Dragon Age: Origins Review

Building a team of multi-talented members ready to follow you into the densest battles that you could imagine, spilling blood across the battlefield, can be quite an experience. Now add the customization of a game like Dragon Age: Origins and you have a game with potential to win Best PC Game or Best RPG… oh wait, it did.

When you start the game, you are asked to choose between a human, elf, or dwarf. While most games would pretty much end there, Dragon Age goes a lot further. After choosing what character type you are, you then chose your player type, between Warrior, Mage, and Rogue, each type with its own set of special abilities.

I chose an elf warrior, so most of this post will be base on the gameplay that I experienced in this role.

Based on what you chose, you will begin the game in a different area of Ferelden, a dark kingdom located where death and violence lurk in every shadow. You travel throughout the kingdom of Ferelden during the game, finding new villages and areas to play mini-quests. Ferelden is an extremely large place with many different areas to explore.

The storyline is completely different based on the choices you make at the beginning of the game. 12 different storylines can be played through in Dragon Age: Origins. I chose to be an Elf Warrior from the Alienage in the city of Denerim. I chose to start in a place where elves are not well respected, poor, and frequently must fight for their lives.

The core of the game, no matter what story line you chose, is the fight against the blight, an army of Darkspawn lead by a malicious dragon known as the Archdemon. You will come across many small, scattered groups of Darkspawn throughout the game, but they are only considered a blight if they are lead by an Archdemon. This is also when they are the biggest threat.

After choosing your story line, you start by placing some points on your attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Willpower, Magic, Cunning, and Constitution. After beafing up your attributes, you also need to choose what skills you want. These vary based on if you are a human, elf, or dwarf, and if you are a warrior, mage, or rogue. Starting in the slums of the city of Denerim, I chose to add the skill of being a thief.

This all sounds a little confusing, but it plays out in a way that makes it very easy to understand and use. You increase the skills that you have based on the amount of points you put on certain attributes.

So, now that you are ready to start the game, you are placed wherever you chose and must complete a few trivial tasks before moving into the real battles and core of the game. I had to save a group of female elves from being raped by the prince of Denirim. After doing this, I needed to get out of the city, so a friend of my mother’s, a Grey Warden, escorted me out. After leaving the city with the Grey Warden, Duncan, I was taken to become a Grey Warden myself.

The Grey Wardens are an organization of the most elite and feared of warriors, dedicated to the destruction of the Darkspawn in all of the lands. Throughout most of the game, you will find that the Grey Wardens are frowned upon due to the lies of the tyrannical “hero,” Teyrn Loghain.

After you become a Grey Warden, the real journey begins. You must go to several different locations throughout the Kingdom of Fereldon to gain allies and find willing and able warriors to fight by your side against the blight.

You will build a small team that travels with you at all times to help you battle through all of your encounters with Darkspawn, thieves, and anyone else who gets in your way. I was a warrior, so I tried to keep a mage, a rogue, and an extra warrior with me at all times. I used the mage to deal all of the distant damage, keeping her away from direct harm. The rogue was used to open locked doors, chests, and armoires. The third team member was Shale, and DLC stone warrior that can deal some serious damage.

DLC is another piece that makes this game so good. The above-mentioned Shale is not just a downloadable player to join your team, but an entire mini-quest that you have to go through to unlock the character. As I said before, Shale is an extremely powerful force that can throw massive amounts of damage to your opponents.

You will find that in the game, the decisions that you make when you are talking to people effect how the game is played out, unlocking new skills, finding new and powerful items, and a ton of amazing mini-quests.

The mini-quests are so great, that sometimes you do not even realize that they are not part of the main quest. This is why it took me nearly 50 hours to complete it one time through. I went through and tried to do as many of the side quests as possible. I cannot keep myself from talking to every single person that I walk past, which is why I found myself spending 5x more time on mini-quests than on the actual quests.

The Good

Character customization is incredible with a lot of different way to create your own persona.

The core story itself is strong. Building an army to battle an army of Darkspawn lead by a massive dragon known as the Archdemon is pretty cool and the steps that you have to take to get there make it even better.

This game has the one of the best replay qualities that I have ever seen. You can essentially play through 12 different story lines, which can be played out in just about any order and find thousands of different ways to get to the end of the game.

For an RPG of such massive caliber, the graphics are great. They aren’t pushing any graphical boundaries, but they are amazing.

Combat in the game is simple, but extremely effective when you add in all the skills and abilities.

There are huge amounts of weapons that can be found in the game, some with the ability to have enchantments placed on them that can add a lot of additional damage such as ice, fire, spirit, and lighting damage.

Like the weapons, a lot of armor, and other items such as rings, necklaces, and belts can be found or purchased to beef up each player.

You have control over the people on you team, which is pretty standard in this type of game. The great thing that BioWare has done is give you the ability to change your teams abilities, skills, the weapons they use, the armor they wear, and the accessories they wear to improve each character.

The ability to improve and add skills based on your decisions in each conversation, like the decision I made to betray the urn or Andraste so that I could drink the blood of a thousand generations of dragons.

The Bad

The only bad thing about this entire game is after the ending. You will be faced with an extremely difficult task in the end of the game, fighting against endless waves of Darkspawn and eventually the Archdemon. It is a great ending to a game, but when you finish this and order is restored to Fereldon, be prepared to be upset. Any standing mini-quests that you had yet to complete are no longer accessible, even if they had absolutely nothing to do with the blight.

The only other thing you can do when you finish the game is play through the very short DLC mini-quests. Though these mini-quests are fun, they are no match to exploring the massive depths of Fereldon.

Final Thought

I willingly put 50 hours into this game in about a week. Even though you can’t finish your mini-quests after you finish the game, it doesn’t really take away from the overall gameplay. Even though I lost some mini-quests at the end, I was ready to restart the game and play through one of the other 12 storylines. This is an incredible game, and it belongs on the shelf of every gamer.

EXTRA

If you got the PC version of the game, it came with the Dragon Age Toolset, a completely limitless and expansive way to create your own game within Dragon Age. The toolset offers modders and editors the ability to not only create the environments, but also the ability to do your own voice-overs, sound design, cut scenes, cinematics, and even the visual effects that accompany them. Check out the video below and go over to the BioWare website for more information.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Share This Post: