Dragon Age II: Ultimate Edition Reviews

If you're a dragon age fan, then yeah the story in this game plays a crucial part in the overall 'tapestry' of your tale. However, the side quests are mostly pointless and drags the game on (otherwise the main quests should only take you around 20 hours to complete). Some of the companions can be a real pain, especially if you're a mage. The characters are generally a lot weaker than in DAO, except for Varric and maybe Isabela. The DLCs are a letdown because they don't connect with the main story. Some of the equipment you get from the packs are essentially the best equipment in the game with a few exceptions (and you can get them right from the start). Too many characters with obsessions, making the whole thing feels unnatural. The whole setting bets on the politics of a city, yet you have extremely limited political choice and influence (except for the final scene, but that's trivial and unsatisfying). You think that helping the prince of Starkhaven could land you some political influence, esp. given your 'humble beginnings' in the city? No. Your only rise to power is through luck (treasure hunting in the deep roads) and because you're the main character (so you're powerful enough to defeat the Arishok 1v1). It feels extremely underwhelming and 'pre-determined'. Are there positives to this game in comparison to DAO? Your character is fully voiced. That's pretty nice. I don't recommend this for players who just want a CRPG – there are way better ones out there. I don't need to recommend it for those who like the Dragon Age universe, because you'll play it anyway. So.

All my play time is on the retired version, from before EA in a tantrum pulled all their games from Steam. This is decent story stuck in a terrible game. A downgrade in most ways from Dragon Age: Origins, the combat has been reduced to an annoying slog of re spawning enemies that bear no narrative significance and serve as an unnecessary block between each actual interesting conversation or story beat. Graphically the game is fairly ugly, with low res textures and reused environments that are actually infuriating. Somehow I loved this game the first time I played it when it was released, and was shocked at the negative reception. I am quite tolerant of awful gameplay for good storytelling, though the gameplay is so bad I don't know how I just didn't see it the first time. I saw it the second time, for certain: I've found this game is most fun with a couple of mods. One to make you run faster, to get through the repeated caves that don't matter to the conversations in them that do, and an instakill mod to allow you to just skip every combat. With all that, just the dialogue and story is around 20-30 hours still, and it makes for a far better game. Now after all that negativity, this is one of my favorite games ever somehow. The setting is really interesting and unique as far as RPGs go (or even fantasy TV/novels), in that we move from a sweeping epic that covers an entire nation to just a single city. Instead of a war for the survival of humanity/elves/dwarves, we fight a small scale battle for our family to survive as refugees. I've never seen such a bold choice to go back down in scale and stakes in a sequel, and I wish BIoware had learned that this was a great choice. Unfortunately all the other problems get conflated with this narrative choice. I like the characters, I like the city, I like the family driven story, I think Carver is one of the best characters Bioware ever did, and I wish we got more Dragon Age in this vein (with the combat/level design of the first game, and more than 18 months of development time geez EA was insane back then). The idea of this game was better than the execution. I wish they'd had more time to cook. With my above suggested mods, I actually recommend it if you're pretty into the Dragon Age setting after Origins.

*Update after the end of the game. I forgot how dark the game was, the writing is good, although there is nothing that you do that really effects the outcome of this game. If you support the mages, the mages will still attack you and claim you're working for the templars. I remembered all those gripes I had with the story while replaying this. It's an enjoyable game, it's short, completed in 30 hours, but Hawke has three voices, good, jester, and arsehole. Neither really effects the outcomes that transpire in the story. I still like the characters though and the writing is still good regardless, really a playthrough that is once off and not meant to be run too frequently, too often. Just play on Normal difficulty too, it's piss easy but there are some trash fights that are just too hard on Hard or Nightmare, even with two healing mages in party (Anders and my Mage Hawke).* *EDIT: Sebastian's Companion quest, Repentance is completely bugged for me in my playthrough. I don't know what happened, I've playing this game many times in the past with no problems but I just can't load up the last cutscene for his Companion quest.* Yes, it requires connection to the EA launcher, but at least it plays well with no crashes (unlike Dragon Age Origins >_>). Loving my time in this game after so many years of playing it. It's a very fun game, it's more satisfying completing quests than open world games because you don't spend hours running around. The difficulty is annoying, in the Prologue I find it almost impossible to beat the fights on Hard (can't imagine Nightmare), but when you get a full party again the difficulty evens out and Hard becomes easy. Having two heals is essential in party too imo, Anders and mage Hawke together means you can use any warrior as a frontline tank. I missed all the characters, Aveline is amazing <3. I never really liked Hawke's responses though, so talking with companions is not very immersive. I wish there was more relationship development between Hawke and the romances, but a lot of the romance is just flirting really. Anders/Hawke should get more banter to develop a relationship so it doesn't seem like you're with him out of pity. Still I'm having a great time back in this game! <3

