I played the demo on both PS3 and PC, I played with all classes and every weapon style, I played both male and female Hawke. These are my thoughts about the demo:
The Good: The
framed narrative could make for an interesting story.
Character models including the
facial animations are improved.
I’m really surprised about how much I like the
female Hawke. The voice, the design, it’s just overall pleasing. Maybe I’ll even play as the default Marian on one playthorugh. And I normally don’t play females and I never play a default character when I can build my own.
But my honest appreciation is a little tainted by the fact that I might feel forced to play as female Hawke at least once, because of my problems with male Hawke (see below).
Kate Mulgrew is back! Her voice acting is so good I can stay totally unperturbed and say “Yeah, well, she’s an epic shapechanger!” when confronted with the new design.
The Bad: The voiced protagonist. Hurm, I knew from the beginning this was gonna be one of the most difficult changes for me. Having a voiced character isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it get’s kinda bad the moment you have problems with the voice actor. Now, I usually only play male characters, so I was really interested in seeing/hearing the male Hawke in action. And after the demo I have to say: damn! It’s not that I absolutely don’t like the voice, but I’m afraid it will severely limit what kinds of characters I can play. To be specific: the “heroic” Hawke I had in mind will probably just not work with Boulton’s voice and his delivery. So I might need to “rebuild” the character based around the voice or play the female version for my “good” play through, both of which makes me sad. For me this proves what I thought all along – an RPG that really wants to give the player the feeling of creating his own character (ME never was that) needs either a silent protagonist or at least the choice between different voice actors. Both options seem rather unlikely for future games, though. Pity…
All in all the
voice acting and the
dialogue in the demo wasn’t that impressive.
The new/old combat. I know, I know, it basically plays like DA:O. Thing is, it doesn’t feel like it. Because it doesn’t look like it. Part of the combat still looks DA:Oish, but other parts look like a mix of Dissidia: Final Fantasy and Motal Kombat. The new, flashy animations don’t do it for me. Might be a matter of taste, but I prefer my warrior to run/walk in a comprehensible manner instead of “fastest man alive”ing across the battlefield. Not that big a fan of the “click = awesome!” formula, too much room for interpretations of “awesome”. The mage ranged staff attack animation already kind of bored me after playing twice through the demo. Not only because that’s not how I want every mage to fight, but because it felt repetitive, and that more obtrusively than the admittedly rather bland shooting animation of the DA:O mage. Although I had to smile when Hawke and Bethany were doing the whole… “choreography” right next to each other in absolute perfect synchronicity.
Before the demo I never realized how much I’d
miss the dual wield warrior. I like that fighting style, but just can’t stand melee rogues. (“Sorry, Isabella, you’re not in the team. Varric, you’re out, too. Hate your weird crossbow girlfriend thingy. Sebastian, your turn!” Maker be praised I preorderd long ago if only for a rogue I might actually use.).
Okay, the
apocalyptic wasteland that’s supposed to be somewhere near the destroyed Lothering isn’t how all the environment will look like. Still, it’s extremely ugly. And I’m not sure it makes sense, given how Ostagar looked like when you returned there a while/long after the destruction of Lothering. The extreme and painfully obvious
linearity of this part didn’t help at all.
Absence of the free tactical view =
fixed camera. On PC = why?
The
new interface is… underwhelming.
The Ugly: Dialogue wheel is the devil! No, seriously, just why? I don’t understand how it is supposed to be fun guessing what your character will say – pretty much every single time. Who thought this was an improvement? I learned to grudgingly accept the Mass Effect wheel – in Mass Effect. But after the completely unbroken dialogue system in DA:O this just feels wrong. How can it be that I choose a one sentence “paraphrase” option only to hear a sentence of equal length, but with what feels like a totally different tenor? This is bad in the context of the demo, but what if dialogue is actually important someday, and linked with decisions? Deceptive dialogue wheel, begone!
The new “Darkspawn”. The Darkspawn we got to know in DA:O were hideous, brute creatures that swept over Ferelden, taking whatever weapon or armour was left usable from the mutilated bodies of the people they slaughtered along the way. The DA2 “Darkspawn” seem to be a pretty organized clone army. They all have these bizarre, matching armours; the “archers” aren’t just random Darkspawn with a ranged weapon anymore, they now even wear specific archer helmets. And they don’t visually resemble the DA:O Darkspawn, not even closely (okay, maybe a little, little bit – if I use the fantasy capacities I have free because of the voiced Hawke). Why in the Maker’s name redesign them like this? These new creatures are as ugly as they are not threatening. Has this been done so the new demon Qunari look more badass in comparison? I’m clueless and a little angry. I hate unnecessary redesigns as much as recasts. My only hope is that this is just how Varric describes them from the stories he heard, because he never actually met real Darkspawn. Given the existence of the Deep Roads this is most certainly just wishful thinking. And I know, they’re not the main adversaries in the game, but I’d still wish for (certain people will jump at me for using the word) a certain continuity (‘spawn, tall elves etc.)
Conclusion: I wanted to write more initially, but pretty much everything I left out this time has already been worded by people more eloquent than me (as were the things I did write about
) and I haven’t much more time left atm. In the end I have to say that while the demo for DA:O, the character creator, was the one thing that made Dragon Age become my first day one purchase in years, the demo for DA2 didn’t have an effect even close to this. In fact, would that demo be my first and only contact with DA2 after playing it predecessor I probably won’t even consider buying it. But as far as I’m concerned this is BioWare’s one free shot, earned by the awesomeness that is Dragon Age: Origins. My preorder from October stands, I’ll play the game and chances are I will enjoy it. Still, part of me thinks:
The Warden gone; Hawke Champion – I have awoken to a world of ****.
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