GAMEPLAY

Herein lies the largest changes to the Dragon Age formula; the combat has been revamped, the party micromanagement is all but gone, the dialogue has taken on a mass effect wheel and the game is dominated by battles. Choice permeates Dragon Age 2, right from the start of the game you will be able to choose a class, gender and appearance for Hawke. DA:O let you choose a race and origin (a playable prologue) for your character. The race of your character changed the gameplay pretty drastically and while that feature will be missed by many it is ultimately for the better as Hawke’s character lives through a more relatable human struggle that allows of for the character development to become more personal.

The dialogue in Dragon Age 2 now has a coloring of mass effect in its new dialogue wheel, rather than the six dialogue options featured in DA:O. The wheel allows for Hawke to technically say ten different things though he mainly has three attitude types or responses; peaceful/kind, funny/charming and aggressive/direct. The dialogue responses are marked by an icon that indicates Hawke’s tone, a much needed element in mass effects wheel. Hawke is fully voiced and is done so extremely well not only does Hawke come to life through direct dialogue but subtly as well, when you choose a dialogue option it will “stack” meaning that your dominant tone will become Hawke and he/she will begin to deliver all dialogue in that manner. In layman’s terms if you play Hawke like a foolish ass always choosing to be a joker he will become a walking joke machine at all times: now that’s immersion!

The companion dialogue in DA2 surpasses their travel talk from the first game DA: O, it is often hilarious and you will want to hear all of it. Bioware has unfortunately included this weird directional audio system that forces you to spin the camera to look at your companions while they spout dialogue in order to hear it fully effectively. This feature stops you in you tracks if you want to hear what they are saying to each other.

The games combat has been altered as well; DA:O featured long drawn out battles with a modest number of enemies, Dragon Age 2 features a really fast and fun combat engine that tosses armies of foes at you. The classes in DA2 have been balanced and altered significantly making all classes and builds fun and effective (DA:O’s mages were all powerful). The focus of combat is no longer micro managing your mage to disable and damage enemy mages and groups, the focus is now on using cross class combos a rather brilliant  invention. In DA:O mages could combo their spells for devastating effects, this element has now been applied to the entire party as one character may inflict one of three status effects on an enemy for another party member to exploit and deal massive damage and that’s awesome! Battles in DA2 are much faster thanks to each class now moving like they mean to fight (DA:O featured a really ugly stiff combat “shuffle” that nobody will miss). Each class now has a closeting attack much like a battle charge that gets them right into the fight such as the rouges dramatic leap into the air followed by a devastating downwards thrust.