When comparing Dragon Age II vs Dark Souls III, the Slant community recommends Dark Souls III for most people. In the question“What are the best PC RPGs?” Dark Souls III is ranked 36th while Dragon Age II is ranked 85th. The most important reason people chose Dark Souls III is:
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story. Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you. Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Lots of interesting characters and lore
The characters in Dragon Age II are great, with intriguing backstories that delve into the game's lore. Your party members and other NPCs are all written quite well. There are the fan-favorites like the sassy pirate named Isabela who never minces words and is always up for a good time, and the honorable Temple Knight named Cullen who helps fight against the corruption in the city of Kirkwall where you reside. These characters are also tied to the Dragon Age history in various ways, such as having even a minor presence in the previous game, Dragon Age: Origins, and influencing the events of the story. All of the characters have layered personalities that fit with the lore surrounding them.
Pro Building relationships with companions is enjoyable
You can build relationships with your party members to get to know them better and to romance them. Improving your approval rating with characters comes down to picking certain dialog options, either to flirt with them or agree with their worldview. After building up enough approval, you get a special scene with your romance option or friend, and afterward you can return whenever you want to spend more time with them. It's a really good system that lets you feel like the characters are your actual comrades, helping you grow more attached to them throughout the game's long story.
Pro Tons of content
There's lots of content in Dragon Age II to keep you playing for a long time. The game offers a very long main story, with even more side quests and hidden areas that can take many hours to complete. The main story has plenty of branching decisions that affect how your playthrough turns out, encouraging you to play the game twice or more to see the different outcomes. For those looking for a game to sink 60+ hours into, this is a good choice.
Pro Well-implemented action combat with some elements of strategy
The combat gameplay is great, featuring a few different classes and a key way for you to control the flow of battle. The different battle classes -- warrior, mage, and rogue -- all play differently, though they each offer a similar fast-paced type of action combat in real-time. You can also pause the game to bring up a radial menu to pick which abilities to use and specific enemies to target, meaning you can take your time in battle and not get overwhelmed by everything. Getting used to the speedy combat and using the radial menu to your advantage gives the combat a lot of strategic depth.
Pro You can customize your protagonist Hawke
There are lots of ways to make Hawke feel like your own character. The character creator at the start of a new game lets you change all sorts of options, from your hair, to your skin color, the shape of your nose, mouth, and ears, and so much more. Or, if you prefer, you can simply stick with the default male or female Hawke. You also get to pick which class you want to be for combat, and throughout the game, the dialog options you pick determines if your Hawke is sarcastic, compassionate, or has more of a mean streak overall. You can role-play as Hawke however you want, with plenty of options to customize your looks and your combat specialties for whichever role suits you the most.
Pro Extensive lore that's presented in unconventional ways
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story.
Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you.
Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Pro Stunning environments
The world of Dark Souls 3 looks amazing, so you may often feel the need to stop and take in the beautiful sights. This can be the sheer size of structures, mountains, or caves. It can also be the decorations, inscriptions, or details in a room. There's always so much to look at, allowing you to truly immerse yourself in its world.
Pro Can give a great feeling of accomplishment
The Dark Souls series is known for its difficulty and Dark Souls 3 is no exception. It's filled with difficult enemies and tough boss battles, able to cause you grief on more than one occasion. However, every time you progress to the next safe spot or defeat a boss you'll often be filled with a mix of joy and relief. Beating this game will almost certainly feel like an achievement.
Pro Unpredictable boss battles
The boss battles in Dark Souls 3 consist of several phases, changing up how the bosses fight over the course of the battle. They will gain new abilities, become more aggressive, or reveal various nasty surprises. This creates an enjoyable experience that is different from most modern games where bosses are just glorified pincushions.
Pro A great variety of equipment for almost any playstyle
You'll be finding new pieces of equipment quite often, giving you many options to choose from. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to pick the equipment that best suits your playstyle.
