I had to use an unofficial fan fix and launcher to get this game to run. Steam says I have about 30 minutes but it’s more like 40 hours.
Dragon Age: Origins is Bioware’s fantasy title alongside Mass Effect being Bioware’s Sci fi title. Like how there’s Warcraft and Starcraft or Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k.
True to it’s name, Dragon Age: Origins is basically an origin story for both the world of Faedas and you as a character. After choosing your backstory between a human, an Elf, a Dwarf, and then your sex and where you actually come from, you embark on a journey to become a Grey Warden and stop the Darkspawn from taking over the world and pooping in the water supply.
I’ve played this game probably a dozen times or so since 2009, but I am one of those mouth breathers that plays Male Human Warrior every chance he gets so this time I decided to mix things up.
So I was a Male Dwarf Warrior. Exciting.
So Grimgos, a Casteless from the Dwarven city of Orzammar, embarks on a journey to stop the Blight and find out if what they say about human women is true.
A throwback to Bioware games of old (for the time), Dragon Age Inquisition has the once famous now infamous developers return to their roots and make a Real-time with Pause RPG in line with Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 and KOTOR. Its sort of like a big love letter to their original games without the baggage of being related to an existing property like Star Wars or Dungeons and Dragons. Mind you, this was after Jade Empire and Mass Effect so Bioware was already cutting their chops on making their own settings and franchises now.
Not including Shattered Steel, I mean.
Honestly, this is probably my 6th or so time going through the game, somehow convincing myself not to play a Male Human Warrior with a sword and shield for once in my life.
This time I played a Male Dwarf Warrior with a sword and shield, really breaking new grounds there. The game is basically a MMO where you control the whole party, I don’t think I need to tell you the differences between a warrior, a rogue, or a mage that you haven’t read a bunch of times before.
Honestly, I really like it, its like playing a small scale RTS in a way. I don’t really have as much experience with RTWP games as you’d think I would, but I felt right at home with the normal mode of Dragon Age. I always played this game on Easy when I was younger, this was because I was a huge wuss and didn’t like having friendly fire. But Normal is perfectly doable.
I would say that Dragon Age is a good starting point if you’re getting into the genre. The combat is easy enough to understand and you get a good grip on how everything works before you finish Ostagar, the tutorial area.
A big thing that lets Dragon Age stand out from other games in the genre, especially FOR THE TIME, was the production value. Everyone is voiced, even if you hear the same guy, sometimes in the same room, voice multiple characters, it makes it easier for you to pay attention if you’re the kind of person that has a favorite flavor of glue.
From how a friend who’s hyper into CRPGs described the differences between Dragon Age and older games in the series to me, DAO is basically babby’s first CRPG. Its all there, world maps you travel around, huge expansive lores, histories you’re expected to remember, its just fed to you in a way that it won’t scare off people that hated this stuff when they were in High school.
I mean that in the nicest way possible.
There’s some variations from playing one “Origins” over the other. The Elves in Dragon Age are basically an oppressed under-class, and you being what is essentially a dark fantasy Jedi, you’re suddenly higher on the hierarchical ladder than most people who know what a Grey Warden is.
Which means you can pull the race card and it’s awesome.
Other than that and some off comments from people, your origin doesn’t really come into play that much. If you’re a Human noble then sometimes people who recognize you will call you “Ser Cousland” rather than “Warden.”
As a Dwarf Commoner, which is basically a Dwarf without a caste in a caste heavy society, guards will treat you badly and nobles and Caste dwarves will straight up treat you like trash, unless they’re particularly nice.
You actually have a pretty interesting conversation with a party member if you bring it up later on. With his background as an Elf coming from a human society and you being a downtrodden castless most of your life, you actually have a lot in common.
Its interesting to me how Bioware just had this monopoly on “Comfort games” for a bit from 2008 to around 2010 or so. A lot of people played these games just to interact with the characters and enjoy the worlds. They were big in the romances back then (and I think now? I don’t really play many modern Bioware games) and yeah I like the romance in Dragon Age, I think they’re cute.
But that’s really all they are, they’re “Cute”, you aren’t going to be getting an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind kind of deal with these games.
I don’t think they understood just how well they had it, Bioware basically had it in the bag and then fumbled way too hard for it to be understandable. I don’t know if it was EA meddling or whatever, but its interesting going from one Dragon Age game to the other.
I really liked Dragon Age: Origins, I liked the world and characters and I thought the combat was fun. Its probably not the most in depth CRPG, but as a foot in the door to get into the genre, I think you don’t really have all that many options outside of this and what Larian is putting out.
But like I said, EA hasn’t really been keeping up with this game. If you want to play it you’ll have to get a fan fix and put in the work, which itself is easy but still kind of annoying.
With the Steam version of Dragon Age: Origins, you’ll also get the expansion pack Awakening as well as all the other DLC that came out. Just be prepared to do some work if you want to take your saved world state from DAO to DA2 and DAI.
Dragon Age: Origins gets 8 Alistair comments out of 10.
The guy who sang the Peanut Butter Jelly Time song was killed in a police shootout.
[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/7124597/]Drink my blood. [/url]
