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| okay, that does look pretty badass |
I'm a big fan of the Dragon Age franchise. It's an excellent setting. The writers came up with an excellent spin on
classic fantasy tropes.
Mages being mistrusted due to an ancient evil magic empire that ruled
the continent. Magic itself being
connected to the residences of angels and demons, therefore making it dangerous
to the caster and those around them. Both Positive and Negative possession.
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| this is a bad possession, in case you couldn't tell |
There are conflicting religions, warring nations, philosophical
debates, assassinations. . . it is a complete world. Very impressive.
While the Codex and conversations describe the world at large, the game
itself takes place in the newly liberated country of Ferelden. It is a land
full of problems which also happens to be ground zero for the next Blight, an
invasion of Darkspawn which will threaten to take over the entire world.
The first game; Dragon Age: Origins has amazing replayability. I've done three play throughs now, and I still
need to do 4 of the different 'origin stories' from where the game takes its
name. Your choice of origin does slightly affect the game, personalizing it,
and altering the story. You do have some
major plot point choices which affect the ending of your game, they are
sometimes cut and dry "good vs bad" but are most often not so morally
clear.
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| going to see this movie was a bad choice |
The semi-sequel Dragon Age: Awakenings also takes place in Ferelden and
gives you the option to continue with your original character, or make a new
one. Depending on your choices
continuing could make sense or not.
Awakening is not quite long enough to be considered a full game, but is
definitely longer than your average DLC.
It is as fun to play as the original and expands on the mythologies and philosophies
set up in the previous story.
Dragon Age also brought a variety of DLC on top of Awakenings. Warden's
Keep, Stone Prisoner, and Return to Ostagar; that all add extra quests and
items to the original game. While Darkspawn Chronicles, Leliana's Song, The
Golems of Amgarrak, and Witch Hunt; were separate campaigns from the original. DLC
that enhances the original game, but also adds entirely new and separate
content is an amazing way to keep your franchise alive.
Having played all that, I have been looking forward to Dragon Age
II. I am late to the game again, but I
don't mind. Strangely I heard many disappointments
about this game. Even getting as
dramatic as saying it "ruins the franchise". With the Origins, Awakenings, et all being so
amazing, nothing can ruin the franchise.
If it was that bad, then I would just forget it existed. I've done similar things in the past. For
example: There was talk about making sequels to The Matrix, and that movie was
awesome, but since those sequels fell through, all we can do is imagine how
amazing they could have been...
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| DO NOT EXIST |
Today I've played through what might be the first third of the
game. I think I'm in the "second
act". If this is so, then the
shortness of the game is a bit disappointing, but I'll leave that judgment
until the end of the game. At first the "auto-attack" was off and the
game took a much more active "Diablo" feel to the combat. This would have been fine, but it was quite
distracting to have to constantly hit the buttons, once I found that I could auto
attack then I easily adapted the DA:O style game play to this new edition. I do wish that my character would also auto-run
to the next enemy, but I'm getting a hang of that control fairly easily.
The new graphics engine is quite nice.
The action is smoother, magic more exciting, and setting far more
detailed. I tried making my own
character's face, but she looked strange. (yes I'm playing female Hawk, mainly
since I just got off of Mass Effect and need to wean myself slowly, you can
read those exploits here). Luckily for
me the Black Emporium DlC came with my game, in which there is a magic mirror
which lets you reset your looks. I went
with the provided character because she looks much better than anything with which I could
create. Why is her hair unique? I just
wanted that hair to be auburn, but was not allowed to make small tweaks.
Strange thing to do for a genre that relies heavily on individual character
creation. Also having a level reset
potion at the Emporium was excellent as well.
I respecced my Hawk after a few hours, tailoring her better to my
style. I'm going dual wielding rogue
assassin and I deal so much damage at a low level it's silly.
