Game: Dragon Age 2

[KillaSh0t]

The trailer looks badass!
Cant wait for it to come out

[Archangel]

The Making of Dragon Age 2, Part 2

It all sounds a little too good to be true, reminds me of Peter Molineux and all the bulshit he promises in these kinds of interviews

[Penner]

Dragon Age 2 Preview (HD)

[Ryllharu]

[Spoiler-free post]

I finished the game this weekend.

The more I think of the story of DA2 (and read some gamefaqs forum topics), the better the game I think it is. It presents some surprisingly compelling arguments, certainly of a great deal more depth than the LotR ripoff the first one was. It was like the events and characters of Awakening...but even better.

I played through with female, 2-handed Warrior Hawke. I'm not super happy with the way things went, but I played through it with my own decisions as I would have made them, so I earned what fate doled out. The end battles were fun. Thus, I was satisfied.

The boss battles are actually one of the best things about DA2. You need to use your environment to survive, absolutely pay attention to your opponents, and use all your characters in the right ways at the right moments. Dragon Age 2 is officially the first strategy hack-n-slash I can remember having played.

Lastly, Silence and Smite are so badass. I can't count all the times those two abilities aided me in pivotal ways.
Warrior Specializations: Templar > Reaver > Berserker



Playing through on a twin-blades rogue now. They suck for the first few levels, become functional after level 6, then become godly around level 13+. In my warrior playthrough, Isabella became my go-to damage gal once she got around that level. She fervently sucked until then, usually dying in even the easy mob battles unless actively micromanaged.

[Xelbair]

Dragon Age 2 finished.
I went with two-handed warrior female Hawke, Reaver/berserker.
Possibly the best combination - two handed style hits really high and deals dmg in arc, not to single target.
Plus if i have low hp and high stamina i could easily hit for over 1500 without critical with massive strike, my atk speed went up to 3 slices per second(approx after i used skill that gave me +50% atk speed(combined with 50% after kill and 30% rune)) and she decimated, completely utterly decimated, anything and everything. if i needed to heal i could get full hp with one skill. Very big enemies who were supposed to knock me flying away with their strong blows did not even make her flinch. group of enemies were sliced in half with just one Cyclone, my normal attack-charge sent them flying(free 'stunlock' for normal enemies).

About Boss battles - first one was godlike. you had to use terrain, place your member strategically and think. Second one was most frustrating shit i ever played. period. 1 on 1 duel, with crappy hit detection and you could not use terrain to your advantage, plus enemy had a heal that could not be interrupted. Rest of boss battles were epic, but not godlike like first one. Additional boss fight at Bone Pit was probably the greatest of them all, even overshadowing the first boss fight.

Dialogue was great in game, and female Hawke voice is sweet, but you had the feeling that choices doesn't matter much - they mostly lead to same outcome, except few cases.

It finishes with great cliffhanger, and plot of DA3 could be even more interesting.

My team:
Fenris(just for his comments)
Varric
Merril ( her accent <3)
and after i was annoyed with Fenris i took Anders.

[Penner]

I never actually finished the game on my 2hand warrior... i think i'm almost at the very end with him but my interest kinda faded out for some reason...

I've started a new playthrough, this time on Hard difficulty, playing a rogue Archer(i've already played melee on mah warrior).

Just started Act 2 with him at level 14-ish and kicking so much ass it's crazy, no real problems except the boss in the Deep Roads, which was a fucking pain in the arse...

Group Setup: (Except for the forced/loyalty quests)

Aveline
Fenris
Anders

[Ryllharu]

Primary group setup with my 2-handed warrior:

Varric
Fenris (occasionally replaced with Isabella)
Merrill

...until the third act, in which I promptly discovered I did a lot better without any mages at all. Merrill can be a beast when you're using two 2-handers with kickass staggers, but Isabella outclassed her time and time again. Once she stopped dying every battle, Isabella replaced Merrill permanently. I used potions instead of heals, but 80% of the time, I didn't need any healing at all. I learned to pause way more often (very useful with my dual blade rogue now), keep my warriors on the same target as much as possible, and had Varric and Isabella harass and exploit. Heals kind of blow in DA2 anyway. Just play smarter instead.

