i think i’m about half way through dragon age 2. i really had to force myself through the first couple of hours. i felt the game was so boring in the beginning. it gives you no compelling story and the characters seem bland. you end up doing lots of run here and then run there errands…nothing of interest. i especially hated how many quests were in lowtown, darktown, the docks. those areas are so drab and unappealing.

i chose to be a warrior in da2 since i was a mage in origins. huge mistake – the melee combat in this game is incredibly unfun/unstimluating. it basically boils down to mindless button mashing. i highly recommend playing da2 as a mage or rogue. for the vast majority of the time i let the computer control hawke as i controlled a mage character during combat. another thing about the combat…in origins for the most part you only fought enemies that were already in a room or that were in adajecent rooms. in da2 you fight magically appearing waves of enemies. it’s just tedious…which makes me use firestorm often in hopes of ending the battle quicker.

thoughts on characters…
hawke seems mostly boring early on but that may be from me playing him too nicely
bethany (hawke’s sister) – goody two-shoes, i thought that was utter crap that she ends up leaving the party. i also understand that carver can survive during alternate storylines.
aveline – another goody two-shoes. she ends up being alright later on.
anders – super annoying. all he does is whine about templars 24/7. he’s absolutely nothing like anders from awakening. they should have just used another name entirely. anders in awakening was a smart mouthed womanizer. anders in da2 is a serious whiny radical who apparently is into men now. however, he does appear to be the best mage in the game.
varric – i didn’t care for him at first, but he grows on you. his crossbow is pretty effective too.
isabela – she’s basically a female zevran but replace being an assassin with being a pirate. still unsure on how effective she is as a party member. to me, she’s the obvious romance choice for a straight male hawke (slim pickings otherwise).
fenris – i like the voice of this character but not really the anime hair and appearance. i often include fenris in the party because of the high amounts of damage he deals. the downside is that he isn’t in heavy armor and takes a lot of damage himself.
merrill – she could have been a sweet/cute character but instead they went way overboard with her which makes her annoying. she has some good damage spells but unfortunately they have long cooldowns and use a lot of mana. she also cannot learn heal. for these reasons i rarely include her as the mage in my party.
sebastian – seems like another goody two-shoes. i rarely use im because i feel like varric and isabela have the rogue slot covered.

i have friendships with the majority of the companions except fenris. it seems like no matter what i say to fenris i get rivalry points. oh well. i can’t believe that i thought origins’ reaction system was annoying…it’s way worse in da2. i often have no idea why i end up getting rivalry points and there are not abundant gifts in da2 to offset them.

things i like…the graphics in da2 are much improved over origins. the characters look better and the combat animations seem almost cinematic. i liked the latter half of the legacy dlc. the appearance of one of the original magisters was very interesting. by the way, do not bring anders to the final battle in the legacy dlc…you will end up having to kill him. luckily i had a savegame to go back to so i could form another party without anders. this really caught me by surprise because i didn’t count on character deaths occuring in a dlc. i decided to kill corypheus and spare larius since this made the most sense to me. i’m interested in what the opposite outcome is. the mark of the assassin dlc was decent even though i didn’t really care for tallis. also i’m not sure what the point is of introducing a playable character in dlc just to take them away? i’d recommend being at least level 10 before trying either dlc. i was level 13 trying to fight an optional battle with a sky horror in the mark of the assassin and i still couldn’t pull it off. it might be best to wait til level 15 or later before trying either. hawke gets a pretty good sword in legacy.

i also like the potion ordering system and being able to use shops without talking to NPCs. i like that the locations are much smaller than those in origins. in origins the caverns are especially too large and plodding. the downside is that da2 embarrassingly reuses the same locations over and over and over. get used to seeing the same couple of caves, warehouses, dungeons, and beach areas. they even keep the same HUD map for these recycled locations even though the map is often no longer accurate. this is because various pathways will be blocked off in the recycled version. another plus is that you can quickly change locations without tons of walking. since the locations are smaller in da2 this also improves the loading… issue from origins quite a bit. i’m not totally sure how i feel about the equipment system in da2. sure it’s nice not to have to worry about cycling through all your party members to make sure they’re equipped with the latest stuff…but at the same time it’s pretty lame to get all this armor (and sometimes weapons) that is only for hawke. still on the fence on this. to me, the worst aspects of da2 was the horribly slow start, heavy reuse of locations, terrible melee combat, and the apparent reboot of da lore (dalish elves now being irish and weird looking?, qunari with horns and non-qunari allowed to follow the qun, etc). early on in da2 i was so discouraged that i was thinking maybe another company developed it and tried to make a bioware game. overall though, da2 is a decent game. i didn’t experience as much bugginess as i thought i was going to. i only had the xbox freeze up once while playing it. i’m actually glad da2 is light on darkspawn material because i experienced more than enough of them in origins/awakening.

