Dragon Age: Origins (2009)

I decided to play this game in 2022 to finally give an true fantasy rpg a try and it does the job fantastically with its dialogue choices and lore but after completeing 2/4 main quests given and reaching about halfway through the game I had to stop.

Orzammar is one of the worst sections of a video game I have ever experienced , it is a multi hour endless series of dungeons with a bunch of uninteresting enemies that keep coming constantly, in waves. There is barely anything to interesting to see, theres no good loot, nothing is happening for entire sections of it as you trudge your way through brown tunnels to hit the next group of enemies.

The fade is unironically much more fun and well designed.

BioWare games tend to be very flawed pieces of work, that I generally enjoy. They're hard for me to hate on too much, as they manage to still capture a general aesthetic all the way through, and there's a considerable amount of nerdy worldbuilding they generate. Usually inspired by background politics and ideas lifted elsewhere, Dragon Age Origins is a rusty example of such applied to dark fantasy. And thankfully, I managed to enjoy myself despite the ridiculous amounts of issues and other valleys I was forced to cross over.

To get this out of the way, DA:O is still a buggy mess and unoptimized, to where I still managed to have the game crash years after this game's release, as well as run into some other unsavory bugs. Nothing game breaking, but certainly a shitton of flow interruption.

The game's biggest flaw though stems from its lackluster combat. It has some strategic depth to it for sure, and some encounters on the highest difficulty make use of the systems intertwined here, but none of it is interesting to use past the first couple hours. DA:O also breaks under several several exploits, to a point where combat becomes a chore the vast majority of time, and only being tolerable when it's at its best. Rogues and Mages just decimate anything in their way to the point of disbelief. To make matters worse, the game makes you do a lot of combat, way more than anyone should have to, especially for a game of its type. Clearly the darkspawn should be terrified as soon as they see the MC considering his body count in the span of a fucking couple weeks.

That being said, past these combat issues there's a good amount of worldbuilding to enjoy, and especially great characters to get to know. There's a couple of misses on either side, but overall what you're generally treated to is an excellently moving series of character-specific stories tied neatly to the main story. Each of them deal with a central political or personal theme that I found engaging, and in fact, found the main story to be engaging as it used its concept of this all-ending Blight pushed off by politicians worrying about their own issues. At the time of this review, COVID has us all in quarantine, and the politics above the stairs are having their own quibbles as people don't get the things they need. So, I honestly found the story to be more realistic than I think the writers had in mind. The characters especially are my favorite part, with Alistair and Morrigan's banter being the big highlights of the journey through Fereldin.

Dragon Age: Origins also ends on a high note, with the last couple missions holding the most meat in terms of story and character content as well as political drama, while also revealing interesting and legitimate motivations for the antagonists. It managed to right itself as a good game in my book, although one I have to carefully recommend, because there are still several issues that could end the appeal right then and there.

If you can get past some bugs, bleh music, several downturns of boring content, many disappointing missteps, you'll find a western RPG that I think holds up quite decently. (7/10)

Playing this game in the first time in 2018 is a weird experience. I played Baldur's Gate back in the 90s as well as lots of similar games, but almost all the RPGs I've played since the switch to 3D gameplay have been single player RPGs like Fallout or Skyrim. DA:O is simultaneously too Skyrim and also not Skyrim enough. The story was good as far as I got but the controls were bad and combat were just no fun. It wasn't action enough but also wasn't tactical enough. It was just confusing.

I gave up in the first real mission because I kept dying and was getting bored.

One of the best things about Dragonage was it made you want to roleplay it. Though your character only has a set amount of reply options and only a few ways to deal with moral dilemma’s, there’s still enough room to create your own character concept and to play it consistently throughout the game. Almost everyone I spoke to has done this while playing, and I think more so than with other RPG’s.

Also: Alistair. Best In-game romance ever.

Think back to other Bioware male npc romances, a disproportionate number of which featured Paladins or paladin-wannabe’s. Knights in shining armor, baby! Except they weren’t, they were either boring or total dicks:

• Ajantis (BG I) boring and a dick,
• Anomen (Baldur’s gate II, the only choice for a female pc!) – total dick.
• Kaiden (Mass Effect, boring!),
• Carth (Knights of the old republic) – boring.

