there was one thing that kept me entertained in this game, and made me want to replay it again recently, it was the characters. Dragon Age 2 has some of the best characters in the series, like Aveline, Isabela or Varric, even the protagonist you are playing is fun as heck if you play him or her as a smart ass. Whether it Jo Wyatt (also the voice of Ciri in Witcher 3) or Nicholas Boulton (Shakespeare in Love) doing the acting, they both deliver some stellar performances as Hawke, specifically the charming personality. The voiced protagonist concept borrowed from Mass Effect is a bit of a double edged sword, where it does make the protagonist feel a bit more fleshed out and the dialogue organic but it will be at the expense of roleplaying, and the dialogue wheel wasn’t always that great at paraphrasing your responses. The ambiguity could sometimes lead to you picking a dialogue option that ended up sounding completely different from what one thought.
BioWare’s way to combat that was adding icons, the kind that would dictate the tone of how Hawke delivers her/his lines during dialogue that isn’t controlled by the player. It’s a unique concept, and a good idea that wasn’t always executed well and not everyone understandably cares for this type of dialogue system. Personally I like how it is with old CRPGs or like in Divinity 2, but Hawke was so much fun to play that I honestly didn’t mind too much, and I hope that if Dragon Age 4 becomes a thing that the humorous personality makes a return.
