Dragon Age II Reviews

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Written by Brother None on March 8th, 2011

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The narrative's most extraordinary features aren't in the story proper, then, but in the element of choice. Dragon Age II is split into three chapters, and in each, you face difficult decisions that don't necessarily fit into standard definitions of good and bad. This is in part because of the world's politically charged climate. A family connection might make it initially easy to empathize with the plight of apostate mages, who long to free their brothers and sisters from the shackles of the Circle. After all, you meet the blank-faced, passionless former mages who have been made tranquil--that is, cut off from their connection to the dream world known as the Fade. And yet you also come face-to-face with the horrors of blood magic and the powerful influence the Fade's demons can wield on magic-wielders angry with the oppressive establishment. The stoic, horned Quanari race suffers from similar persecution, and they may earn your sympathy, considering that you and your family are also outsiders. And yet, single-minded devotion to their creed, known as the Qun, leads to shocking cruelties that you witness firsthand. There are some not-so-coincidental correlations to real-world religious and political conflict, which gives immediacy to these circumstances. However, the particulars--mages on leashes treated as pets, aristocratic houses involved in mind games and one-upmanship--are typical fantasy tropes. Expect to encounter themes and elements famously explored in other fantasy works, such as The Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time, and A Song of Ice and Fire, among many others.

In any case, you must choose how to respond to the game's events, using a dialogue wheel that clearly labels the attitude governing your response. (The red icon is the aggressive option, for example, while the green icon is the kind one.) Sometimes, your choices don't have gameplay consequences at all and amount to smoke and mirrors, giving the illusion of choice but nothing more. This is perfectly reasonable for the most part, given that such dialogue choices allow you to role-play, even when they carry no further weight. There are events that play out much the same way regardless of how you respond, however, which makes some of these illusions disappointingly transparent. Yet there are many more weighty decisions in this game than in its predecessor, and they affect your progress in some really fantastic ways--some of them subtle, some of them not. Should you encourage a confused adolescent with magical abilities to seek refuge with the Dalish elves, that character may write to you later, offering a quest that furthers his tale. Having a particular party member with you might let you steer the conversation in different directions than you otherwise might have. Plot threads are tied up in a number of ways, depending on what character you side with, if any, and potential future paths are then opened or closed. Even your initial choice of class influences certain aspects of your party composition.

Of course, you do need to consider their combat abilities as well, because a team full of mages probably isn't going to get very far. The appeal of the combat system in Dragon Age II is its versatility. You can easily play it like an action title and mash buttons on lower difficulty levels, but if you prefer to think about what you're doing, you can crank up the difficulty, pause the game, and issue commands for individual team members. It's more difficult to direct complex strategies on consoles due to imprecise movements with the analog sticks, but it's easy with a keyboard and mouse, though PC users will need to get used to the new camera that doesn't zoom out quite as far as the one in Origins. Still, taking on foes in any version of Dragon Age is really entertaining attack animations have been sped and spiffed up and slicing through an enemy with a sword feels satisfying.

The only trouble is your buddies aren't smart enough to play Dragon Age II like a straight action game, despite BioWare's claim that you can. Unless you set up specific instructions in individual characters' tactics menus, they won't take healing potions (and even then they might not do it). Tactics are fairly easy to set up, so that's not the end of the world, but you'll still need to keep a careful eye on your party's health to make sure they don't go kamikaze on you.

Get underneath that though, and there are flaws. Given stamina or mana limitations, along with the ability cooldowns, combat does get a little bit button mashy as sometimes all you can do is tap A or X to do the regular attack. Setting up 'Tactics' hasn't been made any easier to really understand either, but so long as you set up basics like healing and attacking, you shouldn't need to fiddle too much. Also think carefully of how you want your character to pan out, and what skills you want them to have - do it incorrectly and it can make things difficult. Even though they've claimed to be adding more flair and style though, this isn't completely the case - I remember one of the first bosses you have to fight in DAO, and when we killed it, there was this kick-ass animation where my guy jumped into the air and drove his sword into the beats face. Those kind of Troy-like finishing moves were all over Origins, and I've yet to see one here in Dragon Age II.

This is another one of those odd games to review, especially considering how highly we regarded its predecessor. There's good moments, there's bad moments, there's weird moments... the companions in this game are all enjoyable characters (even if you can spot the Mass Effect 2 clone in some of them), and yet managing the Rivalry/Friendship metre can be difficult. Unlike in the first game, where it was more clear how certain characters would react to certain choices, in this you could be plodding along through a convo and suddenly you've lost standing with someone, for no adequately explained reason. That's annoying. We noticed that there was a DAO or Awakening import feature, but to be honest the effect this had was just as trivial as in Mass Effect 2... maybe even more so, actually. At least in ME2 you could see some of the background stuff was going somewhere, whereas you can't say that here as you're not even in Feralden anymore.

