Thoughts on DA2 after completing it
 

First off, the usual stuff: I'll just post my thoughts on various aspects of a game, do a little comparison to other games and so on. I see no reason to turn this into a review and there won't be a score. Feel free to get a discussion going, ask questions and so on.

Note: My opinion is currently based on a full completion of DA2 with a 2H warrior, and act 1 completed as a mage.

Game length
There has been a lot of debate about the size of DA2, especially since most of it plays out in a single city. In short, there's nothing to worry about - there is plenty of content here. Not quite as big as Origins, but far more than Mass Effect 2, Jade Empire and so on.

Music, sound and graphics
The music and sound is top notch, just like Origins. The only downside is the fact that Anders is not voiced by the same actor, which is a real shame.

The graphics are.. well, depends who you ask. To me, they work out just fine, as I generally like the artistic style. I only have one bad thing to say about the graphics: What on earth did they do to the darkspawn? They look horrible. Oh yes, and Flemeth has a bit of a mismatch in terms of appearance/voice; her voice fit her old looks much better.

Gameplay
Oooh the heated topic! So many discussions have degenerated into flame wars around here because of this topic. Simplified? Streamlined? Consolitis?

Well, the tactical combat is still there, no doubt about it. Pausing is still very much required on Hard and Nightmare. If anything, it's more challenging/difficult than Origins ever was. Unfortunately, the difficulty is not exclusively based on the challenges, which brings me to the next point: Lack of tactical view.

I'll be blunt, I hate the fact that the tactical view is gone. It makes Nightmare extremely frustrating, because placing AoE spells is now - quite literally - a nightmare. It's all good'n dandy on Easy/Normal/Hard, because there is no friendly fire, but once you include friendly fire, it's remarkably annoying. I honestly suggest people avoid Nightmare, even if they do find Hard too easy, simply to avoid the frustration of not having tactical view.

Beyond that, combat is pretty much the same as it was in Origins. The speed is a bit higher (which makes placing AoE spells even harder on Nightmare), but as long as you use the pause button a lot it shouldn't be a problem.

Other than that, talents have been reworked. I'm not really sure how I feel about the new system - all in all it works out pretty well I suppose, but it's a bit.. slow? It's hard to describe, but I'll try: I constantly get the feeling that I need 3-4 more levels to get something groovy, which takes loads of hours, mainly because the talent trees are locked on level/amount of points put in a tree. A lot of levels feel completely useless because I just put "filler points" in a tree to get to the great stuff at the end of the tree.

All in all I actually prefer the setup in Origins, but only marginally. This new system is pretty smooth, especially if they tweak it a bit for an add-on or some such thing. Maybe give the main character a few extra points to play around with like in Origins where you got a few points here and there (either from quests or books).

Posted this next section (about classes) in another thread, but figured I could post it here as well to get a more complete thread.

Classes
Mages
I generally like the frost spells a lot. They add a nice frozen effect that others can take advantage of. Beyond that, I actually found mages somewhat disappointing - single target crowd control is virtually useless now (too many enemies), as are single target debuffs. Only a few fights have boss monsters worth putting a lot of debuffs on (dragons etc). Mage area damage is still decent, but several of their talent trees have more debuff than damage spells.

Rogues
Dual wield rogues have immense damage on single targets, but they tend to be hard to keep alive unless you protect them a lot. Ranged rogues work out just fine though, as they have similar damage, but can stay away from enemy cleave/area attacks.

Warriors
Work out well whether they're tanks or damage. Probably the most consistent damage dealers, especially when facing waves of enemies (which you do most of the time). Not as good on big bosses though, as they tend to run out of stamina quickly when they're not constantly killing (they have a talent that restores stamina when dealing killing blows).

As for combos? Usually pointless, as you face waves that require more area damage than single target damage, but on bosses it's quite nice. It's really quite simple though: You have a few types of debuff (stagger etc) applied by different classes that the other classes can take advantage of. In most cases you don't even have to specifically cater to the debuffs as a lot of them are applied through rather basic attacks like shield bash and cone of cold.

Story (main and side quests)
It's better than Origins, but that doesn't say a whole lot (let's be honest, Origins had a rubbish main quest). The companions generally have some interesting quests, and the main quest itself is actually not as obvious as most BioWare plots, which is a good thing. There are a lot of timesink quests though, that you never actually care about, but do just for the experience/money. It's not like Gothic where you put serious effort into pretty much every quest - it's more like an MMO where you gather up 3-4 quests and go do them all at once. This aspect was present in Origins too, however, so it's nothing new.

