Dragon Age II - 7.5/10

Dragon Age II is a very different game from its predecessor but I'm not sure it's for the best. I loved the characters of this game including Hawke (player character) and all of the companions.

My issues come at the story and setting. Most of the story is running around doing errands, the best missions take place at the end of Act 2 & 3.

The story is set around the city of Kirkwall and it basically never leaves it. Unlike Dragon Age: Origins where you visit all of Ferelden, you spend the whole game running around the same 10 hallways over and over again. To me this takes away all replay-ability that the game has.

I'd still recommend just like DAO downloading a 4GB patch to reduce crashes but its no way near as bad as it was in Origins. At least you can alt + tab in this one without is crashing lol

1/15 STORY
🔲 Awful
✅ Nothing Special
🔲 Good
🔲 Great
🔲 FANTASTIC

2/15 GAMEPLAY
🔲 Lifeless/static
🔲 Poor
✅ Average
🔲 Good
🔲 Excellent

3/15 DIFFICULTY
🔲 Playing asleep
🔲 Some brain usage
✅ Easy to learn / Hard to master
🔲 Difficult
🔲 Dark Souls

4/15 GRIND
🔲 Nothing to grind
🔲 Isn't necessary to progress
🔲 Average grind level
✅ A lot of grind
🔲 Too much grind

5/15 GAME TIME / REPLAYABILITY
🔲 Long enough for a cup of coffee
🔲 Short
✅ Average
🔲 Long
🔲 To infinity and beyond

6/15 MULTIPLAYER
✅ No Multiplayer
🔲 Trashy servers
🔲 Some hiccups
🔲 Smooth and pleasant experience
🔲 Co-op
🔲 PvP
🔲 PvE

7/15 GRAPHICS
✅ Low
🔲 Average
🔲 Good
🔲 Beautiful
🔲 Reality 2.0

8/15 AUDIO
🔲 Earrape
🔲 Bad
✅ Not too bad
🔲 Good
🔲 Eargasm

9/15 AUDIENCE
🔲 Kids
✅ Teens
✅ Adults
🔲 Everyone

10/15 PC REQUIREMENTS
✅ Potato
🔲 Decent
🔲 Fast
🔲 Rich boi
🔲 NASA

11/15 PRICE
🔲 It's free!
🔲 Not recommended
✅ Wait for sale
🔲 Worth the price
🔲 Best investment ever done

12/15 FREQUENT UPDATES
✅ Life cycle completed
🔲 Last year
🔲 A few every year
🔲 Once per month
🔲 Every week

13/15 BUGS / CRASHES
🔲 None that I can recount
🔲 Minor bugs
✅ Infrequent crashes
🔲 Frequent crashes
🔲 Complete mess

14/15 MISC
🔲 Steam Workshop
✅ Steam Trading Cards
🔲 Steam Achievements
✅ Content for Steam Points Shop

15/15 VERDICT
✅ Recommended
🔲 Not recommended

While this game possesses many charms of its prequel, the overall feel is one of disappointment. Annoying area recycle, companions are a bit lame in comparison to origins, same with quests, a lot of fetching, writing is sub par, the friend/rival system is ridiculous, the character specific skill tree forces you to use certain companions even if you dont want them (in nightmare mode aka Healer Anders or Tank Aveline), just to name a few flaws. Worth the hassle to carry your saves to inquisition but that's pretty much it.

I forgot how tedious this game is... But the story makes it up, until the end :)