be in my top 5 best games list. I realize it has a whole lot of shortcomings (and that it's reaaally short), but it's a blast and I kind of like not saving the entire world for a change. It's not as epic as origins, but I liked that too. There are so many haters, and I guess understandably so, but I still think it's a very fun and engrossing game. Even when Bioware puts out a "bad" (based on feedback) game, it's still really, really good.

Actually, I'd say it's more epic than Origins, if only from the armour and weapon designs. 2 feels much more polished, but the good things about Origins and the good things about 2 balance a review. I've been playing them the last week though rental and I liked both of them, putting Bioware as my favourite company alongside Valve (I've played a little of Mass Effect, so it's not just Dragon Age this view is based on). I just found it really annoying that in DA2 that whenever I got a really good piece of mage armour/weapon/ring/shoes, they always had something to increase the power of Blood Magic. I was playing Primal/Force so this was really annoying. It's like the game is telling you how to play. The specializations are more limited, too.

Yeah, I had an issue with the fact that mages couldn't wield swords and warriors couldn't fight barehanded or with just a sword, plus less specializations. Combat is more fun though, since it's faster. I miss being able to pull back and get a good view of the area like a general in origins though.

I built my mage to be a tank--high strength, constitution, cunning and magic, everything is a passive or sustained ability and I've equipped him with plate armor. Seriously, I can just click on the boss and read a book or control the other party members (Varric is so fun to use! He just wacks people with Bianca XD) because he's almost untouchable.

I love the new style too~ wandering around is so much nicer. In origins I was just getting from one place to another, while kirkwall reminds me a bit of oblivion because I get to run down the stairs or look up as I pass under arches. Small pleasures

Yeah, Hawke was a blood mage in the trailer. You could make him the biggest hypocrite in Thedas--become a blood mage, kill a lot of bloodmages, romance a mage hater, and side with the templars. Woah. I gave the blood mage stuff to merrill, who I really don't like that much

I do miss the feeling from origins though--you're the freaking warden and the decisions really do matter in the story. The ending was amazing. Still, the sidequest are more interesting and personal in da2 and the political intrigue was gripping too. The main choice at the 3rd act though...boy, do they both suck. I wouldn't side with any of them! XD

Haven't played mass effect, but I want to~

Agreed. Varric is amazing. Sometimes, though, party choices aren't about what works, it's about banter! On my rogue, I was gonna use Fenris/Isabela/Varric, but initially I dropped Varric for Bethany as the banter between her and Isabela was too good to miss. Varric has good banter with others too, expecially with Fenris, Anders and Isabela.

I must say, though, Varric is possibly the most well made character in both Dragon Age games. Not only does he have a very laid back style, he treasures his crossbow to the point that it could be considered a love interest, embodying a lost companion. This stretches further in banter with Isabela where we find that Bianca might even be bicurious! Seriously, a bicurious crossbow... Only a dwarf could own one.

Carrying on from the last statement, I am reminded of a moment in Origins where you need a romance with a 'hardened' Leliana and the dwarf in your party. It's to do with Isabela (again) as you can 'get to know her better' so she teaches you a duelist specialization. If you're female, you can actually form an offscreen threesome with Isabela and Leliana that actually causes the dwarf to faint. This was further enhanced on a later playthough where he found out that his wife, Branka, had a female love interest, and he said he would have made allowances. ^^ Oh, those perverted dwarves.

Lol, oghren. I didn't like him at first, but then I began to see that there was more to him than the humor. There's more to every character, in fact. Do you have any fav charas or anyone you romance~? I really liked alistair, sten, and wynne from origins, and anders, aveline, sebastian, and varric from da2. For some reason, I always choose the elves, ending up with zevran and fenris XD

i love this game because origins runs pretty bad on my machine, and da2 runs good. but other then that i love the story a bit more, it's dark, disturbing, and freaky.

origins didn't feel as dark to me as da2 did. the interface is more streamlined and less distracting.

origins had more interesting characters and has way more mods, also the character models look way better. in da2 some of them don't look so hot [alistair i'm looking at you] i got several morphs to make the characters look better, the only one who turned out better by default was cullen in my opinion.

banters in both games were funny as heck, espeashily if you drag around anders, fenris, and sebastion in da2, or alistair, zevran, oghren.

varric is awesome hands down, be nice if bianca was upgradeable with more rune slots or stat boosts though.

combat in da2 is more thrilling, but it lacks the overhead camara from origins.

both are good, they have their flaws but i enjoy both of them.

In terms of overall gameplay, I enjoyed DA:2 more. I really felt like decisions I made will have a profound impact (and I assuming that save files will transfer as they did in this one) on the story in DA:3. DA:O was pretty linear as far as the story goes. Sure, you could defiles the ashes and piss a few people off and some people leave, but overall, I really got the feeling of everything being on the line toward the end of DA:2 and I felt I had to choose wisely.

Now if you want to talk about scenery, I think DA:O wins hands down. There were so many reused interior models in DA:2, it was at times painful. They should have put a little more thought into developing some more areas. I understand dark, creepy underground passages and caves may all look somewhat similar, but c'mon...down to the layout? I felt cheated in a way...and don't get me started on not being able to customize my party character's outfits. Upgrading them in DA:2 was nice, but if I want Fenris wearing something other than his default outfit, I should be able to put it on him. That was my only legitimate complaint.

if you have da2 on pc you can get a mod to change their clothes, i personally would rather not be arsed to keep an eye on everyone's crap, but i do have the mod in my game and i now have a game with anders wearing champion armor, that is moded to look like templar armor. so he is a mage tank, and he hits like a truck and takes a damn while to kill.

i betrayed him in the fade to challenge him to a duel i was a warrior tank, and at some point i gave up trying to kill him on hard and dropped the difficulty just to bring him down. i was impressed to say the least. i could get a screenshot of him if you want.

I know you can download the mod to change their outfits. My point simply was that we shouldn't have to, though you piqued my interest to see Anders tanking. What a sight to behold I'm sure.

yeah like the ironsights in fallout 3 should have been standard with the game, but we don't make these games so at least some else is looking for ways to fix things that we don't like or should have been in there from the start.

i got some screenshots of my mage\templar anders, but in order to show how he fights i'll have to take a video, he did whip my warrior last night when i went back into night terrors for the heck of it, i was shocked at how much damage he was doing on me, i kept thinking [this is bull i'm a tank for god sake.]

man photobucket is picky.


here's a shot of him without his helmet, i modded his apperance as well, didn't like how he looked.


here is him with his helmet.


here he is getting pissed at me for dealing with demons.


and again.

i finally got the videos of anders tanking the first is mostly for humor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sKdiBMH2xQ

this one shows him actually tanking taking on a slew of enemies by himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USpnPWFtvx0

I watched the videos and that is just awesome. He took such a beating.

yeah but he nearly killed my warrior, but i never thought anders a mage could get that tough, even in the first game arcane warriors weren't that tough i was shocked to say the least.

he may have took a beating but he didn't die, also putting a sword on him does something with the animations and gives him instant cooldowns, so he spams spells alot. i think it's something about the staff animations don't work with a different weapon or something, so the animations glitch up. i'm not really sure how it works but it makes him a powerhouse, i'm going to try the same thing on my own mage hawke character someday