Hawke, the lead character for Dragon Age II, is a tragic and unforgivable cliche representing at best an amalgam of classic genre fiction archetypes and icons. However, this indictment has nothing to do with BioWare—the fault is mine. You see, Hawke is so unforgivably stereotyped because I made him that way.
This, above all other reasons, is why I’ve fallen in love with Dragon Age II.
It is rare in gaming to find crisp, clean, truly professional dialogue that defines not only a character, but a city and a world. Hell, it’s arguably rare in actual bookstore fiction. More often than not, good enough to avoid being laughably bad is close enough for gaming. It’s not that I think bad writers write for video games—on the contrary, I think there are some standout people doing phenomenal work—I just think the attention to detail necessary, the dedication to craft and the willingness to refine and refine again often gets lost in the development process when measured against other areas of focus.
So understand the weight intended when I make the following statement: To me, Dragon Age II is the best written game since Planescape: Torment.
Part Malcolm Reynolds, part Han Solo and part Aragorn, my Hawke is often fearlessly sardonic, but his surface disengagement belies an underlying iron streak of unwavering idealism and faithfulness. He is a sympathetic son who struggles with the guilt of believing he is ultimately responsible for his sister’s death and defers at all turns to the wishes of his grieving mother. He is a brother who wants deeply to connect with his rival sibling, yet can not find a common ground from which to build a relationship, leaving every well intentioned gesture ultimately the catalyst for another fight. He seems most at ease and even apparently flippant when facing the most serious adversary, but he can be pushed to a breaking point of almost frightful vengeance, most often when injustice comes to an innocent. His relationships with women are often trivial, but he does not know how to reach out to those that mean the most to him. Most importantly, he is universally loyal to those who show him kindness and kinship, and would turn against the world itself to help a friend.
These are not deeply unfamiliar character traits, and do not really describe a fully fleshed, three-dimensional character. Ultimately Hawke is not a particularly deep person with onion layers of complexity, but he is a surprisingly accurate reflection of the sketch I have in my head, and I am as entwined in his story as that of any character from any game I remember playing. He is a testament to the stunning refinement in character-building that I’ve experienced in Dragon Age II.
I’ve long been a fan of BioWare’s (at least well intentioned if not always successful) efforts to improve character development in games. However, even up to Mass Effect 2, getting my character to actually say the things I imagine they should say has been a hit-or-miss trial. On one hand, sometimes the selection I would make on BioWare’s dialogue wheel of fortune would lead to dialogue I’d have never intended my character to say. On the other, often none of the dialogue choices reflect the kind of character I am trying to build. Such is the symptom of games that rely too heavily on black and white, good and evil constructions.
Beyond that, though, often even in the best situation, when the character of these earlier games was expressing exactly the kind of sentiment I had intended, the writing and delivery has been uninspiring. Good and noble simply sounded pedantic. Evil and menacing simply sounded psychotically ponderous. And humorous very often wasn’t.
Dragon Age II, by comparison, is exceptionally well written and finds complexities among the gray areas that even previous BioWare titles never explored. In the highly conflicted City of Chains, there are few clear-cut lines of good and evil. Each side in almost every argument has a firm philosophical ground to stand on, leaving you rarely with an easy choice when picking sides. At almost 20 hours into the game, I’m still not sure who the bad guy is. Hell, I’m not even sure there is a bad guy.
If I can break this down Martha Stewart style, “That’s a good thing.”
This isn’t the same old end-of-the-world, hero-saves-us-all-from-the-apocalypse story that regularly passes for narrative in the game space. Even if the fate of the city Kirkwall is at stake, and I’m not so sure that it is, most of Dragon Age II is about the story of your character. The construction of that story does keep hinting at some greatness associated with The Champion, which presumably is you, but it’s easy to forget that you are fated toward some imbued station of quality while kicking around in the dirty, underground politics of the city. Smaller stakes make the story that much more personal, and you care for what is happening not because the countless, anonymous multitudes are threatened, but because the consequences are so personal to the central story. That is a subtle art that few video games get right.
As I played Dragon Age II last night, I came to yet another choice. It was a small moment in the middle of a side quest, one of countless little vignettes in the larger tapestry of events in Kirkwall, but I was frozen, indecisive in how to make my decision. Both sides of the argument at hand seemed so equally balanced, but there were consequences that I cared about, and I didn’t know which way to proceed. As I finally made the call, I was already looking forward to going back through the game again to explore the impact of the road not taken.
That’s just about the highest praise I can give a game.
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I have this sitting on my pile and am really excited to play it but...
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As anyone who follows you on Twitter would know.
