It was not long before Dragon Age II released that I played through Dragon Age: Origins and the Awakenings DLC. I’m glad that I essentially played them back to back because the little things that carry over from the first game to the second were more noticeable.  All the reference to things I did in DA:O would have been long forgotten if I had played it when it first released.  With them fresh in mind though it Dragon Age II’s story a lot better.  Which is good because compared the the Origins’ story the story in DA2 is not as good.  It is not that I did not enjoy it, I did, but DA:O has a truly epic story and DA2 is just a pretty good story. Don’t let that scare you off playing it though because the game is still a blast.

Even with the overall story being less grand the moment to moment quests were great.   Some of them were really funny and the dialog between characters in my party was even better.  I would find myself just walking around Kirkwall listening to my teammates pick on each other.  And, even after 30 hours I don’t recall hearing them say the same thing twice.  As the story progressed and their friendships and rivalries grew the corresponding dialog adjusts as well.  Listening to Isabela pick on Aveline at the beginning and then slowly become more friendly to her while Aveline slowly let her insults bother her less was amazing.  The characters grew with the story in a way I’ve never experienced before in a game.

The graphics and animations were noticeably better in Dragon Age II.  It is not a huge jump but still one that was nice to see.  I also liked the new skill tree setup.  Grouping the skills into categories made it a lot easier to have different characters who focused on one or two areas of expertise. However, I did not really like that they took away the option to change your party’s armor.  You can still give them new weapons and accessories, but only your own character can change armor.  The rest of your part just gets armor upgrades you find or buy.  This puts more of the focus on the combat and quests, but since my Mage could not sue any of the Rouge or Warrior equipment it was a shame that I could not pass it on to my party.

The combat is more streamlined in DA2.  In DA:O you pretty much spend each fight pausing combat, assigning everyone their next attack, start up the fighting and then pause and repeat. In DA2 I only ever had to pause the combat if I needed to give someone a health potion or later in the game to access some of the additional spells I unlocked after I filled up my main 6 spell slots. The rest of my party did a good job using their abilities and spells appropriately which let me just focus on my spell casting.  It was fun to just watch all the combat unfold instead of pause, attack once and repeat.

Overall, I highly recommend playing Dragon Age II.  It is a great game and one that should not be missed.  Personally, I’m thinking it is about time I play through again with a Rouge character…unless some DLC gets announced in the next few days.