The sequel to the smash hit Dragon Age: Origins has hit the shelves and hit the ground running as a faster-paced and more visceral follow-up.

You are Hawke, a refugee from Lothering, fleeing with your brother, your sister and your mother. You may recall Lothering from Dragon Age: Origins; it’s a town you come to right away, and it falls to the Darkspawn. The character you play is someone who escaped the destruction in its final days.

The game spins the tale of Hawke’s rise to power as the champion of Kirkwall. As such, the game takes place entirely around the city of Kirkwall, which would have been all right if the game had taken the approach of creating a large, realistic city to explore and play through instead of one with several chunks cut out of key parts. I like the idea of the tale of a hero in a big city, but the city didn’t really feel all that big; it’s like they took Dragon Age: Origin’s map system but condensed it down to a tiny area.

As a refugee, you’re not the richest person in the world, and the first part of the game feels like a lot of work because you’re trying to raise some money. I was taking jobs right and left to try to reach my goal, which quickly led me to my biggest problem with the game: lack of level design. A lot of the maps for caves and ruins are recycled; you’ll probably run into the same one anywhere from two to four times. The only difference is the placement of permanently closed doors, so it feels slightly different.

Dragon Age 2 does touch upon a subject that I had wished would be expanded upon for the sequel, and Bioware definitely delivered: the oppression of mages by the religious entity known as the Chantry. They claim that all mages are the responsibility of their church and lock them away, and a lot of the conflict in this game revolves around that and the ideals of freedom.

In Dragon Age 2, Hawke has genuinely interesting companions; not a single one seemed boring to me. An interesting story is told not only in the companions’ backgrounds but also through quests given to you by the characters to help them in tasks. In some cases, however, perhaps it’s better if you don’t help your companions; I’ll have to see that for myself on my second play-through.

The combat is a lot faster paced and more satisfying than Dragon Age: Origins in a lot of ways, but in others, not so much. I miss some of the amazing combo spells that could be pulled off in the original game; in this game, the combos are not nearly as impressive but are cross-class.

Aesthetically, the game is gorgeous. I was worried because all the screenshots I had seen had this barren, boring environment, but apparently all of those screenshots were only taken from the first 20 minutes of gameplay. Also, the voice acting is great, and it’s nice to have the main character finally having a voice. You can change the first name of your character, but the last name is always Hawke, so people will call you Hawke since there really isn’t technology out there that could make a voice actor call you by your character’s first name.

The game does seem to have problems explaining some quests thoroughly, and I’ll be confused as to what I’m supposed to do, but that’s easily remedied by checking my quest journal. Other than that, the storytelling is superb and genuinely interesting, and while I still prefer the original Dragon Age for its story, Dragon Age 2 does the game no shame.