Let's talk about gameplay.
The battles in Dragon Age 2 kick some serious ass. If you don't think even this one aspect was a major improvement over the first game... I don't know what to say. The speed of the attacks is great and the animations for all of the classes are just superb. Furthermore, every class is incredibly fun to play (after getting a few abilities). Speaking of abilities, I like the way that the skill trees were streamlined, basically giving you access to 2-3 specializations without gimping yourself. I'm not sure how useful all the trees are since I've only played 4 characters and 2 for one class, but I can attest to the Rogue being fun no matter what spec you go with.
Dual-Wield is just fast paced, crazy and fun. The distance closing attacks were a really smart innovation that I hope stays around for the other games in the series. Backstab saw some nice improvements as well, and I love the general utility that Rogues had with all of their different crowd-control options. The Rogue Archer is even better though. The only downside to the archer is that they're simply too good. The game becomes a joke if you play one, even on the hardest difficulties, too much damage, and too many options to get out of harm's way.
Mages are actually balanced compared to Origins where they were just insane. I played a Mage on my first playthrough and when I switched to a Rogue for my second, it felt like I was playing a different game entirely. In DA2 they have a ton of great trees to follow (although I somewhat miss the Arcane Warrior) that give them some nice utility but without making them strong enough to basically solo the game. I know I already mentioned the animations but the Mage animations deserve another. They're seriously that good. Where most RPGs consider staves as weapons you just hold onto for stats, DA2 makes you feel like a complete badass shooting those missiles and pounding the ground for that finishing move. Also, being a mage totally changes the narrative of the game. All of the events become so much more personal with this class, and as a lover of magic users, I loved the hell out of the concept of a refugee Apostate from Ferelden becoming the Champion of Kirkwall.
I'm still in the process of playing through the game as a two-hand warrior (Act 2) but it's easily just as fun as the other classes.
Oh, hockey is back on.
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