I have to say, I'm surprised I'm the first one to review this game, considering how many fans of it I've seen on here...ah well. Enjoy~
Introduction
Initially, I was somewhat put-off by Dragon Age Origins, and delayed on buying it – the battle system looked to be something best suited for the PC (turns out I was viewing the PC demo...) and it didn’t appear to have much substance to it. However, almost immediately after its release it was getting an insane amount of praise, and my curiosity finally got the better of me and I got it for Christmas along with my PS3. It was more appealing than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, anyway...
...roughly forty hours and two files later, here I am, reviewing it and considering starting a third file for the Warrior experience. XD
Storyline: 8.7/10
Dragon Age is somewhat unique in that it has six different beginnings, based on what race and class you choose. For example, if you’re a mage, you’ll start at the Circle of Magi as an initiate. If you’re a Dalish elf, you’ll start in the forest, removed from everyone else. Each story ends up the same way – you meet Duncan, a Grey Warden, and due to one thing or another, you’re taken to Ostagar, to be recruited into the Grey Wardens to defend against the upcoming Blight. After your initiation, you’re promptly thrown into the thick of it. However, things don’t go precisely as planned in the battle.
Dragon Age sees you exploring the world of Ferelden, gathering allies for the eventual final battle against the Archdemon. No surprises or twists – your enemy is clearly outlined from the beginning, and you’ve got an overall goal. However, the story comes from the telling of how you reach that goal. Ferelden has more troubles than just the Blight – you may go to the elves and petition for allies, but the elves are being attacked by werewolves. So you’ve got to rid them of the pests before they’ll pledge their support. But things aren’t entirely what they seem. As you may expect, you have to branch out a great deal before you’re finally ready to tackle the Archdemon – and then you’ve got even more to worry about.
At some point, you will also encounter characters directly relating to your Origin story, making the story you picked feel part of the overall picture, and not just a random choice designed to add to the life of the game. Dialogue, events and your codex will change accordingly.
The premise for DA adds nothing new to the tables – evil armies, treachery, a small band of heroes out to save the world – we’ve seen all this stuff before. If its originality you’re looking for in a story, you might want to look elsewhere, this is traditional high fantasy through and through. However, the level of detail in the world is what gets it such high marks. In a similar manner to Oblivion, there are Codex scattered throughout the world, and they provide a great deal of information about past, present and future events. There are several novels worth of history here, and if you just plough through the game ignoring the Codex, you’ve barely touched on the storyline. You write your own story through the quests you do, as well.
This game has mountains of text, as well. You’ll go through several lengthy conversations in this game, some of them lasting at least half an hour if you listen to it all (you can skip bits at any time thanks to the square button). Even for an RPG, this game is very text-heavy. If reading isn’t your thing, you’re going to want to consider another game. The literature in this game is diverse, well-written and very interesting, but if you prefer the story to be told to you, rather than just scattered for you to find and then read, you’re not going to enjoy this game’s story very much. Still, the content and depth of this game gets it its high score, a lot of time and effort has clearly been invested in it and, if you take the time to read it and don’t mind a little unoriginality, you’ll find it to be very satisfying.
Characters: 10.0/10
It’s very rare that I give perfect scores for aspects of games. Close to, maybe, but I can always find fault with things. However, DA has an absolutely brilliantly developed cast. The cast is relatively small – overall, you can recruit ten different characters – although each one has their own distinct personality. Alistair likes to joke about pretty much everything. Morrigan is aloof to the point of having her own camp at the party campsite. Quite often the characters clash with one another, and what you say or do has a direct effect on how they respond to you and one another.
They banter frequently as you travel, which is a nice change from your standard silent travelling companions. Leliana asking Morrigan to go shopping with her. Alistair asking Wynne to sew his clothes because she’s “grandmotherly”. The dialogue is never repeated, and changes with your choices in-game as well – start a relationship with Morrigan, and Alistair and Wynne will have a conversation about it if they’re in your in-game party. A lot of the dialogue is very humorous, and given how brilliant the voice cast is, it’s a welcome addition. Quite often you’ll find yourself stopping to listen to what the characters are talking about. You may even find yourself trying different combinations of party members, to see what they’ll say to one another.
Certain characters may get on your nerves, although that shouldn’t really matter too much – if you don’t like them, either don’t use them (there are only a few moments in the game when you’re forced to use certain characters) or use them and upset them, and they’ll leave your party. You may even get the choice to kill them. Problem solved!
