Dragon Age 2

Overly Dramatic Review in One Sentence

A dragon age story with even fewer dragons, no blight, and the big bad just pops up at the end with no tie to the beginning.

The Actual Review

Game time:

PC: 24 hours (2025)
Xbox: 24 hours (20??)

Gameplay

The fighting in this game has a lot more flourish and movement than in Dragon Age Origins]. It also allows you to really see where they were headed and eventually got to with Dragon Age The Veilguard with their dodge and block system. That aspect of the game was a lot of fun.

As for the RPG elements, there was a lot more going on and available in this game. I think 10x more. You had a lot more attack options and just could feel the growth of the game in that department. Speaking of the RPG elements, your relationship with your companions gave you additional skills they could have to include if they were "True Friends" or "Rivals" you got additional bonuses.

What I am most upset with in the gameplay is the transfer between areas requirement. I have no problem running around an area. I have an issue with being unable to fast travel from one area to another when it was in the previous game. What I am talking about when you open the map, you have to run to one of the arrows to change to a different area. So from Hightown to the docks. Whereas in Origins, you could open the map, go to "World Map" and as long as you were outside, you could fast travel to wherever you needed to go. Having to run from the top of a mountain, transfer into a cave, transfer out of the cave, run down the rest of the mountain, and back to the entrance of the map added so much extra time and didn't need to be there. The other annoying thing with the map was that after each part, the maps would clear like you had never been there. The map had changed sure, but you didn't need to clear the map.

Graphics and Sound

There was an option for high-res textures and oh my word it made it so much better. Granted it is 2025, and so I am very happy with that. You still have the ketchup issue from Origins, but it isn't after EVERY fight which is nice for when you just right into a conversation and have close-ups on your team. I was really happy with the way most of the game looked. There was some weirdness with the fire, specially when the city is on fire, that just looked dated when I was playing with the nice textures. It just stood out because it was so different.

Speaking of when the city is on fire, the sound of people screaming in the background is an obvious track that doesn't have the same depth as the rest of it and just becomes noise. Not a nice rich noise, but a toddler yelling for 6 hours on a plane noise. Ok, that is a bit rough, but you get my point. The hit sounds when you got crits and had a sharp weapon were juicy. Just felt substantial in my ears when it happened, which it happened a lot as I was playing a rouge with a 75% crit chance or something like that.

Story and Characters

We get our first introduction to a couple of characters that made their way to Veilguard. Verric and Isabella. I am not sure why or how Isabella made it there, other than she is the obvious sexy character in this game where Mórrígan was in Origins, but she is an absolute weasel in the game. She lies the entire game setting off the second act bad guy fight.

The other characters are overall, my favorite. Each person has such a rich back history with judgements and ideas that bleed into the conversations you hear in the background running around areas. Merrill and Anders fight all the time about blood magic, with Avaline and Isabella fighting about Isabella being a ... well I'll let you listen to those. Even characters that can die early, Bethany or Carver (I have no idea how to save them. They died in my original play through back in 20?? and in this one), there is a comment made in the background "A Qunari killed my cousin and I think we should kill them all." While that racism is right in your face in this game, it makes for fascinating character growth for those that have issues with Elves. It is things like that that just made the characters feel real versus flat and one dimensional like in Veilguard .

I hate this story though. Verric is being interrogated and is telling the story of the Champion of Kirkwall to someone from the Chantry. That's fine. However, there are 3 acts with 3 different bad guys and the first act and third act are barely tangentially tied together. A single item and it doesn't show up until the end of both. There is no overall big bad person that you are constantly fighting with. Yes the actions for Act 2 do lead into the reason for the big fight in Act 3, but they are entirely separate issues.

My Rating

I still like this game. It was fun to play and I liked the character conversations. I also really like how your choices matter for cutscenes and final outcomes in the game. That is where Dragon Age used to show is stuff. The characters are very diverse and full of life, just like the bad guys. The gameplay, minus traveling, is an expansion of Origins. This is a solid game and absolutely "Worth a Playthrough." I think if I was writing this when it came out I might have said it is a must-play, but in 2025, it isn't. Especially when Balders Gate 3 exist.

Parental Rating

Extreme violence in this game that doesn't discriminate between races or types of creatures such as elves, humans, or demons. I don't remember a lot of harsh language, but there is a decent amount of innuendo. A couple suggestive scenes if you complete the romances. My parents would not have liked me playing this when it first came out if I were a kid.

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