DA2 Reaction
I finished Dragon Age 2! And now, for some thoughts before I go out and read the opinions of too many other people:
The first thing I have to say is that I really enjoyed it. The second is that it has a very different feel to it than Origins. Origin's story is very epic, in that whole 'defeat the ultimate evil, save the world' sort of way, and each of the main story portions directly ties into this plot. It has the whole political plotline, too, which I really liked, and is a lot of what made Origins so great for me. Without Loghain, who was a fantastic villain for the Warden, the story would have really just been a fairly generic fantasy story.
(Well, okay, all the lore and world building and everything helps a lot, too)
Anyway, DA2, to me, had a lot more to do with political and social issues, as well as being far more personal. Playing it though for the first time, it was hard to see what the main plot was (if there really was one, and I think that's a bit debatable). By the end, there were a lot of earlier elements that came back and I think that they worked well.
And now, for some more specific thoughts!
Ismat Hawke: Apostate, spirit healer, force mage. Romanced Anders and sided with the mages.
Part 1: The Deep Roads Expedition - or, Ismat is amused at everyone and everything
Longest part of the game for me, by far. It took forever to get the 50 sovereigns I needed for the expedition, and I ended up doing all the available quests. I didn't mind too much, though. Picked up all the companions, none of who were a surprise (except Fenris, which was weird because he was the only one who's recruitment I had seen. I just wasn't sure which quest he showed up in, so it was all SURPRISE! Look at the lovely elf!), and all of who I ended up liking. A lot.
Also, I adore Carver. He's jerk, sure, but my own brother is a bit of a jerk on occasion (though, not in the same way as Carver) so I think that's part of why I liked him so much.
...and then I (stupidly) took him to the Deep Roads and he got infected with the Taint, but I had Anders with me and he helped Ismat convince the wardens we ran into to conscript him. I teared up. A lot (it was a sad moment, okay?).
Part 2: Qunari Invasion - or, Ismat Hawke's life sucks and she fails at being persuasive
I really liked this part, actually. A lot of political stuff, and the Templar-Mage stuff starts to get pretty noticeable. Ismat helped every apostate she could, but there are a lot of inevitable battles, since most of the apostates you meet are blood mages and do crazy demony things.
Speaking of demony things, Conrad Verner shows up! Or, should I say, Conrad Vernhart? You don't actually see him, but you get to ruin his life! It's fantastic, mostly because ruining his life involved telling a crazy templar that you saw Conrad sacrificing goats and doing 'demon-y things'.
Also, Cullen! Super crazy Cullen from Origins who is not so crazy this time around! You actually meet him in the first part of the game, but this is the part where we are friends! At least, Cullen says we are friends, so I'm going to say that we are. He's actually quite awesome this time around, and his presence also explains why they switched Anders' voice actor (in Origins, the same voice actor voiced both of them).
This is also the part where Hawke's mother dies, which was one of my favorite parts of the game, even if it made me sob. Mostly because Hawke actually gets emotional - her voice gets more and more panicked as you track her, and when you actually find her...it's terrible, and I'm not going to say what happens, but...well...it was well done. Very well done. And it's also helped by the fact that one of the companions will show up to see how Hawke is doing, which was wonderful, mostly because no one really does that for Shepard in the Mass Effect series, so I wasn't expecting it. At all.
The main bulk of the romance was also in this part. The Anders romance is very, very messed up, mostly because he is a very broken individual. It's definitely the darkest romance I've seen in a Bioware game. It actually reminded me a lot of the 'romance' with Atton Rand in The Sith Lords, even though the specifics are not at all the same...probably because Atton is another very broken character. He just...hides it better than Anders.
However, definitely the hottest kiss I've seen in a video game. (Yes, I enjoyed the romance. It...just wasn't necessarily the healthiest relationship Ismat could have gotten into)
The end of this section, with the Arishok...he was hard to kill. And I didn't want to kill him! But there was no way that I was going to hand Isabella over to him, because she and Ismat are best friends for all time. Also, Izzy is definitely my favorite character, hands down.
Part 3: Mages versus Templars - or, Ismat Hawke's boyfriend is an idiot and blows up a building
This was easily the darkest part of the game, which is a pretty dark game overall. Come to think of it, this game reminds me a lot of KotOR II: The Sith Lords, because it shows both sides of an issue (templars and mages) and neither is as bad or good as one would think. There are good templars and there are very bad mages, and the opposite is the same. The templar/mage dynamic has interested me since the first game, and this game actually dealt with a lot of the stuff that was implied in the first but not really dealt with (rape, abuse, how very bad blood magic actually is, etc). There's one line of Anders' during NPC banter that just scared me.
