Dragon Age: Origins Review

I have a confession to make. I’m easy.

Oh, I tell people that for an RPG to impress me it needs to have a rich story, memorable characters, even more memorable villains and a setting so deep and well-crafted it would make Tolkien blush. But if I were to be completely honest, sometimes all a game needs to capture my heart is a single moment that makes me sit back and think ‘That’s awesome.’

Dragon Age: Origins has three in the first twenty minutes.

Interesting thing is (before you rush out to buy the game on the basis of that clever review opening) that you only have a one-in-six chance of seeing what I saw on your first play-through.  Dragon Age knows its high fantasy, and beginnings are everything. Each possible combination of race (Human, Elf and Dwarf) and class (Warrior, Mage and Rogue) gives you a unique three-hour opening sequence worthy of its own game, let alone as a mere starting point. It’s no mere gimmick either: Your origins are constantly referenced and certain unique options and quests become available depending on what you’ve chosen.

Plots and Plans and Derring-Do.

Each origin eventually leads you to the same quest, however. You become a Grey Warden, an acoylte of an ancient order tasked with the land of Ferelden against the coming Darkspawn horde.

Your task (and what you spend doing for the majority of the game) is to travel this wonderfully detailed backdrop, recruiting its disparate factions into an army capable of standing against the darkness. This is much more complex than it sounds, as your decisions have surprisingly weight on what and who your allies will be by the game’s end. In my second play-through, my allies were very, very different because of my actions.

The makers of this game seem to have followed a simple sort of checklist in putting this game together.

First off, it’s not hard to believe that as research they sat down and played every major RPG of the last fifteen years, marking what worked and what didn’t. Every typical Bioware staple has been included, but polished to a very high degree. The companions (a feature most RPGs live and die on) are fantastic, with fully-realised backgrounds and personalities, so much so that they’re as memorable and well-written as some of the genre greats.

So many of the little niggles I’ve had with RPGs have been tweaked here, and done so in a very clever way. The game mechanics themselves are close to flawless, with three very distinct classes and a streamlined ability system, so you never feel too bound to one weapon or skillset. In a beautifully sadistic feature, certain spells can be combined and the first time I mixed Sleep and Horror to see my slumbering enemies start to twitch and moan in the grip of some unseen nightmare was a delight. You no longer (and I love you, Baldur’s Gate, but still) end up with a million gold in some unseen piggy-bank, but have a more realistic gold-silver-copper system that fits in very well with the world you’re in. Money is appropriately scarce, so much so that each purchase has to be well-thought out and rewards feel much more satisfactory.

Secondly, the writing in Dragon Age is spot-on. The main storyline is full of the appropriate grandeur and pathos, as well as some shocking twists. The world itself is incredibly detailed, with some very interesting spins on conventional fantasy themes. The codex/journal that chronicles both your journey and information about the world around you is clever, well-written and at time very funny. There are also some very creepy moments in the game. Dragon Age deserves its 18 rating, not simply because of the companion sex scenes. There are some very prickly moral dilemmas here, and the choices you make have far-reaching consequences. There’s no conventional good-evil morality system here, but your companions have very strong views and won’t hesitate to leave you if you rub them the wrong way.

Twelve Types of Awesome

There’s a part of me that honestly believes that when the first draft of Dragon Age was finished, the Bioware CEO read it, then snarled (hopefully in a Departed-style Boston drawl) ‘Good… but now take it apart and staple badass to everything.’

From the opening cinematic to the final battle, this game is full of moments that make your eyebrows raise  at the sheer style shown, whether it’s the expertly-written banter between comrades or simply some of the best set-pieces I’ve seen in a long time. The sequence where you navigate your way through a besieged fortress to light a tower-beacon seems directly lifted from The Two Towers. There are dozens of little incidental scenes that make you grin for a second at just how cool this is.

It’s almost a challenge to pick out what could legitimately be called a flaw in this game. There have been complaints about the difficulty system, which to be honest is very unforgiving. Halfway through my first play-through, low-level enemies were still slaughtering me if I didn’t think my strategies through. It’s a thinking-man’s-RPG. Rush in with blades out, you’ll die. Horribly.

Start thinking about archer placement, combination-spell casting and judicious use of abilities (concepts most RPG/MMO players are already familiar with) and things will start to improve, although there were a few encounters in the game that I only completed by the skin of my teeth. The same goes for decisions you make. Dragon Age almost forces you to replay it, as your choices send you in very different directions, some of which I only realised after completing the game a third time. It’s not as open-world as Oblivion, but to see everything you will need to come back again.

One of the bonuses in reviewing this game is that as it’s been a few months since the game’s release, I have the opportunity of also reviewing the two chunks of downloadable content that have came out since then.

The Stone Prisoner

This was included with some Special Edition copies of Dragon Age: Origins, and available for fifteen dollars as a post-purchase download.

Fifteen dollars may seem a lot for what seems like a shoehorned-in extra companion, but the character in question is as well-realised (or more so) as any of the already included comrades. Shale is a unique character, a golem built in the first wars against the Blight, and aside from coming with her own unique ability tree and items, she’s a very interesting addition to the team. In a game already full of great voice acting, she stands out like… well, like an eight-foot tall rock monster with a Judi Dench-esque dry wit and a pathological hatred of birds.

She comes with two quests, and segues nicely into the existing character relationships, with as much to say regarding your choices as anyone else. Her conversations with the chirpy bard Leiliana are particularly hilarious.

Watcher’s Keep

What I found less impressive was the Watcher’s Keep DLC, heralded as an opportunity to gain your own headquarters (a lá Baldur’s Gate 2/Neverwinter Nights 2) and a unique perspective on the history of the Grey Wardens themselves.

Well… it’s just not. Admittedly it’ll cost you a little more than a fiver, and it’s a perfectly acceptable way to spend an hour, but there’s simply not much there. A set of armour, two new abilities, and another merchant simply isn’t up to the same calibre as The Stone Prisoner, and from the way it was advertised, I expected the headquarters mechanic to be exploited a lot more. It’s as polished as anything else in the game, but there’s simply not a whole lot there.

As a game like this is designed for the modding scene, it’s very pleasing to see that Bioware included a snappy little mod-installer which allows plug-in mods to be switched in and out with ease.

The Final Word

Play it. Go play Dragon Age: Origins now, and if you honestly don’t get a silly grin on your face when you see your hero leap into the air and decapitate an ogre in slow motion, or shiver when you find out where the Darkspawn come from, or fall in love with at least two of the companions, or giggle when Alastair and Morrigan start bitching at each other…

Well I liked it. But I’m easy.