update 5/30/2015:
finished da2 mere moments ago. with the qunari conflict i tried to keep things as civil as possible. isabela was hawke’s romance so i chose to help her get the relic (even though logically it made more sense to force her to give the relic back to the qunari). during this segment isabela took off. however she did return during the showdown with the arishok because of being a romance/friend to hawke. she returns the book to the qunari but that is still not good enough for the arishok. he wants isabela as well. i don’t think i could turn her over to the qunari even if she was not hawke’s romance. i’m curious though if the arishok will still want to fight if you hand her and the book over. i was ready to fight the qunari at this point anyways because i found the killing of the viscount and innocent civilians to be unforgivable. i was willing to defend the qunari up until that point.

i let varric’s brother live and later on i let varric keep the shard (although this was against my better judgement). i let fenris kill danarius’ apprentice and his sister. i chose to kill gascard during prime suspect because the girl said he hurt her and the mansion was full of shades…it all seemed very suspicious. this action probably led to the murder of hawke’s mother…which was a very messed up and seemingly unnecessary scene.

anders…
it was pretty obvious what he was up to. i figured it would be some kind of magical bomb or summoning a demon into the chantry. i agreed to help him distract the grand cleric even though i didn’t really want to. i figured anders was going to follow through with his plan regardless. my goal was to hopefully change his mind or prevent it from happening. i made up my mind right then that if he killed the grand cleric then i would kill him. and that’s exactly what i did. i briefly considered exiling him but he was just so insufferable. and i had him as a maxed out friend and basically did every little quest he wanted during the game. so i felt like his actions and behavior were unforgivable. i was sad to lose what i would consider to be the party’s best mage, but bethany was a very worthy replacement. i was wondering if i would ever get her back. also her force mage spells are awesome.

so for the last time i chose to side the mages once more. i believe i would always do this because they are definitely the underdog in da2. the circle seems to be willing to work things out, but meredith is completely unreasonable. at this point all of my party sided with me except for fenris. before the orsino battle i spoke to him once more and convinced him to join my side. my final party consisted of bethany, aveline, and varric. i purposely wanted members that had been there since the very beginning.

i didn’t quite get the orsino transformation since it happened when the tide of the battle was definitely in my favor. i guess maybe he finally met his breaking point. i found the orsino battle to be very easy.

the tie-in with meredith being the purchaser of the red lyrium sword was pretty cool. i also found the battle with meredith to not be that bad. time consuming yes, but not difficult.

as far as i can tell, the only things that came from my origins import were the following: alistair is a grey warden and not a king, the hero of ferelden was a mage, anders and zevran were alive, and harrowmont being king.

final game stats
53 hours, 725 saves
hawke – level 26 warrior
strength 46, dexterity 28, magic 14, cunning 22, willpower 41, constitution 35
health 397, stamina 268, damage 92 DPS, attack 697, defense 197, armor 690
maxed out two-handed and warmonger abilities
specialized as templar and reaver

bethany force mage
friends: bethany, isabela, anders (was), aveline, sebastian (almost maxed out), varric
rival: merrill
neutral leaning towards friend: fenris

i started playing dragon age origins about a week or so ago. as with most bioware games i start off slow getting in the game/lore but when i eventually do i get hooked. i decided to play as a mage since that is pretty much the exact opposite of what i normally do. usually i like to be a frontline fighter and let someone else provide ranged support. at first i was regretting my decision because the low level spells are pretty lame, but it gets a lot better. i still wonder if i’d enjoy another class better but then i’m also unsure how i would get as far as i have. i imagine the large area damage provided by the mage would be difficult to replace. the mage’s staff attack sucks for most of the early part of the game but gets better later as new equipment is found.

spoilers…
i decided to help jowan escape the mage tower only to find out he lied to me and his girlfriend. when i next ran into jowan i killed him (even though my party universally frowned upon this). i killed him because he lied to me even though i asked him for the truth repeatedly and then he poisoned the arl…the very person whose help i needed most. and plus he seems like a whiny liar. he had to go.

