Class balancing in Drakensang was also very poor, with there being little point in playing either a mage or archer as such characters tended to be overwhelmed in an eyeblink. I liked the combat AI for the enemy, don't get me wrong - they did what I would do and took out the most dangerous people first - but magic was never fast enough or powerful enough to make up for the fact that your mage was going down fast in every fight. Healing spells were a several minute affair in combat and after combat you never needed them, so they were pointless, too. Archers would be lucky to get off a couple of shots before they took a dirt nap, too.
As someone who finished Drakensang with warrior, metamage & ranger, I must say that mages & archers are overpowered in Drakensang. The mages' shield spell gives them better protection than the heaviest armour (not to mention, main character gets armour that allows spellcasting), and there are overpowered spells like Skeletarius that make the entire game a breeze.
As for magic not being powerful enough... it's as powerful as you develop it... but keep in mind that Drakensang is a low-magic world.
Archers with Master Marksman skill one-shot enemies.
As for Dragon Age... there is no balance in that game at all... mages rule combined to other classes. Plain and simple.
Dragon Age may have better character interactions, and indeed it would've been great if Drakensang had this also, but personally I don't care about this. For me, what is most important in a RPG is the setting/gameworld, followed by combat system. Dragon Age doesn't do either of those well, imo... Thedas is just another Tolkien-inspired high fantasy generic world, and the combat boils down to very simple tactics that I used in games like Dungeon Siege 2 and that work against every single enemy in the game (as opposed to huge variety of enemies and needed tactics in D&D based games)...
As for Dragon Age's vaunted 'choice & consequence', there aren't any... what the game does is giving the ILLUSION of choice. No matter your 'origin', the game will always pan out the same... only difference choice of origin makes is a few different dialogue lines.
Anyway, 'choice & consequence' & character interactions alone do not make a great RPG. While Drakensang can learn a lot from Dragon Age, the reverse is true as well... when it comes to art direction, character models & level design, Drakensang blows away Dragon Age. Just compare the city of Ferdok with Denerim, for instance... in Denerim NPCs remain rooted in exactly the same spot the entire game and it is impossible to interact with most of them, while Ferdok feels like a real, bustling city where people move around... not to mention one can speak to every single one of them.
At any rate, the prequel greatly improves on Drakensang when it comes to character interactions & 'choices'. So it is highly recommended to play.