It was actually really hard to make a choice about what to do at the end, and it kind of came down to these three things: 1) Meredith is crazy. 2) Orsino is the most badass elf mage I have ever seen. 3) Even with all of the shit that Anders pulls in the third act, Ismat was hopelessly in love with him and would never betray him. I was trying hard to keep her in character, because she made a lot of choices in this last part of the game that I wouldn't have done. Personally, if I was going for the 'best' choice, I would have told Anders to leave or killed him for what he does, but that's not something Ismat was going to do.
The most heartwrenching scene for me was actually when Orsino gives in to blood magic. I just kept going 'no, no!' at the tv. But then, I was crying through the whole ending pretty much, starting from the moment Anders pulls his stupid stunt and Sebastian leaves.
My favorite part of the ending is when Cullen pulls his sword on Knight Commander Meredith and backs you up. I was not expecting it, at all. It was definitely a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
The ending actually did feel rather weak, but mostly because it didn't resolve anything. Varric goes on to talk about what happened after the battle, Cassandra and Leliana talk, nothing is resolved. It's kind of set up for an expansion or a sequel. However, this didn't detract from me enjoying the game, mostly because what I enjoyed so much about it was the companion characters and the mage-templar conflict.
Speaking of characters, here's my thoughts on them:
Anders
The first thing to say is that I liked him, a lot. The second is that he is not like he was in Awakening. He's very singled minded about helping mages, and he definitely starts to go a bit crazy over the course of the game, thanks to being possessed by Vengeance. He does still have some amusing comments where the old Anders shows through, mostly when talking with the other party members. I also enjoyed romancing him, even though, like I said before, there's a lot of crap that goes on there. And, not going to lie, what he does at the end of the game pisses me off. I seriously wanted a chance to yell at him. After some reflection, given the situation, I think what he did was necessary for some sort of change, but I don't think it was right or justified. It's also unclear as to where he was fully in control when it happened - as much as he says that he and Justice/Vengence are one and the same, there is a physical change when Justice takes over, and there are even mentions to them not agreeing on some things. What he does, though, doesn't make me hate the character - though, it is very hard for me to hate characters, in general, because even if I loathe a character I still might love the character for how they were written - but I do think that he is an incredibly thought-provoking, tragic, messed up individual, and is definitely one of the more polarizing characters in the game.
Aveline
She's fantastic. I love her banter with Isabela, where Izzy asks her about her sex life. I love the matchmaking quest where you help her get together with Donnic, because it shows a different facet of her which made her seem very human. I love how she won't put up with any bullshit from Hawke and calls her out on being an idiot.
Carver
He's such a little jerk; I adore him. He's eighteen, I believe, at the beginning of the story, and overshadowed by both of his sisters, and he resents Hawke for a lot of stuff. Hawke just wants to keep him safe. And then he joins the Wardens is gone for a large portion of the game, but when he comes back at the end? Oh, I so wanted to be able to hug him.
Fenris
Broody McBroodmeister. Seriously. Varric even comments on it, which is hilarious. That said, I found him interesting, especially when in the same party as Isabela. Because she hits on him. A lot. There's a fantastic bit of dialogue where he starts to say something to her and she completely throws him off balance by telling him he has pretty eyes. And then the later dialogue, where you find out they've been sleeping together. He's got a pretty dark past and he's a good foil for Anders (who was also in the party with Fenris most of the time, so I got to hear them argue. A lot).
Isabela
Favorite. Character. So much love for her. Lack of pants and giant breasts non-withstanding, she is such a self assured, confident, fantastic woman. The way she is written and voiced, I never got the impression that she is slut (which is what a lot of the fanbase had to say about her before the game came out) but more that she is incredibly confident in her sexuality. She's incredible amounts of fun, and definitely my favorite character in the game.
Merrill
Sadly, I didn't get all that much of her personality, as Anders was normally in my party, and as Ismat being a mage it was overkill to have another. But her personal quests were quite sad, in the way that all of it was of her own making, more so than any other character. She's a cute character who's very naive and just a tad bit morbid but, like many of the other characters, she's very single minded about one thing (restoring the Eluvian) and it blinds her to a lot of other stuff.
Sebastian
Oh, the darling Chantry boy. I like what I saw of him, but I feel like I somehow skipped a lot of conversations with him. I did get to flirt with him once, and it was adorable. Sadly, I was never able to put him, Isabela, and Varric in the same party, because that's a few too many ranged combat people in one party. As sad as I was to lose him, I really did like the part in th ending where you have to choose between keeping him or Anders.
Varric
I adore him. Have I said I adore all of them? Because I do. I really do. Anyway, Varric is hilarious, and I could only ever choose the sarcastic options with him, because it just seemed to work. Like Merrill, I didn't taking him on quests as much as I wanted to, since Isabela filled the rogue spot. I would have loved to romance him, but I'm okay with him not being. He's wonderful to banter with.
So, overall, I liked the game. A lot. There were some issues, but, for me, they didn't outweigh the stuff I liked. The characters, in particular, were fantastic, which was great.
