So i finally got around to Dragon Age II, not very happy with Bioware.

[votemarvel]

so their audience gets rewarded with an appropriate power fantasy

And what's wrong with that? Why shouldn't a player be rewarded with success at the end of a game, instead of being forced into a situation where you are guaranteed to lose no matter what.

I'd never really thought about it before but at every critical story point, Hawke fails. How the hell is this person considered a champion?

Perhaps that is why I can replay Origins because even when the Warden dies, victory is won. Everything Hawke does just leaves the world in a worse state than before.

 

[EternallyBored]

so their audience gets rewarded with an appropriate power fantasy

And what's wrong with that? Why shouldn't a player be rewarded with success at the end of a game, instead of being forced into a situation where you are guaranteed to lose no matter what.

I'd never really thought about it before but at every critical story point, Hawke fails. How the hell is this person considered a champion?

Perhaps that is why I can replay Origins because even when the Warden dies, victory is won. Everything Hawke does just leaves the world in a worse state than before.

To be fair, you can have a hero struggle and fail, and still tell a good engaging story, DAII just failed to actually set up the inevitibility of history in an interesting way. Rather than having the templar mage conflict slowly spiral out of control with both sides coming to blows no matter what you do. Bioware threw the whole thing under the bus at the last second with the templars being led by a posessed woman, and the mages led by an idiot who turns himself into a monster even when it looks like his side is winning.

Even that could have worked if it wasn't just set up as a cheap way to have some boss fights, the whole inevitibility of history thing can work, DAII just does a poor job of using it.