in ostagar, after the joining, i messed up by following duncan and he walked right to the king’s table. this forced me into a scripted event and then preparation for the upcoming battle. i’m sure this caused me to miss out on a handful of minor quests.

in lothering, i missed out on 2 quests. one was making a trap for someone and the other was making a poison. if i were to redo things i would get one level of survival, poison making, and trap making for the main character. beyond that, i recommend maxing out coercion, maxing out herbalism (someone in the party needs to do this for a quest if nothing else), and maxing out combat training (this lets you successfully cast spells while in combat). everything else is kind of pointless as far as i can tell. also once you leave lothering and finish a main quest the city of lothering will then become inaccesible. i recruited sten because i like to get all of the companions and i ended up liking him after he started showing the warden respect. however, the recruitment of sten to me is strange because there is no compelling reason to ask that he be pardoned. he brutally murdered a family and just because he was upset at the time doesn’t really absolve him of his crime. logically, sten should have been allowed to die.

after ostagar i went to the forest and struggled through most of it. i finally had to give up on the ruins as i encountered enemies that were too powerful. any of the revenants are impossible at this stage in the game and i couldn’t get past the arcane horror either. although this may have been because i had crappy party tactics set at this point. this game will often put you in a situation where you can encounter very powerful enemies that you have no hope of beating until later on. i was cocky early on but then i learned that you need to save almost after every semi-major battle. otherwise you’ll be repeating a lot of sequences. there were times when all of my party died except for my main character. i would run away from the enemies and cast spells and then run some more and repeat. this lame tactic actually got me through a few tough battles.

later on most casual battles become no problem. however, if your party is close quarters with the enemies this will always make for a tough battle. also the success of the battle seemed to be heavily dependent on the survival of the main character. if i died then typically the battle was lost. it’s important to switch to wynne in situations like this and cast revive.

you’re supposed to actually go to redcliffe after ostagar and then do the circle tower quest. after that you can go to the forest or wherever. i highly recommend getting the circle’s quest done as soon as possible to get wynne in your party. this game does the same crap with locked chests as mass effect 1 did with hacking. so utterly lame that you miss out on items because you don’t have the proper party member with you to unlock them. having a rogue with you that is maxed out on lockpicking for basically all quests is a must. the first fade quest is rather long and tedious because of lots of necessary back tracking. it’s a good place to find a ton of permanent character boosts though.

when i returned to the forest/ruins quest i hoped to parley a truce between the elves and the werewolves. this scenario is not really possible because once the curse is lifted the werewolves turn back into humans and take off. if i were to play through this again i much rather have the werewolves as allies as opposed to the dalish.

for battling large dragons i found success with wynne, shale, and alistair in my party. equip everyone with flame resistant equipment and use potions to protect against flame. lots and lots of health poultices and lyrium potions are needed for these battles. they are a slow grind. even though i definitely think flemeth is the tougher dragon i consider the battle against her to be easier because she does not move. i found most spells to be useless against flemeth and ultimately relied on melee and attacks from my staff. most spells (except fire) seemed to be work against the high dragon. i have no idea how you would do these fights without shale. maybe sten and alistair would work if they were high enough level and super armored. i didn’t really want to kill flemeth because she didn’t seem all that bad, but i didn’t want to take the chance of her killing morrigan at some point.

update 5/17/15:
i sided with harrowmont in orzammar…i think i would always do this because i didn’t find bhelen’s case to be compelling enough. i found branka to be very unlikeable upon meeting her and wanted to kill her…but decided to side with her because i figured that having golems would be useful.

i was against brother genitivi’s idea for sharing the location of andraste’s ashes with the world. i asked him not to but that did not dissuade him. i didn’t feel strongly enough about it to kill him however.

i messed up at the alienage. i went to the apartments first before the hospice…this completely locks you out of the hospice afterwards and seems to leave the quest in a unfinished kind of finished state. i also screwed up the orphanage quest by somehow getting ser otto killed so it seemed i had no resolution for that one either.

i really liked the notion of alistair getting married to anora so i was pushing for that. to my surprise this was actually a valid option…unfortunately i messed it up later and ended up with anora on the throne alone.