Overall, the writing seems better than Origins. A bit more focused. BioWare is still a notch below Obsidian, but I wasn't expecting anything else.

Verdict compared to Origins
Simple really: If you liked Origins mainly due to the tactical, oldschool combat, you should probably wait until DA2 hits the bargin bin. If you liked it for any other reason, you should pick up DA2 sooner than that. If you didn't enjoy Origins, you probably won't enjoy DA2 either.

Overall it has better writing than Origins, but lacks exploration and tactical view. The production values are pretty much the same, and I have yet to encounter any serious bugs. The only bug I've noticed was someone claiming my hero from Origins (I imported the savegame) let the Architecht live, when in truth he didn't.

I'll post this for now, and expand a bit later. I need to play a bit more now.

Future notes to expand upon (or topics to discuss):
- Why is every mage now a blood mage, able to summon demons and undead? Most mages also turn into abominations for some reason. In Origins, this was pretty rare.
- Inventory system, simplification taken too far.
- Choices and consequences: There are lots, but are they real? Need a second playthrough to verify some of the choices (I suspect the ending is actually a fake choice, not a real one).
- Kung Fu mage animations: Cool to look at, annoying in combat as they tend to delay spell casting by quite a bit.¨
- The wave mechanic is used far, far too much.
- Streets of Kirkwall a bit crowded with enemies at night?
- Action. Talking. Action. Talking. There is nothing inbetween: No exploration, no inventory management, no puzzles, nothing.
- The impact of imported savegames: A few mentions here and there, a nice touch to get the feeling that Hawke exists in the same universe as the Hero of Ferelden, but nothing major.

The length this is funny. I see repeated posts on forums claiming the game is 15 hours long or 20 hours long… I'm at 25 hours and just got to chapter two.

The game is plenty long enough.

If you go once through the area and really hunt does guys, you get a map to there headquarters and can finish them off. After that you can move around in that area undisturbed.

I can't say for all the choices but I did get out off some fights with choosing the right answers.

I like the companion quests, as far as I know them, too. It's not just a "can you help me get that" but an interesting story behind it.

Blood mages aren't abominations as far as I know. It's just seen as really evil and a lot of them start killing people to do their magic.
The difference between Anders and normale abominations probably is that he is not possessed by a demon but by a spirit. I don't think, Justice uses Anders the way the other demon possessed people were used. They started to give up their own family to accomplish their goals while Anders still is somebody who wants to help.

There is not really a difference to DA:O. I remember playing as a rogue and choosing some talents I never used so I could get the talent in the third tier.

I don't know but so far I had a lot more "I want to kill this guy" moments than in DA:O. For example a certain dwarf, a "mother" and a certain murderer. And in this game you really can't be sure who is left standing when you finish the chapter…

I really think it depends on the choice. For some there is a different consequence but they aren't that important. For others their is a different consequence but the ultimate outcome is at least similar.

I really don't know how somebody played through this in 15 - 20 hours. I'm at 26 hours and still in Chapter Two.

It's a classic comment, seen again and again for many different games. I see two possible explanations:

1) Bragging. Some people think finishing a game fast makes them cool somehow.. so they exaggerate a bit.

2) Some gamers have a lot of time for gaming and can/will allow themselves to be completely absorbed in a game. When they finish the game it doesn't *feel* like a long time for them, so they just throw out an estimate matching their feeling that the game was short.

Usually I simply don't believe reports like this, since I often know for a fact that the game in question *can not* be completed that fast :)

What? In all area? During chapter 1? I remember it happened to me two times and the second time I was level 10 and got a very rude fight forcing me do a lot of micro management, and I loved it. :)

This first chapter seems never ending, but I like that. :) The good point is people that don't like have too many fights can skip many (not all) and can spread those street night fights, sometimes I really feel "woo can't I have more fights?".

Players are also different, first you can skip many points, second you can fly through exploration just following blindly a quest cursor, you can spend quite few time in thinking about equipments and classes level up and you can even just use the auto level up button, you can fly much faster through fights by lowering difficulty level instead of replay multiple time a fight and think about tactics and try different tactics. And at reverse you can spend a lot of time into all those elements and spend much more time to complete the game.

But in no way I expect DA2 be as long than DAO. At first play of DAO, the game recorded duration was 120 hours and this not counting reload.

