Dragon Age 2 diary – Fast Attacks and Feeble Enemies

One of the biggest changes made to Dragon Age 2, one that is unavoidable even in the earliest moments of the game, is the modification made to the speed of all combat action, with all characters now mowing around about twice as quickly as they did in Origins, by my evaluation.

There seems to be no actual increase in movement speed, meaning that some trekking around the dungeons can get pretty tedious as the game progresses but once an enemy appears on the screen the characters of the player-controlled party become distant relatives of the superhero Flash.

I diminished the amount of fun I get out of every encounter because I feel like my input is not actually required and that characters could do the job on their own (they actually can't and at one point my party was wiped because I did not pay enough attention).

The whole setup is not improved in any way by the fact that, at least in the first third of Dragon Age 2, most enemies have rather low health (especially when part of the first wave of a battle) meaning that the player-controlled characters can jump from one to another like overeager killing rabbits, attacking and deploying powers so fast that they often make it seems like gamer input is not actually needed.

I actually thought of the degree to which a standard first-person shooter, like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, took away control from the player, forcing him to rely on team mates for such trivial tasks as opening doors or initiating action sequences.

The simple fact that my game-dominated mind made the comparison is reason enough for me to worry about a probable Dragon Age 3 and how much it will leave up to the player and how it will create experiences where the gamer is closer to a spectator than to a participant.