I just finished the game a few days ago, and I must admit that Dragon Age II is the first game that caused me to actively search for criticism directed against it (most certainly because I had such high expectations from DA: O). Let me try to complain in an organized fashion.
Story:
The basic premise of Dragon Age II, a rags to riches story, is understandable; however, the actual implementation of the plot into the game failed on many levels, as if DA II were simply Awakening masquerading as a sequel. Get ready to see that same plot device used 100 times over, where you step in dog crap in Act 1, have someone mentioned dog crap in Act 2, only to learn in Act 3 that the same dog crap you stepped in two Acts ago happened to be evil dog crap which someone decided to turn into a powerful thing made out of... dog crap. If DA:O comes out and tells you that you're going to kill the Arch Demon, DA II turns you into a messanger boy, following a trail of clues to an inevitable outcome that you know beforehand from reading the back of the game's case. Sure, in DA: O the hero does the exact same thing, using the warden contracts to unite Ferelden. But at least in the first game I felt that my decisions actually made a difference; I almost feel as if all the events in Kirkwall could have occured and been resolved without Hawke. The roots of the ending had been in the making long before Hawke stepped in Kirkwall, and the finale to Act II (the part of the game that should've been its entire focus) became resolved independently of Hawke's prescence, because of someone whom the story built up as being possessive of a conscience and a willingness to right a wrong.
Key Points to the Game
The idea of going to the most dangerous place in the world to become immediately rich (and thereby hold clout in the city of Kirkwall) is as ludicrous as the idea of someone going to Afghanistan and finding a hidden cache of gold. In fact, Hollywood already pounced on this idea with the movie Three Kings, where Mark Walberg, Ice Cube, and George Clooney go to Iraq as military reserves and find Saddam Hussein's loot. It would have been fitting to see Hawke's rise to power as a real journey--seeing him involved in shady deals and moving up the ladder step by step. If the writers of Dragon Age II wanted quick wealth for the hero, Alexandre Dumas already established great precedent with the Count of Monte Cristo almost two centuries ago. Escape from prison, swim to an island, find your mentor's stronghold, and then remain relatively anonymous while fulfilling one's mission (revenge). Unfortunately, Hawke does not have a mission, outside of being a bystander at the right place at the right time, of course.
One central factor that is missing from Dragon Age II is appropriate emotion for moments of crisis: the game plays out almost as poorly as Revenge of the Sith, where every character has read the plot and knows who is going to save the day despite the precariousness of the situation. When the Hero of Ferelden was at Ostegar during the battle with the dark spawn, he had an awestruck look on his face that described the feeling the player shared with his character--complete uncertainty concerning the situation and the battle's outcome. Thrust Hawke into a similar situation in Act 2, and he seems like he knew he was going to be victorious as soon as he got up from bed. The rationale behind his becoming the Champion of Kirkwall is baffling. For those who have played the game, I need not go into detail, but when you think of what it takes to be called the Champion of anything, there are certain considerations. Intuitively, one assumes that some sort of champion must possess a great power that separates him or herself from all the rest. Let's investigate all the most important characters in Dragon Age:
Hero of Ferelden: The player is called the Hero of Ferelden because he or she slays (or plays a significant role in the slaying of) the arch demon. The power that the hero possesses is the darkspawn blood that separates grey wardens from every other living creature in dragon age, the capacity to slay the arch demon.
Loghain: He played a significant role in leading the forces that unified Forelden; his tactical genius and military capacity (i.e., he led troops) earned him wide renown as a hero within the country.
First Enchanter Irving: One would assume that by virtue of his title that he would possess considerable power, but obviously not enough to stop the Circle from being taken over by blood mages.
Flemeth: A witch who has lived for centuries and has the power to turn into a giant dragon. Nonetheless, she has limitations inasmuch as she cannot slay the arch demon, the whole reasoning behind her helping out the warden in DA: O.
Out of these four characters, the one whose fame Hawke seemingly could aspire to achieve would be Loghain. Could the ending in Act II have been influenced by a Hawke with powerful magic? Even as a mage, one would have to know from where Hawke would get such power. Could Hawke turn into a giant dragon? Possibly. Would being a grey warden make a difference? Only if there is an arch demon to be slayed. Could Hawke lead an army, a gang of thieves, or something of the sort in much the same way Loghain did in protecting Ferelden? This route is the most plausible of the ones suggested, and it truly would have been amusing to see the Hero of Ferelden try to solo the Arch Demon and the Darkspawn Horde (the writers of DA: O were logical and smart enough to make the entire game revolve around gaining allies to stop an imminent threat).
Levels:
The problem with staying in one city the entire game is that there is little variety. When I went into the Deep Roads hunting Oghren's girlfriend, I felt something because the deeper I went the more I uncovered a terrible story that not only created character development but also taught me about Dragon Age lore behind the dark spawn and dwarves. When I went into the Mage's Tower, I had the most fun I had in years shifting between a mouse, a fiery skeletal warrior, a lich, and a golem--using my mind to figure out puzzles while trying to awake from a nightmare. When I traveled around Kirkwall, I felt nothing. The quests were too disjointed, lacked clarity, and thus made it impossible to have any longlasting feelins concerning any one thing. Good essays have clarity and vision, and these qualities Dragon Age II sorely lacked. True, plot elements such as saving the world and having cliche characters like the sidekick-from-the-beginning Alistair, wise mentors in Duncan and Wynn, and others may be overdone--but they give the story meat and direction. Most of the characters you meet in DA:0 come to you in a crisis, a dangerous situation that allows you to see them respond to situations that make any human being reveal character. This idea does not occur in Dragon Age II, and if the general backdrop of the story that plays out in three acts and has its climatic finish in the third is taken to be that crisis, I must admit I prefer detail and careful attention paid to each character's story (like an entire level used for Oghren) over lumping everyone into one problem that they are to respond to. Most of the quests seemed to follow the aforementioned dog crap approach, where Bioware presents you with dog crap just to have an excuse to get you to see horse crap later, but in the end it's all crap no matter whether it comes from a dog or a horse.