Darktown, Lowtown, Hightown. I'm not sure if they still there in Chapter 2 if you killed them in Chapter 1.[/QUOTE]

I'm playing on Steam, so I can consult the counter there. :)

What? Except Merrill? And even you can't stand her? Woo so you don't love Imoen illegal daughter, the young little sister forever? And not even a word about Varric? Arg. That said I agree that Carver is more interesting that what's mentioned usually in posts about the game. I don't have yet the good background as I haven't yet finished chapter 1, and I met Anders only almost at end of chapter 1, and Isabella even later not even yet available as a companion. And anyway I plan this time not make the error I made with DAO and plan keep many companions for the replay.

Thanks for the tip, I made Lowntown and Hightown, Hightown final fight was very very rude at level 10. I'm not sure for Darktown, it is complicated because of the special entrances (from Docks) but well I suppose those don't count.

I'm still in Chapter 1 so I still can check Darktown to not take the risk of not having the opportunity in Chapter 2. It's that sort of stuff I expect have consequences even if not on main quest. In fact I already make once a choice killing a quest provider so I'm quite sure that some player decisions have some importance and later consequences.

That's really a point I like in Steam, but don't have it this time as I play a box version for DA2. I wish someone release a freeware doing that counting, but well as I play DA2 on Mac I wouldn't be able to use it.

I always wonder if those people who say they completed the game in 15 hours actually played the game to SAVOR it? It seems like they put the difficulty on casual, did ONLY the main quests, and breezed through them at that.

I am well over 30 hours of playing and am still in the 2nd "act". I explore every inch of the maps, try to do all the sidequests, take time to find the best loot and configure the most enjoyable combat tactics, etc.

Game length is NOT an issue this time.

Maylander,

Thank you for the spoiler-free review Maylander. I'm still playng the game, but can echo some of your exact sentiments. Story is more focused than Origins (smaller scope, but generally more interesting and better characters). Combat is DIFFERENT, but not worse. I actually LIKE the faster pace and the re-organization of the talents. Exploration is dumbed down and pretty much non-existent, though. I mean, not that that was always Bioware's strong point (this aspect has eroded with each successive Bioware release since BG2), but the maps this time are very linear and obsessively goal-centered.

You pretty much summed it up with "Talk - combat - Talk - Combat",etc. It's a good thing the combat is exciting and the plot better than Origins.

I'm playing on Hard, btw. I found normal slightly too easy for those of us that spend time creating the best tactics lists. Hard is just the right amount of challenge. However, a few of the boss fights were so tough on Hard that I had to temporarily drop it back to Normal to get through them.

P.S. - Right on about melee rogue being quite fragile. I rarely use for that reason. I play as an archer rogue, myself.

When doing some quests in dock, still during chapter 1, I discovered you can add to the list the Docks. Now 30h still in chapter 1! And I don't count the reload because the more it goes the more there are very rude fights.

None of your base will belong to him, I'd wager…

Saved games show how long you have been playing anyway, much more accurately than Steam does.

You can't really avoid them, you can get them over with once and be done with them. You run through the whole district and trigger the groups. You know you found all if you get some kind of message about their headquarters. Now you can go there and kill the leaders of the group and you want have any more night fights. (At least not from that group…)

I'm still in Chapter 2 so I don't know how the situation with Anders evolves.

But only for one playthrough. If you want to know, how much time you spend with the game, Steam's better.

I hated what they made of Imoen in BG2, a sort of irritating constant whiner even if she had reason for. It's an awful misunderstanding of Imoen in BG1. :)

For Varric well it's the more detailed and the more funny, but I don't have a good point of view as I'm still at chapter 1.

And Steam will register reload and alternate tries that represent better the real time spend.

Still out of topic but about game length, I'm still at chapter 1, the whole team at level 11, for about 35 hours of play, and 48 quests but about 10 are quite tiny but some are rather long too. And I think there's at least one I haven't succeed to trigger (or perhaps this will be later), plus lost few because I made a choice canceling completely a provider of quests and perhaps lost 2/3 quests.

There are people who can finish BG2 in less than 15 hours so I certainly don't doubt people can finish this in less than 10. My guess is they would be skipping a fair chunk of the dialogue.

Have you done it, if not why you believe it?

I doubt it's possible the first time you play it. For a careful planed replay with a walk through in second hand and some drugs to keep the rythm, perhaps. :) Often some players will quote the time for replaying a game in hurry and already knowing it perfectly. But that sort of time is totally wrong and pointless. Doom 2 could be finished in less than 15 minutes… Yeah very useful.

I just completed the game for the heck of it and this is really off imo.