For example, heavy armor will make you move slower, but you'll be better protected. Greatswords have a wide reach, but you swing them really slow. Conversely a dagger is very fast but it has a horrible reach.
Pro Solid controls
This game feels and plays really well. Your character responds to button inputs immediately and it almost never feels like you're losing control over it. The control scheme can also be customized, giving you the option of a more personalized experience.
Pro Great combat system
Dark Souls 3 is a very fast-paced game but it's not just about having quick reflexes. A lot of the combat comes down to exploiting your enemies. To do that, you have to learn their patterns and attack the moment they pause or perform a telegraphed attack. This creates a combat system, which rewards awareness and patience, and is satisfying to master, even if you don't have extraordinary reflexes.
Cons
Con Too many reused environment assets
Dragon Age II was a rushed job. In the beginning, you'll take note of the dungeons you explore and the way they look. A couple of hours later, you may notice that even though you're in a different dungeon, that the walls look strangely similar to earlier locations. This ends up happening again and again, with environments copy-pasted all over the place. Considering the game was developed in such a short time, this would have been okay if it only happened in a few places here and there. It's sadly way too common.
Con Stiff and repetitive character animations during cutscenes
Character animations are incredibly stiff in ways that look robotic. During cutscenes, you'll see the same types of movements over and over, like a character shifting their waist back and bobbing their head to seem important or defiant, or moving their head down with their words to make a point. If there were more variation with the animations instead, then the stiff delivery might not be all that bad.
Con Rushed story
The story in Dragon Age II lacks the high stakes and epic fantasy elements from its predecessor, Dragon Age: Origins. It focuses more on you as the protagonist Hawke, who is more of an everyday person that gets swept up in the conflict of the mages versus the templars in the city of Kirkwall.
The narrower scope would have worked just fine if there had been more depth to the story, instead of relying on the shallow and predictable premise of the mages rising up against the templars. There are some redeeming parts, like the corruption within the templar ranks, but this only gives the player a tropey resolution toward the end. The story overall lacks nuance and depth, ending up as a big disappointment, especially if you're a fan of the first game.
Con The whole game is unpolished
Dragon Age II as a whole lacks quality. The visuals are muddled and janky, even for a game from the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 era. Even though the combat itself is fun and engaging in the way it plays, it doesn't feel fluid, and it can get repetitive, like when bandits rush at you at every turn whenever you wander Kirkwall at night. The bigger issues of the rushed story and reused assets also speak to how messy the game is. These issues could have been avoided with some extra development time to polish things up.
Con Most of your narrative choices from Dragon Age: Origins don't matter
If you played the first Dragon Age, all of those decisions you made get watered down here. You only see the effects of some smaller things, such as who ends up on a certain throne by the end, or how you chose to defeat the final boss. Your decisions get commemorated in some ways, but it's not all that obvious or overt. Since Dragon Age II takes place with a whole new character and setting, you previous narrative decisions don't get a lot of attention. It's unfortunate in that it doesn't give the sense that your actions have an impact across the franchise.
Con Poor support for mouse+keyboard control
The default DS3 key/button bindings actually prevent full use of certain weapons by requiring the shift key to be pressed and not-pressed simultaneously. Rebinding is possible, but limited by issues like the left mouse button overriding all others and certain bindings not actually working in game (e.g. Shift+MiddleClick).
Con It's hard
You should try avoiding the trap of great review scores since most of them fail to mention the difficulty. It's simply put - hard. A lot of the combat requires quick reflexes, good mechanics, and the mental fortitude to carry on after failing for hours. If you're new to the Souls-like genre or simply want to enjoy a relaxing evening playing a video game, you most likely won't enjoy Dark Souls III.
Con Poorly tuned dynamic visiblity
You may notice some texture pop in while sharply turning the camera. It can be somewhat distracting if you notice it, but most of the time you won't because it happens in the distance.
Con Occasional performance issues
There are portions of the game that will have noticeable framerate drops, which can negatively affect the gameplay. Most of the fault lies with the game engine, so getting better hardware won't help that much.