When I say I recently finished Bioware’s “Dragon Age II” (henceforth “DA2”), I don’t mean that I’ve thoroughly explored all of the game’s content. Harking back to the company’s origins as Black Isle Studios, their games have always been so massive that it would take an addict of even greater caliber than I to do every sidequest, create every playable character, and experiment with every combination of allies. But I did complete a game, for better or worse, and reached this installment’s narrative conclusion; again, for better or worse. And while I am not done with DA2 (and given their recent DLC fetish, I doubt Bioware is either), what I have to offer is a resounding “meh.” Is the dialogue system improved? Yes. Is the interfaced streamlined? More or less. Did combat get less clunky? Hell yes. Does it have dragons? Of course, and they’re aged appropriately. Is it a better game than its predecessor, “Dragon Age: Origins” (henceforth “DA:O”) or its expansion, “Awakening”? Meh.
Without framing this entire review as a comparison to DA:O, it’s worth saying that DA2 is a different game in the same series, but might not deserve the title of successor. As I read in another review (I wish I could remember which), the game would have been better framed as a full-sized expansion pack entitled “Dragon Age: Kirkwall” rather than “Dragon Age II.” It feels more like something that goes on in parallel to the first game rather than decisively afterwards. Granted, much more story time passes in DA2; somewhere in the neighborhood of six years compared to DA:O’s handful of months, but the Blight (primary plot device of the first game) has such little effect on Kirkwall (primary location of the second game) that there is very little sense of continuity. It’s not a problem, but anyone expecting a consecutive story akin to Bioware’s “Mass Effect” series will be disappointed. DA2 delivers its own narrative, and well, but it doesn’t maintain strong ties to its predecessor.
Setting DA:O aside (a difficult proposition for some of us), DA:2 stands nicely on its own. Combat is streamlined and fairly idiot-proof at the lowest difficulty setting, although to get the most out of your party you still need to micromanage a fair amount. The tactics configuration has been improved with more useful conditions, especially as it pertains to “cross-class combos,” a new game mechanic that allows a certain class (say, a mage) to induce a certain effect (say, freezing, or ‘brittle’), which can then be exploited by one of the other classes (say, a warrior) to obscene effect (say, damage bonuses north of 600%). However, the tactics sheets still do not have enough ‘slots’ to allow for every circumstance, nor for the obsessive “if-then” needs of anyone who has ever taken a programming class. That said, the constant pausing necessary for safely negotiating most encounters gives you plenty of time to admire your party in action, and the game impresses visually (provided you have the hardware, of which it demands something in the neighborhood of current market average). Encounters can get repetitive, but there’s enough variety in enemy types that you probably won’t notice you’re fighting the same class combinations over and over.
Bioware’s strength across its games has always been the construction of rich worlds, the diverse characters who populate them, and the use of that setting to tell an engaging story. DA2 does not disappoint, delving even more deeply into the universe’s allegory-fraught lore of religion, deviance, and government. The conflict between magic users and the templar knights who would police them for consort with demons is central to the setting and, eventually, the plot, although what was probably meant to be ominous foreshadowing just came across as “gosh, those darned blood mages are at it again.” The game provides diverse and interesting characters with a nice plethora of tactical capabilities, personalities, religious views, and criminal histories. Unlike many of Bioware’s games, however, the companion characters do not necessarily become utterly devoted minions of the player’s character, Hawke. Because of the game’s stationary geography, these characters are instead able to live their lives and pursue their own goals in Kirkwall, which can lead to their temporary or permanent absence from your team, depending on how events play out. My only disappointment here was the reduction in racial diversity among companions. Aside from two elves (a Dalish mage and Tevinter warrior) and a dwarf (the wise-cracking, crossbow-naming Varric), the rest of your friends are regular old humans. I know I said I wouldn’t compare anymore, but it’s worth remembering that though DA:O only had one elf and one dwarf, you could also recruit a qunari, golem, and mabari war dog. Despite a well-written and engrossing sidequest involving an escaped qunari mage, DA2 does not permit the recruitment of the newly-behorned, Qun-quoting warrior-philosophers, though a summonable mabari minion does become available in optional DLC.
Similarly, the fully-voiced Hawke can only be human. Though you can choose to play a male or female of any class, DA2 offers only one real “origin” story, as its predecessor phrased it. Hawke’s family is on the run from their home in Lothering as it is overrun by Darkspawn. You can’t be an elf, because then your family would have to all be elves. Also, think of all those extra voicelines they would have to record, even if they used the same actors for the alternate races, which would be a little absurd. To complement the player character’s voice, “Dragon Age II” exchanges the old-fashioned ‘list o’ sentences’ for the radial conversation wheel from the “Mass Effect” series, adding symbols to help indicate the tone of a particular response (usually choosing between Nice, Funny, and Mean). Traditionalists will feel restricted, but at the end of the day it’s an important improvement for the series.
Briefly, because it’s already been plastered all over Bioware’s boards, and beaten to death from all perceivable sides (you can read more about it on the Dragon Age boards, Rock, Paper, Shotgun and Kotaku, among other sites): it’s worth noting that among the game’s companions, four (excluding the downloadable Sebastian) are susceptible to romantic advances from Hawke. Of these four, all four are available to a Hawke of either gender. I have always supported Bioware’s decision to embrace diverse sexuality among its characters, but this feels like they’ve dug a trench right along the lines of compromise from which they may never emerge. As I mentioned, this is a highly charged issue and not something I’d like to address in depth, but it’s worth knowing about the game and video game culture at large.
The game compartmentalizes its story nicely into acts of a sort, separated by hearty dividers of one to three years. Once you begin the quest that takes you out of a particular act, any unaddressed quest or business in that act becomes unavailable to you (even, as I learned the hard way, if that quest leads to a recruitable companion. Ah, Fenris, I never knew ye). The game is usually pretty good about warning you when this is going to happen, but frequent saving is recommended, as always, in case you accidentally fall down a slippery slope. There’s no appreciable adjustment in difficulty between acts, each of which has its own mini-climax, but the actions of Hawke and his/her companions gradually rise in political profile until you’re splattering blood all over the viscount’s shiny throne room. And then it gets worse. Disappointingly, it would appear that regardless of the “side” you chose in the game’s final conflict, there’s no significant difference in the trials you will face. There are two bosses, and you will face both of them, regardless of whose side you’re on. It’s one of the rare but noticeable parts of the game that smells ever-so-slightly of deleted content, cut in order to finish the game by a deadline.
In all, “Dragon Age II” is definitely worth playing, especially if you’re into the RPG genre but would rather maintain the illusion that you don’t, and never have, played Dungeons & Dragons or any variant thereof. When most games that sell for $60 offer six to twelve hours of single player content, DA2 will keep you antisocial for upwards of forty hours. And that’s if you only play a single character through the game once, which is virtually impossible. We won’t talk about the number of characters I’ve already created, nor how many I have yet to imagine.
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