Should I play Dragon Age 1 and 2?

They're both insanely mediocre. Contrived characters, really predictable storyline, and sub-par gameplay that is better executed in other titles. I honestly do not see the draw to these games at all. I only played both out of my former love for Bioware. Now they're just another developer doing really uninspired things.

I want more KOTOR, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect 1 - games that were unique, well written, and memorable.

Honestly you could skip them both and not really miss out on anything. They're just pretty blah.

I loved them both. Sure - the second one's heavy reuse of the eversame assets, as well as some annoying plot developments, are rather disappointing - but overall, I liked it a lot nonetheless.

What made the difference for me? I guess because I played it on the hardest difficulty setting, which enables friendly fire, combat had a whole lot more depth to it than for most players, who just facerolled their way through the game on lower difficulty settings. I was playing a greatsword wielding warrior, and every swing of the sword caused deadly havoc all around me - it's been quite the challenge to not kill my own people, let alone keeping the enemy from doing it for me.

Oh yeah - there was something about truely annoying enemies that could oneshot cloth classes out of stealth. Just horrid.

Wait you think Origins was not well written but ME Kotor and Jade Empire are? Honestly that makes no sense...

Origins is great, 2 is shit.

Play Origins and Awakening all the way through, play 2 at your own risk.

Yep. Watch a playthrough of 2 after finishing 1 to see whether you want to buy it, as it's quite different. I still enjoyed it a lot.

@aegon: I'd play them in order. The story of Origins paints in much broader strokes and provides a lot of the context that allows 2 to focus more on characters. And don't be fooled by everyone else, the combat in 2 is not dumbed down in the slightest. System wise, it actually is much more nuanced with a higher focus on skill usage and coordinates attacks between characters. Unfortunately most people never bothered to explore their options because the overall difficulty was brought down and friendly fire was turned off by default IIRC. Also unfortunate design decisions on spawning enemies made it impossible to maintain a tactical formation.

But no, play them in order. There will be certain callbacks to events in Origins if you transfer your save and 2 simply looks much better.

Know both games have different gameplay. Where DA:O is a traditional tactical party-based RPG such as KOTOR, DA2 is faster and more action based. Great thing about DA:O is the ability to play the game as different races such as human, dwarf, or elf. Plus each race has its own background so the story sort of depends on what race you're playing as. DA2 did away with that and you can only play as the main human character of Hawke. Like everyone above, I'd highly recommend DA:O over DA2 if you only choose one. DA:O is just a much better world to play in.

Play both, they're both good assuming you can overlook a few problems.

@aegon: Give you a heads up if you want to play the series I'd recommend playing the pc version as it feels more like the old school Bioware D&D games. Playing the console versions feels like a totally different thing. Speaking of Dragon Age 2 I thought they did an okay job and enjoyed the story, the first one by far is a better game overall.

@aegon: If you didn't see it yet, the Xbox 360 digital download version of Dragon Age: Origins is currently on sale for $4.99.

Nice timing, eh? :)

@aegon: You should play Origins, but only on PC, in my opinion.

Origins is a masterpiece, and Dragon Age 2 has some redeeming qualities which makes it worth playing. It will tie directly into the third game, to be sure. If you can, play both on PC. Also, play them in order. Dragon Age 2 takes in your savedata from the first game for some minor variances on world events (although it takes so many liberties in providing a canonical outcome to Origins that it's definitely not as necessary a thing as it could and should be). Also, Origins is just so much better that playing 2 first might be a turnoff that prevents you from playing it.

I recommend planescape torment and baldurs gate 1-2. but DAO 1 is definitely worth playing.

Not dumbed down? What? For example. Scripted fights. You can not do surprise attacks like in Origins. You have to walk to a certain point to trigger a fight. Random spawns even in the PC version makes this games a gamble on nightmare. You can not use any tactics because if the next wave spawns directly in your mages you are dead. And they can even do this if you are standing with your back against of a huge wall or cliff. Also how about less skills and classes you can chose and the use or the lack of armor and equipment and stats? The combat in DA2 does not deserve the name of an RPG.

DA2 made Origins seem better than it was. Origins made DA2 seem worse than it was.

I'd give Origins 8/10 and DA2 5/10 (As in, using a proper /10 scale. Add 2 to each to convert to the scale used by game reviewers).

