Dragon Age II was released this past Tuesday, much to my delight. I rushed home and found my pre-ordered copy waiting for me and proceeded to play for about four hours — and well past my bedtime. There’s still a lot of the game left to go, certainly, but I thought I would take some time to share some of the experiences that I’ve had with the game already. After all, I very rarely buy new video games, and I usually like to see what my friends have to say about them before I go out of my way to make that purchase. That said, let’s talk a little bit about the game.
Graphics & Sound
The graphics are beautiful, to put it into a single word. The faces look more realistic, and now there’s a lot more difference between each different race than just height and ear shape. The elves, especially, have undergone a makeover; they’re much more lithe and thin, and their irises are much larger, giving them an almost doe-like look. You can also choose between hairstyles from Dragon Age: Origins and a whole slew of new and appealing hairstyles. To be honest, the look of the PCs and NPCs in the game reminds me a lot of Sims 3 but with better, slightly more realistic textures. The graphics of the world around your character are also much smoother and nicer than what we saw in Dragon Age: Origins. It’s definitely an overall improvement.
The sound is great, and the voice-overs might even be better than the last time. I like the music and the background sound, where you can hear NPCs having conversations with each other as you pass through the streets.
Game-play
Game-play is, so far, much more streamlined. There’s now a radial menu to make your choices when involved in dialog, very similar to BioWare’s Mass Effect series. Little symbols next to each choice let you know if it’s a good-willed choice, neutral, or cruel — and, if you’re trying to flirt with someone to start a relationship, the little symbol is, of course, a heart.
At first glance, the skills can seem a little overwhelming, but it’s not really any more complicated than DA:O. It’s not; it’s just that your different skill sets are on different screens, and are now skill trees instead of rows/blocks of skills. There are also upgrades that you can get for various skills to make them stronger.
Instead of like or dislike, you can push characters to become either friends or rivals, depending on how you treat them. I’ll be very interested to see how this plays out in the future as I continue to play the game.
So far, at most shops, 99% of the weapons and equipment can only be used by Hawke (the main character). I’m kind of curious why it seems so hard to equip your allies. Maybe it’s just because I’m at the beginning of the game right now; we’ll see. It’s still kind of frustrating though, especially knowing that some of my peeps could definitely use better armor.
Story
The story opens with narration by Varric, a dwarf who is one of Hawke’s companions that you meet fairly early on in the game. At first he begins to tell the Chantry Seeker Cassandra the story of an untouchable champion — that basically runs you through a simple tutorial of your skills and how to fight. After being called on his “bullshit” (there’s a TON of cussing in this game), he begins to narrate the tale of how Hawke and his/her (in my case, her) family escaped from Lothering and made their way to Kirkwall — with help from Flemeth, no less.
Kirkwall is full of refugees and in order to get your mother and sister into the city, you are sold into indentured servitude for a year, either to smugglers or mercenaries. I chose to be a mercenary. The story picks up after a year, and that’s where the quests start, and about as far as I got. I gained a few new companions — and was pleased to see that Anders from Awakening is one of the playable characters; I’m also glad I decided to stick with a warrior instead of making a mage, because I now have three mage companions, and it’s getting a little out of hand in the magic department.
The choices you made in DA:O do have subtle (at least, they’re subtle so far) effects on Dragon Age II; you can import your saved game or choose one of three different pre-made DA:O endings. I chose to import the save from my character Vanora, a level 35 warrior that defeated the blight, became Alistair’s queen, and saved the city of Amaranthine as the Warden Commander of Vigil’s Keep in Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening (one of my three completed DA:O games!). So, when I went looking for Anders (not knowing it was him yet) and asked if someone had seen a Ferelden Grey Warden, the woman said to me, “The only Grey Warden I know of is the king.”
Overall
So far, I’m really enjoying the game. The graphics are outstanding, the game-play is enjoyable and a little challenging — a good thing! — and I’m just tickled pink to see Anders again. Odds are that, for quite a while, if you see me on X-Box Live, it will be playing Dragon Age II.
