Dragon Age II preliminary thoughts

[joiedecombat]

• The graphics are improved from the first game. It's not the most gorgeous game I've ever seen, but the character designs are mostly more polished, and the environments are a lot more interesting. I'm not far in enough to have an idea of how much variety there will end up being, but Kirkwall makes the inadequacy of the Denerim maps from the first game really glaringly obvious - it's more like something out of FFXII.
• Not sure about this new elf design, though. Ridiculous anime ears and odd noses aside, they are spindly as hell. Merrill looks like she's liable to snap like a twig at any moment.
• The primary difference I'm noticing in gameplay between the first game and this one is that the PC no longer chases enemies automatically when they're targeted; abilities have ranges outside of which they're not available for use. This is kind of annoying (although it does prevent me from accidentally pulling a Leeroy Jenkins). There's also no easy way of switching targets.
• The rogue's abilities are great fun. My favorite so far: Back To Back, which allows the rogue to ninja vanish and ZHOOP across the battlefield to any companion. It's proving highly useful.
• Combat animations in general seem to be more exaggerated. I am okay with this; my dual-wield warrior from DAO never seemed this much like a walking Cuisinart.
• Aveline is my buddy.
• Other than that, though, I haven't gotten a lot of opportunities to chat with my companions, which I'm hoping is just because I'm still fairly early in the game. Bethany and Varric are both still kind of opaque to me.
• On the other hand, the fact that Varric calls Bethany "Sunshine" is adorable.
• I have run into a couple of callbacks to decisions from the first game, the most notable of which was a random encounter involving the ramifications of the Brecilian Forest sidequest.
• I am okay with not being able to change companion characters' armor, on the basis that having to micromanage everyone's gear gets tedious and it allows for them to put more detail into their designs. I'm sure it pisses some people off, though.
• Damn but there's a lot of vendor trash. I really hope I'm not going to need this stuff for sidequests or crafting in the future, because even with comparatively less gear to wrangle, my inventory fills up awfully quick.
• I love having a fully-voiced player character. I do not love how tiny all the text is.