Never has an RPG taken a bigger step back in a sequel than Dragon Age 2. Although developer Bioware have a habit of streamlining the RPG elements of their games to focus on blistering action with every subsequent release in a franchise, Dragon Age 2 felt too streamlined, to the point where it affected the scale and ambition at the heart of the title. As a result, this second release feels as though it features a fraction of the content that was offered in the original game. With repetitive quests and locations that were oftentimes literally just a pallet swap of previous ones, the design of the world felt lazy, with the majority of your time in this supposedly fantastical world being spent in the same drab cities and unimaginative dungeons. But it's not just technical limitations that impact Dragon Age 2, it's the entire scale of the narrative itself. Although the game is quite grand in its time-frame, taking place over a number of years, the few areas and basic quests available make your character's story feel inconsequential in context of the world. It ultimately played like a haphazard amalgamation of disjointed ideas - as if the developers didn't have the time to pull them all together in the finished product.