Perv...
What is your hashtag you use for DA2 tweets? People must do a search and read them.
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I'm in agreement in Elysium here. Generally, stories in games are nothing special, but as games go, DA2 is pretty unique right now. I think a large part of that is because
Yes, they do. Conversation options range from peaceable, to witty, to charming, to firm, to forceful, to outright combative. You don't have to choose just one choice consistently and it's often better and more consistent to choose different choices.
For instance, I always chose the humorous remark when talking to Varric or my companions, but always the Peaceable choice when talking about serious matters. It affects how Hawke talks in general, and how she talks when you don't have conversation options open. In fact,
*very minor spoiler follows*
A firm response is not necessarily inappropriately rude, and some characters and NPCs respond better to firm choices rather than to peaceable choices.
[quote=Latrine]
"...mahal ko ang longganisa!" - Demosthenes
I found this especially interesting.
I'm agreeing and disagreeing with different parts of this commentary. On the one hand, the story in DA2 doesn't fit within a typical three act narrative, but that's because the point of each Act isn't self-contained.
Act 1 is like the typical first chapters of a novel. Nearly all the parts in Act 1 are made to establish the identity of the players and to introduce the world of Dragon Age and the City of Kirkwall. There isn't much plot to be had at all because it's mostly characterization - it lays the groundwork for what happens ahead.
Act 2 sets up the hero. In Act 1, he was just another two-bit mercenary. In Act 2, we find out how he gets to the position he occupies that allows him to influence events in Act 3. In the background, events unfold that lead up to the catastrophic events that follow.
Act 3 sees the climax where everything comes together, and the short epilogue.
In this sense, it really seems more like a continuous narrative broken up by arbitrary events, rather than a true three-act structure, but I do not agree that the plots of the three Acts are self-contained. Each Act sets up the conditions and events that all comes together in Act 3.
"...mahal ko ang longganisa!" - Demosthenes
The protagonist's circumstances change in each act but other than that there isn't really a narrative through line. Side quests in each act may thematically foreshadow events in the future, but they're not directly connected to those future events. I'd say the TV show analogy kind of works for this game. Each act of the game is like a season of a TV show, there are many episodes with their own storylines and there's a climax to each season but once you get to the next season then other than some character development and common themes nothing else carries forward.
I think it's a good thing when narratives break from the three act structure, but if you're going to replace it then you have to replace it with something that works. I think DA2's story structure only gets halfway there. They oversold on the framed narrative and ten year timeline concepts, and I feel it actually tied their hands and made the game feel disjointed.
Also another pet peeve, the story of the game feels like the first part of a trilogy, even though this is already the second game in the series! You can't have a good story if all you're doing is setting the stage for some future conflict. Good series generally don't actually start this way so I don't know why everybody keeps doing this.
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Latrine:
Actually there are plot elements that only mature in Act 3 or Act 2 but are initiated in Act 1.
For instance:
"...mahal ko ang longganisa!" - Demosthenes
I agree. I don't think Dragon Age 2 is being given the credit it is due on most forums I visit or in most reviews I have read. I wonder if this is not because people are so used to a straight forward "hero journeys across the globe to save the world" narrative that anything else seems out of place to them.
I am about half way through chapter 3 and I think I would sum up what makes the writing so good in the following way:
I almost never feel like the game pushes me toward a particular set of attitudes in relation to characters or events. Rather, I am discovering, and constantly re-evaluating, how I feel about things as the game progresses.
My dialog choices are often based on the history I have with that particular character. If I feel I may have given them too much benefit of the doubt in the past, I may start being more aggressive or vice versa. And the brilliant thing is, I am not trying to do this. The game just sort of does a great job of making you care about your actions and their consequences.
There has been at least A half dozen times where I was staring at dialog choices and just gave an exasperated "well...f*ck" under my breath at the Sophie's choice I was facing.
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I would like to stress that the statement, "To me, Dragon Age II is the best written game since Planescape: Torment" is not the same as saying I think it's better.
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Spoilers
Nietzche:
"...mahal ko ang longganisa!" - Demosthenes
One of the best moments in the game was choosing my characters motives. While Hawke could have been lying at that moment it, and I doubt it factored into anything, I loved that I could choose why my Hawke acted this way.
Interesting - thanks for the response. Consider my interest re-piqued. In fact, I'm actually quite piqued by a lot of the character development and narrative choices they've made in the game. Looking forward to the first sale on this title.
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Oh god so true.
Where's that from, Karla?
Words... are a big deal.
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Words... are a big deal.
Jill Lapore wrote:Editing is one of the great inventions of civilization.
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