To make Origins, BioWare dredged up buckets of backstory from the minds of their best writers. A new land was invented, branded with religious intolerance and inherent racism. Then, once the continent of Thedas was concrete, BioWare forgot they’d invented all that engaging stuff and slapped a typical ‘kill the big bad thing’ fantasy plotline on top. For all its size and wonder, Origins didn’t make full use of its fascinating world.
Dragon Age 2 does it right. It’s still an RPG epic, it still takes upwards of 50 hours to finish. It’s still got a deep, complex combat system, and it’s still got a well-defined supporting cast. But it’s also an RPG that wears its mythology proudly, confident in its goal of charting the rise of a complete and utter badass. You.
We expect our RPG heroes to experience a gradual learning process, gaining skill and abilities as they discover that, ahh, the pointy end of the sword is best inserted into an enemy. But the first time I controlled Hawke, I had access to top-tier combat skills. Surrounded by Darkspawn on a hillside, I murdered with wild abandon.
Hawke got an itchy back at the worst time.
DA2’s combat is spring-loaded. Cooldown periods and time penalties are just as integral as they were in Origins, but this time they happen at end of lightning fast moves. I played a rogue. My backstab started with Hawke hurling an exploding flask to the floor, before reappearing behind an enemy and driving his main blade into their spine. The whole move took a second to execute, and impacted flesh with a shudder-inducing squelch. Another move catapulted me out of battle with an instant backflip, letting me escape from an imminent battering.
I could happily list all my skills and the ways they eviscerated people for the rest of this review, but I have a word count. Last one. My favourite skill was called ‘Annihilation.’ An upgrade of the high-level ‘Assassination’ move, it made Hawke simply jab two blades into the face of the foe standing nearest to him – at which point, they’d usually burst into a fine scarlet mist. For every class, every combat skill kills something in a new and exciting way.
Have beard, will slay
Hawke’s ties to the first game are explicit. He or she (your choice) starts Dragon Age 2 as a refugee from Lothering. Lothering, for those of you unfamiliar with the first game, was twatted square-on by the Blight of the Darkspawn (read as: ‘pseudoorcs’, fantasy noobs). Hawke (I’ll use the male pronoun here purely because I played as a dude) managed to escape, with family and fantastically trimmed beard in tow. At the time of the hillside combat just described, he was making his way to the city of Kirkwall.
You alright, mate?
I killed the final Darkspawn, and the camera yanked out and away to a darkened room, and a dwarf with a hairy chest. It’s ten years later.
The fight was a flashback. The dwarf is being forced to tell Hawke’s story by a mysterious woman dressed in the robes and symbols of Thedas’ hyper-religious Chantry. This is Dragon Age 2’s big conceit, and part of the reason the game hangs together so well. The dwarf is Varric, and he’s telling the story all wrong. Varric is a companion and potential party member, and knows more than most about his bearded buddy’s motivations – but he’s also an inveterate story-embellisher.
The woman explains the situation: the world is on the brink of war and Hawke – the ‘Champion of Kirkwall’ – can help. There are only two certainties: the first, that Hawke arrived in Kirkwall. The second, that ten years later he somehow became the city’s champion. She wants to fill in the blanks.
Actually, there are three certainties. The third is unwritten, but simple: any way you play Hawke, he remains one suave bastard. His tone sits firmly on the plummy side of ‘commanding’, but very few of the dialogue options have him come across as anything less than mildly awesome.
Spiders! Why did it have to be spiders?
The game’s developers have nicked Mass Effect’s conversation wheel and split most interactions into a threetiered system: saintly, aggressive, and – most fun – cheeky.
Only very occasionally did I feel neutered by my choice. I’ve typically approached BioWare games as the reincarnation of some major saint, waiving rewards and helping puppies save their lost kittens. I’d resigned myself to selecting the goody-twoboots option throughout Dragon Age 2, and cringing as I politely thanked the man who tried to stab my kidneys out. Instead, nice-o-Hawke is just as judgemental as his chums loloHawke and HAWKE-SMASH – he merely phrases things with a touch more tact.
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