After a short break from my journey to play everyDragon Agegame beforeDragon Age: The Veilguardlaunches this October, I’m back, baby. I was briefly deterred from this mission after trying and failing to beat the Archdemon inDragon Age: Originsseveral times – turns out I’m stupid, because I didn’t realise the ballistas were there for me to use – but I’ve beaten the first game and now moved onto the second.
I didn’t have high expectations for this one, I’ll admit. I’ve heard the discourse. Everybody loves either Origins orInquisition, and very few will admit toDragon Age 2being their favourite. Much like me, it’s the black sheep of the family, maligned as the disappointing sequel to an all-time great, or framed as lacking in comparison to the more technically advanced, open-world third game. But I’ve played Origins through, and I jumped the gun last year and played some of Inquisition, and I’m here to speak my truth: Dragon Age 2 is my favourite of the three so far.
It turns out that this isn’t as unpopular an opinion as I thought – TheGamer Editor-in-Chief Stacey Henley has alsowaxed lyrical about the second game being the best.
I concede that my opinion might change once I actually give Inquisition a fighting chance, but I distinctly remember that its open world and endless fetch quests left me feeling desperately empty. Conventional fandom wisdom instructs that I play it without letting these diversions pull me away from the meat of the game, and maybe that will sway me, but as things stand, the couple of hours that I’ve played of Dragon Age 2 have impressed me the most.
The First Dragon Age For Console
Dragon Age: Origins loses much of its magic when you aren’t playing it on PC, and yet that’s what I was forced to dobecause it’s broken. I played on console instead, which wasn’t great – it was obvious I was experiencing a poor substitute for the way it was intended to be played. Moving from that to playing Dragon Age 2 on console was a breath of fresh air. The sequel feels so much more fluid and well suited to the platform, making it feel less like I was mindlessly cueing up attacks and more like I’m actually executing combat in real time.
I know this was unpopular with fans at the time because of its turn away from the popular tactical combat, but as a console player, this more action-y combat style is a welcome departure from Origins’ subpar attempt at making a niche combat style work on console. It doesn’t just look better, itfeelsbetter.
Dragon Age 2’s Kirkwall Feels So Much More Intimate
Another criticism often levelled against the sequel is that the game mostly keeps you within the city of Kirkwall, which is full of repetitive dungeons. I guess this is technically true, but again,like Stacey, IloveKirkwall. And part of that is precisely because it’s where everything happens.
Over time, the city begins to feel familiar. Not in the sense that every section looks and feels the same, but in the sense that it feels like home. And home has so much personality. Every section of the city feels separate from the other, showing us clear separations between classes and races. The docks feel entirely different from Darktown, which in turn feels different from Hightown. It almost reminds me of anotherBioWarehit,Knights of the Old Republic, whose first settingTarisdemonstrates class segregation in a similar way.
While Origins lets you explore multiple cities, and Inquisition lets you roam vast expanses (filled with absolutely nothing), Dragon Age 2 zooms in on a single city and all the secrets and intrigue it holds. Where the other games go wide and shallow, this one goes narrow and deep.
The Veilguard Before It Was The Veilguard
Maybe my opinion is being skewed by what we know the upcoming instalment will be like. After all, like Stacey has also written,Dragon Age: The Veilguardfeels an awful lotlike what Dragon Age 2 might have beenif it had been given enough time to cook. It leans into action-style combat, like Dragon Age 2. It throws out the open-world gameplay of Inquisition and returns to the narrower focus of the earlier games. It also seems to have quite a lot to do with the city of Minrathous, which implies the city might be just as deeply developed as Kirkwall.
Perhaps I just like Dragon Age 2 the most because it feels the closest to what the future of the series would look like, but I can’t help but feel that maybe I’m drawing the wrong conclusion from these similarities. Maybe The Veilguard feels so similar to Dragon Age 2 because the second game was the most forward-looking, the most prescient of the lot in terms of what players would grow to crave after years oftriple-A games striving to be bigger and more realistic.
Maybe it was an indication of what Dragon Agewouldhave been, before open-world trends pushed Inquisition off the deep end. Maybe it ended up being the blueprint because it was the best. In any case, it’s my favourite.
Dragon Age 2
WHERE TO PLAY
You’re Hawke, a refugee seeking to escape the darkspawn-plagued land of Ferelden and become Champion of Kirkwall. Rise to power and fight epic battles while making decisions that determine the course of civilization. Your pursuit of power begins now. How will you seal your place in history?KEY FEATURESCinematic storytelling— Experience a decade’s worth of battles and intrigue thanks to a nonlinear narrative that keeps the action coming. A redesigned dialogue system gives more context to your decisions and helps players create a fully realized, multi-dimensional character.Customize your fight— Dozens of spells and 3 battle companions give players endless options. Stay in the moment with fast-paced combat, or pause the battle and make every move count by issuing individual orders.Make bigger moves— Your actions carry greater weight than ever, and you’ll need to think long-term because you have an entire decade to reach your goal. Every dialogue and battle decision affects your standing with party members. Maximizing your friendship opens up even more options.
