Dragon Age II

[AndreaDraco]

I've just finished the demo which was released today.

The demo guides you through the prologue of the game and then let you play a tiny bit of a later chapter, right from around when Hawke is Level 6 and he meets Isabela.

All in all, I enjoyed it. It took quite a while to familiarize with the new interface and the fact that the tactical camera is a lot more close-up than it was in Origins. The combat, however, is indeed very fresh and flashy like they promised but it's also very tactical, even if not as much as its predecessor. The new talents are spectacular but every returning ability has also been tweaked and their use is perhaps even more smooth than before. I played as a mage, obviously, and the newly revised Mind Blast has instantly become a favorite, like the new Cone of Cold and the new Fireball. Moreover, from what I've seen of Carver, now the Two-Handed Warrior is a combat powerhouse: Scythe is particularly awesome. Graphics are nice, even if nothing compared to Mass Effect 2, and the voices are of course top-notch. As for the (in)famous dialogue wheel, it isn't nearly as much annoying as I thought it would, mainly thanks to the emotion icons that let you immediately understand what will be the tone and general content of the sentece you're selecting. Cinematics are really well done.

I can't really say much about the story, but from what I've seen so far I can certainly tell that the characters - from you siblings to the first companions you meet - seem genuinely interesting, particularly your brother and sister even if I don't like that Carver is preset to be "rival" and Bethany "friend," since I would have preferred the other way around. And the framed narrative seems to work pretty well.

The demo whetted my appetite and I'm positive that I will definitely like the game, even if Origins felt, at least at the beginning, more engrossing, epic and atmospheric. I trust this is because the story of the Champion takes more time to develop - where in DA:O we had six different origin stories to help us delve into the world right away - and I'm sure that BioWare has some nice tricks up their sleeve regarding the overarching plot of the game: the scenario Varric depicts while talking to Cassandra, in fact, is really intriguing, especially if you, like me, support the Mages and the cause of their freedom against the Chantry.

The demo is quite short - I completed it in forty-five minutes - but it's worth a try, especially if you're unsure about the direction of DA2. I know that many doubts of mine have been quelled by the demo and I'm now confident that DA2 will become another favorite of mine.

[AndreaDraco]

Small update. I played thorugh the first half with the demo also with a rogue and a warrior. They're both nice, but the two-handed warrior is simply amazing. It's incredibly fun and it deals an heavenly damage

[DeadPoolX]

I finished the demo with the Warrior earlier today. Like Andrea said, the two-handed Warrior does an unbelievable amount of damage. Even better, the damage done is extremely flashy with blood splattering everywhere!

The combat engine is much better than the first DA. You can actually play in real-time if you want. Sure, you could sort-of do that in DA1, but the action was clunky; in DA2, it's smooth. For the most part, I didn't need to pause the game during combat. The one exception was Bethany as her spells are difficult to use in real-time.

The sibling dynamic is interesting, although unlike Andrea, I liked Bethany set as "friend" and Carver as "rival." Bethany actually seems like a nice person, whereas Carver comes off as an asshole. The fact your sister is an apostate Mage also makes for a good "big brother defending his little sister" situation.

While I did like the demo a lot, there were two MAJOR problems I had with it:

1. The status icons depicting the character's faces and health and stamina/mana look awful. DA1's status icons look much better and were far less obtrusive. Plus, DA2's status icons look about ten years out of date.

2. The tactics screen doesn't work. I tried setting tactics for my teammates and the entire system is screwed up. It's nearly impossible to set anything and when you do, it screws it up by choosing something else. Even clicking on the boxes doesn't work right. Everything seems to work in a random manner.

I know BioWare won't do anything about the ugly antiquated status icons, but I hope they fix the tactics screen. I had to disable tactics in the demo and I'd hate to do it for the entire game.

[AndreaDraco]

1. The status icons depicting the character's faces and health and stamina/mana look awful. DA1's status icons look much better and were far less obtrusive. Plus, DA2's status icons look about ten years out of date.

I agree. The round portraits were much better. With status icons do you mean things like "Knocked Back"?

2. The tactics screen doesn't work. I tried setting tactics for my teammates and the entire system is screwed up. It's nearly impossible to set anything and when you do, it screws it up by choosing something else. Even clicking on the boxes doesn't work right. Everything seems to work in a random manner.

I didn't try them since I always pause and issue direct orders to ever party member. Can it be possible that the feature wasn't fully implemented in the demo?

About the whole Carver thing. See, I'm sure I'll be playing through the game, at least the first time, with a Mage. As such, the fact that Bethany is another blood mage is somewhat redundant and - given that the Ogre will smash her - I would preferred the other sibling to remain your friend instead of switching to "rival."

[Tawmis]

Where is the demo downloaded from?

[DeadPoolX]

1. The status icons depicting the character's faces and health and stamina/mana look awful. DA1's status icons look much better and were far less obtrusive. Plus, DA2's status icons look about ten years out of date.

I agree. The round portraits were much better. With status icons do you mean things like "Knocked Back"?

I actually meant the portraits. Conditions like "knocked back" seem okay to me, but it's the portraits that really bother me.

I forgot to mention this last night, but the interface (as a whole) feels very clunky and far too "consolized." At least we get hotkeys. The fact those weren't in ME2 was a real annoyance.