First, Origins´ main quest was not rubbish, unless you´re talking about its basic structure aka "blight is coming, pc becomes grey warden, gathers allies and defeats archdemon, the end" or something.
Because the core of DA:O´s main quest lies in dealing with different factions, getting to know their customs/problems, becoming involved in local politics and choosing how to deal with them.
The darkspawn threat is a generic premise, but it serves only as a background and agent to get other things moving. And the main quest is really about these other things and these were presented well, you got to make a solid amount of choices on the way and various options were presented in plausible manner.

DA2´s main quest is "not so obvious" not because it´s intricately constructed, full of smart subtlety or overall well written, but because it´s a directionless mess.
It´s just a bunch of loosely (if at all) connected side quests the game´s throwing at you as you go on, there´s rarely any sense of tangible reason why you should do them and even though you can make some choices along the way, in the end they don´t matter at all since everything plays out more-or-less the same, even the ending cinematic is the same bar one or two different sentences.
And "main quest" parts in act 3 didn´t make any sense whatsoever, hilarity at its finest.

DA2 has only more interesting/original premise, but when compared how both games´ main quests actually play out in detail, DA2 has nothing on DA:O.
Personally I consider DA2´s "main quest" to be the worst of Bioware´s games I´ve played (haven´t played NWN OC and Jade Empire).

I got one - my character attacked progressively slower to the point the game became unplayable - the culprit was bugged friendship power from Isabela and I had to use save game editor to fix it.
Also, "post-chat" to Merril´s act 3 quest occurred before I even started the quest.
And just remembered that reviving party members in combat results in them being treated as if out of combat (fast regen, constantly sheath weapons).

It seems you haven't captured or appreciate the scenario choice of the game. It's not a long linear story with one introduction, 4 (or 5?) parts still linear but you can do them in various order, and one linear final, the whole with more or less secondary quests not really related but that help remove the linear feeling. That is the typical Bioware main story design.

Here nope, there's no main story, it's you the main story. You are an obscure unknown immigrant and through your actions and decisions you just build your reputation in a town. There's ton more decisions than in DAO and you seem think they have no consequences but I seriously doubt about it, but ok only replay will tell. But just one example, did you got at beginning of chapter 2 absolutely no Templar that want talk to you, but one almost rejected from the order? I got that, but because of past choices I wasn't surprised to get that. Another little detail, after to have made a series of choices I got from the mother a dialog, in it she says she don't like how I am involved with chantry problems or the templars.

Yes there is no main story at least during the long first part introduction and the very long first chapter, but that's on purpose. For me it was quite well done, it build very well the feeling to not be the hero that destiny has mark and many already know it. No you are almost an anti hero and you are involved in many different stuff, not that important because you aren't that important, and you have many little decision to do, nothing related to saving a whole town, area, population or world. But those many decisions will (my bet) build series of small consequences and some more important consequences.

EDIT: As a fresh almost unknown immigrant arriving in a new town, have strong main story on start would have been awfully artificial.

You forgot probably the most important one…
3) Explorers vs. Story followers. This is what happens in my case. I finished Fallout 3 in a weekend (probably about 15-20 hours) yet others say they've played 100 hours and haven't finished the game. My character wasn't even max level (finished at 16 I think). Some people like exploring everything and leaving the game story as something to do later. Others follow the story.

I haven't come close to finishing but,

If you leave it on Easy, click random dialog choices and skip the dialog, leave on quest marker arrows and just run around to the next one as fast as you can then yes, I believe you could finish this game very quickly.

Normal level was getting way too easy for me. I'm finding Hard to be just about right so far. Some battles are still not really difficult, but more key battles in main story quests get pretty intense and require potions and tons of pausing, and I've had a few battles with all my party getting killed. I have little patience for fiddling with tactics, so I clear almost all of them out and do everything manually.

Average time on the official forum is between 30-35 hours (going by a poll). I have seen quite a few people clock over 40 hours with it and some over 60 hours.

I finished at ~31 hours, but I missed lots of quests and a few companions dialogs. I was level 24 and I know players can get close to level 26. That's a lot of XP missing. In my second playthrough, I already found 2 quests that I missed in Act 1.

People who don't bother looking everywhere will be missing on lots of quests. One of the quest I just found require you to wait for a NPC scenes to stop (not in a cinematic) and for the quest giver to show up…

There isn't quests only to find by digging but more dialogs and more little stuff. As usual in Bioware games I played they don't know design little mildly hidden stuff that has the detail to catch your eyes/your attention. A typical example are the numerous books, many are just decorum and some are codex but there's two flaw in their design. Firstly when you pick one codex book it stays here, so next time you go there you could believe again it's a codex. Secondly there's no special characteristics to recognize code books from other. So you just rely on using the key that shows selectable items.