I would say play both but don't pay anything more than $5 for DA2.

yes.you do it.

Uh... I already said the thing about spawning enemies. More skills ≠ more depth. And the last I checked there was still armor and equipment and stats in DA2. Either that or I was really dumb for getting excited when I completed my Champion of Kirkwall set. You know, because of the armor and equipment and stats.

Combat in DA:O was saddled with the same baggage of most WRPG's, the legacy of the tabletop games that inspired them. Are you a fighter? Stand in front of them and do basic attacks and maybe throw out a special ability every once in a while. Are you a rogue? Stand behind them and do the same thing. Are you a wizard? Cast your biggest nuke and, depending on the game, either take a nap or keep casting it until everything is dead.

The interactivity of skills and variable states of enemies brings the combat of DA2 much more in line with the finer tuning of JRPG's like FFXIII. And while there may technically be fewer skills overall than DA:O, the numerous skills that are there are, on the average, significantly more useful and impactful. I'm not saying that DA2 is better than DA:O. Like I said, the spawning enemies make it impossible to maintain a tactical formation. But anyone who bothers to resist the urge to jump on the internet hatewagon and take more than a cursory look at the systems in place will see that DA2 has plenty of depth to explore, even if it never demands it of you.

At this point I don't see there being any point in playing DA2. It has some good characters (and some terrible ones) but the story isn't all that memorable.

I would disagree. The level of sheer absurdity that takes place during the last act of Dragon Age 2 is pretty memorable, albeit not quite in the way the developers intended.

Origins was definitely better written than 2 but it till pales to their older games. Everything is just so predictable and the setting the writing takes place in leads to extremely unsatisfying results, at least to me it did. Jade Empire is defintely not as good as the rest of their older titles but I still think it's better than Origins.

While the setting of ME borrows a lot from other Sci-Fi media, they wrote some completely incredible scenarios for that game and they really made an interesting lore (that they completely shit on later on in the series, but that's a whole other discussion).

origins was great and i say dragon age 2 is fine just not as good as origins. The style is more action based and you can tell they cut a lot of corners. If you can play both i say play both, but if you only need one i would go with origins.

Just start Origins. You aren't going to play them simultaneously anyways, so begin with 1 and see how you like it. I can echo the general sentiment that DA2 is a pretty boring game.

You should play Dragon Age 1.

That's it

Origins is the best RPG since MOtB, play it.

I'd just skip DA2 though. The story is awful, the general writing is lazy, the plotlines are lazy and rely on reusing the same hooks and the gameplay is rather awful.

Its not the worst game ever but prolly a 6.5 or 7/10

It also came from the complete lack of continued story-line making absolutely no sense in a game series.
Sorry if I seem aggressive at all, its not aimed at you, but I really loved the first game and the sequel was just terrible to me and I just won't ever feel good about how DA2 came to be.

You suggest herecy! I hope you jest sir!? Lest I take my sword and run you through with it!

Please don't, DA: O is excellent and as a fellow gamer I wholeheartedly state that you really need to play it, you owe it to yourself.

Play DA2 if you must, but you may save yourself a lot of disappointment and just watch a youtube story breakdown video to save yourself the annoyance and time.

Passionate DA: O fan right here! Just so you know is all...

@aegon: They're really boring, decent dialogue and world can't save mediocre to poor gameplay and hours and hours of tedium.

Play both... both of them are good and DA2 only real crime is the repeated levels ... out of that the rest of the complaints are just whinners crying because they did not get a DA:Origins Redux.

So I'm finally playing through 2 at the moment.....

The beginning is definitely a little slow, but once you pick up the basics, it becomes better. I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit and can understand some complaints (rehashed dungeons, only race that's playable is human), but the combat is definitely solid. While the story isn't as big as the first (which is mostly you are the only one who can stop big bad evil baddie), it's nice that they have it so that you're not some badass ultimate hero. You're just a peon in the grand scheme of things, basically.

So I would suggest you play both. Origins gives you the world and a grand epic, 2 gives you some political standings and a decent character arc.

Also, you should play Alpha Protocol for the best dialogue wheels....

Dragon Age Origins and Awakening, YES!!

while

Dragon Age 2....

Origins is one of the best RPGs ever made.