Dragon Age 2

[OxBlood]

I´m about 25hrs in and I think it´s a bit better than the original. Not despite but because they toned the whole thing down.
To me it´s no fun having to pause every 2 seconds to plan out my strategy, I want to bash Darkspawn and freeze them solid, I´m a hero not a general, for that there are other genres.

Sure, I still have to pause to issue commands but it feels less tedious this time around. Pause, heal, debuff unpause, continue killing stuff.
That and the cross-class-combos are a very nice thing that actually gives me a motivation to think about my party members. And I fucking hate Partys that need to be maintained normally.

I also like the local setting of the story. I always liked stories like the one from NWN that focusses on specific parts of a realm instead of doing the whole save-the-world-thing for the n´th time.
It´s just more down to earth. "We´re in Kirkwall and Kirkwall has problems. So, what can we do?" That´s fine by me.

Sure, it´s smaller and less grand than the original but the MC is more appealing, the combat feels WAY better and I like the fact that I don´t have to take care of my Party´s armor anymore (they upgrade they sets throughout the story and you can buy slots for them to put runes in).

Pretty good game so far, I´m enjoying it.