I've played through it twice, and I've played through Origins 9 times. That should tell you something. Here is my breakdown:
Things I liked:
- Improved Mage combat. I loved being a mage in Origins, but to paraphrase something I read, it was all standing back with your staff going "pew pew" a lot. I felt the AOE on spells like Cone of Cold was greatly improved as well. Origins got better once I unlocked Arcane Warrior and could use the sword, however.
- Some of the NEW companions. I stress NEW because Isabela and Merrill annoyed the Christ out of me, I'll get into that later, but Varric and Aveline were fresh breezes with distinct personalities. I love how Varric has pet names for everyone.
- The romances with Anders and Fenris. I played as a female mage (Friendship Romance with Anders) and a female rogue (rivalrymance with Fenris). They were distinctly different than the relationships in Origins and from each other. I have yet to play Awakening, so I don't know "old Anders" but I didn't dislike him in 2. And since I'm a girl and not a homophobe I didn't run into the trouble of unwanted advances from him. I suppose spoiler alert... he WILL hit on male Hawkes.
- The emotional sucker punches. For spoiler avoidance, I won't go into much detail, but there were times I was jaw droppingly flabbergasted at events that I felt I had no control over and felt a total immersion with my Hawke. I tried to so hard to make X happen, and then Y sweeps in, screws it all up, and I'm picking up the pieces in Z.
- The friendship/Rivalry meter. It was an interesting take on approval/disapproval. I don't know if I prefer it over Origin's take, but I do like that earning one or the other led to new skills in me and my companions.
Now, the things I didn't like.
- What the fuck happened to the Elves, the Qunari and the Dark Spawn? Their designs were radically altered and I HATE them. I know in unskippable they say the Dark Spawn look like generic fantasy villains, not quite zombies, not quite orcs, but it worked. They took pieces from different fantasy archetypes and rolled out villains that were truly effective. When they slunk through the woods in the Battle of Ostagar cut-scene it was intense and frightening, and I felt so hopeless against the horde. Now, they look like pale, pastey, lipless freaks that move like the winged monkeys in the Wizard of Oz in the worst way. They are LAUGHABLE, and that is never good in a villain. Oh, and the Qunari are now grey instead of "bronze", which is how the codex describes them, and now they have horns. W.T.F.?! And the Elves... oh my god.. now they look like big headed aliens with bulging eyes. No WONDER humans treat them like crap, they are so freaky looking. Some of them have heads which are wider than their shoulders. I kid you not. It's just so... wrong. And I loved playing as the elves in Origins. Which leads me to...
- I hated Hawke's story, and playing only as Hawke, a human. I don't care about this new person. I wanted my Warden. I wanted Diyanna Surana, Spirit Healer and Arcane Warrior, the mistress to the King of Fereldan with her kick as dog, Blitz, and the loyalty of her companions. Or I wanted Callista Tabris, the Bard/Ranger who was as mean with a bow and arrow as with dual knives, who won the loyalty and love of a certain assassin who shall remain nameless. I didn't like Kirkwall, didn't like Hawke, and the way the dialogue wheel forced you into either saint, sinner, or clown. I want more choice in a ROLE PLAYING game. Bioware, you've taught me to expect better.
- I hated that my companions were scattered and there was never an opportunity to just talk with them, like I could with the others in camp. I suppose it might have made the friendship/rivalry mechanic harder to implement, but it made equipping my team so much harder, and I missed the conversations. All in all, I care so much less about the companions in 2 than I did those of Origins. Oh, and their stupid, non changing armor SUCKED.SO.HARD.
- I /hated/ Merrill and Isabela. Why? They were entirely different people than in Origins. Isabela went from ginger to mocha for no reason* I can figure out, and Merrill suddenly became Scottish. And look it up on google images, her facial tattoo is entirely different. That's NOT possible, and it entirely kicked me out of the game. I couldn't get immersed with them because they were not the characters I knew from before.
* ok, maybe they wanted a love interest who wasn't white. Fair enough. I mean, Zevran was tan...ish, but otherwise the love scene pallet is looking a little monochrome. But why not Fenris? He was the only love interest NOT introduced prior. Isbela and Merrill where both in Origins and Anders was in Awakening, so they weren't blank slates. Or they shouldn't have been. Sides, I think those lyrium tats would have shown up nicely against mocha skin.
- Spoilery... so skip if you haven't played. All of the mages you help end up betraying you except 4 I can think of, and I spent a LOT of time helping mages. And it seems all the Free Marches mages are batshit crazy and will use the slightest provocation to turn to Blood Magic and demons. Where the hell is their common sense. I know what they were building towards, but it was done so heavy-handedly that it was hard to sympathize with them.
- The game was rushed. There were more bugs than an anthill and their copy/pasted scenery was cheap and insulting after Origins. I won't touch much on this because this has been beaten to death.
- I DARE you to find me a female dwarf in the whole game. Go ahead, find me one.
All in all, it felt like a step back. It was an ok game, but nothing like what I've come to expect from Bioware. It is especially poor when held up next to Origins, which was ground breaking and breath taking. There were parts of it which succeeded, but most of it was unimpressive at best, offensive at worst. For the few improvements they made over Origins they took MORE steps backwards, fixed what wasn't broken, and fuglified much of what was good in the original.
I won't vote in the pole, because the answers don't suit me. I found to be "meh" but playable.