We also have to say that we're a little disappointed at how often Bioware chose to re-use areas for this game. You could do five different quests that involve going to five supposedly separate caves, but they would all look the same because they share the same level design. Sure, there is some customization done here: One cave will only involve one room, another cave will involve the whole thing, but certain passage ways will be blocked... I think the greatest highlight of this was when we did two cave missions in a row, one involved going from A to B, and the other involved simply doing it the other way around, but it was the exact same cave.

Seeking refuge at the neighbouring city of Kirkwall, Hawke and his/her family are fleeing Ferelden after their Kingdom has fallen to the Blight that afflicted the first game. The escape doesn't inspire confidence in Dragon Age II -- a fractured dash across "the Wounded Coast" with a group of thundering dullards, culminating in a rather messy combat finale that had Hawke laid out and Mage sister Bethany chased in circles by an ogre.

It's a clumsy opening that takes Dragon Age II several hours to get over, as the game charts Hawke's rise from straggly refugee to the Champion of Kirkwall. Stuttering rather than slow-burn, muddled expository events are crammed in to claw back some focus.

Only the truly hardcore role-player will allow such design choices to dampen the experience. The genre is evolving, like it or not, and once you stop obsessing over what's different and start paying attention to what's important, Dragon Age II has plenty to offer.

If the gloriously messy stat-heavy guts of the RPGs of old are being carved out and replaced by simple mechanisms, it's not because the Bioware designers want to appeal to drooling simpletons. It's because they want us to engage with story rather than statistics.

If Mass Effect 2 took its cue from the propulsive thrust of pulp sci-fi, Dragon Age II gladly follows its own genre roots and echoes the meandering myth-building of a doorstop fantasy novel.

This is a game packed with stories. With no monstrous uber-foe to defeat even the smallest side quest takes on its own importance, feeding back into the whole and weaving a saga that draws you further and further in as the hours tick by.

The big problem with Dragon Age II is a lack of variety. Almost all of the equipment simply provides point bonuses to existing abilities, with very few actually conferring new ones. The treasures, as a result, are quite boring. Swords that shoot fire or rings that cast spells, for example, would have been nice.

This lack of variety also transfers over to the action. There's quite a bit of recycling of cave and other locale maps, meaning that several of the missions happen in similar-looking places, even though they're supposed to be different.

Ultimately, Dragon Age II isn't simple enough to attract non-fans of the genre and the action on its own probably wouldn't be sufficiently varied to satisfy hard-core RPG aficionados. That said, it has a better story and characterization than just about anything else out there. On that basis alone, it's still a strong game that you'll want to shovel many, many hours into.

Smart combat, great characters, much-improved (and much less brown) graphics; I should have been sailing through Dragon Age II with a big, stupid grin on my face. And I was, until this ... gnawing set in. By the halfway point of my adventure, I couldn't shake the sense that I was not, as I had been led to believe, living out an epic story in an epic world. Rather, I found myself with the distinct feeling of being led through a haunted house where the next encounter was being set up just moments before my arrival.

The narrative is partly to blame. As mages became more persecuted and templars more demonized, I was always acutely aware that it was my decisions that had forced them into that mold -- and it's a mold you can reverse, at any time, all the way to the final moments. It's hard to get too worked up about a chief antagonist that was created by a dialog choice, or, as Jessica Rabbit might have said, someone who is "not bad, they're just drawn that way" ... and you're the one holding the pencil.

And if you decide to initiate a romance with one of your fellow travellers? God help you. Love muddles matters even more, as you'll have to deftly dodge complicated decisions to keep your partner happy.

It took us a while to get a handle on exactly how everything works, but your companions are so crucial to your emotional investment in the crafty plotline that it's entirely worth the effort.

Inventory management is also simpler. Hawke is the only character who can equip armor; the rest find "enhancements" to the duds they're wearing. They can equip weapons you find along the way, but if you're a mage and you pick up a cool set of dragonmail, don't even think about giving it to Carver or Fenris -- they can't use it. This rather angers me as a longtime player of RPGs -- I want to outfit my party the way I want to, not the way the developer thinks I should. I don't need them to hold my hand in this manner.