Gameplay: 9.8/10
Dragon Age Origins’ gameplay is, without a doubt, some of the best to come out of 2009. Its built on a solid system that allows for quick mastery but still keeps you on your toes right to the end.
The battle system used in Dragon Age is very similar to Final Fantasy XII’s Active Time Battle system. Once you encounter an enemy, be it Darkspawn, undead, or just angry wildlife (or all three, if you’re exceptionally unlucky), your party will shift automatically into combat mode, in which your characters will follow their assigned tactics. However, unlike in Final Fantasy XII, the character you are controlling will only do as you command them to, which avoids the game playing itself for you. If you don’t help your party, there is a very high probability that they’ll die, and once one of them dies, the rest usually follow. Some would argue that tactics is simply an excuse for the developers not to set the AI, however, by setting the AI yourself, you have only yourself to blame if they perform poorly. Not only does this avoid the issue of poor AI – because you’ll get better at party synergy with practice – but it also allows for much more strategy and planning than would otherwise be available. Every playable character is customisable, and you can take control of one of them any time just by hitting one of the shoulder buttons. Not to mention some pretty good tactics are put on your characters to begin with anyway.
You can assign moves to the triangle, square and circle buttons, with x being delegated to regular attacking. What you’ll basically be doing is picking moves to hurl at your opponent, or sitting back and letting them use regular attacks. When the move or spell has a large area, or isn’t assigned to one of the buttons, the game will obligingly come to a halt for you as you select your spell or move, its intended target, and then proceed to make mincemeat out of them. This does break up the action somewhat, however you would be cut to pieces in no short amount of time without it.
DA is largely free-roaming; you’re given your main quests to be getting on with, but you’re free to do as you please until you’re ready for them. You can jump straight in, or take your time and explore a little, building up your characters a little and do some of the sidequests. And, as you may expect, there are a LOT of sidequests in this game, ranging from killing targets, finding lost people, even dumping bodies in a well outside the chantry. The sidequests double the lifespan of the game, at the very least, for their sheer number. A lot of them are fairly long, as well.
Character growth is very limited, but it’s the perfect pace for this game. The maximum level is level 20 (it requires a great deal of experience to get there, as you may have guessed) and, upon each level up, you’re given three attribute points to distribute, as well as another point to spend on a skill relevant to your class (i.e. a new spell for a mage). Every even level, you’ll get another point to spend on a trait, such as stealing, and at level 7 and level 14, you will get a specialization point. Specializations are unique for each class – mages can become blood mages, warriors can become templars, rogues can become assassin’s, etc – and must be unlocked through the relevant quest, however they offer new skills once they have been learned. Excluding bonuses, you will get a total of 10 points to spend on traits, 60 points to increase attributes, 2 specialization points and 20 points to spend on skills, meaning you’ll have to be very selective about how you develop your characters. Initially, it may seem like a good idea to put all of your points into a Warrior’s strength attribute, but neglect Dexterity and Constitution and you’ll hardly ever hit later in the game and you’ll get decimated with ease. Distributing all your points equally may be another option, but then you’ll have a character who excels at nothing. A lot of equipment and skills require certain levels of stats, as well – for example, a mage must have a magic stat of over 30 to learn Inferno. Similarly, you’re not going to be able to learn every skill available, so you’ll have to decide how you want to play – would you rather be a defensive unit, or one who charges straight in and deals bloody carnage to all in their path? There are no right or wrong ways to play the game, and there are plenty of choices available to you, although it may not appear that way at first glance. As the option of power levelling is denied you, you’re forced to think about what you’re doing, for all of your characters. Characters who you don’t use also gain experience alongside those who do, meaning any time you feel like a change of party you won’t be stuck with weak members who you’ve neglected to use.
Areas are clearly divided: once you leave an area, you will be given a view of the Ferelden world map, with locations you can travel to. This could be seen as laziness on the developer’s part, but it saves a great deal of getting hopelessly lost and tireless travelling over bland, familiar scenery. The Ferelden map itself is reasonably sized, with a nice number of locations for your to visit, and each location is sizeable, filled with NPCs for you to help, kill or ignore, treasure for you to plunder, and bloodthirsty Darkspawn for you to slay.
Similarly to Mass Effect (also by BioWare, if the comparison seems a bit random), Dragon Age features an affection system for your party characters. Frequently you’ll be faced with choices – do you kill someone, or let them live? Choosing to kill someone might net you a few affection points with one character, but will put you out of favour with another. If certain characters have a high enough affection for you, you can enter a relationship with them, or undertake a personal sidequest at their request which will net you some valuable items. If you upset characters too much, they may very well leave your party for good. Some characters may even attack you if you make the wrong choices in the game in their presence. It adds another dimension to the game, and is a nice gimmick.
