Back when Gamestop was still a thing they used to offer this ”buy 3 & get the cheapest one for free” sale or something, which of course let me to get many games I still haven’t touched, like Total War: Napoleon, R.U.S.E., and Dragon Age: Origins. First two I understand because I'm not the biggest strategy game fan, but DA? It was such a big thing when I was younger and praised everywhere. so why I never played it?
That I do not know, but this year I finally gave it a try. And maybe it was a good thing that I waited so long, because I can see myself getting bored with it at younger age. On it's worse Dragon Age: Origins is outdated, slow and difficult, but at the same time it has immersive world and characters, and certain charm which is hard to explain. But I'll try.
The Bad
Let's start with the negatives. I realize that this game is already 13 years old (released in 2009) and many of the mechanics are outdated. Graphics look pretty good still, at least on my potato PC. Gameplay itself reminds me of Runescape or something because you can click stuff instead using WASD, which you can use too though so it's up to you which one you like more. I prefer WASD movement and I really hoped that DA would offered some kind of way to look around with mouse without keeping mouse button down all the time, but what can you do? Maybe there's a mod for that. Otherwise control are your typical western RPG stuff, nothing fancy but they work.
I have very complicated feeling about the world and story of DA. Even though my sessions lasted hours without me even realizing that, yet I still found the world underwhelming. DA offers your generic fantasy setting with all the elements we're grown to expect, and at the times it felt too much Lord of the Rings ripoff - I personally prefer something like Tales from Earthsea. There was little bit Witcher but not enough. But when the game is good, you can overlook some generic aspects easily. What irritated me though was the main story. I never felt engaged to this ''Grey Warden, save the world'' stuff, I just wanted to adventure with Leliana and Shale. Game forces you to make big decisions, which is normal for story-driven games but it's kinda weird that young mage, who just left the Mage's Circle would suddenly be the most influencing character in the whole country. In Skyrim this works because that game is silly, but in DA's more serious settings it's just... weird. Dragon Age's world feels empty - we have these huge fight scenes with thousand of troops, but when you enter the biggest city in the game there's like ten or twenty people. I understand this as a technical limitation, but still.
I also have problem with male gaze that's going on. it's not so bad as I expected, but still especially Morrigan, a character you meet early in the game, feels mostly just some developers sexual fantasy and not a real person (just look at the outfit they gave to her). This goes with many characters in the game, as they lack some personality - for example another early game character you meet, Alistair, has no understanding for anything that is little bit ''grey'', where as earlier mentioned Morrigan gets angry when you act like a good person. Worldview of DA characters is too black and white for my preferences. To DA's credit, it sexualizes a lot of male characters too (Zevran, I'm looking at you) but it either way all the romance stuff feels forced. Male - female stereotypes live strongly in the world of DA.
I need to play other games in the franchise and maybe Mass Effect games too, because I feel that there's a lot to analyze on how these Bioware games represent sexuality and gender stereotypes. But that's something for the future. I just wanted to bring out how I felt while playing, as I remember gaming magazines and communities praising the romance in DA back in the day. Representation has developed since then, thankfully.
The Good
It might almost sound like I didn't like Dragon Age: Origins at all but that's not the case - I really enjoyed my playthrough. Game has charm but mostly it's very addicting. It's just hard to stop playing as there's always a new quest waiting or some new interactions to... interact? What a sentence. Even though I said some negative things about the interactions and socializing with the characters, in many occasions this interactivity is the best thing about the game. Other characters really take notice on what you're doing, comment on those things and even have deep conversations about yours and their actions during the story, which adds to the overall experience. I especially like the dislike between Morrigan and Alistair, as these two are always on each others nerves. Leliana to has some great interactions with other characters. Others on my party, not so much. It's clear on which few characters developer gave most of their time.
Combat was pretty good, and once you get a hold of it, it's pretty tactical too. I was playing as a mage which gave a whole new level to playing as I couldn't just ran into battle and smash everything into pieces. Instead I enjoyed striking my enemies with spells that made them freeze from horror, fall asleep or just unleash an fire tornado on them. I tried other classes a little bit through the other characters on my party, but only golem one (Shale) felt a little bit interesting compared to what I normally tend to play. Enemies were little bit on the stupider side, but that's fine as so am I.
Game is a little bit clunky sometimes, which gave me some good laughs - for example I was on flames on the final scene. It's always fun to play a game that's just enough broken.
And that's my thoughts on Dragon Age: Origins. It's a really good game, but would I play it through again? Probably not. But if you like old school RPGs and being social with computer people this might be just a perfect game for you.
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