Happy New Year Zelrune! :)

Yeah played first Dragon Age ages ago (again in Steam too), it was one of those “pre Steam” era games played, though my account existed back then for sure. Recommend getting Ultimate Edition in Steam over basic due it has several story dlcs and one bigger expansion. First one doesn’t use EA APP/Origin DRM, but yeah 2nd does launch it simultaneously, also in 2nd the dlcs are bit of an mess to get.

Used https://help.ea.com/uk/help/faq/dlc-for-classic-games/ that site for Mass Effect 2 to get dlcs and play older version. It was also Origin free, but think still had to login to EA account to get all dlcs work right. With Dragon Age 2 got dlcs installed through EA APP, but it still missed Black Emporium which had to get from that site and use 7zip to get needed files and folder to put in game files to be recognized. Well at least they are now free (AND WORK O.o’) fuckin’ hell people paid previously and they didn’t work in game from what understood when read back then. EA support blames Steam for this while they are the ones providing files, just being petty etc… :l Bioware games dlcs have been such a mess, so Dragon Age Ultimate Edition is a true blessing among them! :D

As for the games, Dragon Age Origins is a masterpiece, but if you go for all content it certain is about 100h experience. Seems like clocked in ~106h when played in Steam and it has some quite challenging battles, but it seems to have casual along with normal/hard/nightmare. Usually play meself on normal games and think in DAO you need to really control battle and your group well in some fights, especially if it’s trapped room. :D

Dragon Age 2 isn’t a masterpiece, it was very rushed out game made just in 14-16 months! So considering that it’s really good and didn’t have issues with crashing, performance or bugs (just minor ones). But it is clearly weaker than it’s predecessor. Picked woman warrior as character and used usually snarky choices in dialogue and loved it. Just worked extremely well and overall worked with theme of the game and characters current situation. Combat was very much streamlined and easier, would say feels more autocombat and just using your character over really having to control battlefield and group. Also they made enemies drop from air and in waves for combat which felt silly, but perhaps that limited development time was part of the reason. There were only few battles where had to control group more and they were mainly in both bigger expansions, eg secret boss and fully buffed wyvern. Most dlcs were for equipment and didn’t like that so much, didn’t use them, as they seemed op out of the gate, also there truly was insane amount of them. o.o’

Guess will see if get around Inquisition this year, but unlikely that will ever touch Veilguard. Lorewise Qunari seem to been done dirty, Sten was basically only one in DAO, besides enemy Qunaris? So in that game you get feeling they might not be that great friends to have around. In DA2 they get more inclusion and understanding how they are. Never really liked them, but their culture is pretty interesting.

Personally would recommend just start the game and enjoy it, not look at how long it is and so on. It’s usually worst before launching the game and initial bite, after that it’s just usually enjoyable experience, except when it’s not. :’D