This game shadows in comparison to Origins in every aspect but was still a fun story to go through. I somehow feel like I made accidental every wrong choice which lead to an interesting game at the end which was also cool

Love this game! Would have been great to get a remake to get less bugs and better graphics though. Thanks EA

Has aged really well and has overtaken as my favorite out of the three Dragon Age games.

Constant random crashes and half the time the game doesn't even want to start. EA apps appears in the taskbar, says the game is starting, goes to the system tray and no game is actually starting. DA:O was already terrible experience because EA cannot be bothered to make sure their old games still run without issues. There is a good a reason why everyone despise this publisher and their app.

Perfection. I have nothing else to say. That's not true, I have other things to say. This game, when it first came out, had so much forced hate because (with the exception of the twins, Varric, Aveline and Sebastion who was an after thought btw) everyone was queer. It was so stupid. Now everyone loves the bi disaster squad, as they should. This game is actually so much fun and I am so glad people enjoy it now. The CC is okay but again, old game. I personally love playing as a mage, the spell slinging is smooth and there is something so entertaining about watching Hawke just thwack people with a staff. The character development is peak, especially when you can witness one character spiral out of control while another takes control of the spiral and gets back up. Hated the Mark of the Assassin dlc. It was so out of place, I could never find a great place in the story to do it. It just doesn't fit. The Legacy dlc however, was the absolute best. I like to do this one at the beginning of Act 3. You know, before things get to wild and crazy.

A “game” that should have been not made in the first place. Where first impressions gave some warning signs abou the quality of the game the more I went the more sad I became. These cracks are not redeemable and forever will be broken. First thing first. Game feels extremely rushed. Basically all action surrounds on one big brown greyish ugly city. All locations seems same and boring. There are options to wonder in between city areas but they give it away even more dullness and ugliness of the “word”. I shouldn’t call world because they are just glorified hollow corridors. Forget about sense of exploration or discovery. You navigate in these mini sub areas that are not connected but you have an option to pop in from location a to location b with one button press and that’s it. Convenient? Maybe, but its dull and you don’t have this sense of big city scope that youre in. Gameplay feels very fast and to arcady. Forget Origins top down view and planning and pausing and strategizing. Why bother just mash you buttons and occasionally pick up two skills and that’s it. Don’t ask questions just consume. While I do appreciated still existing tactics system that you can give to you party members the issue stands that this game is dumbed down to casual level. If that wasn’t enough for you then they also stripped down heavily skill systems from Origin and now only boring few talents exist. There is no character building in here, no unique builds. Painfully bad. Continuing with bastertization, dialogues now left with low iq circle answers: yes no no no. Have fun. This wasn’t bad enough if the dialogues were actually well made. Now you pick the stupid option and try to guess what outcome will be. Take a guess. There are some inspection where you can find a bit more about the situation but vaguely. They speak like few words and why bother. Forget long, meaningful, beautiful crafted conversations from Origins. I know reading is hard right. Damn those pesky misearable letters. Some of your decisions seems like don’t have impact of your choices. Many sidequest are just fetch quest bring this, kill this nothing to serious. Encountered one of few interesting but in 10 hours spam this doesn’t feel like rpg at all. Some finished quest don’t go anywhere: like quest giver just walk away mumbling in hes head something while you standing there accepting experience for well done job. While I did had a chance to encounter good characters like Varric, Fenris and Flemeth in my past hours they couldn’t sustain my painfully boredome to the rest of this slop. Avoid this game like plague and stick with Origins.

Ah yes, i judged you a little harshly after playing origins... i also judged inquisition harshly after playing this one, things just kept changing... now i realize... these 3.. are the still the only dragon age games too exist, their was never a 4th, and just a weird spin off that sucked