Rise of a Champion, in slices of life and slimmer inventories, faster battles, and more flexible abilities.
It was an epic game of running around dealing with never ending waves of enemies.
in Dragon Age 2, you are running around in the city amassing wealths from whatever jobs from whoever wants to pay you to get a job done. No big bad inevitable dangers looming on your head, no blight to evade from. You are fighting to raise your status and give your mother a home she deserves.
You are also fighting to get approval from your friends and the general population of Kirkwall, the city where the mages have a severe lack of self-worth and the templars have abundant case of self-righteousness, and the streets are filled with colorful gangsters and thugs at night. You are also a fully voiced, life-like, likable bad ass who can be as sarcastic as you truly are or as righteous as you will ever dream of. Fully voiced. Expressive. Dragon Age 2 is DA:O without the excess fats that plague DA:O. Inventory is slimlined, crafting is much easier and much logical, attributes and their effects are more straightforward, abilities are much more flexible, battle is faster paced.
Enemies are more numerous, but you won't feel swarmed by them. They come in waves, so no more four guys swarmed by 30 undeads in a ruin corridors. Instead you will control 4 guys swarmed by three waves of ten undeads, forcing you to be fast thinking and nimble in your character placements and strategies. Characters also feels like characters and not just some entourage. They have their own lives in the cities, they have relationships to each other. They even play games or drink together or simply helping each other (off-screen). You know they are friends or simply bitter rivals from their conversations. Aveline the Guard Captain and Isabela the Sleazy Sexy Pirate are rivals but in the end they are BFF. Fenris hate all mages, even meek elf like Merril. Varrick the Paragon of Manliness tries to be friendly with everyone, even permanently brooding Fenris or ideal-infested Anders. Anders hammer his paranoia toward templars everytime he could. Merril is kind hearted but clueless. They all make entertaining team characters.
And they are not there for you to bring along flattening thugs and sending back demons to the fade. Sometimes they can help you get out of trouble without lifting a single sword. Varrick can **** his way out of trouble, Fenris can talk Qunari and help you get along with them, Merril can detect if one is demonized or not and avoid you the trouble of killing innocents, Anders can do magey stuffs. You will feel like you are in a season of a police procedural TV series but with fantasy backdrop.
Dragon Age 2 gives you a fantasy game that is refreshing and lightning fast!