The first thing I have to say is that I really enjoyed it. The second is that it has a very different feel to it than Origins. Origin's story is very epic, in that whole 'defeat the ultimate evil, save the world' sort of way, and each of the main story portions directly ties into this plot. It has the whole political plotline, too, which I really liked, and is a lot of what made Origins so great for me. Without Loghain, who was a fantastic villain for the Warden, the story would have really just been a fairly generic fantasy story.
(Well, okay, all the lore and world building and everything helps a lot, too)
Anyway, DA2, to me, had a lot more to do with political and social issues, as well as being far more personal. Playing it though for the first time, it was hard to see what the main plot was (if there really was one, and I think that's a bit debatable). By the end, there were a lot of earlier elements that came back and I think that they worked well.
And now, for some more specific thoughts!
Ismat Hawke: Apostate, spirit healer, force mage. Romanced Anders and sided with the mages.
Part 1: The Deep Roads Expedition - or, Ismat is amused at everyone and everything
Longest part of the game for me, by far. It took forever to get the 50 sovereigns I needed for the expedition, and I ended up doing all the available quests. I didn't mind too much, though. Picked up all the companions, none of who were a surprise (except Fenris, which was weird because he was the only one who's recruitment I had seen. I just wasn't sure which quest he showed up in, so it was all SURPRISE! Look at the lovely elf!), and all of who I ended up liking. A lot.
Also, I adore Carver. He's jerk, sure, but my own brother is a bit of a jerk on occasion (though, not in the same way as Carver) so I think that's part of why I liked him so much.
...and then I (stupidly) took him to the Deep Roads and he got infected with the Taint, but I had Anders with me and he helped Ismat convince the wardens we ran into to conscript him. I teared up. A lot (it was a sad moment, okay?).
Part 2: Qunari Invasion - or, Ismat Hawke's life sucks and she fails at being persuasive
I really liked this part, actually. A lot of political stuff, and the Templar-Mage stuff starts to get pretty noticeable. Ismat helped every apostate she could, but there are a lot of inevitable battles, since most of the apostates you meet are blood mages and do crazy demony things.
Speaking of demony things, Conrad Verner shows up! Or, should I say, Conrad Vernhart? You don't actually see him, but you get to ruin his life! It's fantastic, mostly because ruining his life involved telling a crazy templar that you saw Conrad sacrificing goats and doing 'demon-y things'.
Also, Cullen! Super crazy Cullen from Origins who is not so crazy this time around! You actually meet him in the first part of the game, but this is the part where we are friends! At least, Cullen says we are friends, so I'm going to say that we are. He's actually quite awesome this time around, and his presence also explains why they switched Anders' voice actor (in Origins, the same voice actor voiced both of them).
This is also the part where Hawke's mother dies, which was one of my favorite parts of the game, even if it made me sob. Mostly because Hawke actually gets emotional - her voice gets more and more panicked as you track her, and when you actually find her...it's terrible, and I'm not going to say what happens, but...well...it was well done. Very well done. And it's also helped by the fact that one of the companions will show up to see how Hawke is doing, which was wonderful, mostly because no one really does that for Shepard in the Mass Effect series, so I wasn't expecting it. At all.
The main bulk of the romance was also in this part. The Anders romance is very, very messed up, mostly because he is a very broken individual. It's definitely the darkest romance I've seen in a Bioware game. It actually reminded me a lot of the 'romance' with Atton Rand in The Sith Lords, even though the specifics are not at all the same...probably because Atton is another very broken character. He just...hides it better than Anders.
However, definitely the hottest kiss I've seen in a video game. (Yes, I enjoyed the romance. It...just wasn't necessarily the healthiest relationship Ismat could have gotten into)
The end of this section, with the Arishok...he was hard to kill. And I didn't want to kill him! But there was no way that I was going to hand Isabella over to him, because she and Ismat are best friends for all time. Also, Izzy is definitely my favorite character, hands down.
Part 3: Mages versus Templars - or, Ismat Hawke's boyfriend is an idiot and blows up a building
This was easily the darkest part of the game, which is a pretty dark game overall. Come to think of it, this game reminds me a lot of KotOR II: The Sith Lords, because it shows both sides of an issue (templars and mages) and neither is as bad or good as one would think. There are good templars and there are very bad mages, and the opposite is the same. The templar/mage dynamic has interested me since the first game, and this game actually dealt with a lot of the stuff that was implied in the first but not really dealt with (rape, abuse, how very bad blood magic actually is, etc). There's one line of Anders' during NPC banter that just scared me.