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| I should be worried, but I'm not. |
Picking my team was interesting, but even on normal the game doesn't
seem to be all that difficult. I'm not
following classic RPG party builds. I
have two rogues, Hawk and Varric, I run around as Hawk slicing and dicing,
while Varric shoots Bianca (yes he named his crossbow, hilarious) for ranged
destruction and crowd control. I'm using
Anders at the moment as my healer, mainly out of loyalty of having him in
Awakenings, but also because I find Hawk's mage sister to be quite whiney. He
also lays down quite a bit of DPS. I was
using Aveline as my sword & shield tank, but the character disapproved of
everything I did, and we did not seem to be getting along. I have not been given another option of sword
& shield , so I'm using the badass Lyrium-tatooed Elf Fenris. He's basically a DPS fighter with some crowd
control.
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| the Internet is a weird place |
In D&D this party probably wouldn't work to well. In DA:O I doubt it would work either. But in DAII we deal out so much damage that
we rarely need to heal and battles are over almost too quickly. Maybe I should
pump up the volume, err difficulty, and then I would be required to have some
strategy in my battles. But for now it's
incredibly fun, so I'm not really disappointed.
One thing I really like in DA2 vs DA:O is the class spec system. The aesthetic
of menu is quite nice. The options "trees" make more sense and add
more variables to game play customization than in DA:O.
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| looks awesome |
I could use a little more in terms of gear. DA:O is chalked full of
ancient & unique armor and weapons which come with a complete back story,
are very powerful, and are also beautiful to behold. I've read that the Weapon
Pack DLCs fix this particular problem, but those really should have been included
in game to begin with. The fact that I wore the same chest piece until a third
of the way through the game is quite silly for an RPG.
I think I'm beginning to understand what people were complaining about
when the game first came out. It doesn't quite have that sense of Epic. The
world is not on the line. Hawk's story is fun, it's great to be back on Thedas
(the continent in which Ferelden lies), but, at least so far, it's completely
self centered on Hawk. The fate of the
free peoples are not on the line.
This is what DA:O, Mass Effect, Star Wars, and The Lord of the Rings
all have in common. If the hero fails,
then the world ends. It's bad for
everyone. DA2 is following the rise of a hero, but it feels like if she just
decided to buy a farm and settle down, nothing would change and it wouldn't
really matter.
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| or something like that |
The frame tale aspect of Varric being questioned by a Seeker (much like
an Inquisitor from the Spanish Inquisition) is interesting. It's making me wonder where the story is
going, and perhaps the epic level of the story is going to make itself apparent
later on. This could just be a device of
the writers. Instead of setting up the
"end of the world" aspect from the beginning, giving a sense of urgency
and drama to the story, but also repeating the narrative drive of DA:O; the
writers and producers wanted to do something different. I can respect that. You don't want to make the same game over and
over again. I mean, it works for Mario and Zelda, but it may not work for
everything. Also the Dragon Age franchise is a bit more involved, has a deeper
story, and is targeted at a more sophisticated audience than Nintendo's golden
children.
Another issue that probably bothers fans of DA:O is
that there is a huge lack of choice. You are always going to be Hawk. You
aren't going to be a different race and get a different beginning. The class
& gender you pick do affect some minor details, but nothing extreme. And
throughout the game there are far less story choices to be made. It's a much more streamlined narrative and
less "sandboxy" than DA:O. Which is strange to say since DA:O isn't a
sandbox at all compared to Skyrim or Fallout, but compared to DA2 it is kind of
a sandbox RPG.
So my first impressions are that DA:O is a superior
game, but I'm very happy with the game play of DA2, the visuals, and the new
setting. It basically feels like another
campaign from DA:O like Awakenings or Witch Hunt, but is instead a whole new
game. It is quite possible that it was
originally designed to be a campaign DLC but Bioware decided that they wanted
to use a new graphics engine (good choice, the game is beautiful) and so they
expanded DA2 into being a completely new game.
I'm excited to play through the story, but it is
really just making me want to play DA:O again.
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| oh that Alister, he never takes anything seriously, PLAY ME AGAIN |
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