Dragon Age 2: A Review

Having completed Dragon Age II, time for a quick review. Overall its a very pretty game but I would have to say that its inferior to the original. Its certainly not a bad game, far from it, but you could see that the short development cycle really had the team scrambling. In a way Dragon Age Origins (DAO) was like a hand-crafted watch with every gear and screw lovingly tightened by a master while Dragon Age II (DA2) is a factory production model. Stylish, competent and attractive but standard issue lacks the craftsmanship that made the original great.

You could see it in all those recycled environments and the need to keep denying you re-entry into some dungeons since the dev team needed the entrances for another dungeon down the line, Some of the situations in the game felt rather contrived, quests like a certain rescue mission always have the same outcome regardless of what you did. Sure this was for an emotional gut punch to the player but it hardly gives you the idea that your actions actually matter, do they? That is also another factor in the game; in DAO you were the one in the driver's seat. From Ostagar to the Landsmeet, you could pretty much control whatever happened. The player's decisions always mattered but in DA2 it felt more like you were just being dragged along by the tide of history. The new conversation interface, which no longer displays any actual text of what your character is going to say, does not help in that regard.

Another criticism is that the game now employs cheap tactics, enemies spawn out of nowhere to attack you often surrounding your party in short order making crowd control abilities a must and tactical planning moot (tactical improvisation on the other hand...). You can really feel Bioware reaching for the mass market crowd by dumbing down some of the RPG elements. Now that you cannot even change your companion's armor, you find that about two-thirds of the armor you collect is pretty much vendor trash. Sure it cuts down on the organization needed to equip your party but it was at best a half-measure. I am already equipping up to two weapon slots and four accessory slots, I am pretty sure I can do the armor slots as well.

The story is decent but I felt that DAO's story was better with a sense of exploration in a whole new world that none of us have ever encountered before. Tightening the focus to just Kirkwall and its environs did make the narrative more focused as opposed to the wandering you had to put up with in DAO so I guess it evens out.

Where DA2 really pales in comparison to its elder sibling however is in the characters. Morrigan blew hot and cold, Oghren was hilarious, Alister was our Knight in Snarky Armour, Sten was a born Straight Man, Leiliana and Zevran both tried to carve into our minds that rogues were bisexual and Shale was quirky enough a companion to justify the DLC price. Even Wynne really felt like a world-weary mentor trying to keep you from blowing your own head off.

Varric and his Carpet of Virility +5 is great fun. Merril can be either hilarious or annoying depending on your tolerance for Country Hick Humor. Isabella is trying her best to be a flirty seductress but comes across as a little blatant; she does however get some great lines. Aveline is the new Straight Woman. Everyone else... well... What can I say but what is up with all the emo dudes? Fenris looks like he belongs in a JRPG game, Anders whines constantly, Sebestian is on his revenge kick; I know that female gamers are an untapped market but two gay options for the guys? Really? There is enough emo in the guys' side to make the women in Kirkwall look like the well-balanced side of the gender equation. Collectively they just are not as fun and interesting as the DAO crew. Come to think of it, Dragon Age: Awakening did not have such a strong cast either but had the excuse of being an expansion pack.

That is not to say that DA2 does not improve on some things. Classes are far better balanced this time around, some would say that it went a little too far in that mages are nearly useless as crowd control in higher difficulties where friendly-fire is enabled. Some of the quests are quirky enough to be endearing such as arranging a series of dates for a certain someone. Too bad they did not let us view a wedding cutscene. They even held the wedding in my estate and I do not even get to see it happen? Bah humbug. There is less junk to filter through than in DAO, they even explicitly mark vendor trash as "junk". Its graphics are naturally superior although some character models of returning characters simply look off but maybe that's just me. I mourn the loss of an isometric top-down view to the depths of my soul though. Yet another concession to time since such a feature is usually disabled in console releases.

Overall, a game not without its faults, DA2 would have been viewed far better if it did not have to be compared to DAO. Like the Mass Effect series, Bioware tried to make it more casual friendly but not all of their ideas were implemented well. Still its worth the purchase and some serious consideration for your time.

Now for some spoilery comments. Do not read further since this spoils some events in the game unless you want to be spoilered on end-game content.

Gone?

Good.

Duelling the Arishok as a Mage, and presumably an archer, is a pain in the ass. Such a battle should have been epic. Instead it was a Benny Hill routine as I ran in circles for half an hour sniping him whenever I could. Sure we got to whack Logain in DAO but he was not so tough that he could kill a mage or rogue in about three hits or less. Plus it lacked that personal feel of vendetta, Logain caused my king to die, my mentor to die and got an entire army slaughtered for his own political gain. The Arishok was just being stubborn. Sure I was saving Isabella's life but again it was a matter of the Arishok not compromising on the ways of the Qun. Personally there was no bad blood between Hawke and the Arishok prior to the invasion and there was similarly little player investment in the victory. After being provoked so often, could you really blame the Arishok for deciding to burn everything to the ground? Well, actually yes I can but it was not like he did not sit on his ass for half a decade before losing his patience.

My biggest disappointment was that so little of what I did during DAO actually carried over to DA2. Some dialogue, some cameos, that's it. Its like someone at Bioware just threw up their hands and decided to toss the majority of our decisions in DAO away. Now both the Warden Commander and the Champion of Kirkwall are missing. Great, sequel hooks abound. However if only they had bothered to give us a satisfying ending to DA2 besides some of Varric's narration, that would have been great. Not even a "where are they now" or "what are your plans for the future" like we got in DAO.