Review: Dragon Age II

Dragon Age II is not your older brother’s Dragon Age, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a great, fun game in its own right.

DA2 features a new protagonist, Hawke, the would-be Champion of Kirkwall.  Just as Dragon Age Origins had its own Hero of Ferelden, DA2 has its Champion.  Your choices in the first game have an impact in the second game only on a superficial level.  If you never played the first game, you can import one of three “default” scenarios to flesh out the backstory of Ferelden.

Hawke is fleeing Ferelden at the outset of the game, running from the Blight that has infested it.  This first arc is to take place simultaneously with events in the Origins; the “Hero” of Ferelden has yet to eradicate the Blight from the land, and so Hawke and his family run to Kirkwall, the setting in which DA2 takes place.

Kirkwall is a large metropolis, larger than any of the cities visited in Origins.  Imagine it as the Athkatla of the Free Marches.  (Athkatla was the city in which the near-entirety of Baldur’s Gate II, the game which put Bioware firmly on the RPG map, took place.)  It’s easy to see the similarities, and anyone who’s played BG2 will notice a distinct likeness to the flow of Dragon Age II: open-ended to a point, filled with side-quests, and ultimately leading to a culmination of the plot.

It’s a formula that’s served Bioware well since 2001, and most recently was applied with great success in the Mass Effect series.  In fact, Dragon Age II has more in common with Mass Effect 2, in terms of pacing, plotting, and cinematic storytelling, than it does with its immediate predecessor.

It’s this decided break from convention which makes Dragon Age II refreshing to play, and no doubt appealing to anyone familiar with the Mass Effect games.  Bioware has made a clear choice to make Dragon Age II a more immediately accessible game than Origins.  Origins was perhaps the last homage to the old-school CRPG: closer to the classic Baldur’s Gate franchise and the Infinity Engine games of old, or Neverwinter Nights series and the Aurora Engine, with its in-depth strategy elements and top-down view. Dragon Age II, however, is decidedly more streamlined.

The story in DA2 is told through cinematic cutscenes.  You, as the player controlling the protagonist, make your decisions based on a choice of conversational responses that then play out in the scene.  The conversation “wheel” is a more fluid method of play than the “wall of text” that was utilized in BG, NWN, and DAO.  The wheel creates quick moving conversations that the player can then enjoy, rather than reading the exact response and simply hearing it read aloud.  It worked well in Mass Effect, and it works generally well, here, too.

The other major change made in DA2 is in the combat itself.  While the player may still elect to pause at any time and issue individual commands, gone is the overhead tactical view.  Zooming out is limited in scope, and character movements are much faster and more visceral than in the first game.  Your companions tend to do just fine without input from you, although playing on difficulty settings above the default will require more and more input from the player, making the combat more or less a turn-based, “don’t move until and when I direct you” affair, akin to the old-school style.

The potential challenge in combat makes one of the game’s strong points truly standout: the ability system.  In Dragon Age II, you choose one of three archetypical roles: warrior, mage, or rogue.  This seems rather limited, at first, until you realize that each role has myriad specialization options.  A mage, for example, has access to several general schools of magic, including arcane, spirit, elemental, entropy, primal, and healing.  At level 7, he gains access to 3 more schools, called specializations: spirit healing, blood magic, and force magic.  You can choose to learn one specialized school at level 7 and another at level 14.  Once you unlock any school of magic, you may pick and choose which abilities to learn, making the possibilities to mix-and-match your ultimate class build more or less limitless.  The only restriction to this is that some abilities are pre-requisite to others, and some are locked by level.  Rogues and Warriors each work in the same manner.  The player seeking depth in his game could very easily spend hundreds of hours building different roles, trying different combinations, and playing through the game on multiple difficulty settings, if so desired.

The ability system offers a lot of possibility.  However, for the casual player, Bioware once again kindly offers the “auto-level” option, which quickly builds out character traits based on a defined idea of the archetype.  Also, each of the NPC’s that may potentially join your party has one unique ability tree, as well as an option which may only unlock if the player gains enough friendship or rivalry points with that particular NPC.  For example, Varric, a bard of sorts, might relay your legendary story to others a little bit differently depending on whether you’ve gained his loyalty or his enmity.  The ability trees for the playable NPC’s are generally interesting, and in some cases, almost necessary to fully build out.  They also offer an added layer of diversity to the NPC’s.