The faults of the gameplay lie mostly in the small gimmicks I’ve mentioned throughout this section of the review – plus there is the occasional glitch which may or may not affect your gameplay. I had a few enemies disappear into the walls, preventing me from getting out of combat mode and thereby leaving me stuck, forcing me to restart the game. These are one-off incidences, though. There is also the occasional slowdown, although given the number of enemies on screen at the time, its hardly surprising. That, plus the Mage class is noticeably broken, unless you’re playing on Hard mode and have friendly fire on. You can simply throw a fireball or similar large area spell in an enemy horde from a safe distance and watch them burn. With friendly fire on you have to worry about hurting your allies as well, but on Casual or Normal difficulties, you’ve got a definite edge if you’re a Mage. It makes things far too easy most of the time.
Overall, these little things detract very little from the experience, however.
Controls: 9.8/10
Asides from the minor inconvenience of having to pause the game to scroll through a radial menu if you want to use anything other than the six abilities you can assign to the square, triangle and circle buttons, there isn’t anything particularly wrong with the controls. High fantasy RPGs with systems similar to DA’s have traditionally been PC games, and all things considered the PS3 controls are pretty well handled. Not perfect, but entirely serviceable and without any controller-throwing flaws.
Graphics: 5.4/10
Massive drop in scoring here. However, this is Dragon Age’s major failing – its graphics are extremely dated. There is very little in this that is even remotely next-gen: the mage spells are very pretty (you’ll never get tired of the vortex of fire that is Inferno...provided you don’t look at the flames covering the characters too closely, at least) and some of the scenery is break taking – some very nice ancient halls and caves that give an impressive feel when viewed from both afar and up close – however, the majority of this game sports poor visuals that would be more at home on a previous-generation consoles: hell, the Gamecube outdoes this with the likes of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Baten Kaitos. Characters themselves don’t look too bad, and overall facial expressions are better than, say, Oblivion, but it is when things try to get detailed that they fail abysmally. Quite often your characters will get splattered with blood, and it looks absolutely awful. Similarly, any buffs you place on a character that given them an aura will look very tacky when you see them up close. It’s not what we’ve come to expect from the current generation, and if graphics are a big thing for you, you might want to stop and think about how far they’ll affect your enjoyment of the game. When compared with other games of this generation, the graphics for Dragon Age Origins can never be considered anything more than mediocre. Which is a shame, but...well, you can’t have everything.
Sound: 8.8/10
The score for Dragon Age was composed by Inon Zur – if that name doesn’t mean anything to you, he’s the ones responsible for the likes of Fallout 3 and the 2008 Prince of Persia remake – and it’s absolutely spectacular. Sweeping and epic, exactly what you’d expect of a high fantasy genre. Once you start encountering bigger enemies, things become louder, more dramatic, and add a nice layer of tension to the already frantic scene.
Voice acting is top-notch, and avoids the stereotypical peasant feel that most high fantasy RPGs have, save for the occasional comic effect with the odd peasant. None of the main characters have insufferably high-pitched or monotonous voices, and when you’re speaking to NPCs in towns you’re not going to be hearing the same voice over and over again. Considering almost all of this game is voice-acted, this makes it all the more impressive.
So, the downsides? Lack of variety, for one. Certain tracks you’ll never get tired of hearing, but given the frequency of enemy attacks, you’ll be hearing the standard battle theme a great deal, and it starts to lose its impact after the first few hours of gameplay. A lot the soundtrack, whilst brilliantly composed, is too quiet to really be appreciated, and the game occasionally goes silent entirely. The end result is a good, but weak, soundtrack. You’ll remember the epic moments, but little else when it comes to the music.
Unique/Extra Features:7.8 /10 (as at 13/01/2010)
Now, the reason for the as at date is that this game is due additional downloadable content in Return to Ostagar, and an expansion in Awakening. This may count as incentive for people to buy, however, since I haven’t played it, I can’t review it, obviously. So, we’ll just have to wait and see what kind of standard those two set.
For the current standard of the downloadable content...it’s perhaps a little pricey, given how long it lasts, but it’ll add a little more to the game. Shale is a brilliant character, both in personality and utility, and Warden’s Keep is extremely epic, as you battle to regain a tower crawling with demons and undead.