The biggest difference, for me, is setting. Kirkwall serves as a grand adventure hub in the same way that Athkatla does in Baldur's Gate II. After the prologue, you spend the game in or around Kirkwall. Split into districts, just like Athkatla, Kirkwall also shows the disparities of how Dragon Age II's people live: The high-and-mighty occupy the clean, imposing structures of Hightown; the middle class and workers fill Lowtown (also the location of the elven alienage); while the most pathetic -- the poor refugees who fled the blight in Ferelden -- languish in Darktown, the undercity.

With its third-person camera and button-mashing attacks, the combat system in Dragon Age II is designed with a controller in mind, but BioWare doesn't offer native gamepad support, restricting you to mouse-and-keyboard controls on PC. This approach may have worked well in Origins, but it doesn't transition well to the new system. Movement feels clumsy, and pausing to readjust the camera and select targets for your abilities just muddles the flow of combat.

Maybe this decision was made to retain a shred of the tactical combat that distinguished Origins, but if that's the case, the attempt is meager and insufficient. You have no zoomed out isometric view, and the waves and waves of filler enemies that pad out encounters make strategy futile. Yes, you can pause and issue commands, but this maneuvering is pointless when you never know how many more bad guys will jump from the rooftops, rise from the ground, or simply materialize out of nowhere. Even with more foes, the fights are considerably easier (unless you really crank up the difficulty), so planning is a waste of time. You can win most fights without worrying about strategy, so why invest unnecessary time and effort in the tactical approach? This conundrum creates a combat system that does not convey the thrill of controlling an unstoppable hero, but also doesn't accommodate the strategy that is supposed to serve as an alternative.

The biggest change from the first game is the combat. No longer trying to straddle the fence between tactical and action-focused systems, Dragon Age II gives itself over entirely to fast-paced, responsive battles. This drastic departure from the original formula is bound to upset purists, but it suits the game well. Throwing down a non-stop barrage of spells and weapon techniques is empowering, and since you aren't just issuing commands and waiting for their execution, the action feels more immediate. Don't expect this sensation right away, though; you'll have to play for several hours before you have enough abilities to keep combat interesting. In the early stages, you'll burn through your meager skills and then mash the attack button while you wait for them to recharge. I promise, it gets better. By the time you're wiping out your opposition before they even hit your front lines, it all seems worth it.

To make Origins, BioWare dredged up buckets of backstory from the minds of their best writers. A new land was invented, branded with religious intolerance and inherent racism. Then, once the continent of Thedas was concrete, BioWare forgot they'd invented all that engaging stuff and slapped a typical '˜kill the big bad thing' fantasy plotline on top. For all its size and wonder, Origins didn't make full use of its fascinating world.

Dragon Age 2 does it right. It's still an RPG epic, it still takes upwards of 50 hours to finish. It's still got a deep, complex combat system, and it's still got a well-defined supporting cast. But it's also an RPG that wears its mythology proudly, confident in its goal of charting the rise of a complete and utter badass. You.

The game's combat is fluid and satisfying, but not always precise. DA2 feels built for PC: targeting specific foes is still tough, and the lack of a completely free Camera mode means getting a view of the battlefield is harder than it should be.

DA2's niggles are all in repetition. Forcing players to spend their time in only one city and a handful of identikit dungeons can lead to fatigue; so too can the sometimes-fiddly combat annoy.

But underneath those minor problems is a character, charm and wit that make both the city of Kirkwall and your own version of hero Hawke come alive.

BioWare is great about tweaking minor mechanics the enhance the overall flavor of the experience, and this is very much in evidence in "Dragon Age 2." Conversations now employ a layout that is similar to what is seen in "Mass Effect 2," with a couple of words hinting at the overall tone of your character's response. In an effort to make possible responses clearer, there are now visual icons coupled with each response which reveal the tone, be it combative, sarcastic/joking, questioning, friendly or the like. Inventory management has also been streamlined somewhat with companion-specific upgradeable armor. If you are a warrior and you find a powerful mage's robe, you can just sell it since no one in your game will be able to wear it. Character progression is similarly streamlined, with a series discrete ability trees catering to different play styles replacing the previous game's more standard list format.

In terms of progression each character will have access to a number of skill trees which allow them to specialize within the three basic classes - Warrior, Mage and Rogue. Hawke can be any of these three classes, but you can only choose once at the game's outset.

Warriors, for instance, can use Sword and Shield, Two Handed Swords or Blunt, Heavy Weapons, and each has a different skill-tree and plays quite differently. You'll have to choose what type of powers to develop, and then past that there are also roles such as Defender to consider, which give skills based on what kind of game you want to play with that character.

The skill trees look great and work great, managing to give you more information on what you're investing in than Origins ever did and actually being something of a branching tree this time. I always found myself carefully considering what to invest in, and I never felt like there was a lack of options for how to develop.

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