Recently, I finished my first playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins, which is easily the best game of 2009. And while I’m already well into my second playthrough, I’ve got a lot to say about the game. I’ll try to keep mention of any game-specific events very vague to avoid spoilers, but if you’re extremely sensitive to anything that might be vaguely construed as a spoiler, be forewarned.
I played on the PC, which from what I’ve heard is the best platform on which to experience Dragon Age. As the game is a spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate series, I was almost surprised to see it appear on consoles, although I’m sure that the appearance of XBox 360 and PS3 versions boosted sales substantially.
More than anything else, what struck me about Dragon Age is the emotional impact the game’s story and characters had on me. From the moment my character’s family was slain in the origin story to the brutal reality of the Grey Warden joining ceremony to the tragedy at Ostagar, the game’s events struck a chord with me. When characters died, I felt empathy for the loss that the game characters were feeling. When Alistair and I triumphed, I felt a camaraderie with my brother-in-arms. And when I said the wrong thing and upset Leliana, I felt the feeling of foot-in-mouth that only males can feel when talking to a significant other. The game’s writing and characters are simply excellent.
In so many games, when something bad happens, I’ll reload from a save. But I was so engrossed in the story of Dragon Age that when my character was captured and his equipment taken, I continued playing and forced myself to accept the loss of my best weapons and armor. And I felt a real sense of loss, as if I’d lost some real physical property – those were some really nice weapons, and I lost the grand master runestones too.
My main character was a rogue, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Dragon Age gives you three character classes, and unlike in other RPGs, no class ever feels useless. Many times I’ve played RPGs and found that the bard class, the monk class, or even the thief class was severely underpowered and unbalanced. But with Dragon Age and its three classes, that never ends up being the case. The mage is exactly what you’d expect: weak in toe-to-toe combat unless given time to prepare defensive magic, but powerful in terms of ranged attack and control spells. The fighter and rogue classes are both huge damage-dealers in close melee, but the fighter is generally the armored tank, whereas the bulk of the rogue’s damage comes from skill use and backstabs, which makes tactical positioning very important.
For the majority of the game, I had Alistair and Wynne with my main character. Alistair is simply an amazingly powerful tank, and since I’d alienated Morrigan early on in the game, Wynne was the only mage available to me. For my final character slot, I rotated between Leliana, Shale, and my dog who I named “Burton”, after Jack Burton. In my second playthrough, I’m making heavy use of Sten, Morrigan, and Zevran, none of whom I really used in my first playthrough.
It’s hard not to compare Dragon Age to the old Infinity Engine games, i.e. Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale. But while they compare favorably on most counts, having better graphics, a better UI that shows you spell effect areas before casting, and very well-crafted custom game mechanics, the one thing I found lacking was exploration. One of the joys of Baldur’s Gate was tromping through areas of wilderness, caves and dungeons that weren’t related to the main plot, and dozens of other areas that were purely optional. Dragon Age has none of that. While there are many areas that are off the beaten path, they generally appear as a linear portion of one of the game’s main quests. Few are optional.
Not to knock Minsc and Boo, but the characters in Dragon Age are better than the characters in Baldur’s Gate in every respect. I remember Yoshimo’s betrayal, I remember Minsc losing Dynaheir, and I remember Imoen coming out as your character’s sister, but none of them stand out like the character moments that Alistair and Morrigan have in Dragon Age. And only Minsc’s dialogue could ever approach the hilarious writing Bioware put into characters like Alistair and Oghren. “Well, fart me a lullaby!”
My second character is a mage, and she’ll be a bit looser on the ethical points than my first character was, so as to see some different plot. I’ve already recruited werewolves and templars rather than elves and mages. The game told me that I’ve seen less than half of Dragon Age’s content, so I look forward to seeing what else is out there.
