Off the Shelf Media

I gave Dragon Age: Origins a 10/10 when I reviewed it earlier this year, and I stand by that score. It introduced us to an expansive world with memorable and deep characters, with a story worthy of legends. Needless to say, the sequel, Dragon Age II,  had a lot to live up to, and it fails. Not miserably, but still a fail. 

I replayed this game for the first time since 2011, and I remember liking it back then, and I still like it now. I don’t think I’ll convince a lot of you that this game is good, but I will defend it nonetheless. There’s a lot to dislike about this game, but it gets more hate than it deserves. 

Let me know how right or wrong I am, and keep an open mind as you venture deeper into my thoughts on a video game from over 10 years ago. 

Gameplay: 1

My biggest gripe with the first game was the combat tactics. It was difficult to maneuver, and just as confusing as learning a new language in your 30s. Luckily, this game fixes that problem. The combat is greatly improved, and your companions aren’t as useless as they were in the first game. The combat flows a lot better, and switching between characters to heal or unleash a magic attack is seamless. 

The menu system has been reorganized with a skill tree to make leveling up and creating an ideal build easier. I went with a well-rounded mage who could use fire magic, heal up my squad, and use telekinetic force on my enemies. Leveling also feels balanced, so you won’t have one character who is 3x stronger than the rest. 

These games are known for their loot, and there’s a lot of it. I mean a lot. If you can’t find a weapon that you like, don’t worry. You can wipe out a few bandits or darkspawn in your travels and go sell them and buy a brand new weapon or armor set easily. 

The problem is that most of the strong armor and weapons are made only for you. I get it, I’m the main character, but I need a squad of suited-up goons to help me take down bosses. Nope. All the good stuff can only be equipped by me. This became a problem with the DLC content. Yes, some specific rings or necklaces were specialized for each companion, but there were a few staffs I wanted to give to Anders or Merill, but I couldn’t. It felt like a waste, and there’s no explanation behind it. 

I’ll speak more to the map and consolidation shortly, but in terms of gameplay, the lack of a world to explore makes the gameplay repetitive. You’ll do multiple missions in the same locations over and over again. You’ll speak to your companions in the same location over and over again. Main missions will have you go back and forth between the mountains and the city over and over again. It’s disappointing, but I think development for this game was rushed, so they almost get a pass.

Overall, the gameplay took one step forward but two steps back. The combat was fixed, the menus are better organized, leveling up has clarity, but the maps are repetitive, and the loot system is baffling. 

Wait! Before we move on, there is one more thing I need to complain about. There’s a dialogue wheel in this game. Man, remember back in the early 2010s when every game had a dialogue wheel and your answers could be nice, mean, snarky, or the occasional romantic or violent? Wow, I do not miss those days. It gives you the illusion of choice and character development. At least the main character is voiced, as the last game had too much reading, but the BioWare dialogue wheel is a game mechanic I don’t need to see again. 

Ok, on we go because now I’m ready to defend the story. 

Story: 2

This will contain massive spoilers, but it’s 2025. You had 14 years to play the game. 

Let’s get the easy critiques out of the way. Yes, there is no blight, so the stakes are seemingly much lower. Yes, the expanded world with multiple biomes, cultures, and races to explore is minimized to one city, and yes, the lack of character selection is a major problem. 

I understand the frustrations with this game, especially in comparison to Origins. Origins gave you multiple stories for multiple characters across multiple races, economic classes, and geographical backgrounds. Dragon Age II gives you two choices. Male or female human and warrior, mage or rogue.  I would have preferred to be an elf or a dwarf, but the game forced you to be a human. It’s a step back from its predecessor, but it makes sense with the story. 

I loved exploring  Orzammar, or the city of Denerim, and everything else Ferelden had to offer. It made the world feel huge, even though you had smaller maps across an entire continent. Dragon Age II puts you in a sandbox and keeps you there. It’s confined and intimate, almost like a trap, and it’s not what fans wanted, but it fits within the story the writers were trying to tell. 

It’s the opposite of what everyone loved about the Dragon Age universe. If you hate it, I get it. Everyone is entitled to their wrong opinion. 

Here’s mine. 

This game’s story, how it builds, the climax, and the repercussions of your actions for the next game in the series cannot be ignored. You play as Hawke, whose father was an apostate mage and whose mother is a noble in Kirkwall. The game starts at the end of the Fifth Blight (the story from the previous game) with the Hawke family fleeing the destruction of their home. 

As you enter Kirkwall, you move your way up the social ladder with a plot thread of the Quinari uprising and the Mages and the Chantry on the brink of all-out war. Spoiler alert, that war starts and it’s up to you to choose whose at fault and what side you’re on. I think this is the perfect option for the overall story to go. The Blight was supposed to bring the world and all its factions together, and for the most part, that succeeded.

