Dragon Age is not Mass Effect. It’s not Knights of the Old Republic or Jade Empire either. While these most recent BioWare titles are great in their own right, it almost seemed as though as a studio they opted for a simplified approach, moving away somewhat from what made their games popular to begin with. So when the first information started coming out about Dragon Age: Origins, referring to it as the successor to Baldur’s Gate 2, a lot of people including myself were very skeptical. It’s time to douse that fear fire because Dragon Age: Origins is here to bring back the truly epic and heavy handed RPG, doing so with great gusto, no apologies, and complete awesome.

You start off Dragon Age: Origins just like most other RPGs by picking your gender, race, and class then customizing your appearance. You can either select from a set of preset looks, or get down into it by adjusting things like the space between your eyes or the slope of your nose. The most interesting thing here is that based upon your race and class, you’ll be put into a specific background. For example, I chose to be a male human soldier as a main character and was given the background of a Human Noble. There are six total backgrounds and each of them is tied to a specific origin story. Each story is completely unique, lasts about an hour, and will tell the story about how your character joins the ranks of the Grey Wardens. Once that happens, the world map opens up to explore.

Travel is handled by simply looking at a map of locations and picking whichever you’d like, in whatever order you want. The world map will become more populated as you obtain quests from characters throughout, and some of the larger locations even have their own sub-map of locations that need to be filled in. While traveling point to point, sometimes you’ll experience some random encounters that can be caravans, bandits, or even a lonely couple that found a boy who sounds strangely like Superman. One of the minor issues with this game pops up while visiting your party camp or with some of these random encounters. While everything is designed specifically to really get lost in the land of Ferelden, you’ll encounter certain people that will literally ask you to buy downloadable content. It certainly could have been handled a little better and completely shatters the illusion.

Without getting too specific, a very large portion of the story revolves around your quest to unite different factions around the kingdom of Ferelden. As a Grey Warden, you are sworn to do what others before you have done: defend the world against the blight of the Darkspawn. Unification is paramount in repelling this evil force that has been dormant for over 400 years… and that time span is certainly part of a larger problem. While many around the kingdom understand what a Grey Warden is and what their job revolves around, they’re not about to drop everything just to help you out. Each need their own brand of convincing, and it’s all up to you about how you take care of things. In fact, with every different force, you’ll have a big decision to make as to how you handle it, and these decisions will typically make someone really happy, and piss off some others. There’s plenty of wheel greasing, naughtiness, and intrigue going on in about a billion quests.

Many games with “a lot to do” can fall into the rutt of just throwing a different coat of paint on a wall… You’d end up doing the same things over and over, but for different people or in a different place. Not Dragon Age though; I don’t recall a single side quest that repeated. Each feels unique while providing more depth to an extremely well realized world as well as some cool weapons and armor. There’s a veritible ton of gear available as well… some are just plain ole items, some with unique abilities, and others that you can add runes to in order to customize them to your liking. Over the course of the game though, you’ll find a lot of junk so it’s nice to be able to throw all of that into a specified junk inventory window and sell it off at the next merchant with the press of a button. Along with normal gear for your party, you’ll be able to buy or create traps and potions. The depth to the inventory system is impressively staggering.

The fiction in DA:O is mostly derivative, being based upon archetypes you’ve seen a million times before. If you know Lord of the Rings or Dungeons and Dragons, you pretty much know what to expect here. You’ll see Dwarves acting like dwarves, living underground; Humans act like you’d expect them to and seem always to be out for themselves. You’ve even got the major antagonist race in the game based upon the Uruk-hai in Tolkien’s Middle-earth. About the only thing that’s not within the norm is that elves aren’t the majestic creatures they have been in the past and often are treated like scum and in some cases, forced to live separately from humans in major cities. Utilizing these known types helps breed a sense of familiarity and helps lay the groundwork for one heckuva fleshed out universe.

Your Grey Warden’s narrative and story are superb as is the execution. If Dragon Age were a book, it would best be described as a page turner. Throughout my entire time with the game, not once would I shut off the console without saying “I wonder what’ll happen next.” To help stick you into the world, all of the non-player characters are fully voiced and the quality of dialog is top notch. At first during conversations, you may be put off mildly by the fact your character doesn’t actually speak, but by utilizing the dialog trees you’ll simply read what your character will say instead of hearing it. Considering the amount of talking that you’ll be doing, this is certainly for the best. You had best watch what you say as well, there are certain things you can’t take back that may cause someone to just whip out their sword to dispatch your sas mouth. In the very first city, I had tried to help a man who was being held prisoner within a hanging cage, however my incorrect word choices with his captor caused that intent to be skewered. I’m pretty sure he’s dead now.

Not only will your words and actions effect NPCs, but it will also change the way party members view you. They’ve got their own notions about how the world should work and what they want ‘their’ Grey Warden to do and will often try to sway your decision as you’re making it. If you go against those wishes too many times, theres a good chance they’ll just up and leave you. But, if you just do what they want, you’ll get the opportunity to open additional side quests specific to those characters or even get in their pants. Too bad the sexual relations in DA:O feel quite strange (Mass Effect handled them much better).

In terms of general gameplay, you’ll take control of up to four characters in your party and walk through the world in third person. At any time you can swap between each party member and issue specific commands. Those are given by either a set of customizable hotkeys unique to each character, or a radial menu that will pause the action until a command is given. I would have liked to have the “pause ’till I’m ready” button that the PC has, but this system works well enough within combat. Additionally, there is a fairly deep customizable tactics screen that allows you to basically issue commands based upon certain situations. Always want your party to attack the most heavily armored foe? Done. Chug a health potion at 25% health? No problem. You can easily lose hours tweaking the tactics for your entire party as well as individual characters to make sure they’re always doing what they should be without constantly needing to control them directly.

One particular area I am always concerned about when playing through lengthy games is the possibility of general game fatigue. I could either grow tired of the story, get lost on side missions, or start to hate the general mechanics and ultimately just shut off the game with a “I’ll come back to this later” thought, never to return. Thankfully, that just wasn’t the case here at all. With plenty of different endings, six origin stories each changing the world’s perception of you, and having a plethora of important decisions to make throughout, you’ll certainly get your money’s worth. As long as you’ve got the gumption and staying power, you won’t find a better true RPG on the market for this generation.

Score: 5 out of 5

The Good
Simply the best RPG so far this generation.
Fantastic voice work and orchestral score.
Tons and tons of content.

The Bad
The Deep Roads felt a little bit too long.
Some of the texture work looks a bit muddy.

The Ugly
“Hey, can you help me out bud? All you have to do is (DOWNLOAD CONTENT).”

Writer’s Notes
First Playthrough: 33h26m
Character: Maker, Male Human Noble Warrior, Level: 21
Normal Party: Maker, Morrigan, Shale, Zevran
Achievements Obtained: 37 of 54
Number of Dragons Killed: 3
DLC Completed: Warden’s Keep, The Stone Prisoner

Originally posted on Evil Avatar.