Review: Dragon Age: Origins

Where to begin? Perhaps I should tell you the story of my mage, Zolanai. A reasonably neutral character, he wants to do good in the world, but only if there’s a reward at the end of it. He hasn’t turned to the dark arts of blood magic yet, and believes that although the Templar’s imprison fellow mages like himself, they are a neccessary evil for the terrible potential the circle could inflict upon the world.

His origins were difficult. Thrown into a nightmare dream world where he had to face and overcome powerful demons or be slain by Templar’s, you’d forgive him for being somewhat annoyed by the circle and the way things are done. Perhaps he should take his own path, become an abomination, let the demon’s into his life and be the most powerful mage ever! Perhaps he’ll forgive the circle and move on now that he is a Warden. He feels sorry for the elf girl that’s in the tower. Always being bullied by the humans. Shouting at her.

The origins are quite hard hitting in some areas. The dwarf commoner, for instance, has to fight to survive in a world that forces him to make dirty choices, as he is nothing but dirt to the more noble members of the dwarven caste. An elf in the city of Denerim has to fight for her life against humans who are racist and don’t take too kindly to the Elf race. Dragon Age hits the tone hard and dark fairly well. Almost every group is dealing with strife, with the human noble taking slightly longer before he walks on the path of doom.

So far Zolanai though has done quite well for himself, picking up comrades along the way all of different opinions and beliefs. Oh, and a rather intelligent mutt along with it. The world is in trouble; evil has returned to wreck havoc on Ferelden and effectively only me and my comrades are there to stop it from destroying the world. How I decide to do this is entirely up to me though, and I’ve had to make difficult choices along the way, some resulting in the death’s of loved ones.

Really, Dragon Age: Origins is Bioware at there best. Gone are the simplified conversation systems of Mass Effect, the good vs evil dialogue options of Knights of the Old Republic. This is the classical RPG returned in all its glory. It’s had to change with the times slightly, particularly in combat situations and how mages use spells, but by all intents and purposes DA:O could be called Baldur’s Gate 3, a happy return to form.

Which is why it’s rather amusing reading about how difficult the game is. Yes, those reviewers are right, but you can’t help but wondering with a sly grin if the reason we’re finding it so difficult is because we’ve got so used to the action-RPG. The RPG that never really challenges you, that throws you pretty good weapons too easily. Dragon Age doesn’t do this, and the result is that some combat scenarios can be brutally hard.

A dragon for instance is a huge, extremely angry, lizard, that breathes fire and will tear you a new one. Do not expect to survive without proper preparation. Without considering the best tactic to stop it from absolutely ripping your party apart, you’ll likely last all of two minutes. The difficulty is at fault in areas, yes. Hard and Nightmare difficulty are brutally and almost impossibly difficult, while Normal feels like the Hard you get in other games, and Easy feels like Normal. You really need to consider all options before running into the enemy. Do you have a main healer? Has everyone been set up to take potions if they’re nearing death?

Luckily the game does try and help you. The tactics system is a recognisable idea from Final Fantasy XII, and in here it proves rather essential for dictating party members. You could, if you wanted to, totally manage your party via the tactics system, but the base idea of it is to make it easier to manage certain spells, instances and occurences that happen within the game. Your first port of call will be to every team member to use a healing potion if there health dips below 25% or even lower if you want to risk that and save on potions. Bioware managed to make the tactics system far more useful than it ever was in Final Fantasy XII, so it’s worth considering on your travels.

Similarly accessing skills has changed. No longer does a mage have to rest for each skill to recharge. Instead Bioware’s own ruleset uses the World of Warcraft attitude when it comes to recharge times, usually ranging in times of five to ten seconds for standard spells and longer for more powerful ones. Mana and health is also automatically replinished after each fight. There is no need to “sleep a night” like the D&D ruleset of Baldur’s Gate, or wait ten seconds before continuing ala Neverwinter Nights 2.

