Dragon Age 2: Post-Game Thoughts

Our quest to revisit Dragon Age in its entirety continues here, with Dragon Age 2.

Spoiler Ending Thoughts:

• I have to say, this is one game, along with KotOR: Sith Lords that really improved with repeated play.
• The repeated environments didn’t really bother me as much this time around, although the part where they would use the same map and then just randomly block off certain passageways after I walked all the way over to the entryway was kind of a bummer.
• There is a lot of talking in this one.  More than I remembered.
• While I love the characters of DAO, I think your BFFs in DA2 are a little more fleshed out.
• Alistair is still my overall favorite, but I find Isabella a more interesting character in DA2 than Leliana in DAO.
• What I think is the main downside of the game, besides the reused areas, is the way the game eventually boxes you into doing missions that you know aren’t on the up-and-up.
• I mean, if you really thought Anders was making you find him poop to free him from Justice, you possess a lot more hope than I did, at that point.
• Plus, poor Trask–I still don’t know why we ended up killing all the templars and mages who actually wanted to work together for peace.
• It took me until this time around to actually notice that Orsinio was in cahoots with Quentin, the crazy mother-killer.  Given that, and his weird sudden turn to blood magic right after we killed all the templars, it’s no wonder Justinia didn’t send in the troops to rescue the downtrodden mages.  He made them all seem wacked.
• Out of all the followers, I think I found Merrill the least compelling.  Her story was sort of a light analogue of Ander’s, where you ended up helping her do stuff that you were pretty sure wasn’t going to work out well in the end, but you did it anyway because otherwise there’s no game.
• Both the DLC I thought were far better than any of DAO’s DLC, except Awakening, and maybe even that.  They were visually great, and had interesting plotting and good variations on activities–it’s too bad that everyone I know was so burnt out on the whole game by the time they finished, that they never got around to them.
• I’ll always be sad that they axed the third DLC, because I suspect we would have gotten more Fenris (HEART) but on the other hand, that probably means he would have met some horrible fate by the end of it.
• Alright, off to DAI!