heavymetalmage asks: What is that one game that you love that everybody seems to hate?



It was critically successful but everyone on the internet constantly complains about it, so I guess I can say Dragon Age II. I can dig why a lot of people (especially hardcore fans of the first one) don't like it, and I come from a much different place since I didn't reeeaally like DA:O that much, but I still think DA2 did a lot of cool stuff and showed ways RPGs can move forward in this new era where games are much more expensive and the depth of setting means more than ever.


1. Mechanics. Overall, it was dumbed down, and that sucked. But I liked that the functions of the skills were more transparent, and it felt like every new one you put a point into significantly changed the way your class played. It was also neat that every party member, while they embodied a certain class and build, also had a skill tree that was totally unique to them. I know NEEERRRDS didn't like the fact there was no real crafting and instead you simply buy poisons and bombs from a shop once you find enough "ingredient spots". They also don't like the fact that main character Hawke is the only character whose armor you change and manage, while everyone else simply wears the same clothing throughout the game, with a couple accessory slots and permanent upgrades you can purchase.


This is because those people are boring assholes. Know what the gameplay difference is between crafting and buying poisons? Or equipping a side character with four pieces of armor and three accessories that altogether give them a set bonus, versus equipping them with two rings that give them the same set bonus? Hours of flipping through shitty menus, that's what. Plus, party members now have unique body types and interesting clothing that reflects their character and personality, rather than being a distinct head sitting on top of a stock body wearing the same ugly armor as everyone else. Yes please.


2. Like DA:O, no stupid goddamned morality system, and thank God. Like DA:O, it instead had "approval ratings" for your party members which would increase and decrease depending on what you said to them or did with them in the party, and at various levels of approval they got special buffs. UNLIKE DA:O, your party members wouldn't throw a hissy fit and leave if they disapproved of you, and you weren't punished for not making them like you by a lack of buffs. Instead DA2 has a separate set of "rivalry" buffs for pushing party members further into the disapproval ratings. Holy shit, what a great system it is. It sets up natural (and logical) rivalries between characters based around important questions in the setting (mages vs. not mages) or their occupation (the captain of the guard vs. the pirate) or their backstory (the guy who was enslaved by the mages of the Tevinter Imperium vs. mages again) but it eliminates the metagaming irritant of having to keep everyone happy by ENCOURAGING you to take a stance, and, if you don't like a certain character, purposefully piss them off.


3. Narrative. This is a big sticking point for a lot of people, because the game is set in different districts of one large city for the most part, rather than all around the country of Ferelden, but I liked it. For one thing, I don't think the fact the game is a sequel means it needs to follow a similar format for setting and story as the previous, and I don't know what they would have done if it did apart from just re-treading the first game with an even BIGGER and more EVILLER threat. I'll grant that the setting is a little too small for its own good and the game makes you wander around the same copy-pasted settings a lot... but I encourage people to go back and take a close look at the two or three hallways that DA:O copy and pasted up to three times in every. single. dungeon.


What the game actually reminded me of, and I think is a format we need to start thinking about a lot more in today's RPGs as opposed to the traditional world-spanning adventure format, is the Persona games. Set in one location in which the main character becomes a major player, over a long time period, you take on a different relationship with the setting and your party members, which I liked. Rather than a bunch of people setting everything aside to follow you around the world, they're personal friends, with lives and responsibilities of their own, and favourite places you can visit them when they're not in your party. They don't all sit around in your house waiting for you to take them on a mission, they accompany you on your odd jobs as a personal favour (and ask the same of you in return from time to time).


But my favourite aspect of the narrative, which really comes as an extension of the way the rest of the game is set up, is how character-driven it all is. There's no world-threatening force that you're all banding together to stop, instead the events of each of the major story arcs are directly set into motion by the actions of your various party members, sometimes in genuinely surprising ways (see: the reason for the Qunari occupation which is set up at the start of the game and makes up the entire second act, all turning out to be the singular fault of one of your party members. To say nothing of the endgame...). And when everything falls apart, because of course everything is going to fall apart, having one of your party members, who you may like or dislike or have romanced, at the center of all of it and having to choose whether to stand by them or throw them to the wolves, is cool as hell. I'm not saying it's a better way of telling a story (and it has its problems) but it's interesting and uncommon and I found it a lot more interesting than DA:O.


4. The game was way prettier than DA:O, the character designs were way better, and there was a lot more interesting and unique character animation in the cutscenes. What can I say, I'm a visual guy.


I could go on about how I thought it handled a lot of character romances really well, or how I really loved  almost all of the characters, far more than anyone in DA:O, but I think this has gone on long enough.