When comparing Dragon Age II vs Titan Quest, the Slant community recommends Titan Quest for most people. In the question“What are the best PC RPGs?” Titan Quest is ranked 18th while Dragon Age II is ranked 85th. The most important reason people chose Titan Quest is:
Titan Quest is over 10 years old now, and it is still widely played. It even saw a remastered "Anniversary Edition" in August of 2016, drawing in more players, old and new.
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 Holds up incredibly well
Titan Quest is over 10 years old now, and it is still widely played. It even saw a remastered "Anniversary Edition" in August of 2016, drawing in more players, old and new.
Pro You can choose the speed you want to play at
Titan Quest is unique among ARPGs in that you get to choose the game speed. You can be a leisurely player and take things slowly, or you can go hard and play the game on very fast settings. The fact that you get to choose adds another level of enjoyment to the game.
Pro Replayability through different classes
There are a plethora of classes that open up upon leveling to the second level, once one is chosen the others will be gone for that game session. This means that a different playthrough will be needed to explore what all the different classes offer, making for quite a lot of playtime.
Pro Lots of loot to find
There is quite a lot of loot in the game to be found, which drives the player to continue playing, just to find that better weapon or piece of armor. The loot is also color coded when dropped, making it easy to discern what is worth picking up or leaving behind.
Pro Tons of customization
There are 30 different classes of characters to choose from within the game with 150 character skills that they can learn. This way users can customize their character to their liking and playstyle.
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 Combat feels a little static
Con Save anywhere does not save character placement
This means that there will be some retreading of areas once a save is loaded as the character will not be in the same place as where they were left off. This will waste time and can be frustrating having to do this every time you load the game.
Con Disappointing loot at later levels
Even when the player has reached a high level, they will often find loot meant for low level characters. This can be frustrating when trying to find better gear and just adds a lot of clutter to ones inventory as the majority of items found won't be that useful.