foureightsix interactive

It’s been a while. I’m planning on returning to this shebang as I’m back at school studying for a diploma of IT. This is an article I wrote in 2016, and it’s a shame I never actually published it. Here’s to new beginnings, and I’m planning to try and stick to my original routine of one article per week.

I tend not to stay focused on one thing for a long period of time, so I haven’t had much time to actually do some work with the 486 in the past couple of weeks, and I blame Dragon Age: Inquisition for this situation.

Dragon Age: Worldbuilder

I’ve been a huge fan of the Dragon Age series ever since picking up Origins about five years ago. The first game was a streamlining of the complex web of classes, skills and mythologies from Bioware’s previous Neverwinter Nights series, which makes sense considering it was based on 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons (NWN2 was based on 3.5ed, but that won’t mean much to those who have no idea) and was set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Forgotten Realms setting. Hell, if someone says ‘fantasy RPG’, I’m going to compare it to Forgotten Realms, and D&D rather than anything from Tolkien or Feist. That being said, it’s a god damned mess when it comes to introducing new people and players to the universe. The sheer amount of backstory and complexity in the setting that comes from both the lore and the mechanics of D&D is what has driven a lot of people I know away from such games. I still love it, but that’s because I’ve sunk over 300 hours into both Neverwinter Nights games.

So along comes Dragon Age, fresh off the heels of Mass Effect, and takes the skeletal framework of D&D and says, “You know what? Wizards, Sorcerers and Druids? To hell with that, they’re all just magic users, let’s just call them mages. Barbarians, Clerics and Fighters? Warriors. Rogues, Bards and Rangers? Roll them all into one Rogue class. Three classes instead of 9. Simplicity. I loved the game, although I’ve only ever done one full, 100% playthrough. I’ve finished the main quest multiple times, but I’ve never done the whole thing again. Origins is kinda like Deus Ex to me, where I’ll start it up and be all geared up for some epic fantasy adventure, brimming with excitement as I spend more time on the character creation screen rather than just diving in. I really do enjoy character creation screens a little too much – there’s a reason why I adore the Saint’s Row series.

But then I’ll get out of Lothering, and look at the five different plot modules and think to myself: “Well shit, I forgot how god damned tedious this game is. Do I really have to grind my way through the notoriously awful Fade section in the Circle Tower? Or how about the ridiculous quests required to even get the Dwarves to talk to you in Orzammar? Do I really have to wade through all this archaic and clunky combat again? Sure, I’ve played through all the origin stories, and played through all the possibilities, but I have no desire to go back and start again. Hell, I started to last month as part of wanting to play through the whole series. Once again, I got to Lothering with my poncy, fop haired mamma’s boy of a Human Noble, brimming with a juvenile lust for vengeance, and sat in front of the screen thinking “I really can not be arsed to do any of this.” Strangely enough, I feel exactly the same way about the first Mass Effect. So in a similar fashion to Mass Effect, I opted to use a premade save state for Dragon Age II. (Gibbed has a brilliant one here)

The strange thing is that I never felt that way before. As I said before, I’ve finished the main quest with nearly every origin, but it was only after I finally got around to playing Dragon Age II did I see what I was missing.

I’m also about to say something really damn controversial: A personal opinion.

Dragon Age II: Idiot Savant

I never played Dragon Age II on release, after seeing a lot of backlash against the game from some of my favoured reviewers and the community backlash against how this was just a sub-par cash grab, I just never took interest in the game. I was far to busy with other games – mainly Mass Effect 2 – so I just shelved it in the back of my mind as something to play ‘when I get around to it’. When I finally did get around to actually getting Dragon Age II, I was getting bored of Skyrim, but I was still in a mood for some swords, magic and a good fantasy world to get lost in. I was tempted to start a new run of Origins, but instead decided to check out Dragon Age II. It was on sale at the time, and I had the cash to spare. Besides, I really wanted to see if Dragon Age II was going to murder any goodwill I had for the franchise like all the hardcore fans said it would. Now here’s where I get real controversial.

In my eyes, Dragon Age II Is better than Dragon Age: Origins.

I’m kinda lucky that I don’t expect anyone to actually read this, otherwise I’d be inviting a hate mob into my life. I’d also like to clarify that I don’t think that Dragon Age II is a perfect game. Far from it, it’s got some incredibly bad design elements, and there’s things that if they were in any other game I’d quite rightly skewer the game for doing something so inane. It’s a broken mess at times, and the rushed development cycle really shows in some glaring places, but I want to explain why I find Dragon Age II more engaging than Origins.

