After playing the game three times, once for each archetype, I noticed the BIG storytelling disaster at the end. Regardless about how you deal with dialogue choices, the result of those decisions do not actually matter. "Dragon Age II" is an enjoyable game, but the final act misses the mark entirely. While looking online for information on another game, I came across the perfect analysis for "Dragon Age II's" failure. Out of all the things that went wrong, BioWare's traditional line 'your moral choices matter' does not apply. Why? Everyone you side with is a hypocrite; thus, you are not rewarded for all the effort you injected into the game. If you side with one of the antagonists, their actions justify the perceptions of the other. Here is the irony... When the game brings both mages and templars together, into a force to fight the Knight Commander, taking the middle ground to unite them falls flat. Even though you may have taken the road of gray, the game forces you into taking one specific side. You spend at least thirty hours on strategy, so that it doesn't matter at the end. Its a massive slap in the face.
Article: "When Dragon Age II Fell Apart"
Link: www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/firstperson/9353-When-Dragon-Age-II-Fell-Apart
It is revealed that the
Mages and Templars in question had kidnapped one of Hawke's friends, to use as leverage against Hawke should she interfere with their plot. If Hawke had chosen to befriend the cause of the Mages at this point, that
makes no sense. The Mages might even have approached her for help with their plan. If Hawke had chosen to walk a middle line, incensing the Champion of Kirkwall who had saved the city from an invasion in the previous Act and proven herself a person of virtue also makes no sense.
The end of Dragon Age II was, in my eyes, an unmitigated disaster. The final choice the player is forced to make between Mages and Templars is a false one. If the player sides with the Mages, the Mages utilize blood magic to turn themselves into Abominations in order to fight the Templars, thereby justifying everything Knight-Commander
Meredith had said about why the Mages were dangerous. If the player sides with the Templars, they discover that Meredith is actually insane and wind up having to kill her, which justifies everything the Mages had been saying about the Templars.
So I return to the point where Dragon Age II fell apart, the "Best Served Cold" quest. My Hawke would have been overjoyed to learn of a rebellion against Knight-Commander Meredith by Templars and Mages combined! What an opportunity to not only unseat a maniac who was threatening to destroy the city, but to also forge a new bond of cooperation between the two factions whose rivalry had been at the heart of Kirkwall's tensions!
That would have been a choice that had reflected all the others I had made thus far. Instead, I was rushed into an ending that didn't make any sense based on my choices, and my character. A game that presents us with those choices is obligated to account for and honor them, or it certainly doesn't deserve our critical praise. We're long past the point where anyone thinks it isn't possible to tell stories in videogames, such that half-measures and incomplete narratives ought to impress no one.
Modifié par Deadmac, 19 janvier 2012 - 10:19 .
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