This weekend i finished the second "chapter" of the game on the PS3. I'm doing all the available content, every single major, secondary and rumor quests. Here are my impressions 20 hours in:
Minor spoilers throughout but no specifics, if anyone feels bothered i can hide parts of the texts, feel free to comment.
Story -
. It truly is the story of the rise Hawke and his/her family, its a more personal affair full of tragedy, backstabbing and truly great moments. I have to admit that i enjoy these types of stories more than the "epic kill the dragon" ones (although there are plenty of dragons).
. I wish Varric was more involved as the "narrator", his involvement is basically at the start and end of a chapter with a couple of other interventions if at all. His account of the Champions rise to power is the best part of the story and his acting and Cassandra's is spot on.
. That leads me to the voice acting and npc's in general. Theres no way around the fact that Hawke's (male) voice acting is horribly cast... there is no passion, no emotion, nothing like the "gravitas" of Shepard in the Mass Effect series. Generally speaking ME had better voice and npc's personalties in general (comparing with ME because both games are similarly styled, in position of DA: O)
The npc companions in general are lackluster, with two exceptions, Isabela and Varric, i always had them in my active group, they are so much fun to watch during their inter-party banter.
To a lesser degree, Merril with her innocence and deadpan voice (curious for a full out blood mage), is a fun character to have around.
Quests -
. There...are...a...lot...of...them. Feels like the game has a lot more content than the first one, quest wise, but its somewhat misleading...
. There is little to no tile set variation... you get one single map for the dark-roads that reused... you get one or 2 maps for caves which are reused ad-nausea... you get a single forest/mountain map... you get a single cost-line map.
Well you get my point, the recycling of maps is absurd because its so overused/abused. The level designers were either on a tight budget or simply were ordered to "dont give a shit"... because Bioware's idea of a different map is to close off a door and... voila.. you get a new quest zone.
. Anyways, content wise you will get enough to entertain you for about as long as DA: O, unless the remaining acts im yet to finish are ridiculously short.
. As i mention before, the story is tragic and Hawke goes through a lot of shit, one memorable moment with his mother (good job writers). Most of the quests feel grounded on the day-to-day life of a medieval/fantasy metropolis, as you get some sense of the politics behind it all.
. This leads me to the best story element of the game the struggle between the Chantry and the Qunari, its a great plot line with good voice acting all around as well as some decent writing. The Qunari as a race are amazing in this game, their voice acting... you feel the immense power at their fingertips, its really fun to watch Sten's personality taken to the extreme end of the "fanatic" scale and then plunge even farther.
. The dialog-wheel... i like it. It ends up being the same as in DA:O, you about the same response/investigate/instigate options, you get a lot more npc companion dialog intervention options (its fun to ask Varric to negotiate a bribe or fool a couple of templars).
The only difference here is that Hawke's responses are not fully written down like on DA:O, but having a voiced (if poorly) main character is the trade-off, im more than willing to accept it.
There are no dialog skill/stat checks (there are no skills at all)...
Gameplay/combat -
. Theres no way around it, this...is...a...hack...and...slash...Rrrr...Pppp...Gggg. Playing as a warrior(2-handed/reaver/berserker) on "normal difficulty" i had little to do but press (x) and use my own limited abilities. I never once had to reload a fight, never had party members die on me.
. Tactics... there are none. Usual party composition is based solely on DPS with healing left to the occasional potion, there was no need of a dedicated healer like in Origins (Anders is the one filling this role on DA 2)m you just wade ahead and carve everything to a fine mist of red.
. Fun? Most definitely. It reminded me of "Too Human" of all things, as i zipped around the battlefield hacking shit up (the game has a healthy dose of auto-target, auto "dash to opponent")
. The talent trees are well thought out and balanced, but i disliked that you didn't have to earn your specializations like on Origins, you just need to spend a point and then... your a Reaver... yay
. No skills... whatsoever.
. Crafting is streamlined, you just need to keep finding ingredient sources on the maps you visit, and then you can buy potions/runes/poisons right from your Home or Merchants. No weapon/armor crafting so far in the game, so i guess there wont be none.
. Equipment, it feels less epic than in Origins (witch itself had nothing on Baldurs Gate and its equipment descriptions). I'm buying most from merchants, so gold is in short supply, but i never felt underpowered at any given time.
. The "star" system is a bit messed up though, in most cases it works fine to judge an item's quality, but in many cases the same item had more "stars" than a copy of itself (same name and all).
. You end up changing weapons so many times that using runes on them feels like a waste of time.
. Armor apparence feel considerably less epic than what the demo let on. They (armors) look bland and uninteresting, especially companions, im well into the game and almost have all the npc's armor upgrades bought and most look exactly the same as they did at the start. Notable exceptions are Merril and Aveline.
. Inventory. I never felt the need to sell/destroy anything to make space. Its a bit more confusing than in Origins, but i like the "junk" tab and the ability to "sell all junk" at merchants (with a single press of a button).
Graphics -
. Theres no way around it... this game looks like shit on the PS3. The pc demo with locked medium settings looks worlds apart from the console version (for the better).
. The lighting is all wrong, the textures lack definition... but thankfully there is no popup to be experienced (Mass Effect series).
. At least its consistent in its shittiness . The environments, except for being repetitive, are interesting the first time you visit, and are huge (city zones are several times the size of a dragon age zone).
Conclusions -
(+) Its still an RPG, but a bit more streamlined, not to the degree i feared though.
(+) The combat is fun, in a mindless care free way.
(+) The story is more interesting and less cliche than in Origins.
(+) Enchantment! Sandal is back... and he brings the pain to a lot of darkspawn and one unfortunate Ogre.
(-) NPC's are hit and miss.
(-) Crafting just plain sucks.
(-) Poor equipment variety.
(-) Heavy... and i do mean HEAVY recycling of maps/areas. You will get bored of it fast, by the end of the first chapter i was already cursing at Bioware.
(-) Graphics, no way around it... this game is one of the most lack-luster AAA releases i can recall on a console.
