#been thinking about da2. the game ever. an accidental masterpiece

[mourn-and-watch]

honestly making three year timejumps between acts was the smartest decision character development-wise dragon age ever pulled. i don't think da2 has more character interactions/romance content than other games but i think the main reason kirkwall squad's dynamics and relationships with hawke and each other feel so fleshed out and real to me is that the game implies these people were spending time together during literal years. the plot itself moves very quickly but its structure creates an impression that the characters were still given enough time to breathe. like yeah anders' dramatic love confessions would feel hilariously out of pocket if it happened like a week after he met hawke but the guy was pining for a very long time. hawke's reunions with their sibling (whose personality also drastically changes in this time period) would fall flat if they were separated for like a month but they haven't seen each other in years. and i think da2 also conveys the passage of time nicely. character models might not change (would have been a nice touch tho but this game was made in less than a year) but they themselves change due to their circumstances that get progressively worse and this is also the reason why their questlines don't feel rushed. the quests are connected but the Next Big Thing doesn't happen the second you finish the previous quest. it takes time for danarius to get to fenris. it takes time for sundermount demon to ruin merrill's relationships with her clan and her keeper. and it takes time for the qunari and mage/templar conflicts to reach their breaking points and every companion is inevitably affected by it and it wouldn't hit half as hard if all these events happened in a year or so. yeah this is the shortest dragon age game but to me it feels the longest in the best way. i got to spend almost a decade with these guys watching their lives slowly and inevitably fall apart and it successfully devastated me