FIRST IMPRESSIONS: DRAGON AGE II

Dragon Age II (Multiplatform) March 8, 2011 (US)

2/23/2011
By: Matt Hastie

             

            Can March 8^th get here fast enough? If you are hungry for a classic styled RPG but hate dealing with the MMO world then you should check out Dragon Age II from Bioware. I’m going to go on a limb here (and get some flak for it), but Bioware creates some of the best RPGs out there and DA II will hopefully be no exception. For those of you who haven’t played the first Dragon Age game, fret not, DA II features a new hero and story so you shouldn’t feel too lost. DA II throws you in the boots of Hawke, the Champion and as with most Bioware titles the name of the game is customization. You’ll be able to pick your appearance in any way you like, male or female, and have three classes to choose from. From there every action, response, and choice is going to shape your story.

            The prologue begins with a retelling of Hawke’s general badassery as he slays Darkspawn and Ogres with little effort. Then a twist; that’s not really what happened and you play through again but without your badassery, upgrades and abilities. It’s an interesting way to show how a story snowballs and a few exaggerations are made. While people recall you as the dashing hero, you are merely a refugee fleeing with your family. Your choices will shape whether you are the benevolent hero, a ruthless warmonger, or any where between. Conversations are laid out on the conversation wheel from the Mass Effect series, but it now features a small picture next to each response so it is clear what your response will mean. Choices on the left of the wheel dig deeper into the story and characters while choices on the right move the story forward. When moving the story forward you typically have three responses to choose from; heroic/caring, sarcastic/comedic, and angry/misanthropic.  

The classes are made up of three typical RPG archetypes; the Warrior (heavy weapon or sword and shield), the Rogue (dual wield daggers or bow), and the Mage. For the most part your class choice will be a decision in how you game; up close and personal, ranged but still able to hold your own, or standing way in the back unleashing spells. While your class choice only makes combat unique to that character, the Mage’s story unfolds a bit differently, but I won’t spoil that for you. As you level up Hawke and your party you’ll once again be faced with tons of customization. You’ll upgrade your stats, learn new abilities, and be able to create a combat tactics for AI controlled characters. For example a typical Mage isn’t strong; but you can max out their strength and make a Mage into a walking tank that can also hurl lightning, but is also the party’s healer.

Combat is slick and easy to learn. You have an attack button and then can assign abilities and spells to other buttons or hotkeys. This keeps the action moving and combat feels pretty intense. You also have the choice of how combat is handed. You can create the aforementioned tactics and detail each scenario in which a power should be used. Or you can also give orders from the combat wheel to each of your characters. While the combat wheel is up the game pauses and you can have some time to think out your next few attacks. While Hawke is the main character of the story, you can control any of the characters in your party during combat, giving you a chance to experiment with all of the classes available to you. Combat can feel a bit button mashy at the beginning but soon smoothes out once you have several abilities at your disposal.

Visually the game looks great, some of the textures feel a bit flat but the character animations shine. The art for the cut scenes and loading screens really stand out and at times feature artwork similar to Samurai Jack or The Secret of Kells. The game also features an absurd amount of gore, after each battle your party is covered in blood and it can make some of their conversations quite hilarious, but all together more realistic. No one would run into the fray and come out looking pristine. The sounds of battle and mix of music come together in moments where you’ll feel like you’re in a blockbuster fantasy movie. For the most part conversations are very well done and each characters voice feels unique, but sometimes lack personality (I’m looking at you Mama Hawke!).  All in all DA II is shaping up to be a great game and I can’t wait to see the finished product.  It’s almost upon us!