I played for many hours yesterday playing as a Female Mage, got through the first year of the game, have gotten 15 out of the 55 achievements and 140 out 1130 gamerscore on my 360. So I'm going to give a short post on my thoughts on the game so far.
Storywise, the game has a very interesting premise, which I've mentioned before, being a framing device with the dwarven companion Varric Tethras narrating the events of the 10 years and you playing as the main character Hawke during the events he narrates. It's something hasn't really been attempted before in terms of the interactivity.
I do feel like not much I've done has had incredible impact on the narration so far, but as I said I've only gotten through the first year out of ten, so I'll reserve my judgment on that until later. What I will not reserve judgment on are the characters which in typical BioWare fashion have been excellent so far. The motivations and personalities of the characters really shine and the rivalry that my character has with her brother feels real among the other relationships.
The characters are not quite as compelling as the ones in Mass Effect 2 (yet), but not many companies hit the same level as BioWare when it comes to character development and relationships and they are still holding onto that level of quality now.
Gameplay-wise, Dragon Age II definitely feels streamlined compared to its predecessor, just like Mass Effect 2 did compared to its predecessor. While I feel that it made Mass Effect 2 better than the first game in almost every way, in the case of Dragon Age II I feel it's been kind of a mixed bag.
The combat is fast-paced and fun. But unless I'm playing on the harder difficulties I don't feel the need to use tactics as much and pressing 'A' over and over for one basic attack can get a little old, however it doesn't ruin the great combat especially once I started learning more spells (also PC owners can just auto-attack).
So far the game is much smaller in terms of environment variety than Origins. So far, I've spent almost all my time in the City of Kirkwall. To be fair, this does fit the story very well but after the varied environments of Origins, I was hoping to be able to branch out a little bit more. I'm still trying to decide if sacrificing that variety for the story was worth it and I'll make my decision when I write the review.
Like I said during my impressions on the demo, Dragon Age II does not make a big graphical overhaul on its predecessor. I'm sure the PC version looks superior, but on the consoles there isn't much difference between II and Origins. After how beautiful and grand Mass Effect 2 looked on the 360, I kind of wish they had done a bit more of an overhaul.
That said, I've seen more emotion in the faces than I did in Origins and while the environments in DAII aren't that varied, they are very well-constructed and look great.
When it comes to voice-acting you'll be hard-pressed to find a company better than BioWare in that department. And it's really damn good. The voice of Varric Tethras, Brian Bloom, in particular has given a performance that I think will stand as one of the best of 2011 as long as he stays consistent, which is a good thing since he's both a companion and the narrator.
Despite all the hate Dragon Age II has been getting on the net, so far it's a well-designed and compelling game and I'm very anxious to see what happens next in the story of Marian Hawke. I'll be sure to put up my full review of the game when I finish and have a chance to try out the other classes and a male character. So keep an eye out for that.
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