The Rise Of The Hawke, Champion of Snark

When I first started up Dragon Age II, I had no expectations. I knew it wasn’t going to play like Origins, which was also helped by the fact I didn’t play through Origins to prepare for Dragon Age II. It had been almost a year since I had last played Origins, and I hadn’t really thought of the world of Thedas since then. Dragon Age II doesn’t mind, it’s going to tell it’s own story in the world that Origins created. Straight away, Dragon Age II is doing something with sequel that I’ve wanted for years, which is to take the universe of the initial title and tell another story from another perspective, rather than just following the same characters, (or worse, character archetypes) through essentially the same plot. Mass Effect 2 almost fell into this trap, but it’s story structure is what saved it in the end.

Just from the opening sequence, I was hooked. I knew the world, but I didn’t know what to expect, especially being introduced to the next brilliant feature of Dragon Age II that’s been used to great effect in other games since, albeit with less chest hair. The whole narrative, everything that happens within the game is framed through the interrogation of the smooth-talking dwarf, Varric Tethras. I admit, I’m a sucker for a loveable snark, especially those with a heart of gold. Everything in Dragon Age II, from the character design to the story structure is all tied to how Varric tells the story. Hell, there’s moments of brilliance where his interrogator calls him out on his stories, most memorably during his loyalty mission which starts out as a thinly veiled homage to Scarface, which leads to the entire game having this amazing sense of character behind everything.

This also extends to the player character, Hawke. Whereas in Origins, the Warden had no voiced lines, so that the player could fill the tone in for themselves, Hawke is fully voiced, and uses a dialogue wheel which is incredibly familiar to anyone who has played Mass Effect. The biggest difference, and something that I haven’t seen implemented as well since is the third choice on the wheel. Traditionally in RPG games, and especially in Mass Effect,  there’s a binary system for morality. You’re either a good, selfless paragon of justice who saves kittens and braves lava floes for some little girl’s homework that was stolen by crows, or you’re some selfish ponce who is so dedicated to being an arsehole, that they’ll throw the kittens into the lava, along with the little girl’s homework, before mugging the little girl of all her pocket money finally throwing her into the lava as well, and if they’re really evil, they may throw the pocket money in as well because, evil. If there is a third option, it’s so inoffensively neutral I normally wonder if my character has been replaced by either a beige lamp, one of the neutral people from Futurama, or a chartered accountant.

Dragon Age II gave me something I never realised I wanted in this department – a third option that was actually entertaining to use. Instead of a flat monotone, “Neutral” Hawke is a god damned comedian, and combined with being fully voiced, gives rise to a character that is genuinely engaging within the world they inhabit. A lot of people complained about how they didn’t feel as they were being immersed in the world, but like Mass Effect before it, Dragon Age II was less about the player being a direct actor in the world, but more of a guiding conscience for a character who was their own person. The fact that I could have a Hawke that reacted in ways that I relate to – laughing at how ridiculous things can get, but always with others in mind was something I haven’t seen since, and something I noticed was missing from the next game.

Lastly, I loved the entire plot arc. Some people hated the fact that there was no overarching plot, that there’s no world ending calamity until the final act, but that’s something that’s refreshing to me. I’ve been a big god damned hero so many times in so many worlds in so many games, that being able to play someone who just has to deal with messes of others and try to just do their best with what they have was astounding to me. Having the game take place over the course of 10 years, as Hawke rises from nothing to finally becoming the Champion is a ride that I was so happy to be a part of. It was so nice to be able to simply live in the world of Thedas. I saved the world of Thedas in the last game, it was nice to be able to actually see what I was actually saving.

In comparison to Origins, I always found Origins to be far too dry for my tastes. It’s a very straight faced, “serious” fantasy game that forgot to have fun with the material. Sure, your companions are a riot, but the same can be said of Dragon Age II. I guess the first instalment suffers from the same problem that any first instalment of a sci-fi or fantasy series suffers from: You’re not only having to introduce the player to your characters and mechanics, you’re also having to introduce the world, with it’s various cultures, species and politics, and it gets damn overwhelming at times. I guess because I’m so familiar with the world, that having to go through and be reintroduced to everything on replays has lost all it’s charm.

Dragon Age II get a lot of stick for some really bad design decisions, especially in the combat system, and rightfully so. The wave based combat that always spawns in one more wave when you think you’re done is as dumb as a bag of hammers. The repeated environments are another near unforgivable sin, traipsing through the same warehouse and cave maps over and over again is a god damn chore. I’ll also point out how god damn buggy the game is, I actually can not run the game in Direct X 10 (Despite having a DX10 card) because the 1.04 update broke DX10/11 functionality on my system. I’ve actually looked into a fix for this, and the only response is to just run the game in DX9 mode. That’s not really a fix, but it could be worse.

So there it is. A rambling article on why I can overlook some really dumb design choices in a game that shot for the moon and faceplanted in a nearby mountain range.

–Goose