The world was united. Dragon Age II is all about the unraveling of it all and entering another war that’s been brewing for generations, and you are at the center of it all. That’s why I don’t mind the game being contained in one city. So much happens in that one city, and the ramifications of that are immense and impact the rest of the world in the next game. 

Since I was a mage, I was sympathetic to their cause, and that made the decisions I had to make tough. There’s a lot of blood magic in that game, and I, as a mage, had to choose between what was right and wrong. There were times I sided with the Templars because the blood magic was getting out of control. I didn’t like it, but you can’t ignore the valid concerns of the Chantry. 

These choices get more and more difficult as the game goes on. By the end of the game, you are the Champion of Kirkwall, and I had to choose. Do I side with Anders and the Mages in rebellion or the Chantry looking to crush the rebellion after they go too far and kill innocent civilians in an act of terror?

I was a mage who turned on his own kind because the act of terror was too much to overlook. You can’t become a monster to destroy another monster. It was difficult to stand by my principal, but at the end of the day, I had to do what I thought was right as the champion of Kirkwall. When I say this was difficult, I mean this was difficult. I was sitting at my screen for so long that my screen saver on my PC popped up and almost crashed my game. 

Origins had a clear black and white, who’s good, who’s bad type of narrative. Dragon Age II takes a risk and puts you right in the middle of a linear narrative where you have to make a decision that changes the world forever. That’s deep storytelling and worthy of praise for a world that was beloved at the time. 

It’s a classic story of the oppressor vs the oppressed, and are the actions of either justified? Blood magic is a serious problem in Kirkwall. Hawke’s mother is tragically murdered because of blood magic, giving credibility to the Chantrys’ narrative that mages are dangerous. But the harder they crack down, the more credibility the mages have that their freedoms are being unfairly restricted. And you could make the argument that the blood magic only came as a result of the oppression and lack of freedom to live a life in peace as a mage. 

That’s a lot for a video game, and on top of that, a group of Qunari are stranded in the city and refuse to leave. This is the plot of the back half of Act 1 and all of Act 2. Naturally, the Chantry has one way of dealing with it, and you have to decide on how to handle it. This part of the story isn’t as rich or interesting as the mages vs Chantry, but it plays its part and adds to the runtime with a satisfying conclusion. 

I love the story of this game and will argue for it against any of the best stories y’all want to throw at me. I didn’t get to talk about the companions or their storylines. The TL;DR is they are fine. Some are better than others. None are better than the first game, but they are good enough. My squad was a rotation of Anders, Isabella, Varric, Fenris, and Carver. 

Atmosphere: 1

The game looks great. The graphics hold up today, and the cutscenes are intense, with an improvement in the voice acting. The emotional scenes hit, and the violence doesn’t hold back. I still love that I can end a fight and go right into a dialogue wheel covered in blood. 

Unfortunately, being in a sandbox with limited exploration makes the atmosphere feel small and reused. If you still want the world-building, building the Codex still has everything you’d want, but that requires reading. We’re gamers, we don’t like to read. 

Value: 1

This game was $60 in 2011, and if you bought this expecting an Origins-level game, you’d be disappointed. I’m scoring this as if I bought it in 2011. There’s a lot to enjoy in this game, but to put it simply, this wasn’t a game that players at the time wanted.

BioWare delivered that game when Dragon Age: Inquisition came out a few years later. 

Dragon Age II is currently $29.99 on Steam, which is a complete ripoff. It includes all the DLC, but the DLC is a “meh” at best. I opened the game today to grab some screenshots, and I didn’t realize I didn’t beat the last DLC, and let me tell you, I don’t plan to. 

Luckily, this game is always on sale, so pick it up when it’s $9.99 or less to get your money’s worth. 

Duration: 2

At 31 hours, this game has a solid runtime. I put 75 hours into Origins, but that’s bloated because I had a save I lost and had to start over. I wish more games had a 30-hour run time. There is very little fat in this game. You go in, play the story, and leave.

Total Score: 7/10

I like this game. I know fans and parts of the internet like to dunk on it, but I enjoyed playing it again. The story was enough to keep me hooked and question my choices as a main character. I’m in no rush to play it again, but if I ever run through all the Dragon Age games again, I don’t see myself skipping this one. 

It’s not a classic, but it’s good enough for me. My next review is a classic and the game that launched a franchise that simply won’t die. 

Next time, I’m reviewing the original Call of Duty from 2003. This was my first time playing it on Steam, so don’t get it confused with the first Call of Duty on the OS2. That one was Call of Duty: Finest Hour. 

It’s confusing, I know, but I’ll clear the air next time. I’ll see ya there, but until then, y’all take care.