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First Impressions: Dragon Age 2
- By Douglas Shepard (Editor in Chief, RarityGuide.com)
- Published 03/1/2011
- Modern Games
- Unrated
The original Dragon Age offered a great game with a lengthy story and a vast cast of characters to interact with. It really showed the personal level of interaction that your character could have with any other in your party or those just allied with you (that you didn't want to use in your party).
In Dragon Age II, you start with a more limited selection than in the first, just as humans, but three classes are open to you. You can choose to be a Mage, Warrior or Ranger, male or female. It will change how you want to fight in battle, but the story will move much the same otherwise. The story will move around, obviously skipping vast swaths that you will likely play through in the real game. Just the samples that you get though show that much like the first, race, among other choices, will impact a lot of different things.
The story seems to take a very different route than the first game ever did. Instead of you becoming a Grey Warden, you are simply a Champion for the Chantrey. It recaps some of the events around the first game, telling about the fall of the King and the struggles that have happened. The whole demo starts with you participating in a series of battles with your sister at your side. She is a Mage and proves to be very handy regardless of the fight. After that, it moves forward, breaking the narrative to show more what is happening in the world and what forces are at work at this time. The narrative provides a lot of insight into the world, even for those who have not played or beat the original Dragon Age game.
When it comes to the different classes, you will see that some parts have changed from the original game. While the statistics have not changed too much from the original game, the talent trees have. They are broken into a number of different areas. While each class has a number of locked trees in the demo, it is easier to see someone getting a better variety of skills than in the original game and really being able to maximize them without too much of a hassle with the different sets that are available. You do not get much of a chance to see how the AI works, but it seems to support you very well.
The interface remains relatively unchanged from the original game. In combat, it is very easy to access the different powers and abilities that you have access to. It remains just about as easy to change who you are controlling in a brawl. This is a great way to try out a different class for a while. Much of the original tactics system seems to have made it over in to the new game without any real loses overall. The biggest change encountered was that you needed to hit "A" or "X" for each of the stand individual attacks opposed to just telling your character to attack then supplement with skills and abilities.
When it comes to interacting with people, that interface got a massive overhaul. However, if you have played either Mass Effect game, you will recognize it and be able to pick it up without any problem at all. Even if you have not, it is easy understand how the interface works and you can see the morality of the choices easily. The interesting part was there was usually a third option, giving you the choice of neutral. This is fairly different from any other Bioware game where you could only choose some form of Paragon or Renegade. How this plays out in the game at large will be interesting to see. It could open up more options in the future than either Good or Evil or at least make it easier to maintain some of them in a few select cases.
The only thing really seems to disappoint about the demo is the complete lack of any save feature, so there no way to export your character from the demo to the game itself. Still, considering the length of play in the demo, it is not too hard to make many of the same choices later on in the actual game.
This game looks ot be much more accessible than the first, possibly less dialogue intense and offers a very different combat system. It still have a lot of the options that one would want from a Dragon Age from what the demo offers.
In Dragon Age II, you start with a more limited selection than in the first, just as humans, but three classes are open to you. You can choose to be a Mage, Warrior or Ranger, male or female. It will change how you want to fight in battle, but the story will move much the same otherwise. The story will move around, obviously skipping vast swaths that you will likely play through in the real game. Just the samples that you get though show that much like the first, race, among other choices, will impact a lot of different things.
The story seems to take a very different route than the first game ever did. Instead of you becoming a Grey Warden, you are simply a Champion for the Chantrey. It recaps some of the events around the first game, telling about the fall of the King and the struggles that have happened. The whole demo starts with you participating in a series of battles with your sister at your side. She is a Mage and proves to be very handy regardless of the fight. After that, it moves forward, breaking the narrative to show more what is happening in the world and what forces are at work at this time. The narrative provides a lot of insight into the world, even for those who have not played or beat the original Dragon Age game.
When it comes to the different classes, you will see that some parts have changed from the original game. While the statistics have not changed too much from the original game, the talent trees have. They are broken into a number of different areas. While each class has a number of locked trees in the demo, it is easier to see someone getting a better variety of skills than in the original game and really being able to maximize them without too much of a hassle with the different sets that are available. You do not get much of a chance to see how the AI works, but it seems to support you very well.
The interface remains relatively unchanged from the original game. In combat, it is very easy to access the different powers and abilities that you have access to. It remains just about as easy to change who you are controlling in a brawl. This is a great way to try out a different class for a while. Much of the original tactics system seems to have made it over in to the new game without any real loses overall. The biggest change encountered was that you needed to hit "A" or "X" for each of the stand individual attacks opposed to just telling your character to attack then supplement with skills and abilities.
When it comes to interacting with people, that interface got a massive overhaul. However, if you have played either Mass Effect game, you will recognize it and be able to pick it up without any problem at all. Even if you have not, it is easy understand how the interface works and you can see the morality of the choices easily. The interesting part was there was usually a third option, giving you the choice of neutral. This is fairly different from any other Bioware game where you could only choose some form of Paragon or Renegade. How this plays out in the game at large will be interesting to see. It could open up more options in the future than either Good or Evil or at least make it easier to maintain some of them in a few select cases.
The only thing really seems to disappoint about the demo is the complete lack of any save feature, so there no way to export your character from the demo to the game itself. Still, considering the length of play in the demo, it is not too hard to make many of the same choices later on in the actual game.
This game looks ot be much more accessible than the first, possibly less dialogue intense and offers a very different combat system. It still have a lot of the options that one would want from a Dragon Age from what the demo offers.
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