*BEWARE! HERE BE (MINOR) SPOILERS!*
Anyone who knows me as a gamer even sort of well knows I love two things: Great stories, and Bioware.
Bioware is my favourite company. I try not to let it tip my opinion of their games, but it probably does. However, can you really blame me? Knights of the Old Republic, Baulders Gate II, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect. Bioware has spoiled us with some of the best RPG's not just of the last decade, but some are among the all-time great RPG games.
Most developers would kill for their track record...
You may have noticed I left one game in particular off that list. Dragon Age: Origins is also a great RPG. Maybe not the best Bioware has ever made, but as a spiritual successor to the Baulders Gate games Dragon Age is pretty good. The world is fascinating, the characters are deep and have a wide range of motives and personalities, and the story provided an interesting spin on the "save the world" plot.
And then Hawke and Dragon Age II came along...
Dragon Age II improves on a few areas over Origins, so to help you see why I am so conflicted by this game we'll look at what Dragon Age II did better over Origins.
First, the characters are actually more interesting to me in Dragon Age II than those who appear in Origins. Now don't get me wrong, I still love the characters from Origins, especially some of the fan favourites like Zevran, but overall I felt the characters this time around had more depth to them and had better acting behind them. Merril and Varrick are particular standouts. Dragon Age II also sports a much better combat and leveling system. I liked the combat involving you to actually mash buttons to keep your attack going (you could turn this off and go back to the automatic "point and click" style that was in Origins if your preferred it though) , and the skill trees and options you had when leveling were much better than Origins. Dragon Age II also sports some much better graphics than it's predecessor.
So with all these things that Dragon Age II has going for it, what makes it so much worse than Origins? Two very simple reasons really...
#1. You can NOT set an RPG in one small town.
There are a lot of stairs in Kirkwall.
Kirkwall is a pretty interesting place. When I first reached the city and got to actually explore around, I found it very different from any place I had really seen in Origins, and I enjoyed my time in it for a while. But by the end of the game I had seen the same exact places a hundred times. Even the few exterior locations outside the city stayed the same. This game takes place over the course of a ten year period. Change SOMETHING for crying out loud! Set each part in a different season, blow a section of town up and introduce a new one, but don't just copy paste the same places throughout the whole course of the game! I understand the story is about the main characters rise to prominence in this one particular place but that doesn't mean you can't go anywhere else. Oh, and that segways into number 2....
#2. You can not have the story START in the "third act."
If you played Dragon Age II you know exactly what I'm talking about. Everything Hawke does until the third act plays more like a collection of short stories with hints of of an overarching plot that will boil over at some point than of one story with the same plot. There is no real enemy or antagonist at any point in the game until about the last three hours or so. The Arashok doesn't really count in my mind as his problems are not revealed until about midway through, and it gets resolved almost as quickly. It;s not until the last section of the game when the "real" plot and antagonist show themselves, and it's over within a few hours of their emergence. The game just felt rushed and disjointed in this aspect. Almost like EA just wanted a quick cash grab sequ...oh. The ending to Dragon Age II does imply something bigger is going on, and given what is already occurring at the end of the game, that's certainly a story I want to have told.
Ever feel like you've been here before?
That said, Dragon Age II might be Bioware's worst game. Don't misunderstand me, I still love plenty about the game that I will probably play it plenty in the future. But Bioware can not let this happen with Dragon Age III. They need to take their time with the third one, and make sure that it is much stronger in story and setting than Dragon Age II. Dragon Age has a great world to set games in, and there are plenty of places that fans of the games would like to visit, and there are certainly lots of stories that could be told in the universe, and it would be a shame if Dragon Age II ruins any real chance at having that happen.
Next time I'll be posting up a series of smaller thoughts and stories, so nothing like what I've been doing so far.
See you folks next time!
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