Instead of creating another set of successful Dungeons & Dragons or Star Wars game, BioWare has moved on to create a fantasy and a sci-fi universe all by themselves, and done so successfully no less.

But then again they should have full confidence in their abilities to create excellent games. Both the Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic have been smash hits and bring back fond memories in any RPG fan that has played them. Dragon Age: Origins has been five years in the making, and the expectations have been appropriately high. There’s no doubt that Dragon Age met or surpassed those expectations. It’s a highly polished, classical epic fantasy RPG with an intricate world on par with (or even better than) Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series.

Sharing tales by the campfire

Basically, Dragon Age is a back-to-roots, traditional RPG. After the prologue you get more or less open access to the whole game world. Your task is to unite the different factions of Ferelden against a common enemy – you’ll need to get support from dwarfs, elfs and mages and prevent a civil war from breaking out among the humans. The common enemy is an army of creatures from the underworld known as Darkspawn who are ruled by an arch demon that you’ll eventually have to put an end to.

Background, Classes and Cast of Characters

Depending on your class and race you start in different locations and get different openings. Warriors and rouges start in the Cousland family castle in Highever; as the youngest family member you are assigned with the less-than-exciting prospect of protecting the castle while your brother and dad head out to war. Naturally, things don’t turn out quite as expected and before you know it you are enrolled into a mysterious group known as the Gray Wardens. Soon enough you’ll be out hacking ugly trolls to pieces.

DIE you ugly bastard, DIE!

Starting as a Cousland noble is of course only one of six different backgrounds – all of which are worth trying out even if you don’t plan on playing the entire game with each of the classes. Throughout the whole game there are different choices and multiple dialog paths, making each playthrough a unique experience.

Choosing the Mage class gives you a different starting point

Just like in the old classic Baldur’s Gate, you don’t create a full adventuring party – instead you meet potential party members that are all tied to the story line. Each of the characters has a unique personality and all of them will not agree with the choices you make. If they feel sufficiently let down they may leave your party permanently. On the flip side, if their approval rating is high enough they will receive stat bonuses and in some cases unlock romance options.

Party Selection Screen

All of these well-chiseled characters add tremendously to the overall experience – you will sometimes feel it appropriate to forego otherwise beneficial choices just to gain more trust with a certain character. The fickle witch Morrigan, for example, will not approve if you are too timid or agreeable. The bard Leliana on the other hand, won’t like it if you’re too brutish. Therefore it’s also important to select the right party members depending on how you want to play the game.

Gameplay

Just like nearly all other BioWare RPGs the game is real-time with an option to pause the game to assign tasks and spells, which gives it kind of a turn-based component. In the normal and difficult settings, it is absolutely necessary to pause the game occasionally to consider your strategy.

Each character also has a number of “tactics slots” that you can assign for specific situations – if their health drops beneath a pre-defined level you can set them to knock back a potion; optionally, if one of the characters is surrounded you can have him use a protective spell or have another come to his aid. These are just examples of course, and you’re allowed to be very specific with these contingency plans.

Yes, there are dragons in the game. Prepare well before taking them on.

Fights are very well balanced and the system works flawlessly. However, Dragon Age is a quite difficult game and even the best laid plans can go wrong. Thankfully the game auto-saves right before any particularly tricky situation, so there’s rarely a need to replay an entire dungeon.

Graphics and Sound

Without being groundbreaking in any way, Dragon Age looks great and runs fairly well even on older computers. The environments are very detailed – especially cities and other key areas, but the dungeons are not your average, randomly generated mazes either. If you are able to turn the details knob up a little, you will see that the textures for armor and weapons are intricately detailed.

Fun with nude patches

There’s plenty of mature content in Dragon Age and lots of gore. With the “persistent gore” option your characters will basically be covered in blood from start to finish.

The voice acting is well above average, and for a game this size you can only imagine the amount of work that BioWare have had to put into it. Unlike Mass Effect, however, the main character remains nearly silent throughout Dragon Age aside from a few battle cries and other Baldur’s Gate-like one-liners. The soundtrack is well balanced and improves the atmosphere whether you’re in camp or in the middle of an epic battle.

Conclusion

With very few exceptions, Dragon Age: Origins meets all of the high expectations on it and is almost the perfect fantasy RPG. There is plenty to do in the game besides the huge main quest, and counting the DLC available now as well as future expansions the game will literally last for hundreds of hours. Dragon Age may well be BioWare’s best RPG since the Baldur’s Gate series, and that says a lot.

Tags | Bioware, Dragon Age, featured