Characters:
There is no character development, whatsoever, over 7 years. In DA : O you could harden characters and thereby influence crucial decisions. The important decisions your companions make do not occur because of any philospical argumentation you make as a you roleplay through the game, but because you either agree or disagree with them. That is to say, their characters are fixed and it is you who changes to suit them, rather than it being the other way around (which is the underlying basis of CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT).
In DA: O you meet Alistair at the crisis of Ostegar (not to mention seeing him at the climatic landsmeet), you meet Wynne at Ostegar as well and then again at the Mage's Tower taken over by malificari, and you meet Oghren while questing for a missing crew in the deep roads. Only the characters of Sten, Leliana, and Zevran are not met in a crisis--I would put Morrigan into her own category of being Flemith's daughter, which results in boundless intrigue as it is. In Dragon Age II the motivation for almost every character who joins you is that you have done someone a favor (there is no divine mission of Leliana, no random freeing of the Sten, and wouldn't venture to call sparing Zevran's life a favor but rather a debt to paid). The whole sort of happenstance logic that governs Dragon Age II works for both the NPCs, the companions, and Hawke him or herself without variation. One almost thinks Bioware included a family for Hawke in the game just so that its familial interactions (intuitively understood and unquestioned) would be a reminder of reality and a beacon to sanity, since everything else in the game either suffers from exaggeration or lack of explanation.
Ending = Champion of Kirkwall:
As stated before, the most logical outcome for Hawke would be to reach the status of a Loghain, who had in fact fought in a brutal war of independence against a foreign empire and succeeded in doing so. Bioware would have the player believe that a man that carves his reputation in one city would carry greater weight than that made in an entire country. Furthermore, bioware would have the player believe that if the Champion dared to take a dump, the sound of his farts would echo and the waft of his stench would be smelled far and wide (all over Thedas and perhaps beyond), just because he is the Champion. For someone who is far more famous, if not as famous as the Champion, Loghain is never mentioned in Kirkwall. Even during the times of overlap between the Blight and Loghain's rule over Forelden, there is no mentioning of him. If Loghain took a dump, would the people in Kirkwall give a damn? So why would bioware have the player assume the opposite, that the Champion of Kirkwall could have such a great influence on the world outside of Kirkwall? If Loghain's influence cannot extend beyond his country, why would Hawke's clout extend beyond a single city? Should not Hawke be called the Champion of Thedas if he wishes to have such an impact on the continent as bioware would have you believe? This argument should be considered regardless of whether or not one believes Hawke has anything to do with the events in Dragon Age II.
Battle:
I play the game on nightmare on PC, so I had to be tactical the entire game. I missed the ability to change my outfits for my other companions, and the constant waves of enemies really got annoying (the whole notion of having to run 3 or 4 rooms just to pull enemies was ridiculous). The fact that the enemies were generic and fell into "types" just seemed to be too much streamlining and offered little variety according to the enemy you faced storywise.
What I did like and my ultimate conclusion:
By and large I liken playing the game to jacking off, ejaculating, and receiving little return for my investment. The game was great fun while I went through the common cutscenes that I love from bioware, hearing the voiceacting and seeing the animations, challenging myself during the impossible fights (neurotic with nothing better to do other than play the same battle a 100 times over), and hoping that all my decisions would come to mean something in the end. Unfortunately, just as in unsuccessful masturbation, I came out disappointed, full of emptiness and regret. The most fun I had was while I was still believing that my efforts would be rewarded, because I thought bioware could never deceive me (boy was I wrong). Now that I have been betrayed, I've decided to complain in order to reclaim what little dignity I have left.
A Vision For a Game Gone Wrong:
Too often in the game you have people aiding you or hunting you for absolutely no reason at all, as if the fact you stepped in dog crap in act 1 is excuse enough for the city-sweeper to help you fight a dragon in act 2 out of remorse for the fact he forgot to clean up the dog poo. Bioware fails to explain the leap from not cleaning up dog poo toparticipating in a fight against a dragon, alongside someone you barely know. Fortunately, DA: O avoided most of these problems, because the warden contracts and the lore behind it made clear everyone's responsabilities in Ferelden. The lack of an imminent threat often results in a lack of motivation to act; bioware decided to forgo the whole necessity of motivation and just had action, action, and action. One could argue that the three different acts are stories in themselves that should have stood alone and been separate games. In trying to do too much with the game, Bioware did too little, and made the entire game seem implausible. The Soviet Union would not have been such a failure if the Bolsheviks didn't actually believe they could build utopia and just tried to replace the Tzar with a representative government. Dragon Age II would have been a better game if they just pulled a Mass Effect with the story of Hawke and spaced it out over three games, making the whole thing more believable and possible to invest one's time and feelings into, without Hawke feeling some sort of paper cut-out.
Final Note: The Mage Tower from DA: O rulez
The game would be better called, "Dragon age II: Hawke, the Happenstance Hero."
Modifié par Eskendale, 25 mars 2011 - 09:35 .
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