Not cool but there's still many stuff to find and in general a selectable item hidden in a corner won't show, you'll need check the corner first. And in general I appreciate how (for once) Bioware reward often the curious player when usually there isn't that much stuff out of the main paths highlighted in the game.

I'm now at 60 hours of play and only started second chapter. I don't use at all the quests pointer so it involves some time lost. I also search sometime some stuff I suspect and lost time through that. And I also made few but not short sessions of equipment improvement this taking some time.

But it's also, still in chapter 2:

• 81 quests but yes 10/15 are very basic, it's sill stuff good to have.
• 3 special items generating a special codex in the diary, but I have seen few at very high price at some shop probably also generating 1 or 2 more special item codex. I don't count the 10 items codex coming from DLC of the SE.
• About 20 special notes and letters, I don't have the exact track because not all are recorded in the diary.
• 6 significant rumors recorded in the diary but along the progression there have been quite more.
• 15 companions armor set special bonus equipments.
• Yeah I won't count the other very noteworthy items or codex or the special dialogs not directly linked to a quest, it's not that much a detail because it's relatively often them that will make links with your past actions.

For sure in term of number it can't be compared to DAO… but it's still only first part of chapter 2… and how many you found or perhaps you just fly following the quest pointer, or almost? :p

EDIT: Ooops, this post isn't targeted to you azarhal, nor to anybody in particular in fact.

I'm at 44 hours and started act three about an hour ago (game time). I guess it will be about 60 by the end, which is plenty long enough.

Think I might start an evil mage playthrough of DA:O when I'm done.

I was at 26 hrs by the time I finished my 1st playthrough, but that was ignoring all side/secondary quests in 3rd chapter.

I finished at 41 hours and did almost every quest possible. Second time the same.

I think you skipped a lot more than Act 3 sidequests since I was at double that time when I GOT to act 3 ;)

Yeah, I did skip some of side/secondary quests in chapter 1 and 2 as well. I probably haven't even picked up a lot of them in my 1st playthrough. Also skipped all Merrill quests. I can't stand her…

I'm in my 2nd playthrough. Barely started chapter 2 and I'm at 19.5hrs already.

I wish to see the save. But the true one because it wouldn't be difficult to produce once with short play time and all stuff done and found, by skipping any dialog, rushing to quest pointer, lower difficulty to easy, and use some guide to help found anything. :)

Anyway, I'm curious how many quests at end of the game (yes it's just a number as a significant number are just a tiny stuff to do) and other stuff like I quoted. :)

EDIT: DA2 is showing a significant change in design approach for Bioware alas all this misadventure will push them back to their standard design cliché (and now somehow tedious for me when DA2 is a nice surprise).

The design isn't really changed from their previous game except for the story structure and how companions are handled and they said they wanted to experiment with that. From what I have seen most people like these changes. Most people just have a problem with the lack of "dungeons" variety and the "waves".

For fun, I re-installed DAO last night and played about 20 minutes of it. The first thing that I saw was that the game felt more like an old fashioned point-to-click game then DA2, yet both support that feature. I came to the conclusion that the feeling is caused by the combat animations. DAO have ~1 animations by combat type and they are clunky, while DA2 have something different for almost every abilities and look more "organic" (despite some of them being over the top). Also, DAO loading time are atrocious, now I remember why I have never been able to replay the game.

Okay, a question: I played DA:O for quite a while. I stopped a little after getting the dwarf character. I got very bored with all the companion-related quests. What percentage of quests deal with your companions? I would really enjoy Dragon Age more if I could "roll" all the characters and if they were mute units :)

In DA2 you mean? Every act, of which there are three, has a companion quest, as well as a lot of companion dialogue scenes. Companions are a core part of the game.

Says you Dasale since you doubt anything people say. 41 hrs is what it took me. Complain how it cant be done unless you skip dialogs all you want. Maybe your just a bad gamer.

You didn´t have to do companion quests in DA:O and if you found talking with companions boring you could cut a lot of it by not being active in that regard (and in such case you´d likely not get most of personal quests even started).

DA2 has less talking with companions and most of pc/companion chats are engineered via quest prompts, which you can ignore in some cases, though given the "engineer-y" implementation that basically means not talking to them at all.
If you talk to them, you get the quest even if you decline to do it, at least that happened in few cases I tried to do that out of curiosity. You can ignore them afterwards I think, though it may not stop their plots in later acts.

