Dragon Age Origins Review & Game Analysis

By Justin Bolduc

Xbox Live Gamertag – TheSaddestDay

BioWare has made a habit of deep role-playing games with exciting stories, detailed worlds, and quality game play.  Having already brought us incredible games such as Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and Neverwinter Nights, BioWare has recently released Dragon Age: Origins on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.  What stands out about DAO though is the scale and depth of the game.

Featuring roughly double the scope of Mass Effect, DAO thrusts you into a detailed story that unfolds over several hours of play time.  The basic story revolves around the Darkspawn threatening the safety of Ferelden.  The beasts, led by an arch demon, have emerged from the underground in vast numbers.  This is the first incident in hundreds of years and many people question whether or not it is a true Blight.

Stopping the Darkspawn invasions over time has been the Grey Wardens who are an elite order of elves, humans, and dwarves.  Since the last Blight the number of Grey Wardens has dropped sharply, and to make matters worse Ferelden is on the brink of a major civil war.

Throughout the story your in-game Codex helps document everything from religion to beasts, and even characters and plot points.  It is an incredibly detailed and helpful tool that does a great job of really making you understand the world you are thrown into.  The history of Ferelden is thorough and exciting to learn throughout your adventures.

A key to DAO is the character creation.  You decide between playing a male or female, and then have a choice between three races (human, dwarf, and elf).  After selecting a race you then choose your class which are warrior, rogue, and mage.  Humans and elves can play each class while the dwarves are limited only to warriors and rogues.  While the initial class selection is incredibly limited, through the game you can unlock specializations through manuals, party members, or special characters throughout the world.  For example, one specialization allows mages to become shapeshifters, allowing the caster to transform into a spider or bear.

Along with the standard fare, you are also able to select between several hairstyles, tattoos, skin tones, skin complexions, as well as adjust sliders for everything from nose size to eye shape.  There is a lot to work with to really make your hero your own.

One of the bigger decisions you face has to do with your character's background.  There are six different backgrounds to play through which are decided by your race and class.  The decision impacts how the world views you throughout the game.  Each origin starts out differently and in different areas of Ferelden, which affects each new play-through.  While the meat and bones of the game remains the same, this does offer some variety.  Additionally, a character may possibly return to their starting area and come across characters from the very beginning.  For example, starting as a city elf you can return to Denerim and see friends who will react to you based on your initial actions when you started and your continued actions throughout the game.

While having six origins is exciting, it is also somewhat disappointing.  One of the biggest letdowns of DAO was how the origins simply ran their course so quickly and did not have a stronger impact on the entirety of the game.  This is offset though by exciting side plots and great character development.  The morale choices you make throughout the game have a strong impact on the world and its inhabitants and the members of your party are all exciting and intriguing.

And your choices definitely do matter.  Some situations will open side quests and close off others, and there are choices which will either gain you a new party member or prevent you from being able to have one join you.  Also your actions impact how your party views you and if you make a member unhappy enough they may very well leave.

Relationships with your party members are worthwhile as well, and not just an afterthought.  If they like you and agree with your choices you will open up stat bonuses.  Continue to gain their loyalty and you can unlock side quests and even romantic story lines.  If you find yourself letting a group member down though, don't worry.  DAO includes items known as gifts, which you can give to a party member for a loyalty boost.

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On top of a robust story and great characters, DAO also features a fun combat system.  You can either play in real-time or with pausing and micromanagement.  In both scenarios you can set tactics for your party members to act out based on certain scenarios, such as taking a health potion when at 25% or fewer hit points.  With pausing and micromanagement you can really be picky about how battles unfold, which can be a wise strategy in boss battles or when heavily outnumbered.  But one fun way to play, which is also challenging, is to play through in real-time.  While playing in real-time you are challenged with monitoring health and energy levels, as well as skills and cool downs. 

Combat is exciting, featuring combos such as shattering frozen enemies, dazzling spells, and special attacks for kills and critical hits – such as spinning decapitations.  Enemies drop the usual gold and loot.  One combat annoyance however was how enemies weren't really scaled appropriately, which has since been fixed somewhat.  Some encounters would feature enemies far too difficult to engage, or then some enemies who would simply die in a single hit. 

The presentation of the game is good, but a bit under expectations.  The voice acting and dialogue are great and the cinematic videos make your heart race.  The graphics and models though look somewhat outdated and your created character will yell out random phrases that have nothing to do with anything.  One example was one of my characters constantly yelling out “Will you get off my back” repeatedly over anything ranging from combat to opening a door.  The music though is some of the best you will find in any video game.  The score is amazing and really helps set the tone of the game. 

Overall BioWare hit the nail on the head and delivered an incredible role-playing game.  Downloadable content has already been released and the game provides good re-playability due to the variances you can achieve through class specialization and morale choices.  If you are a fan of BioWare you can't go wrong with DAO and you should find yourself pulled in for dozens of hours of exciting game play and an enthralling story.