2. The tactics screen doesn't work. I tried setting tactics for my teammates and the entire system is screwed up. It's nearly impossible to set anything and when you do, it screws it up by choosing something else. Even clicking on the boxes doesn't work right. Everything seems to work in a random manner.

I didn't try them since I always pause and issue direct orders to ever party member. Can it be possible that the feature wasn't fully implemented in the demo?

I hope so. I usually set tactics for my teammates, especially when it comes to Mages. The computer has a hard time understanding that tossing fireball at the enemy isn't a good idea if I'm in the way.

About the whole Carver thing. See, I'm sure I'll be playing through the game, at least the first time, with a Mage. As such, the fact that Bethany is another blood mage is somewhat redundant and - given that the Ogre will smash her - I would preferred the other sibling to remain your friend instead of switching to "rival."

In that case, I agree. I think, however, that Carver is naturally more confrontational than Bethany and as such, doesn't like the fact his brother (or sister) is in command.

He might also be less amicable than his twin sister (Bethany) because she is an apostate Mage. He doesn't have to remain in the background, whereas Bethany is a prime target for overzealous Templars.

Where is the demo downloaded from?

The PC version is on the demo page of the Dragon Age 2 website. Click on the American flag icon to download the English version.

I have no idea where you'd find the 360 demo. Probably somewhere on Xbox Live.

[AndreaDraco]

I usually set tactics for my teammates, especially when it comes to Mages. The computer has a hard time understanding that tossing fireball at the enemy isn't a good idea if I'm in the way.

Have you noticed, though, that area spells like Fireball, Cone of Cold and the like don't do any damage to your party members? I've read that, sadly, friendly fire is only implemented at Nightmare. Moreover, this area spells don't seem to affect the party members even regarding effect: for example, if you played at Easy on Origins, where the friendly fire was disabled, Fireball woudn't do any damage but at least it would knock back the party members. Here nothing seems to happen at all.

[DeadPoolX]

I usually set tactics for my teammates, especially when it comes to Mages. The computer has a hard time understanding that tossing fireball at the enemy isn't a good idea if I'm in the way.

Have you noticed, though, that area spells like Fireball, Cone of Cold and the like don't do any damage to your party members? I've read that, sadly, friendly fire is only implemented at Nightmare. Moreover, this area spells don't seem to affect the party members even regarding effect: for example, if you played at Easy on Origins, where the friendly fire was disabled, Fireball woudn't do any damage but at least it would knock back the party members. Here nothing seems to happen at all.

Actually, it DOES do damage to party members.

I played as a Warrior in the demo (I plan on trying the Rogue and Mage) and when I had Bethany launch fireball, it'd hurt me and anyone else on my team if we were caught in the blast. I tried it several times to make sure and yes, it does hurt you.

The demo's difficulty is stuck at Normal, so apparently team damage (in respect to spells) is definitely on. Maybe you didn't notice spells damaging teammates?

[AndreaDraco]

Hmm... Strange. I can remember the developers saying that friendly fire will be activated only on Nightmare. Here's the link.

Anyway, I'll try again and report back.

EDIT: I checked and if I throw a fireball at a mob of darkspawn surrounding Carver, Carver doesn't take any damage. Could it because I only played the exaggerated part of the prologue?

[DeadPoolX]

EDIT: I checked and if I throw a fireball at a mob of darkspawn surrounding Carver, Carver doesn't take any damage. Could it because I only played the exaggerated part of the prologue?

I don't know if that makes a difference or not, but I recall taking damage.

[AndreaDraco]

What bothers me is that I can't save during the demo, but may tonight I will play through the entirety of it and see if I can test this thing. I could also scour the dedicated thread over at BSF, but it's oh so long

[DeadPoolX]

I've now played all three classes during the demo and here's I what I think: the Warrior is the best class. What is and what isn't the best class depends on your play style, of course, but based on the damage and easy of play, I'd say the Warrior, with the Rogue coming in just slightly behind. The Mage, however, really sucks.

I beat the second ogre easily with the Warrior and with only minor difficulty with the Rogue. However, I had to replay that same fight three times to win as a Mage. Considering how Mages are more combative in DA2 than in DA1, that seems insane. Maybe the spells just aren't as good in DA2. Whatever the reason, I had a lot of trouble as a Mage in DA2, whereas I played a Mage and won fights easily in DA1.

I wonder if the changes made to the Warrior and Mage classes are in response to DA1. In DA1, Warriors weren't that good (Rogues could do equal or even greater damage later on) and Mages dominated the game. It almost seems reversed in DA2.

[AndreaDraco]

While I agree that they have seriously enhanced the warrior and rogue experience, I still find mages to be the most satisfying class. Sure, the Ogre battle was a tad harder with two warrior and only one mage with two or three spells, but I beat the monster easily nonetheless, with Winter's Grasp and Fireball.

[DeadPoolX]

One thing that was really annoying with the Mage (and to a somewhat lesser extent, both the Warrior and Rogue) is the exceptionally long recharge times for powers. In most cases powers didn't take TOO long to recharge in DA1, but in DA2, even simple low-level spells take a long time to recharge.

Compare a basic heal spell in DA1 against DA2. In DA1, heal took FIVE seconds to recharge, whereas heal takes 60 seconds to recharge in DA2. Guess which one is more effective during combat?

[AndreaDraco]

To be honest, I didn't pay attention to the recharge times

Another reason to play through the demo!