Dragon Age 2: Gameplay and Discussion

[seireikhaan]

Jeeze what kept you guys?

Lots of side questing? I'm not sure how you beat the game so fast.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If you didn't, I'd advise finding Hybris- he's a pretty fun fight if you notch the difficulty down to normal. Plus he gives you one of the sicker one-handed swords in the game. He wasn't part of any major quest, so its not hard to miss him.

I'm playing the game through a second time now as a pure Entropy mage, which is crowd control and debuffs (where before I was full elemental, AOE and control). The game is... surprisingly a lot easier. Taking Creation as a secondary tree so i am full on support for my team as well as some nasty status afflictions. It still doesn't help with some fights though. Mainly due to poor balance choices in the encounters. I'm of the opinion that the combat is a great improvement over the first, but just like the first, Bioware didn't bother to tune certain aspects of it to avoid random spikes in difficulty. A shame really, because it seems like combat was the main focus this time around.

Hmm. I pretty much skipped out on entropy. My only real experience with it(I think) was the occasional Arcane Horror ending my party with(I think) a death cloud. I'd gone full blood mage, a decent chunk of Force, and the full lightning/rock tree, with my only other dabbling being snagging upgraded heal. Blood magic gets pretty strong later game, if only for all the bonuses you can get for your health regeneration and health to mana ratio for blood casting. Final fight, I pretty much kept casting forever and with impunity as long as Aveline kept aggro. As long as I tempered my nuking, I could cast for just about forever.

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I supported the Magi and had to fight Orsino first, who turned to Blood Magic to save himself at the end. It was your standard tank+spank until phase 2 where he'd pick a party member and go after them, and then it was a game of keep away. Phase 3, his head jumps off his body and summons tons of additional mobs to fight while running wild on your party. COntroling phase 3 is very very hard. If you kill his head he rejoins together for another go and its just a game of keep away again. Fun, but LONG. Had to take 20 min to kill him.

Then I had to fight Meridith who was possessed by the artifact. A really easy fight mainly because I had built my team for mass AoE. When she summons additional just spam your aoe and kite around until Cone of Cold's up. Then blast 'em. She was the final boss for me, but I preferred the Orsino fight to be honest. It had a much bigger "Ah crap" feel to it.

The reason I suggested people have a back-up mage is.. well, I had to kill Anders for what he did. That was seriously a non-bro thing to do. Not cool at all, Anders.

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I had a pretty much identical route. The only difference was keeping Anders with me. Not sure if that was what ultimately scared Fenris off or not. I figured at that point, what's done is done. War's a gonna happen regardless of him being alive, so let's keep every healthy mage we can. Plus, I was just that impressed. I mean, did you see that explosion?

I didn't find the fights unreasonably difficult. Perhaps because I got that +5/6/7 to all stats rune into all of my companion's and mine's armor. That, and those statues in particular took ages to get moving, with the exception of the last two that dropped down and started firebreathing everything in sight. Orsino was an interesting fight, but probably one stage longer than necessary. Not super difficult assuming you've got a proper party arrangement, just long. Heck, the three rage demons waiting for you() outside of where you fight Orsino was a harder fight than either boss, if for no other reason than the usual mass-assassin spamming issues. Probably doing a non-mage playthrough just to explore the other possibilities.

[Kekvit Irae]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I had a pretty much identical route. The only difference was keeping Anders with me. Not sure if that was what ultimately scared Fenris off or not.

Err... no. Sebastian certainly, but not Fenris.

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Fenris leaves no matter what if you side with the mages. If you mention to him about freeing slaves when confronted outside the Circle, and you have a good enough Friendship/Rivalry, he'll switch sides and join you again.

And regarding the First Enchanter...

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The whole thing felt like a rehash of the Golems of Amgarrak final boss, without the cool Fade shifting. Not as tough either.

[Greyblades]

Realy?

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I just asked him flat out of he could fight with me again. Seemed to work.

[rajpoot]

Right just finished the game. This is probably the quickest ever I've finished a full game....and certainly the longest I've sat on my PC in a go.
Anyway.....I don't know what to think. They've made a lot of changes and in my eyes its lost a lot of charm that the previous game had. I mean I loved talking to companions, and they had a ton of dialogue. So even in very long and tedious dungeons like the Deep Roads, I kept going because I knew I'll be rewarded with loads of interesting dialogue.
Now however the chats are far and few in between and I've been literally jumping with joy when I see a quest about going and talking to a companion. Specially considering that most other quests need one to negotiate through the same old dungeons/areas with a very uncooperative camera.
While the story is rather haphazard, it has its moments of awesome.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I really liked the Act 2 quests about running back and forth between the Qunari and the Viscount trying to make peace. And the one with that Qunari mage.....Katojen or whatever his name was.....IMO the Qunari quests are amongst the best in this game.
Other moments worth mentioning are the climax to the Deep Roads quest where the sibling falls. The quest in which one finds Zevran (Isabela has some great dialogue with him) and the quest where Hawke's mother dies. I mean it might be a cheap shot trying to add drama by killing off the mother of an already lonely hero, but it works quite well nonetheless.

There are ofcourse bugs, with the import system. Found a few reference in the game about decisions I never took. And the combat system...well...I've come to realise I don't buy these games for the combat at all....I find it OK. Can live with it.
The ending was....unsatisfactory. Cliffhanger ending is one thing, and leaving a story half finished is another.
About Flemeth,

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When she pops out of that amulet, did it remind anyone else of Voldemort?

All in all I liked the last game better. Progress in design and stuff is important but trying to fix that which is not broken is not a good idea.

[Mailman653]

Reddit Poster Tracks Perfect Metacritic Dragon Age II Review Score to BioWare Employee

[Monk]

Reddit Poster Tracks Perfect Metacritic Dragon Age II Review Score to BioWare Employee

As if Metacritic's user reviews are a hotbed of intellectual discussion and unbiased opinion without his contribution. Have you strode through the muck of those public sections before? My god. As a whole i'd advocate not approaching toward metacritic with a ten ft. pole. There's far too much generalized, unfocused fanboy hate combined with PR that it makes it impossible to get a read on the product.

As important as game reviewers love to make themselves out to be these days I really don't see much substitute for simply trying it yourself and making up your own mind.

[Scienter]

As if Metacritic's user reviews are a hotbed of intellectual discussion and unbiased opinion without his contribution. Have you strode through the muck of those public sections before? My god.

I made the mistake of looking at the comments on Metacritic. I think my brain may have melted a little. I'm enjoying DA2 despite its flaws. I think in the future I'll just ignore Metacritic since it seems like a place where people go to rage instead of posting something useful.