In Defense of Dragon Age II
Dragon Age II is the sequel many gamers love to hate.
Stuck between Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age II is the stereotypical middle child of the series. Overshadowed by both siblings, it struggles to gain whatever attention it can while constantly being told it’s not good enough.
It didn’t even get cool post-colon tag like Origins or Inquisition.
It could have been Dragon Age: Champion of Kirkwall. Or Dragon Age: Mages and Templars.
Or, as one of my favorite podcasts once pointed out, it could have been called Dragon Age: Dammit Anders!
That’ll make sense later on, I promise.
Shortly after its release on March 8, 2011, many Dragon Age fans began trashing the game online and to anyone willing to listen. And while this collective exercise in creative and excessive vulgarity was, at times, entertaining to read, much of this criticism seemed overly harsh, if not unfounded.
Admittedly, DA2 isn’t a perfect game. Some of the loudest complaints are the recycling of playable areas. We spend the entire game in the game’s primary setting, the city of Kirkwall. We venture to a handful of locations outside the city, but most of our time is spent within Kirkwall itself. This seems confining when compared with the first game. Dragon…
