POST DRAGON AGE 2 THOUGHTS

No, this is not a full blown review as such but rather some thoughts that I have regarding Dragon Age 2 now that I have finally finished the game.

First up, as to be expected for an RPG, it is quite a long game.  Admittedly I was not rushing through the game but it did take me some 50 or so hours to complete it.  The quests whilst varied and in places challenging were somewhat lackluster for want of a better word, but I will come to the reason for that soon enough.

The actual game itself is very good.  I would not have put 50 hours of effort into something that I did not like, but for some reason it was not quite the satisfying experience that the first game was.  There are plenty of quests to do as I have mentioned already and it does follow the same formula as the original game but there is something missing.

Graphically it is an improvement over the original and game is now more gory, not that it matter much.  What is important is that it performs much better on the X Box 360 than it's forebear which probably a result of it being designed more with the console market in mind. 

So going back, why do I think there is something missing?

Well the answer is really simple.  The story itself.  The original game was a grand adventure putting you at the center of a struggle to save the world from the evil Blight that was sweeping across the land.  You always felt that your mission was critical to the survival of the people in that world and that it was imperative that you stuck to the right path and succeeded.   In Dragon Age 2 the scale and scope of the adventure is toned to dramatically.

At no point did I ever think that the fate of the world lay in my hands but rather the fate of a city which seemed to at war with itself.  Those charged with running the city seemed foolish and intent on some sort of civil war with your character being dragged into it.  The number of times I simply wanted to tell everyone to sod off and get on with it were countless and many times I felt like nothing more than some sort of glorified errand boy running round doing menial tasks that characters were too lazy to do themselves.

What Dragon Age 2 really highlighted was the importance of story telling.  By the end of the game I was thankful that it was over, not because of how long I had been playing it for, but because I was so bored of the story.  Having spent hours running around trying to do nothing more than level up I was quite happy to see the credits roll.  Again I stress that this is a good game, but I would advise against trying to complete it by continuously playing it, but rather dipping in and out of it as I am sure that this will prove to be the best way you can get enjoyment out of it.

There is a chance that this game could be nothing more than a prelude to  Dragon Age 3 as the ending was a cliff hanger of sorts in which case I may have to revisit my opinion of this, but I always believe that each chapter of an adventure should be compelling enough to stand on it's own two feet and in this instance I think Dragon Age 2 falls short.