Gamer Musing: Dragon Age 2

I'm playing Dragon Age 2 (a fantasy action-RPG) these days. While I loved Dragon Age: Origins and thoroughly enjoyed DA: Awakening, I have held off on DA2 due to the many changes Bioware made to the DA gameplay and the uproar the game's ending brought about. In playing DA2, I see the points of most of the criticism leveled against it.

Dragon Age 2 is an okay game, but a bit of a mess. The mess includes both the story and the gameplay (though this post will only begin with the story).

DA2's story takes place over several years with huge gaps in-between the years you get play out (apparently, the whole story is a decade long). These gaps throw me off of the story as my character, Hawke, makes friends and acquaintances and establishes himself without my input or overview. I am told about Hawke's exploits, but end up playing the same guy he was when I left him one year (then three years) ago. There is something weird about advancing Hawke as much as I do during the years I get to play him only to have him show up in the same armor and with the same stats when I regain control of him after in-game years of down-time. Along with all of the other stuff he and his companions do in those years, surely they could have improved in some way. This is one of the ways Bioware fails to blend the ambitions of the story with the gameplay.

If you're going to have several in-game years pass and the relevant characters aren't suffering from some kind of stasis, then they should receive something to reflect those years. While extra levels and items may be inappropriate within this kind of game (as such freebies could cheapen the levels and items gained through actual gameplay), some kind of extra ability would go a long way in reflecting what the characters do during their off-screen years. Given the dialogue-personality aspect of a DA2's gameplay (where the initial few dialogue choices locks Hawke in as having a diplomatic, humorous, or aggressive personality for that year), it would have been appropriate if the game gave Hawke an ability for having a particular personality that year (for example, a humorous Hawke would receive an ability to reduce his aggro/threat level in combat, a diplomatic Hawke would receive better prices in stores, and an aggressive Hawke would do more damage in combat). That way, the player would have had some participation in Hawke's off-screen dealings.

This is just a suggested solution to making the years-between storyline less off-putting. I don't care for the kind of story-timeline-breaks DA2's story takes because they add a perspective that makes the story less imminent and less dramatic. Yet, if they're going to be used, then there should at least be some gameplay reflection of them, something that helps me believe that my character went through those years.