It was actually really hard to make a choice about what to do at the end, and it kind of came down to these three things: 1) Meredith is crazy. 2) Orsino is the most badass elf mage I have ever seen. 3) Even with all of the shit that Anders pulls in the third act, Ismat was hopelessly in love with him and would never betray him. I was trying hard to keep her in character, because she made a lot of choices in this last part of the game that I wouldn't have done. Personally, if I was going for the 'best' choice, I would have told Anders to leave or killed him for what he does, but that's not something Ismat was going to do.
The most heartwrenching scene for me was actually when Orsino gives in to blood magic. I just kept going 'no, no!' at the tv. But then, I was crying through the whole ending pretty much, starting from the moment Anders pulls his stupid stunt and Sebastian leaves.
My favorite part of the ending is when Cullen pulls his sword on Knight Commander Meredith and backs you up. I was not expecting it, at all. It was definitely a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
The ending actually did feel rather weak, but mostly because it didn't resolve anything. Varric goes on to talk about what happened after the battle, Cassandra and Leliana talk, nothing is resolved. It's kind of set up for an expansion or a sequel. However, this didn't detract from me enjoying the game, mostly because what I enjoyed so much about it was the companion characters and the mage-templar conflict.
Speaking of characters, here's my thoughts on them:
Anders
The first thing to say is that I liked him, a lot. The second is that he is not like he was in Awakening. He's very singled minded about helping mages, and he definitely starts to go a bit crazy over the course of the game, thanks to being possessed by Vengeance. He does still have some amusing comments where the old Anders shows through, mostly when talking with the other party members. I also enjoyed romancing him, even though, like I said before, there's a lot of crap that goes on there. And, not going to lie, what he does at the end of the game pisses me off. I seriously wanted a chance to yell at him. After some reflection, given the situation, I think what he did was necessary for some sort of change, but I don't think it was right or justified. It's also unclear as to where he was fully in control when it happened - as much as he says that he and Justice/Vengence are one and the same, there is a physical change when Justice takes over, and there are even mentions to them not agreeing on some things. What he does, though, doesn't make me hate the character - though, it is very hard for me to hate characters, in general, because even if I loathe a character I still might love the character for how they were written - but I do think that he is an incredibly thought-provoking, tragic, messed up individual, and is definitely one of the more polarizing characters in the game.
Aveline
She's fantastic. I love her banter with Isabela, where Izzy asks her about her sex life. I love the matchmaking quest where you help her get together with Donnic, because it shows a different facet of her which made her seem very human. I love how she won't put up with any bullshit from Hawke and calls her out on being an idiot.
Carver
He's such a little jerk; I adore him. He's eighteen, I believe, at the beginning of the story, and overshadowed by both of his sisters, and he resents Hawke for a lot of stuff. Hawke just wants to keep him safe. And then he joins the Wardens is gone for a large portion of the game, but when he comes back at the end? Oh, I so wanted to be able to hug him.
Fenris
Broody McBroodmeister. Seriously. Varric even comments on it, which is hilarious. That said, I found him interesting, especially when in the same party as Isabela. Because she hits on him. A lot. There's a fantastic bit of dialogue where he starts to say something to her and she completely throws him off balance by telling him he has pretty eyes. And then the later dialogue, where you find out they've been sleeping together. He's got a pretty dark past and he's a good foil for Anders (who was also in the party with Fenris most of the time, so I got to hear them argue. A lot).
Isabela
Favorite. Character. So much love for her. Lack of pants and giant breasts non-withstanding, she is such a self assured, confident, fantastic woman. The way she is written and voiced, I never got the impression that she is slut (which is what a lot of the fanbase had to say about her before the game came out) but more that she is incredibly confident in her sexuality. She's incredible amounts of fun, and definitely my favorite character in the game.
Merrill
Sadly, I didn't get all that much of her personality, as Anders was normally in my party, and as Ismat being a mage it was overkill to have another. But her personal quests were quite sad, in the way that all of it was of her own making, more so than any other character. She's a cute character who's very naive and just a tad bit morbid but, like many of the other characters, she's very single minded about one thing (restoring the Eluvian) and it blinds her to a lot of other stuff.
Sebastian
Oh, the darling Chantry boy. I like what I saw of him, but I feel like I somehow skipped a lot of conversations with him. I did get to flirt with him once, and it was adorable. Sadly, I was never able to put him, Isabela, and Varric in the same party, because that's a few too many ranged combat people in one party. As sad as I was to lose him, I really did like the part in th ending where you have to choose between keeping him or Anders.
Varric
I adore him. Have I said I adore all of them? Because I do. I really do. Anyway, Varric is hilarious, and I could only ever choose the sarcastic options with him, because it just seemed to work. Like Merrill, I didn't taking him on quests as much as I wanted to, since Isabela filled the rogue spot. I would have loved to romance him, but I'm okay with him not being. He's wonderful to banter with.
So, overall, I liked the game. A lot. There were some issues, but, for me, they didn't outweigh the stuff I liked. The characters, in particular, were fantastic, which was great.