THE PLOT:
Varric, a Dwarven storyteller, has been captured by Chantry forces. A Seeker named Cassandra demands to know the whereabouts of "The Champion," the one person who might be able to fix an unspecified crisis - and who it's strongly implied might have caused the crisis in the first place. Varric protests that he has no idea where The Champion has gone, but he agrees to do the next best thing. He tells Cassandra the story of the rise of The Champion of Kirkwall.
During the Blight, Hawke (the player character) escapes from the Darkspawn invasion of Lothering with the family: mother; brother Carver, a veteran of the Battle of Ostagar; and sister Bethany, an apostate mage. Though one of Hawke's siblings falls to the Darkspawn, the rest are saved by a chance encounter with Flemeth, the Witch of the Wilds, who transports them to safety in exchange for delivering a message to the clan of Dalish elves camped near the port city of Kirkwall.
Kirkwall is overrun with refugees fleeing the Blight, which has led to rising crime that has spilled over from the slums of Lowtown to even the expensive residences of Hightown. The city is nominally ruled by a weak viscount, but his already-limited energies are consumed in dealing with a shipwrecked Qunari Arishok and his people, who have all but taken over the docks. Meanwhile, the real power in Kirkwall rests with Templar Knight Commander Meredith, whose increasingly harsh treatment of the city's Circle of Magi is resulting in runaways, leading to rampant incidents of forbidden Blood Magic throughout the city.
With extremists on every side, confrontation is inevitable - and Hawke has arrived just in time to end up at the center of all of it!
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| The approach to Kirkwall: Not the most welcoming sight. |
HAWKE:
The game does something interesting with the character of Hawke. Most dialogue choices allow Hawke three approaches to a situation or question: a diplomatic/heroic one; a humorous/sarcastic one; or an aggressive one. The game will track your choices to determine a default personality based on one of those three, which will impact some of Hawke's dialogue and deliveries during scripted scenes. In effect, you get to craft Hawke's core persona, even though your choices don't end up having too great an impact on the plot.
COMPANIONS:
Dragon Age II is a divisive game in many areas, one of the biggest of which is the companion characters. Your party is made up of seriously flawed individuals. Fenris, the former slave of a Tevinter mage, has such a knee-jerk hatred of all magic users that I found myself quickly disliking him despite his backstory. Merrill, a Dalish elf (who had a cameo in the Dalish origin story in the first game), is an unrepentant blood mage who cheerfully deals with demons and grows surly anytime you so much as suggest that this might be a bad idea. DLC companion Sebastian is so fanatical in his support for the Chantry that he cannot even entertain the existence of flaws. Guard Captain Aveline is honorable, but also largely humorless. Isabella, a pirate who briefly appeared in Origins, is one of the more intrinsically likeable of the bunch... and she's a self-confessed thief who spends much of the game directly lying to you!
The most significant holdover from the previous game is Anders, whom we learn left the Grey Wardens and merged with the spirit Justice sometime after the events of Awakening. He agreed to the merging in an attempt to save his friend, but his feelings about the Chantry's repression of mages infected the spirit. Now he is permanently possessed by a spirit of Vengeance... and as the game goes along, we see Anders become consumed by that. In the first Act, he is still very recognizable as the jokey (if not entirely lighthearted) individual from Awakening; in Act Two, "Vengeance" is coming out at inopportune moments, even at one point threatening to kill one of the mages he wants to protect for daring to be afraid of him; by Act Three, he's become sullen and withdrawn, something even the other party members will comment on in the background banter.
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| The Qunari Arishok grows dangerously frustrated with the corruption in Kirkwall. |
THE ARISHOK
The Qunari Arishok, who is introduced in the first Act and dominates the Second Act, is probably the most effective antagonist of the entire Dragon Age series.
Despite adhering to the strictest of honor codes, he is unquestionably a threat both to the city of Kirkwall and to Hawke. But he's no cardboard baddie. He is disgusted with Kirkwall, and for good reason: The city is every bit the cesspool of crime and corruption that he perceives it to be, with abuses continuing even after Aveline becomes Guard Captain in Act Two. Only the Qun stays his hand, its demands refusing to let him attack until he receives direct provocation... which radical elements within the city seem determined to provide.
The Arishok is also an extremist. He sees the Qun as the solution to every problem. It is evident that it has its limits, as demonstrated by the increasing numbers of his men who desert and become "Tal-Vashoth." The Arishok dismisses this, however; those who desert are no longer Qunari, and he therefore cannot lose anyone of value no matter how many end up defecting. With such a worldview, reason is impossible.
Over the course of the first two Acts, we see him growing more and more disgusted with Kirkwall. The Qun's inflexibility leaves him stuck in a personal hell. He cannot leave until his task is done, and he cannot act to clean up the filth he sees himself surrounded with. By the middle of Act Two, it's obvious that he is an inch away from snapping... and inevitably, he finally receives a provocation that allows him to rationalize the demands of the Qun with the action he craves. At that point, his response cannot be stopped - not even when the object of his mission is literally delivered into his hands.
The Arishok's arc is by far the best part of the game, leading to the most effectively-executed boss battle in the game. The problem is, once his story has run its course, there's still a full Act to go...
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| Knight-Commander Meredith: The only law in Kirkwall that matters. |
KNIGHT COMMANDER MEREDITH
On paper, Knight Commander Meredith should be a strong villain. Like the Arishok, she has correctly identified a problem plaguing Kirkwall; simply put, she isn't wrong that dangerous and forbidden blood magic poses a threat to the city's safety and stability. Like the Arishok, she sees only one solution to the problem: Templar discipline. Like the Arishok, she can initially be reasoned with (note that she firmly refuses a Templar proposal to just make all mages Tranquil), but gradually descends to the edge of madness. She even has a reasonably compelling backstory - though unless you delve into the Codex, you're unlikely to ever know it.
