The Return Of The Dragons

So I finally got Dragon Age the second and let me start off by saying I really enjoyed this game.

Now that that is out of the way...

DA2 is in no way able to live up to DA1. It should have been a stand alone game and not a sequel, if it had held any other title it would have had no problems and most likely have received much better reviews.

The story, and the way it is told is brilliant (As of writing this I am about halfway through and loving the story and side missions.) and very unique. I quite enjoy the way there are sometimes silly interludes where the storyteller embellishes the actual tale. All of the characters, even ones you can't recruit seem to have well developed backgrounds. Even if it is just an impression of depth, it shows that the creators put a lot of thought into each character as they created them.

The combat seems very reactive, flows very nicely and looks fantastic. That is one thing that has definitely improved since the first game. It used to look very jerky and disjointed, but now the characters do leaps and spins as would be the case were it reality. Mages don't just stand around poking a stick in the vague direction of the enemies but now look like they are actually participating.

The talent trees have changed dramatically, you still get the standard, two-hand, shield, etc talents but now the trees have been broken down quite a lot more and it is harder to specialise in one type of combat. Another thing is that the talents are less interesting, there seem to be less abilities to use actively in combat and more stances or modes.
However there is a very nice addition, in most games you try to make all the characters love you instead of disagreeing with you, but in this instance you get a special ability if they love you or if they hate you. This means you can play the game the way you wish and whatever way it impacts upon the characters you will benefit somehow.

One thing that bothered me about the NPCs though was the distinct lack of customisability. Their talents are pretty much pre-determined as well as their equipment and of course their appearances. Appearance makes sense as they are a defined character, I can also understand the custom equipment as it makes sense for characters to already have their own weapons and armour. However if a game gives you the option to level up a characters abilities it should allow you complete control or have a specific tree that can't be customised.

My one major qualm about the entire game is the voice acting. The main characters all have great voice acting but the background characters have some dreadful acting and accents. For instance the Elves are (all of a sudden) Scottish and Irish, but the voice actors are not Scottish or Irish so a lot of the voices sound really fake.

Aside from this I am really enjoying this game and would advise playing it, but try not to compare it to the original game. You will really enjoy the story and there are some really neat features worth playing for.