The problem lies in the length – once you’ve cleared Warden’s Keep, you can visit the tower again, but there isn’t really anything to do there. Similarly, you can visit the village where Shale was stationed again if you wish to, but there isn’t anything else to do there. There are no sidequests in these areas, so you’ll probably just visit them once and then never see them again. Still, for downloadable content, it’s fairly good, and doesn’t detract from the gameplay.
The Blood Dragon Armour, I found, became redundant to other sets of armour before I even had the chance to use it. However, it does provide a little start-up gold.
Replay value: 8.0/10
There are potentially hundreds of different combinations for each class, and six different origin stories. You’ll probably want to play the game again at least once to try life as another class, although if you’re a trophy collector you’ll want to play it again more times than that, as there are trophies for entering relationships with characters and making certain choices in-game. Since you can make so many choices, there is plenty here to justify playing this game again although ultimately, like many RPGs of this type, it depends on you, and how much you enjoyed playing the game the first time around. For the sheer content that justifies replaying, this game gets an 8.0, because it gives you more reason than most.
Overall Rating: 9.3 /10
It has a few flaws, and it looks horrendously dated, but Dragon Age: Origins is more than worthy of the praise it has been receiving from both critics and fans alike. The story isn’t particularly ground-breaking or original, but it’s solid, stirring stuff that doesn’t interfere too much in the gameplay, but is there for exploring if you’re interested. Even for “hardcore” gamers there is at least 20 hours of gameplay here, considering more if you’re out to collect everything and do all the sidequests. The hard mode will challenge anyone short of the Maker Himself, and even He might pale once enemies start coming in greater numbers and bigger sizes.
If graphics are an essential part of your enjoyment of a game, avoid this like the Blight, because you will not be pleased by what you find. If you hated FFXII’s ATB system with a passion, you may want to rent this before you buy it, because there are noticeable similarities. If you’re an RPG fan: what are you doing reading this review? Unless you’re short on cash or have a computer older than your parents, you should already have this game! It’s a worthy addition to any collection and, with additional downloadable content and an expansion on the horizon; it’s only going to keep getting bigger. An epic, sweeping storyline and soundtrack, one of the best casts of any RPG in recent memory, a decent lifespan, and the promise of more to come. What more could you ask for?
Introduction
Initially, I was somewhat put-off by Dragon Age Origins, and delayed on buying it – the battle system looked to be something best suited for the PC (turns out I was viewing the PC demo...) and it didn’t appear to have much substance to it. However, almost immediately after its release it was getting an insane amount of praise, and my curiosity finally got the better of me and I got it for Christmas along with my PS3. It was more appealing than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, anyway...
...roughly forty hours and two files later, here I am, reviewing it and considering starting a third file for the Warrior experience. XD
Storyline: 8.7/10
Dragon Age is somewhat unique in that it has six different beginnings, based on what race and class you choose. For example, if you’re a mage, you’ll start at the Circle of Magi as an initiate. If you’re a Dalish elf, you’ll start in the forest, removed from everyone else. Each story ends up the same way – you meet Duncan, a Grey Warden, and due to one thing or another, you’re taken to Ostagar, to be recruited into the Grey Wardens to defend against the upcoming Blight. After your initiation, you’re promptly thrown into the thick of it. However, things don’t go precisely as planned in the battle.
Dragon Age sees you exploring the world of Ferelden, gathering allies for the eventual final battle against the Archdemon. No surprises or twists – your enemy is clearly outlined from the beginning, and you’ve got an overall goal. However, the story comes from the telling of how you reach that goal. Ferelden has more troubles than just the Blight – you may go to the elves and petition for allies, but the elves are being attacked by werewolves. So you’ve got to rid them of the pests before they’ll pledge their support. But things aren’t entirely what they seem. As you may expect, you have to branch out a great deal before you’re finally ready to tackle the Archdemon – and then you’ve got even more to worry about.
At some point, you will also encounter characters directly relating to your Origin story, making the story you picked feel part of the overall picture, and not just a random choice designed to add to the life of the game. Dialogue, events and your codex will change accordingly.
The premise for DA adds nothing new to the tables – evil armies, treachery, a small band of heroes out to save the world – we’ve seen all this stuff before. If its originality you’re looking for in a story, you might want to look elsewhere, this is traditional high fantasy through and through. However, the level of detail in the world is what gets it such high marks. In a similar manner to Oblivion, there are Codex scattered throughout the world, and they provide a great deal of information about past, present and future events. There are several novels worth of history here, and if you just plough through the game ignoring the Codex, you’ve barely touched on the storyline. You write your own story through the quests you do, as well.