The problem is that as brilliantly-realized as the Arishok was, that's about as ineptly as Meredith's arc is handled. We hear about her in Acts One and Two, but we don't actually meet her until the very end of Act Two. As such, we never directly observe the harsh-but-reasonable Meredith who (probably) existed at the start of the game; we only ever see the near-insane version at the game's end. This leaves a potentially interesting character in the role of two-dimensional martinet, a witch just waiting to be burned.
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| Anders teeters on the edge of losing control... |
COMBAT:
Combat has been streamlined from Dragon Age: Origins, though it's more similar than it initially appears. You can still pause in mid-battle using radial menus to issue specific commands, and you can still switch between party members. Save for a few boss battles, however, you're unlikely to need to do that unless you're playing on "Hard." Most enemies are hordes of weak cannon fodder, and most battles follow the same template: Wipe out one wave; when most are down, a second wave will appear - either dropping from rooftops or (in caves and dungeons) just materializing out of nowhere. That structure gets rather tedious, but I don't think the changes to the combat system are to blame. The game's DLC expansions replace the hordes with more challenging and tactical battles that are vastly more satisfying, even though the direct mechanics are identical. As with other issues with this title, I suspect the unimaginative battles in the main game are more a result of the rushed schedule than any inherent technical weakness.
FRIENDSHIP AND RIVALRY:
In a neat twist on the first game's approval system, when your companions react to your choices, you will earn either "Friendship" or "Rivalry" points with them. "Friendship" basically means supporting them and agreeing with them no matter what; "Rivalry" is earned by pushing back against their prejudices or arguing with rash choices... and achieving full rivalry may result in a teammate becoming as loyal to you as if you achieved full friendship. This is well-implemented and delivers some strong character scenes, and I consider it a pity that Bioware abandoned the "Rivalry" idea after this game.
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| A (brief) visit from one of the original game's companions. |
THOUGHTS:
Dragon Age II is almost certainly my favorite Dragon Age game. It is also far and away the most flawed game in the series.
The main problem, I suspect, is that this game was hopelessly rushed. EA wanted a Dragon Age sequel delivered in the gap between the second and third Mass Effect games - an edict which left the creative team a mere nine months to create a full, 40 - 50 hour RPG. Hence the game being confined largely to a single city. A city with a singularly unimaginative architect, as every mansion is laid out identically. As well as every cave and tunnel. I got particularly weary of the default "cave map" long before the story was over with... and I'm in the camp that really liked the game!
The story and its themes are genuinely intriguing. While I know many disagree, I found myself more attached to this flawed, often squabbling group of misfits (some of whom outright dislike each other) than I did to the characters of the original game. Given another six months, and particularly knowing some of the plans for the story that had to be dropped to meet EA's deadline, I think this might have been genuinely great.
I also think a lot of fans would still dislike it.
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| Yes, the game still features dragons... Though they feel a little tacked-on. |
A STORY ABOUT FAILURE:
Video games are usually power fantasies. You assume the role of a Chosen One, on a quest to save the world (or even universe). Even if your character's origins are humble, as the game progresses it will become clear that you are Very Special. The Hero of Ferelden definitely fits this template; so does The Inquisitor; so does Mass Effect's Commander Shepard. Heck, even the Chosen Undead from Dark Souls fits the template.
Hawke is "The Champion of Kirkwall," a suitably grandiose title. Hawke quickly and firmly assumes leadership of Dragon Age II's group of companions. Hawke is trusted by the city's Viscount, and by the end even the Knight Commander and the First Enchanter turn to Hawke for help, however reluctantly.
Far from being a Chosen One, however, Hawke... is a failure. Hawke wants three things over the course of the game, with all actions ultimately relating to one or more of these goals. Hawke wants: (a) to keep his/her family safe and advance their interests; (b) to keep the city from erupting into violence; and (c) to keep the Templar/mage resentments from boiling over into open warfare.
In all three areas, Hawke fails. Spectacularly. Nor is this some accident of rushed writing. The game follows a clear three Act structure, and each Act sees Hawke losing in some significant way, until by the end all Hawke has managed to do is survive - very possibly over the dead bodies of former friends who chose the other side in the final conflict!
I found this an interesting change from the usual video game power fantasy. But even if Bioware had been given a little more time to better develop the Third Act, to better show the progression of time, and to make your final choice genuinely impact the outcome, I still suspect that a lot of people would have found this story of frustration and failure to be the opposite of what they wanted from an action role-playing game.
OVERALL:
With smaller overall stakes and a tighter focus, Dragon Age II presents basically the opposite of the grand epics of Origins and Inquisition.
I think that's one reason why I found myself more connected to this game than the others. For all of Dragon Age II's faults, it's the game in the series that drew me the most completely into its story. It's flawed enough that I probably should rate it at least a point lower than my final score.
Even so, reviews are inherently subjective. I love the ideas Dragon Age II engages, and it hits the mark often enough to keep me engaged and even gripped. For all of its flaws, it's a game I thoroughly enjoy, and I'm giving its score a slight boost because of that.
Overall Rating: 7/10.
Dragon Age II - DLC
Previous Game: Dragon Age Origins - The Awakening
Next Game: Dragon Age Inquisition
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