Dragon Age II
Review
Resting on your laurels
by Davneet Minhas
reviewed on PC
Never Quite Tactical
There are, however, a handful of vintage, tactical battles that require actual thought and ability management. Most are against monstrous creatures, the highlight of which is a High Dragon. When I first encountered the High Dragon, I was thoroughly unprepared, not expecting it. I quickly learned I had to constantly maneuver each character in my party – one warrior in the front of the dragon and one to the side, one mage to the far left and one to the far right – so no one was hit by the same attack. I had to sacrifice offense for defense on my warriors and mages. I had to plan strategic withdrawals, and I actually had to dedicate my healer to healing.
The battle lasted over 20 minutes, but there was no more satisfying moment in the game than when I delivered the final, killing blow.
Unfortunately, most of these types of battles occur in the latter half of the game; you have to slog through countless mindless scrums before finding something engaging.
On Hard difficulty, combat isn’t much different: Damage dealt is less and damage taken is greater, but not enough to require a change in approach. Nightmare, however, is very uneven. At times, Nightmare seems like it should be the default difficulty setting – it forces you to fight tactically, to think about position and timing. Every battle is a highly stressful affair. Enemy warriors slice through your mages like butter, so that fear of a warrior reaching your mage is always present. Other times, particularly when battling mages, Nightmare really is a nightmare, for masochists only. Mages can annihilate your warriors with one spell, before your warriors can even think to close the distance. Regardless of the difficulty setting, combat is never consistently tactical or satisfying.
Hard Decisions
But combat is only a fraction of the game’s makeup, and perhaps not even the most important fraction. My favorite moment in Dragon Age: Origins was the Landsmeet, where I was forced to choose the ruler of Ferelden. For over 40 hours, I developed relationships with different characters. I came to really like Alistair and really hate Loghain. But Alistair would have made a poor ruler, while Loghain’s daughter, Anora, would’ve been strong. In choosing the new ruler of Ferelden, I had to weight my selfish desires against the good of the kingdom.
It was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make in a videogame and an example of how good storytelling, how character development and a well-executed plot, can lead to strong, challenging gameplay. There is such an emotionally charged moment towards the end of Dragon Age II, where you have to decide the fate of a companion. I won’t ruin it for you. Suffice it to say, it isn’t as powerful or challenging as the Landsmeet, but I’m still not sure I made the right decision.
Outside of that one decision and its surrounding circumstances, Dragon Age II’s story is lazy and uninteresting. The game is a book of short stories, not an epic novel, and is weaker because of it. Themes, plots, and villains all change between acts. There’s no time to develop real feelings for or against ancillary characters. There’s no time to develop real hatred for a villain, as I did with Loghain, and there is no time to really care about other climactic decisions, of which there are a few. The one decision that really affected me did so because it involved a companion character I had been able to spend the majority of the game with.
It is also hard to care about most of the seemingly pivotal decisions because there are no lasting consequences. After making a decision that should have major repercussions on the political landscape, race relations, and/or human rights, a preset sequence of events independent of your decision occurs, and a new act starts. Everything is forgotten. There’s no replay value here.
Lacking Character
The main character, your character, Hawke, isn’t written any better. She (I played as a female warrior) is a shell of a person. She has no backstory, and her motivations never extend beyond basic greed. Everything she does, particularly in the beginning, involves nothing more than trying to make money and climb the social ladder. She typically only ever has three types of responses: menacingly rude, sarcastically rude, and nice, and those response types sometimes don’t even match what she actually says.
6.7
fun score
Pros
Combat is visceral and responsive.
Cons
It’s thoughtless and lazy, as are the story, visuals, and level design.