With the previous NPC romances, you often had to play the part of the nice girl, affirming their beliefs, encouraging their convictions, giving compliments whenever possible (worst example being Persona 3, where you actively had to encourage people to sink further into their disfunctions in order to become friends with them). Often it meant picking the most boring answer from your choice of options, hidden between tantalizing insults and sarcastic remarks that would end your romance instantly. With Alistair, no such thing. He actually liked it if you cracked a joke at his expense every once in a while.

This game is not without flaw but it is the closest to my heart. I really adored most of the characters and they make the game for me. The friendships felt really genuine and important. Most of the questing felt quite relevant too and easy to do on your way instead of being time consuming and grindy as I have found with other rpgs. The world building is something I am a huge fan of and has kept me returning to this universe.

I would have liked more balanced major decisions. The moral path is always straightforward and easy and it was only really cloudy on big decisions a couple of times. It's nice to just do the right thing but that's not what the game markets itself as. I found myself making leaps to justify making less moral choices if I wanted to play someone who wasn't just an irredeemable asshole.

Combat wise I have no real qualms. It's quite straightforward. A bit too easy usually which meant I rarely bothered with tactics, but I only play on hard with a pretty traditionally balanced party so I couldn't really judge. I do wish there was more incentive to play around with different parties. I nearly never changed it which is actually uncommon for me to do. Some companions are just obviously more important, namely the love interests.

I got very attached to the role play aspect however and loved it's origins angle. I can't even explain what I love about the atmosphere and humour but it won me wholeheartedly. It was an adventure that I am very attached to and when I finish it it always feels like saying goodbye to an old friend.

+ While many games have alternate endings you do not see alternate starts as often.

- Did not like the character building system in this at all. I had to reroll characters a few times because the engine will let you dump your spec points in very disadvantaged builds not meant for your class, but its not obvious at the time. (I created a fighter who I started putting points in Bow in, thinking that could be balanced. oops. I also totally screwed up a rogue by going half dagger half bow if not mistaken)

- on char building, guide tells me what I already discovered. Wizard party trumps everything else.

-Strange scaling difficulty in regards to experience/gearing. Build your chars wrong and you WILL get stuck. sometimes in middle of acts. (Leveling up while grinding but building 'wrong' will punish you in acts.)

+Campfire interactions are really cool. Very varied, fluid and at times seem almost endless. Probably the highlight of the game.

+story is okay, its nice how you can direct outcomes and take things, the story of the main game flows into awakening quite nicely too. Questing/Branching works nicely. Everything in this regard is as it should be.

+The conceptualization, stylization and eye candy of some of what is going on in this world is really top notch. The underground dwarven city is maybe my favorite depiction of a dwarven city in any game.

Ultimately I felt there were some nasty balance issues under the hood in this game, that for me anyway, made the combat absolute torture... It also wasn't quite as fleshed out in the tactical element as some other games I have played (Temple of Elemental Evil) as far as using your party goes. I came across a guide, followed some of its suggestions on how to build the best party, and it was more fun (I used magic) so again, there is the balance issue. but that also extends into the ability to work with what you have in the game world, getting stuck in acts, and even not being able to fight in random encounters if you 'slip behind' as a poor build before you can fix it. Grinding wont save you. And you can't really farm gear that will make up for it. I don't like games where you can build so bad. and I figure if i can spec a fighter in bows, then why not? the option should simply be disabled.

As of this writing, this is the only bioware game i've played other than Mass Effect 3. I have neglected to play the infinity engine type games, but will at some point

I'm starting to think I need to replay Origins for the podcast as well. Maaaaybe Dragon Age 2 as well, but that's iffy. How many hours left until the 30th? Haha.

Also still want to bang out a second play-through of Inquisition, to make some of the alternative choices.

I can maybe do it, depends on how well I remember DA:O. I did complete the game 8 times. But it's definitely a more time consuming game then Inquisition is.

1 week to play through DA:O, DA2, and replay Inquisition (when I'm not even done with the first play-through yet?). Probably not!

How do 2 Dragon Age themed podcasts sound instead? XD