Dragon Age: Origins was about saving Thedas. Dragon Age 2 is about living in it.
For all its attempts at grit and moral ambiguity, Origins was a fairly conventional fantasy narrative beneath a patina of grime and blood. Though it took place in an unusually bleak setting, the narrative goal was fairly conventional: save the world from the monolithic, totally inhuman (and in fact purposeless) evil of the darkspawn. The tensions and injustices of the world of Thedas served mostly to as obstacles in the way of saving it.
Dragon Age 2 has a far more down-to-earth, political narrative than its predecessor, and is all better for it. Your opponents are largely mortal men and women acting out of cruelty or conviction, not monsters, and the game takes pains to reinforce their essential humanity. The villains of DA2 may be evil, but they are lowercase-e evil, opponents in an essentially philosophical struggle with good points on both sides.
Kirkwall, cheerfully known as the City of Chains, is in turmoil. The city is swamped by impoverished refugees from Ferelden fleeing the Blight of the first game and now unable to return home, and ruled by a weak lord who owes his position to a fanatical religious zealot determined to put mages in their place. Desperate mages respond to their oppression by violent resistance and the study of forbidden blood magic, and just to compound the mess a stranded army of dogmatic Qunari causes friction with the city’s church.
Into this powder keg comes Hawke, a Ferelden refugee turned Kirkwall citizen and competent adventurer. Hawke has reasons to resent the status quo – they’re the son (or daughter) of an apostate mage, and one of their siblings followed their father’s path — but at first Hawke’s primary concern is the comfort and security of their vulnerable family. Events, however, rapidly thrust Hawke into the public eye — first as a pawn of powerful forces, but eventually becoming so instrumental that after a religious schism threatens world war, one of their companions, dwarf storyteller Varric, is asked to tell his friend’s story.
Bioware’s choice to clearly define the sequel’s protagonist as a (voiced) human from a family of apostates drew a lot of flack in the months leading up to the sequel’s release. But it was the right decision. The Hero of Ferelden is hardly more of a presence in their own game than they are in this one, even though they never appear in DA2. The first game’s real protagonists consisted of the rest of the party, while the player’s primary role was to act as an impetus for their comrades’ character development.
Hawke is the very center of DA2, a constant presence just as dynamic and vibrant as any of his or her companions. The dialogue system of DA2 doesn’t track “good-” or “bad-” karma responses; it tracks Hawke’s general mood and tone, as helpfully indicated by icons. Though there’s no actual meter to represent Hawke’s moral standing, just the nature of his or her party members relationships to them, the game does keep track of the sort of personality they display. A Hawke prone to witticisms will continue snarking even unprompted.
It works marvelously, simultaneously more structured than wholly free-form decisions and more liberating than the classic “superhero -> milktoast -> sadist” spectrum of standard RPGs.If the Paradon/Renegade dichotomy weren’t so key to Mass Effect I’d urge Bioware to replace the existing dialogue system of the series with this natural evolution. Players can much more easily adapt their responses to circumstance and role-play a distinct personality while nonetheless maintaining a believable consistency.
In giving their protagonist a place in the world, Bioware managed to make player choices have far more of an impact than in the supposedly blank-slate Hero of Ferelden, who never quite felt like someone who actually inhabited their supposedly starring role.
Writing and performances of the supporting cast are compelling and nuanced. The party members are pleasant companions — particularly memorable is Varric, a roguishly charming dwarf adventurer who relentlessly defies stereotype. Even the antagonists are well-painted: though players’ sympathies may naturally lean towards the freedom of the oppressed mages, the game also takes pains to remind you that the Templars have excellent reasons to act as they do in good conscience.
It’s not just story in which DA2 improves (on the console version, at least). The autoattack-based combat engine of the previous game was tedious at best if you didn’t play a mage, serving mostly as a distraction between story sequences. Combat in DA2 isn’t what I would call technical enough to rival non-RPG titles, but by switching to more of an action-RPG system it makes the experience a bit more dynamic, even if even simple muggings in back alley feature multiple waves of suicidal bandits.
DA2 isn’t without flaws. On the mechanics side, its inventory system feels like an awkward hybrid of the clunky traditional stat-balancing affair common to Western RPGs and the blessedly streamlined system adopted by Mass Effect 2. Party members get unique outfits to serve them for the entire chapter and need only juggle accessories and weapons, while Hawke still has to fiddle with individual bits of his or her panoply for minute benefits. It felt like DA2 hesitated to take the plunge and make inventory about more than accounting.
And as for the story, a word of warning: despite the signature Bioware humor Dragon Age 2 is not a happy story. Kirkwall is a profoundly unpleasant place, and often the best thing to do is not necessarily what you might want to do. Hawke is just a single person, after all, and there’s a limit to how much they can avert disaster that stems from systemic corruption.
But on the whole, Dragon Age 2 is an enormous improvement over its predecessor. Where Origins simply threw a new can of paint over the classic Western RPG structure, DA2 actually blazes its own trail, often disheartening but nonetheless engaging.