If ignoring is not an option for you, then companion quests are a lot more prominent in DA2. Pretty much every companion has own quest line consisting of 3 subquests (one for each act), some are tied to the "main plot" and most of dialogues you can have with companions revolve around these quests.
I think I may have spent overall more time on companion quests than on the main quest.
Personally I think few of these contained some of the better material the game has to offer and companions are also where most of the game´s C&C take place (tied to the friendship/rivalry meter, not strictly to how or if at all you´ve done their quests, though these can influence the meter quite significantly).

The thing however is that unlike in DA:O, DA2´s "main quest" sucks balls for most of the time.
It´s basically a disjointed set of miniquests which should somehow come to fruition later which does happen, but often in a loose manner and it mostly plays out the same anyway.
Motivation for your character to do them is often more than dubious - for example, most quests listed under main plot in act 1 are there only because they´ll lead to some events in later acts, otherwise they´re pretty much indiscernible from some other side quests. However, your char´s sole "main plot" goal in act 1 is to gather 50 gold somehow. So you may as well ignore these main subquests altogether and get the money via side quests (which suck too, certainly nothing like BG2´s second chapter, for example).
So what happens when you gather 50 gold without touching some of the main plot parts? You have to finish all of them anyway.
The main quest gets only somewhat interesting in the second half of act 2, but that´s quickly rectified in retarded act 3.

Thus my point is, ignoring companion quests so that you could get to the "good stuff" in my opinion isn´t an option in DA2, because there´s very little of other "good stuff" present.
Personally I´d summarize game´s solid points as companions (not all of them), focus on family (unusual element, but somewhat misused/underused in the end), qunari (not enough to save the whole story "arc") and combat skills (not well supported by other aspects of combat, like camera, targeting and encounter design).
The game is mediocre at best anyway (say, 5/10), but you take companions out of it and you´re in a plain bad games territory (say, 3/10).

All in all, given what I think about the game in general, plus your preferences in regards to companions, I don´t recommend Dragon Age 2.

This post was a lot longer than it needed to be, sorry :).

@DeepO, nope I liked the in-depth thoughts behind my posted preferences. I was afraid that DA2 went further down the path in the parts of the game I disliked, and you confirmed this.

I buy every crpg, but I will wait until I can get a good deal on it. I still haven't bought Risen or Alpha Protocol, though I will eventually. I'm not sure about Arcania. It may not be worth the bother. I'm in Chapter 4 of 2W2 and am enjoying it enough to replay, so my gaming time is pretty booked for now. I may also replay TRoT with Ergo's stuff added, so that'll push DA2 back further. If I make it to Skyrim before purchasing DA2, that's typically 6 months of gaming when I get a TES game. By then, DA2 will be nearing a GOTY version, which would be the perfect time to buy :)

Actually, DA2 and DA:O have the same amount of Companion conversations (confirmed by the devs). DA:O allowed you to go through it all in one go as soon as you got the camp. DA2 have them spread over the act.

In both cases you don't have to talk to your companions or do their quests. Although, DA2 companions comment in quests a lot more then in DA:O, or any BioWare game for that matter.

I'm only around five or eight hours in after restarting a couple times, and so far I really like it.

On Hard difficulty, there are a few fights that I've come across so far that completely kicked my ass, and I had to re try and even lower the difficulty once. The companion interactions are very well done. There's a lot of other things I like about it too, but I'm waiting until I'm further in until I critique it more.

Yes it has faults and in theory I miss some of the skills and stats. BUT in reality DA1 did a terrible job of explaining how some of these worked anyway, so in many cases it was pure guess work. Truly, at this point, I don't mind that they "streamlined" things. Had they taken a well-known rule set like AD&D and simplified it it would be a bigger issue for me. But really, a lot of the DA1 system never made much sense to me, so I don't care very much.

I'm loving that it's not a "OMG save the world immediately" scenario (so far). And it appears to be a pretty complex story.

The amount of bitching about this game is laughable, and in the meantime, I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

Lol I'm sorry to make you feel I doubt you played it two time. No I believe it, but less that in 41 hours you played it deeply up to have found all the little secrets and available quests. With how many quests you end? How many special items? How many letters and notes? And so on. And I won't mention the little dialog or even some rather big where no quest pointer lead you.

So just frantic mouse clicking wasn't enough?

Woo that's nasty, I appreciate. :)