Anders, Aveline, and Sebastian never got used unless I was forced to. Anders especially was useless. He dragged down the overall damage for very little gain.


edit: Regarding boss battles, the second wasn't so bad (because Xel warned me ) except for the ridiculous attack that you could never ever see coming, and always leads to a follow-up that does even more damage! Aside from that, I ran, dashed in, stunned, and repeated. It wasn't hard, just long.

[Xelbair]

Long and annoying when he was healing himself. My Hawke back then was made to kill large groups, not deal dmg to single enemy so it took even more time.

[animus]

Planning to get it this weekend, but I've been hearing not too great things from friends and reviews. Especially the overall scale and the amount of repetition in environments seems to make me a bit hesitant. Not to mention it sounds like Dragon Age 2 underwent the Mass Effect 2 (though I did really like ME2) treatment. We'll see, I'll probably enjoy it regardless.

[Ryllharu]

It's more like Baldur's Gate --> Baldur's Gate 2. Yes, there are fewer environments, and you revisit them more often (so the scale of the game is smaller), but you're not going to yet another nameless field to find one thing and then leaving to never return. Each of the areas is more detailed, with more things to do within them. The reuse of the cave (note sigular) can be a bit annoying, but I honestly just got over it.

The story alone (just like Baldur's Gate 2) more than makes up for the negatives. The characters push that further, and the combat is very satisfying 98% of the time.

There is also no "DA:O Deep Roads" kind of section which takes up a third of the overall game and is 10x as boring as the rest of the game.

[Dark Dragon]

There is also no "DA:O Deep Roads" kind of section which takes up a third of the overall game and is 10x as boring as the rest of the game.

^
I almost stopped playing DA2 when i found out that you had to go into the deep roads. I absolutely hated that part of DAO since it was so tedious and annoying.

I really like that they've cut the story into bite size chunk of missions instead of super long continuous quest line. It's pretty similar to Mass Effect 2 in term of going back to a central hub and only go out to do quests and missions. I feel like this game is a lot harder than DAO since i could generally just auto attack my way through the first one. Even on hard, only Revenants fight offer any sort of real challenge. While in DA2, i found myself in bad situations even on normal if i don't play carefully.

[Animeniax]

It might not be the best deal going, but DA2 is on sale for $40 at Amazon.com. I might pick up a copy.

[Penner]

It does indeed have more similarities to Mass Effect 2, except ME2 is like 10 times better (might just be personal preference)

DA2 is still a good and fun game, but ME2 was just fucking awesome(still is :P)

Also, March 29th, new Mass Effect 2 "pre-ME3" DLC "The Arrival", !

[Archangel]

Paid 3 euros for the game and i'd take my money back if i could, simply terrible.

[shinta|hikari]

Why is it bad?

[Ryllharu]

Arch is upset that DA2 isn't DAO2.

Most of us liked it (here anyway, internet groupthink hates it whether they've played it or not), Arch was disappointed it wasn't the same type as the first game.

By the way, Dragon Age: Inquisition is amazing. I'm at 60+ hours and I'm a little over halfway through the game.

[KrayZ33]

Didn't hear anything too bad about DA:Inquisition. A reviwer on RPS I happen to like said its his GOTY. People say it feels and plays alot like an MMO, which is fine by me.
Will buy it once it's a bit cheaper

I didn't buy DA2 when it came out and still havn't.. it looks really bad and I didn't read anything worth praising about it either.

[Animeniax]

I've heard only (super) positive reviews of DA:I. I bought the deluxe version on release day (wanted to support sales instead of waiting until it was cheaper, a first for me) but had some issues with a new SSD so put the game on the back burner while I played Destiny. Now the Destiny expansion is out, so DA:I will continue to sit probably until the new year.