Once you get to particular levels you can choose to specialise your character class. In a mages case they can specialise in healing, blood magic, shapeshifting or arcane warrior. Each class has its own specialisation and each specialisation is fairly useful. Combining specific specilisations can also result in helpful effects. For instance blood mage and arcane warrior can result in a mage warrior of utter terror and destruction. Healing and arcane can allow a functional healing tank, capable of taking the fight to the enemy while still being able to heal himself and others.

The game can be hard, but it can also be managed. Your party members are not totally devoid of thought. They’ll use their spells and options as neccessary, though I have noticed they have a tendency not to activate passive spells which might open up further options for attacking. A big example of this is that Shale’s attacking options depend on what stance you put him in; close range melee, ranged combat or a regeneration based stance that increases power for the rest of the party greatly, but paralyses him. Shale does not choose any of these options on hand, so it’s important to pause and make sure you choose for him. Thankfully pausing and swapping between characters is easily done, and a good setup of each of the characters skills can result in more powerful combinations that defeat the enemy.

Dragon Age may be about you saving the world, but it’s also about your party members. All of the party has a back story, and all of it is interesting and well voiced. Morrigan, played by Claudia Black of Farscape fame, is fantastic throughout the game, her character feeling very much alive. She’s not the only one though. Alastair is witty and good to have around and plays the more noble knight compared to the other party members. Leliana has a lilting french accent and an interesting background to tell. Zevran is perhaps the funniest of the characters. Coupling different characters together in your party will  result in them freely talking to each other with witty dialogue to boot.

Our test PC handles Dragon Age exceptionally well, perhaps because there are areas where it is rough around the edges and shows its development age. Despite this, graphically it’s very bright and interesting; Orzammer in particular is a rather amazing city to behold. The engine is akin to Mass Effect in that character conversations are up close head shots, but each character does look interesting without too many problems. Similarly viewing the world is either a choice of over the shoulder third person camera, or above looking down in a classical style akin to Baldur’s Gate.

Combat is therefore fluid no matter what camera choice you decide to play on. You’ll quickly find both have there advantages, and that pausing to zoom out, assign orders and zoom back in to watch, will probably become a common task with each time you have to face an enemy. Blood has become rather a source of bemusement in this game. Leaving a particular option on in the settings screen results in you constantly caked in blood from your last outing of carnage. This leads to rather hilarious scenes in conversation, and it usually looks better if you just switch it off. Switching it off will not result in you losing gore and blood scenes in combat.

Dragon Age is huge, lasting a good 50 hours of gameplay, and that’s not including all the extra side missions, quests and lore you could find while playing it. The world is more vivid and realised that any other game Bioware has developed; the codex is more rich in detail and story than that of Mass Effect. Where ME tells you as it is in order to set the sci-fi background, Dragon Age tells you as it was in the fantasy world and its rich lore. Loot is fairly even, and doesn’t bombard you but does reward you enough. Mages do have a fair choice of robes and weaponry, and specialising in Arcane Warrior can result in you wearing the heavier of armours without penalty.

So are there faults? One or two bugs here and there, but Dragon Age is remarkably well polished. One of the main criticisms I have is that some of the scenes appear to be disjointed. You complete a task or mission and can find yourself in an entirely new scene spontaneously. It’s not disimilar to what the Witcher was originally like before the big patches. You started off in the castle, then suddenly you found yourself in a village without much explanation in between. These scene jumps to me always look bad, and can let down an otherwise polished game.

1600 words in and i’m sure i’ve forgot something. It’s a testiment to how large and bold this game is. Dragon Age is big, beautiful, full of life and evil that needs to be destroyed. Darkness exists not just in the darkspawn, but in the general lifes of the people that like in Ferelden. It is an amazing world and shows Bioware is the true king of the RPG. A definite must buy.

© 2009-2010 LMB Productions. Template by GhostPool Designs. In the time you have spent reading this, Google has acquired all your details.

• Home