Dragon Age: Origins

At the time of writing, it has been nearly 55 hours since I begun my adventure through the realms of Bioware’s latest fantasy-RPG Dragon Age: Origins, the game continually taunts me by stating that i’ve explored 54% of its world and if that wasn’t enough i’ve only currently managed to complete 30% of the game. There’s no doubt about it RPG fans, this is a game that is set to consume many hours – yet the big question remains, is it worth it?

As you’d hope within all RPG titles, Dragon Age: Origins has an incredibly deep storyline, if one that doesn’t seem a little similar to some aspects of Tolkien’s acclaimed Lord of the Rings in places. A unique feature to the title is that the player will begin the game in one of six ‘Origin’ stories depending on which they choose within the game’s initial character creation menu. For these, your options are Human Noble, Human/Elf Mage, Dalish Elf, City Elf, Dwarf Commoner or Dwarf Noble. The ‘Origin’ acts as a Prologue to the main game, and each provide an insight into the background to each race and class, as well as a tutorial to introduce you to the game mechanics. However your choice doesn’t just affect the beginning of the game either, as it will also determine how the NPC’s will respond to you when you’re past your Origin story.

Having completed your chosen Origin you will then meet Duncan, the leader of a group of soldiers known as the Grey Wardens, and you learn that it is your destiny to become their newest recruit. As you will discover, the Grey Wardens dedicate their lives to the destruction of the Darkspawn, demonic creatures that rise from the depths of the surface.

Your recruitment comes at a time of great peril to the world – under the influence of an Archdemon, a Greater Being held within the body of an enormously powerful Dragon, the Darkspawn are amassing a huge force that is set to overwhelm those on the surface. Such an occurence, known as ‘The Blight,’ has occurred for many centuries with each being repelled at great cost to each of the world’s three races; Dwarves, Elves and Humans.

The player must then seek to unite the Dalish elves of the Brecilian Forest, the Dwarves of the Kingdom of Orzammar, the Circle of Magi, and Arl Eamon’s forces from Redcliffe, in aiding them as they seek to fight back the Darkspawn, destroy the Archdemon and bring an end to the Blight that threatens the world’s existence.

Bioware described Dragon Age: Origins as being the ’spiritual successor’ to their highly acclaimed Baldur’s Gate series, and clear references and similarities to the PC game are evident throughout this title. Like its predecessor, navigating the world of Ferelden is solely done by the use of a map. Having selected your chosen destination – which can be anywhere that you’ve discovered through conversation or in-game events – inkblots will mark your journey towards it from your present location. Along the way, there is the chance that you will be ambushed by a group of random marauding enemies at which point you’ll load up into a short skirmish that you’ll have to win in order to progress. This doesn’t occur too often however, yet provides an extra opportunity to gain more XP to level up your characters. Whilst some may consider the use of a map a disappointment following the vast landscapes and explorative qualities of previous titles such as Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, it serves a purpose of streamlining the game experience rather than letting you wander randomly.

In terms of combat mechanics, the player must make use of a variety of skills that are unlocked as they level their character up. These are either accessed through a radial wheel, or through two sets of hot keys assigned to Square, Triangle and Circle (or X, Y and B) that you can flit between with R2 or Right Trigger. Such skills encompass rechargeable attacks or spells, use of healing items etc, so you’ll have to carefully select which you want to access quickly against those that you’ll use less and can navigate to via the wheel – the game pauses when you use this, whereas the hot keys aren’t. You can also switch between the characters within your chosen party, meaning that you are never tied to just using the character that you created – this is a great asset to the title and adds variety to the combat, as well as allowing you to get a taste for each character class.

As you will only ever control one of the four party members, the other three will follow scripted AI commands that you can set yourself. For those that have played Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XII this is rather similar to the Gambit system, and allows you to classify the AI behaviour for each character (i.e. Defender, Scrapper, Healer etc). This will then provide a set of rules based upon an “If X occurs then use Y skill,” for example as an Archer one of my characters rules could be “If Enemy: Target is using melee or ranged attack, then use Crippling Shot skill.” This would allow the archer to pin the enemy in place for a short time and then be able to back away from its damage range. You can have as little or as much involvement in setting up the Tactics System, but it does work well when set up correctly. Some preset settings do occassionally not work so well, as I did find that the Healer character that you meet used up far too much mana in a short space of time rather than using little and often. It’s certainly a beneficial inclusion, and as you level up you will be able to choose whether you want to gain additional Tactic slots allowing you to set more AI rules for your party members.

As for levelling up, a key element of all RPG titles these days, each time you fill your XP bar you will be granted the opportunity to spend points across the usual Strength, Dexterity, Willpower, etc statistics but more importantly the ability to choose both a new Skill and Talent providing new game play or combat options for your character. These are too numerous to mention, but Skills cover elements such as making traps, poison, stealth and picking locks whereas Talents are more relevant to class and include new combat abilities and spells. This allows for a great deal of customisation across the entire party, and each time you level up you’ll be spending a few minutes deciding what would better strengthen your current set up.

As with other Bioware titles character development and relationships take great importance here. As you build up your companions – the game allows you to venture with a total of four characters at once – you will be able to present them with gifts and engage in dialogue in an attempt to gain favour with them. Of course, make the wrong conversational option and you’ll either lose favour or gain a reduced amount. Maintaining good relationships with your party in the game isn’t really a necessity but those that take an interest in delving deeper into their backgrounds will unlock bonus skills for them by doing so, or even be able to encounter the possibility of romance/ bromance depending on which sexual orientation you wish for your character (you can sleep with both men and women if you’re feeling adventurous.) This is done tactifully, yet it is nice to see that if you do become romantically involved with a certain character it affects your relationships with other party members as to how they feel about it.

Finally, the titles graphics were a minor disappointment in comparison to the technical achievements that Bioware have created within Mass Effect 1 + 2 for example. Here, many will find that the world itself lacks the polish required to truly immerse you, yet still provides a dark and gritty atmosphere in keeping with the games plot. Alongside this, the voiceover work are certainly commendable with noteworthy contributions by both Claudia Black and Tim Curry, though the animation during conversational scenes again don’t overly make the world believable and unfortunately seem far too wooden in places.

The world itself gains more depth from the series of Codex pages that you can collect on your journey, that act as a Dragon Age Encyclopaedia. Here you can learn more about the races, places and events that provide a history to the world of Ferelden.

Overall, Dragon Age: Origins provides an incredibly deep fantasy RPG experience unlike any other that we’ve seen over past years. Its vast quests, variety of characters and deep storyline are enough to draw you in for hours on end, as well as the fact that the multitude of ‘Origin’ stories each provide a new experience for the player. Now if you’ll excuse me, i’m off to while away another chunk of my life playing it…

Lost Gamer Verdict: 9/10