Dragon Age 3: What Must Be Done
Bioware has a certain way of telling a story that has struck a chord with millions of fans across the world. The rough outline usually follows a certain formula: Someone or something is out there threatening the world/universe, and your character is the only person that can stop it. Along the way you collect companions, each of whom has their own stories, their own agendas, yet they set that aside for the time being to aid you in stopping this threat. As you adventure together you learn a little bit more about them through frequent conversation around the campfire or aboard your ship, which gets back around to their problems and whether you decide to help them or not. A little song, a little dance, a little Ahsley down your pants, epic mega battle, cue credits.
There is a strength to this way of storytelling, a strength which is intensified by the great depth of characters Bioware has created over the years. Yet somehow in Dragon Age 2 Bioware lost it way. Granted the adventures of a certain Commander named Sheppard had a mass effect on the sequel: gone was the tactical combat of it predecessor, in was a more console friendly combat system. The protagonist was given a voice. Yet somehow Bioware, in their attempt to Frankenstein the original Dragon Age and the highly successful Mass Effect together, forgot to put the heart of what made Mass Effect 2 a game of the decades to begin with.
We all love Sheppard’s story, but what drives Mass Effect are the characters. Whether you are learning about the Normandy’s favorite engineering duo, Gabriella Daniels and Kenneth Donnelly, having a long conversation to Thane, or just pondering wtf to do with Legion, it is these various interactions that provide the constant heartbeat for the rest of the game. They make you care.
Dragon Age provided much the same, albeit around a campfire instead of a sleek stealth ship. Somehow these crucial interactions got lost in translation in the development of Dragon Age 2. Whether it was due to a hurried development schedule or simply forgetting what made their games so popular in the first place, they were all too absent and infrequent.
As such the first thing that must be done to restore the next Dragon Age to its proper place is the inclusion of these campfire conversations. The banter while walking around the oft overused environments of Kirkwall was good, but not so great as to omit a staple of Bioware storytelling from the game. I see no reason we can’t have both.
The second point is the aforementioned oft over used environments of Kirkwall. This simply needs to go, or at the very least to be used far less frequently. Part of the fun of these games is seeing new places and exploring new environs. This seems like a clear clue of a rushed development, but it was a poor idea from the word go. Bioware games in their true form shouldn’t be rushed into a yearly release schedule. It would be fine to have a game from the stable of rpgs released every year, with the sequels to individual games coming every other year, but trying to pound Mass Effect, Dragon Age or the long awaited sequel of Jade Empire into a yearly development schedule would simply cheapen the franchises and degrade the core of what we have come to love in these games.
The final point: Make choices matter. Regardless of which side you chose at the end of Dragon Age 2, the result was nearly the same. Part of the brilliance of Mass Effect 2 was you could come out of the ordeal ranging from virtually unscathed to it being an ugly disaster. Apply the same sort of choice and the tried and true BIoware formula to Dragon Age 3, and we will once again have an undisputed king of fantasy RPGs. Forgo these changes, and I fear the crown may slip. Skyrim is making a bold claim for it already.
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Skyrim is making a bold claim? How about Skyrim ruthlessly crushed DA2, and broke it’s fingers.
Point.
I would like to think Bioware has earned a chance to respond, however. Without a strong DA3, there can be no doubt Skyrim is king.
To be perfectly honest. I liked the first ME better, ME2 was okay but far too “personal” in solving everyone little personal problems. Seemed more like a drama-con than a RPG. Which is okay I suppose, but I’m a bigger fan of fantasy/sci-fi epics. I have a feeling that ME3 will show that when EA doesn’t drive them at something, they can still produce good games.
I have faith in bioware of old. I don’t have faith of the bioware of new, simply because EA. And for that, they need to pull the rabbit out of their ass.
Skyrim rocks but DA:O is still the king of all RPGs.
Do remember as well that Dragon Age: Origins sold more copies than any other game bioware has ever made. That includes ME1 and 2. It actually sold more than twice as many copies as ME1 did and about 1/4 more than ME2.
This is Dragon Age: Origins were talking here. A game that ran like hell on consoles and had clunky combat on consoles. It was a PC game through and through and that’s why it sold so many copies, it really brought out that old crowd who loved the hell out of Bioware’s old PC RPG’s and thought they have somewhat lost their touch with games like KotoR and ME.
Hopefully DA3 will rekindle some of that fire from origins. But if EA has anything to say about it I’m sure the mantra ‘push a button and something awesome happens’ will stick like flies to honey.
I too wish they would have kept DA in the spirit of it’s predecessor, the Baldur’s Gate series.
I love ME too, but for different reasons. Baldur’s Gate 2 is one of my favorite all time games. I wish they would have kept the tactical combat for the PC and kept the push a button combat for the console versions.
I’m playing Skyrim and it doesn’t hold a candle, story-wise, to most anything BioWare has ever put out.
It’s a good game, I enjoy it. But some of the voice acting and cut scenes are pretty amateurish. They seem like stories and dialog written by engineers aping story cliche’s. BioWare titles (even DA2, which disappoints for technical reasons) have real STORY.
@ Scott I think it depends on what you enjoy most in an rpg. Personally, ME 2 is the best RPG I have ever played. The characters had rich stories and dynamic personalities, The story itself was amazing. I’ve always been fond of Bioware’s party based design, even though DA 2 stumbled a bit in this area. Skyrim is a different sort of RPG. The wide open world and the ability to interact with the environment makes for a different experience.
Bioware still has to redeem itself in DA 3 as far as the Dragon Age franchise is concerned, imo.
Skyrim is a great game, a fantastic game, but it’s a very different rpg than Bioware titles. Bioware and Bethesda compete but why they may pull things from each other, they each have niche.
Skyrim companions/followers are not as rich, storied, or creative as Bioware, nor is the plot as good. That said it is a fantastic world to explore.
Bioware has good story but normally has set environments. Skyrim on the other hand has endless places to peek around and explore.
I think Bioware tried something new, when you try something new it sometimes falls flat, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have done it, but only that it didn’t work. I’m not sure if they were thinking BG 2 and trying to make Kirkwall into Amn, or if they thought similar to the first Kotor with 4 planets, that limited areas could work.
I had very little issue with the companions or the story of DA 2. I don’t think it was as strong as DA 1, only in the sense that the origins made it feel far more epic. Bioware often does well hooking people in when I think back to Kotor, ME 1 and 2, even Jade Empire, I was instantly pulled into that world. I didn’t quite feel that with DA 2.
All that said, the recent DLC with Talis was highly amusing, and I think they are getting back to the roots of how to mix comedy, drama and action all together for a epic story.