So a few nights ago I was at work (cook in a restaurant) and realized that I had to get up early the next day. And I had to close that night.
Crap.
This necessitated me trying to get rid of my closing shift so that I could get home before 2am and get to bed. This process is best described as me begging, pleading, and offering favors to anyone willing to take the extra hours off my hands, me then rushing through all my closing duties, then booking it home as the clock strikes midnight. I was in luck insofar as a fellow co-worker immediately offered to take the close, wanting a few extra hours himself. However, this did not come without a significant amount of gloating and back and forth (I will take it, I won't take it, I will take it, etc.) on his part.
For clarification, this man happens to be my rival. We work the same section and butt heads constantly over who is the better cook. That said, we are also friends. We are willing to help each other if the **** hits the fan and often concede points to one another when it comes to our strong points. We also go out of our way to ****** each other off, as he was doing to me that night by making his offer of taking the closing shift as ambiguous as possible.
Eventually I grew fed up with his game and gave the close to another co-worker. One whom I count as a friend. Unfortunately, he is the rival of the other person who was closing that night and they are NOT friends. My fellow closer thanked me profusely with as many cuss words as possible, to which I replied "it's the rivalry thing". I felt no remorse for having stuck those two rivals together because in doing so, I managed to spite my own rival.
Now at this point you may be wondering what in the shrunken blue sphincter of Satan's hairy ass this has to do with Dragon Age II. Well, the answer is simple. In going out of my way to deal with my own rival (and ha ha to him for losing the hours he wanted), I came to the realization that Dragon Age II is a game entirely about rivalries.
"This is rather obvious," you might be thinking. The game is all about the rivalry between the mages and the templars. The point I am trying to make is that it's more than just the mages and templars. It's people; your character and his/her allies, Orsino and Meredith, the Viscount and the Arishok. It's the political structure as well, which is where the mages and templars come in, but also the Chantry and the Qun. It's the structure of the very land you live on, wherein your Fereldan heritage gets you as much flak as the decisions you make. Some of these rivalries are friendly, such as the one I have with my co-worker. Others are harsh and spiteful, and yet still functional, such as mages and templars.
Let's start with your allies. Here we see mostly the friendly rivalries. If any of the people you become rivals with
really hated you, they would have left your side years ago. Yet they all stay. Why? Because despite butting heads constantly, there is a bond a friendship underlying the aggression. They have no reason to believe that Hawke is anything but another person in the crowd. No reason to follow him/her except that they want to, unlike in the first
game where you are expected to be the hero of the day.
The rivalry between Orsino and Meridith is one based on hatred of what each other stands for, not so much on who they are as people. Outside of their rivalry, they are very similar characters. Both strong leaders, both obsessed with protecting their own, and both pushed to the edge by the conflict in which they're embroiled. Their hatred for each other is so strong that they are willing to turn to a complete stranger for leadership just so long as it means that their own rival does not gain an advantage in any way. While it would be expected for people in their positions to butt heads, the extent to which they fight is actually detrimental to their own causes, as evidenced in the finale.
The final pair, the Viscount and the Arishok, are more like victims of a rivalry they cannot control. They seem to have no animosity for each other (in fact they seem to almost respect each other), and yet they cannot avoid being rivals by virtue of representing two very different ways of thinking. Once again, the extent of this rivalry necessitates the insertion of a total stranger in order to attain some semblance of balance. Both turn to someone who has achieved results in the past and is not embroiled in the same issues that seems to hold the entirity of Kirkwall in thrall. It just happens to be the same person.
At this point I could go into the overarching rivalries such as the Chantry and the Qun, the mages and the templars, etc., but each of those is really best described in the characters that represent them (which are described above). They're easy to see, and yet you don't really get a good sense of their impact on the world at large. Just an overall idea that they exist and they cause problems. It's necessary then to see these rivalries played out in specific characters in order to see what sort of strain they really cause. Not only does it give you a more personal connection to the issues, but it shows on a mircoscale what is happening to the rest of the world that is also touched by these problems.
This focus on rivalries is a very interesting and certainly unique way of designing a game's story. It makes the entire game far more character driven. It also gives it the feel of a political fantasy novel (a genre of which I'm particularly fond) as opposed to your typical "save the day" type of RPG. You play a character; a single person set in the midst of situations that you cannot control. You have influence, but ultimately the war will come regardless of what you do. The opposing forces in this game are simply too strong to be quelled by a successful persuade roll.
On the downside, the focus on rivalries removes the usual heavy-handed way in which most plotlines are delivered. "You are a hero, do this, save the day, win at life" is what we're used to. As Hawke, you have no sense of what is going to happen where until it's already happening. The opposing forces presented in this game are obvious, but their impact (ie. the plot) is subtle. You never get to fully see the results of your labours. This is part of the reason for so many negative reactions to the game. We, as gamers, are very much not used to being merely a piece of the background. We like to be in control, aware of the future and able to see immediate results. We are creatures of instant gratification, but that is not what DAII is about.
Personally I enjoyed the way the game was laid out. It was unique and indicative of a much needed turn in the gaming industry. We need to move away from the label of "games" and find something that better describes the medium we enjoy as adults. Was it perfect? No. There were many unrefined edges and elements of the plot that could have been expanded on or smoothed out. However, I think DAII has many merits, one of which is the fact that I still think about the depth of its plot weeks after having finished the game itself. To me, it is more akin to a good novel than another RPG piled onto the stack of cookie-cutter RPGs we all know and love. It stands alone in terms of plot and design and I find that to be a point in its favor. Not everyone will agree, but then again, not everyone liked Salvador Dali's work when it first came out either.
Modifié par Kinr, 02 avril 2011 - 05:59 .
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