Dragon Age II

Bioware has done it again… for the most part, anyway. They’ve put together a role-playing game with a captivating story, interesting characters, and cool lore surrounding all of it. Is that to say it doesn’t have its shortcomings? We’ll see, read on!

Dragon Age II doesn’t pick up where Dragon Age: Origins left off. There’s no sight of your original Grey Warden, and now you are Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall. Get used to hearing that word by the way, Champion, it gets thrown around a lot. The story is told in sort of a flashback style, with the dwarven rogue, Varric telling your story to someone only known as the “Seeker.” I guess a Seeker of information, or a Seeker of something, I don’t really know, and probably won’t know until the third game.

Despite what others are saying, I really enjoyed the storyline of Dragon Age II. It was a lot less epic and world-shattering than the first game. Hawke’s new home, Kirkwall, is the main focus, with its inner struggles and political issues. It’s very interesting, captivating, and for once it wasn’t the whole “save the world” generic nonsense. This is not to say the story doesn’t have its problems. I wish I could go into detail, but I would prefer to not spoil anything. Let’s just say the dumbest things that happen in the story are close to the beginning, and right at the end of the game. You’ll know when you get there.

I really enjoyed the cast of characters this time around. As always, it’s your typical line-up of Bioware archtypes, the goodie-two-shoes (a twist, for once it’s a female), the promiscuous one, the brooding, shady one, the funny guy, and so on and so forth. However, in true Bioware fashion, it’s all well done, and makes you appreciate their ways of keeping reused ideas into fresh ones. By the end, I really enjoyed having Fenris, Isabela, and Varric close. They seemed to have the most interesting/humorous banter, plus they all got along pretty well, which is nice. Put together the wrong team of people, and you’ll be dealing with constant arguments and harder choices, because someone will always end up disagreeing with you, losing your friendship.

Suffice to say, at least Bioware went through the trouble of making “unfriendly” teammates worth your time. If someone in your group is a big friend, or a big rival, they will get a certain buff, like more magic resistance for friendly, or more critical chance for rival. Sometimes it actually looked like the rival traits were better than the friendly ones. Interesting dynamic there, to say the least. Sometimes you’ll want to go out of your way to upset people just so you can get closer to their rival bonus.

Speaking of bonus, lets talk about the combat. As we all know, Bioware really wanted to shove down our throats that this is going to be a much faster paced game with a lot more action (the demo proves that quite well), and it most certainly is. The action is constant, and fluid, which is fantastic. They really went out on a limb to create a better combat experience, perhaps it is a bit more simple, and doesn’t require the use of extremely well co-ordinated tactics, but for me personally, I enjoy the type of gameplay Dragon Age II brings over the original game, although for some people (elitist/retro PC RP gamers, I’m looking at you), this could actually be a downside. To everyone else, this is a huge step in the right direction.

It does have its downsides though, to some the combat could probably get boring rather quickly, especially when every encounter is pretty much the same. Mob charges in, kill said mob, reinforcements appear from pretty much nowhere at all. For me, the goal of the game it was all about seeing how high I could get my “Mighty Blow” up to (I my highest was 2035 damage by the way), so I was enjoying myself the whole way through, but for people who miss constantly pausing the game and setting up intricate tactics with layers upon layers of depth might be sorely disappointed, as the game is quite easy as you can hack and slash your way through. The most difficult battles are the boss encounters, and they’re usually alone anyway, so it’s just a boring mash fest. Yeah, the boss encounters in this game really sucked hard, they had no interesting dynamics whatsoever, and just felt like a long, dragged out normal encounter, minus the big mobs and reinforcements. They should have just skipped the big bosses, or traded out boss battles for huge, epic, scaled battles. I’m talking like 100 darkspawn on the screen… something like that would have complemented the game’s combat system much more than the atrocious boss encounters that are here.

Although the emphasis on better combat has significantly lowered the quality of some other things. As we all know, Bioware is the king of copy and pasted maps, however Dragon Age II definitely reigns supreme in this area. For about 90% of the game you are restricted to the city of Kirkwall, which I don’t actually have a problem with, however they could have made the city bigger, or at least have more interesting locales and design. The place is bland, and for the most part, ugly. If you’re going to restrict a player to one place for the entire game, you should at least have the decency to make it a cool city with a lot of things going on. The streets are empty and lifeless, and people say the same things when you pass them (yes, even after years go by in the games story, it was so funny to always pass this guy who says “good luck getting in, I’ve been waiting all day” for years and years).

As for the copy & pasted maps I mentioned… this really disgusted me. The devs had the audacity to use the exact same map for everything. If you’re exploring a cave, it will always be the same exact one as any other cave you’ve explored. This goes for warehouses, and pretty much any other side-quest map. That’s right! The same exact map (except sometimes different doors are closed so you’re forced to take different directions).

Seriously, guys? You advertise this as a huge, hit, awesome game and then you just puke up the same maps over and over and think no one is going to notice? I looked in the credits, there were 11 level designers. You’d think with 11 people there would at least be 11 different maps, but that’s not the case. You’ll be seeing the same 4 or 5 places the entire game. Kirkwall, the cave, the lava ruin, the deeproads, and the warehouse. There are two or three more, but seriously, there’s no excuse for this incompetence. If Kirkwall was a better looking city, then I might have excused this, but it seems like the people who designed the levels did it in the span of two days. I think I even recognized a map that could’ve been pulled from the original Dragon Age: Origins. I had a few witness that agreed with me as well. It wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest.

The sound and voice acting is well done, but the music could have used a lot of work. Not like music was ever one of the series strong points, as none of the music from the original Dragon Age is particularly memorable either, but still. For the most part, you’ll be wandering Kirkwall’s street without any kind of music in the background, sometimes in combat you’ll hear something, but for the most part it’s just nonexistent. I’m glad I didn’t get the soundtrack with this game, because it would only have about five or six tracks at most. Unless I’m deaf or something, the score to this game is pathetic.

Dragon Age II is a mixed bag, but what it does well, it does very well indeed. If you want to play a game with interesting characters, a compelling story, fun combat, and deep choices, you’ll want to pick this up. On the other hand, if  you prefer extremely tactical combats, crafting items, get sick of doing the same things, and looking at the same places, you’ll definitely want to steer clear.

Dragon Age II, is for the most part, a step in the right direction, but it feels extremely rushed and is also plagued by annoying little glitches (I never ran into any game breaking ones, at least). Thankfully, the stronger points pull it through, but I don’t think I’m going to bother with a second run. I just can’t see myself playing errand boy in Kirkwall again, looking at the same five or six places, I’ll pass on that. Lets hope now that the framework is laid out, the third can be the best of the trilogy. The story is doing well enough!