Dragon Age: Origins (2009)

Put a few more hours into this today and I'm really impressed by the story telling, it's really grabbed my attention and I'm beginning to see why the franchise has such a cult following! I wasn't feeling particularly engaged with the story to begin with during The Wilds mission prior to 'the joining' ritual, I could feel that the party members felt semi-disposable, although they definitely had their own unique characteristics.

After the threat of the blight becomes more apparent and the king begins his battle, the story became a lot more engaging and I really enjoyed the dialogue sequences. The characters and their roles in the story feel really believable, love the humour from Alistair, and the betrayal from Loghain has me hooked!

Still getting my ass kicked with the combat though, I think I've got tactics semi-understood? I send my ranged players to the back and keep one defence behaviour member in the middle / front and another member attacking on the offensive. Fights with more than 4 enemies though become a cluster and my ranger members get swarmed. Feel like I need more skills and abilities to control crowds.

Also found this glitch by standing too close to the edge of the wall during the battle sequence. Kinda cool seeing how they achieved the large scale army effect by using some sprites

Dragon Age: Origins, oh, what a game. All the Dragon Age talk has me wanting to revisit this gem. I'm about 4 hours into a new PC playthrough and enjoying every second of it. I've played it once before, back in 2015, but didn't really have an appreciation for it. Despite that, I'm surprised by how much I remember.

I am most surprised to have learned this game came out in 2009. I was under the impression this was a much earlier release, almost 2007 or 2006 even, but alas, this was released the same year as greats like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Demon's Souls. Which is to say that this game doesn't quite compare in terms of graphical fideltiy, but it's impressive in its own right for its assets, environments, gameplay mechanics, and writing - the legendary writing, which pulls you in immediately and refuses to relinquish its grasp.

Dragon Age is a game that is better than it has any right to be, by first look: it's a generic title with a generic cover and a generic setting. However, after half an hour of playing, it's clear that DAO is anything but generic. Everything about it has something unique to it. The voice work is particularly noteworthy, and is celebrated somewhat unanimously, but something I can't help but be drawn to is the UI and the menus. I love the font, the color of the font, the sounds of clicking or selecting, the icons of skills and items, and everything in between. It all has an effect on me and I'm not sure exactly why or how. Maybe a good UI just doesn't get its flowers, so here's giving them to DAO's.

And let's not forget that amazing opening bit of lore, that selection from the Cantacle of Light:

And so is the Golden City blackened With each step you take in my Hall. Marvel at perfection, for it is fleeting. You have brought Sin to Heaven And doom upon all the world.

Chills! What an epic hook. Of all the bits of lore and curiosities offered by DAO, the Golden City and the discussion around the truth of what happened there is the most alluring to me. As I played through this game, the DAII, then DAI after that, I was always looking and waiting for that next bit of revelation about this particular point. But I have little memory of DAII and DAI at this point. I only remember being bored out of my mind with DAI.

I don't know how far I'll make it into this replay, with time and obligations always at odds with one another, but it has made me want to delve into the newest game. I watched the first 20 minutes of it and I don't really see what the big deal is with it, in terms of the negativity around it. I think I will probably enjoy it and that's not me hoping or wanting to. It's just a game that looks like it checks a lot of my boxes.

After that, I plan on playing Silent Hill 2 Remake, and after THAT, I think I might dare to take on Baldur's Gate 3 finally. A friend of mine strongly urges me to give it a shot and I'm sure I will like it.

But right now, I have Darkspawn to kill!

Wanted to give the the franchise another go since Veilguard released recently. Inquisition was my introduction to the series back in 2015 and I really didn't enjoy it back then, I put it down after an hour or two and returned it. My tastes and patience have changed since then though, I know I enjoy medieval worlds and story telling, and I already own the first two games on GOG, so I'm really hoping this will be a good adventure!

Opening two hours are pretty good, the gameplay and mechanics are slightly intimidating but the game walks you through it quite well. Figuring out the tactics mechanics so that my party members don't just charge in when I don't want them to was neat.

I've dipped my toes into Wasteland 3, early Fallouts, and a few MMORPG's but never stuck with any. So, this will likely be my first true ride with an RPG that isn't an action RPG. Kinda hard to believe it's taken me this long to decide to sit down and commit to one. Hoping if I enjoy it enough I'll go on to play the rest, and then eventually move on to something like Baldurs Gate 3!

P.s If you're looking to play this on a modern PC setup, you'll almost certainly need to make the executable LAA (large address aware) so that it can use more than 2GB of ram. The fact that GOG haven't released the game with a patch is odd as they've done it before I believe with games like Fallout 3? There's a 4GB patcher tool readily available, and even a pre-patched executable to swap out if you don't want to use the patcher tool. It works slightly differently depending on which platform you've bought it on, but it's roughly the same for GOG and EA, steam is a bit different from what I've read. Took me all of 5 minutes to do though. Without it you'll almost certainly experience crashes. One think I've heard a lot of people forget to do is to make the .exe file run in windows 7 compatibility mode along with running as administrator - both these options can be configured by creating a shortcut of the DAOrigins.exe, placing it on your desktop and right clicking it to select properties > compatibility. Launch the game from the desktop shortcut only.

I decided to commit to playing Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate Edition for the first time ever. I have not touched any Dragon Age game before.

Is there something I should know before getting lost in this new world? I had already to fight a bit to get it running stable on my laptop but it now only closes on me every two hours. I can live with that. It is a game where you have to save often anyway.

And that dog is adorable. It seems so happy and is also terrifying at the same time. :D

Going through and doing evil Moira play through. Finished up opening and kokiri as human noble archer. It's really interesting when you don't play a character that's not all enamored with the Wardens. Like you're the odd one out.

Anyway, everyone died in the opening, poor mum and dad and cute elf lady. Ran away to ostagar, met the recruits. Killed a thief (fuck that guy) and went through the kokiri wilds. Found the chasind stuff and opened the dead missionary's chest. His wife doesn't need it, we have a world to save!