i killed arl howe and loghain. i died during my first fight with loghain…as a mage you can’t allow loghain to get close to you or it’s over. during the landsmeet everyone supported me except for one guy who seemed like a staunch loghain supporter. i almost changed my mind about killing loghain because of the notion of him joining your forces. alistair’s voice of reason reminded me of all the terrible things loghain had done however and therefore he deserved to die. i was amused when the option was presented to have alistair kill loghain so i chose it. having alistair kill anora’s father right in front of her destroys any chance of the two getting married. i didn’t think that one through too well…

my romance(s) in this game went fairly weird. i at first tried for morrigan and when there was not much progress made i tried leliana. i also wanted to keep my options open…though i was leaning towards morrigan. in origins, the approval rating alone does not really allow for a romance. it must be combined with certain gifts/quests for the targeted romance choice. for morrigan it’s giving her both grimoires. for leliana, it’s helping her deal with marjolaine. the first grimoire allows for a casual romance/fling with morrigan. at some point morrigan and leliana become aware of their love triangle. morrigan then confronted me to make a choice. it was either choose morrigan or break it off. i chose to end it with morrigan and then dedicated my time to leliana. after this point leliana and my character were like maximum romance status. when you give the 2nd grimoire (and take care of flemeth) this allows for you to rekindle your relationship with morrigan. there are talks of love and what not with morrigan and she gives you her ring. however, she then acts like she hates you for making her fall in love if your approval rating is too high. at this point the relationship is pretty much on ice no matter what you try. i believe i encountered a glitch where later in the game morrigan gave me her ring a second time. i can’t remember what the triggering event for this was. also when you reunite with morrigan, leliana is completely unaware (or doesn’t address it). during the game finale i chose to have a child with morrigan and told her that i loved her. the child option was intriguing and i really wanted to see what was going to come of it. also i didn’t really want my character to die in origins. morrigan of course takes off after the battle of denerim.

awakening
velanna very unlikeable/nutty. i’m surprised i didn’t kill her when first meeting her. she eventually softens up some. nathaniel is equally terrible upon first recruitment, but he fairly quickly becomes a good party member. anders is okay, he just never seems completely trustworthy. anders is a party must though. justice was certainly a surprise i never saw his recruitment coming. i took sigrun with me to the final battle because she requested it, however, i don’t particularly care for her character that much and i wish i had left her at the keep. velanna apparently died (disappeared) during the final battle. justice’s mortal form also perished. i chose to remain in the city during the final battle instead of returning to the keep. it made more sense to me since i was already there and the city was defenseless. vigil’s keep and the wardens should be able to hold their own. of course they didn’t! even with the walls and armor it wasn’t enough to properly defend the keep. i didn’t finish the explosives quest which could have improved the ending. i let the darkspawn messenger go free since he was helpful. i also allied with the architect mostly for possibility of ending the blight. i was disappointed at the darkspawn lore in awakening. elements of the story seem so mass effect-ish. for instance darkspawn = geth/reapers. the villains you thought were so evil really are not. and the blight being cyclical which is very remniscent of the reaper’s harvesting. favorite party: anders, nathaniel, and oghren or justice.

origins was finished in 76 hours. awakening was finished in 18 hours

origins final level 24
awakening final level 34

after awakening final stats
main character – human mage
hp – 382, mana – 408
strength 26 (35)
dexterity 25 (40)
willpower 49 (79)
magic 60 (93)
cunning 23 (36)
constitution 32 (43)

origins kills – 1284, greatest damage dealt – 87, most powerful foe slain – gaxkang the unbound
awakening kills – 1614, greatest damage dealt – 203, most powerful foe slain – queen of the blackmarsh

the minor dlcs…
darkspawn chronicles – a semi-fun diversion. if this ever cost money it’s not really worth it

leliana’s song – this is worth playing for the background story of leliana. it’s not really that fun though. i liked the party members, but just the 3 of them seemed to have a difficult time during tougher battles. i think they should have thrown in a 4th member to better balance the battles. leliana was pretty effective as a dual wielded bard/assassin.

golems of amgarrak – what the heck is this mass effect ripoff crap? i imported my awakening character into this. it’s nice for playing difficult enemies as a high level character but beyond that i did not find the lore compelling. the golem party member is way less effective than shale. i found the battle vs. the harvester to be pretty difficult. i had to constantly use heal/group heal and poultices

witch hunt – to me this is the best of the minor dlcs. i liked the party members and all of the additional lore. none of the battles are frustrating. the part where you look up library books at the circle was fairly lame. this dlc provides more questions than answers however. i was able to go with morrigan through the eluvian probably because she was one of my romances in origins. i really didn’t think this would be an allowed option. it was kind of messed up for my party members ariane, finn, and dog because i was like see ya! what a weird way to end the dlc… i wonder if the trilogy ever sufficiently wraps up the morrigan saga.