Dragon Age II

[Irishjohn]

Yeah, that's what I thought too.

Yeah, it really felt like we were missing a major plot element. Surely Orsino had been tempted before? Or he's been studying up... Also, I forgot to mention earlier, after all that happened, the whole "and that's the story" ending was a bit annoying. It feels so disconnected from Origins, a completely standalone story... and I don't really like Hawke enough to care what happens to him, really.

[juv3nal]

Regarding the endgame:

Whether Orsino became an abomination or had been holding some blood magic knowledge before the events or something else was never really explained. I don't know if it's a plot hole or if there is a justification that was just not really gone into for the sake of expediency.

There is some backstory there. You know the guy that chops up Hawke's Mom? There's a letter in his lair from Orsino plus Orsino does mention him in the final sequence very briefly. It's kind of flimsy if you want to use it as proof that Orsino was deep into blood magic, but it does show he was not unaware of some deeply messed up stuff (i.e. serial-killer-dude-whose-name-I-don't-remember's "research").

[Irishjohn]

Fair enough. I did get that there was a bunch of written notes and stuff throughout the game, and I think that RPGs need something along those lines, but it really didn't feel integrated into the game at all. Like I said, I wanted to get out and see more of the world, not the same bloody city and the identical three or four environments outside it.

I finished the game, so I obviously enjoyed it to a certain extent. Not sorry I played it either, I just feel really let down, especially after how much I enjoyed Origins.

[brkl]

I wish the Qunari plot had been the entire game. The Qunari are awesome and I loved talking to their leader. I wish the whole game would have been about averting war with the Qunari (or I guess fighting them if you want to). The game became far less interesting after they were dealt with.

[Irishjohn]

I agree completely!

I actually thought that the Qunari thing was going to go somewhere really interesting and then they basically became bad guys. Okay, that's not entirely fair, but it would have been awesome to have the choice of a third act with the Qunari or even *gasp* an option to become more aligned with them and sympathetic. Maybe that's not realistic given the fiction, but I really enjoyed the Qunari as a faction and it was one of the more frustrating elements in the game to just lose all that in Act 2, and really, it didn't feel like much of a pay-off to me. More like, "these guys are leaving now, have a boss fight. Or don't."

Like I said, every time that thing about the Qunari island came up on a load screen I was practically yelling at the screen "I want to go there!" There wasn't even a Qunari companion. I used Sten a lot in the first game. More rants. It seems unfair to whine about this game but there was so much that felt like it should have been better, and WAS better in Origins. The Qunari really made me aware of how bloody limited the game was, I felt just as stuck in that stupid city as they did.

[Forbin]

I just wish the whole thing was more along the lines of Feists Krondor series. It's possible to make a setting focused on a single city feel like a giant world.