Speaking of story, the interesting thing about Dragon Age II’s plot is that although it begins in sync with the Origins tale, it quickly eclipses that and moves to its own timeline, spanning about a decade, and set in three “Acts.”  (An unofficial community term that has been generally embraced.)  Varric, your dwarven ally, recounts the story to a Seeker of the Chantry, the seat of religion in the Free Marches.  As Hawke, your decisions determine the outcome of that story, to a degree.  I have to say “to a degree” because although there are some things you can do that make a definite change to the tale – a certain duel comes to mind – there is also an inevitable end to the tale that will not change regardless of your choices.  At least, insofar as Dragon Age II is concerned – but who knows how future episodes might hinge on them?

Without giving anything away, the storyline is multi-layered, and although it never reaches the heights of adrenaline that were present in Mass Effect 2, it is a solid, fast-moving, and interesting plot, with more than one twist in it.  If it isn’t perfectly original in inception, it is at least a mind-bending moral dilemma, and at best, a cold look at two sides which each seem justified, at times.

Kirkwall itself is a sprawl, and you spend the whole of the game within it, with a few exceptions.  Don’t expect to be traveling to far flung reaches as if you were in a Final Fantasy game, out to save the entire world from imminent doom by a meteor, moon, or evil queen.  No, DA2, for better or worse, keeps you running about Kirkwall like a whore’s messenger.  You may switch between Night or Day, and certain events will only happen during one or the other time.  Generally, you will be attacked by roving gangs of bandits and thieves while adventuring at night, and during the day, will have access to additional NPC’s and plot lines.

Much of the meat of the game is actually contained in side-quests and secondary quests, as well as the companion quests.  All of these are gained conditionally: complete one task, you may see another open up.  The sidequests are generally of little consequence, but the secondary quests flesh out a lot of the peripheral story, and give a broader view of the goings on of Kirkwall, and of your role in them.  Many of the secondary quests will have repercussions in the second or third act of the game, as well, depending on how you previously handled them.

Companion quests are also optional, but these are the crux of the game’s interpersonal relationship engine – otherwise known as romances.  It is by working through these quests that the player can develop friendships, rivalries, and yes, even love, with the companions.  Of those who can be romanced, either sex can initiate the option.  This is a change from the previous game where some companions could be romanced by only one or the other sex, or from Mass Effect where male Commander Shepard is more or less a straight arrow.  Bioware is certainly inclusive in this regard, if nothing else, although some of the romances seem pre-destined for a specific gender, all the same.  In regards to the main plot, only one romance seems to have real weight, and this is made decidedly more interesting depending on which “side” the player takes in the final stages, and at the risk of giving something away, compounded even more if the player chooses a mage as the role of Hawke.

The graphics in Dragon Age II are top notch, technically speaking.  If you are playing on the PC and have a  video card that can render Direct X 11, you can enjoy the full effects high resolution texture pack that was released on launch day.  Even playing the game on a modest setting of “medium” quality, things still look good.  Character models up close look especially good, right down to skin pores.  Unfortunately, the game does suffer from the occasional hiccup, sometimes locking up, freezing for several moments, halting, or even crashing.  While not frequent, they are also not infrequent, making them annoying enough to warrant mention, here.  Also, unfortunately, although some of the environments, such as the Deep Roads, are aesthetically beautiful, Kirkwall itself is rather drab and stale.  Grand, yes, but seemingly lifeless and inhabited by scant few citizens.  Most of the environments you traverse resemble basements and warehouses, generally.  This is a real eye sore considering you do spend all of your time in the city, more or less.  A bit of atmosphere would have gone a long way.

Bioware has rolled out the usual media goodies for release, including a slew of promotional items, tie-ins with Facebook, multiple promo codes for various versions of the game, and of course, their own social networking site which links to the game server to update things like your characters and achievements.  Anyone who has played the Mass Effect games or the original Dragon Age title will understand how the achievements work.  You unlock them for completion of various goals, some of which are simple, and some of which may take several play-throughs.  Some of the goals include completing a romance, earning rivalry or friendship, defeating major monsters like a high dragon or a pride demon, and so forth.

Overall, Dragon Age II, while lacking in some of the more tactical old-school trappings that made the first game a hit with PC gamers, is a solid, fun game that has broadened its horizons to become a more cinematic storytelling experience that will appeal to a larger audience.  It will be interesting to see where Bioware takes the game with the sure-to-be-released downloadable content packs.