This game has mountains of text, as well. You’ll go through several lengthy conversations in this game, some of them lasting at least half an hour if you listen to it all (you can skip bits at any time thanks to the square button). Even for an RPG, this game is very text-heavy. If reading isn’t your thing, you’re going to want to consider another game. The literature in this game is diverse, well-written and very interesting, but if you prefer the story to be told to you, rather than just scattered for you to find and then read, you’re not going to enjoy this game’s story very much. Still, the content and depth of this game gets it its high score, a lot of time and effort has clearly been invested in it and, if you take the time to read it and don’t mind a little unoriginality, you’ll find it to be very satisfying.
Characters: 10.0/10
It’s very rare that I give perfect scores for aspects of games. Close to, maybe, but I can always find fault with things. However, DA has an absolutely brilliantly developed cast. The cast is relatively small – overall, you can recruit ten different characters – although each one has their own distinct personality. Alistair likes to joke about pretty much everything. Morrigan is aloof to the point of having her own camp at the party campsite. Quite often the characters clash with one another, and what you say or do has a direct effect on how they respond to you and one another.
They banter frequently as you travel, which is a nice change from your standard silent travelling companions. Leliana asking Morrigan to go shopping with her. Alistair asking Wynne to sew his clothes because she’s “grandmotherly”. The dialogue is never repeated, and changes with your choices in-game as well – start a relationship with Morrigan, and Alistair and Wynne will have a conversation about it if they’re in your in-game party. A lot of the dialogue is very humorous, and given how brilliant the voice cast is, it’s a welcome addition. Quite often you’ll find yourself stopping to listen to what the characters are talking about. You may even find yourself trying different combinations of party members, to see what they’ll say to one another.
Certain characters may get on your nerves, although that shouldn’t really matter too much – if you don’t like them, either don’t use them (there are only a few moments in the game when you’re forced to use certain characters) or use them and upset them, and they’ll leave your party. You may even get the choice to kill them. Problem solved!
Gameplay: 9.8/10
Dragon Age Origins’ gameplay is, without a doubt, some of the best to come out of 2009. Its built on a solid system that allows for quick mastery but still keeps you on your toes right to the end.
The battle system used in Dragon Age is very similar to Final Fantasy XII’s Active Time Battle system. Once you encounter an enemy, be it Darkspawn, undead, or just angry wildlife (or all three, if you’re exceptionally unlucky), your party will shift automatically into combat mode, in which your characters will follow their assigned tactics. However, unlike in Final Fantasy XII, the character you are controlling will only do as you command them to, which avoids the game playing itself for you. If you don’t help your party, there is a very high probability that they’ll die, and once one of them dies, the rest usually follow. Some would argue that tactics is simply an excuse for the developers not to set the AI, however, by setting the AI yourself, you have only yourself to blame if they perform poorly. Not only does this avoid the issue of poor AI – because you’ll get better at party synergy with practice – but it also allows for much more strategy and planning than would otherwise be available. Every playable character is customisable, and you can take control of one of them any time just by hitting one of the shoulder buttons. Not to mention some pretty good tactics are put on your characters to begin with anyway.
You can assign moves to the triangle, square and circle buttons, with x being delegated to regular attacking. What you’ll basically be doing is picking moves to hurl at your opponent, or sitting back and letting them use regular attacks. When the move or spell has a large area, or isn’t assigned to one of the buttons, the game will obligingly come to a halt for you as you select your spell or move, its intended target, and then proceed to make mincemeat out of them. This does break up the action somewhat, however you would be cut to pieces in no short amount of time without it.
DA is largely free-roaming; you’re given your main quests to be getting on with, but you’re free to do as you please until you’re ready for them. You can jump straight in, or take your time and explore a little, building up your characters a little and do some of the sidequests. And, as you may expect, there are a LOT of sidequests in this game, ranging from killing targets, finding lost people, even dumping bodies in a well outside the chantry. The sidequests double the lifespan of the game, at the very least, for their sheer number. A lot of them are fairly long, as well.
Character growth is very limited, but it’s the perfect pace for this game. The maximum level is level 20 (it requires a great deal of experience to get there, as you may have guessed) and, upon each level up, you’re given three attribute points to distribute, as well as another point to spend on a skill relevant to your class (i.e. a new spell for a mage). Every even level, you’ll get another point to spend on a trait, such as stealing, and at level 7 and level 14, you will get a specialization point. Specializations are unique for each class – mages can become blood mages, warriors can become templars, rogues can become assassin’s, etc – and must be unlocked through the relevant quest, however they offer new skills once they have been learned. Excluding bonuses, you will get a total of 10 points to spend on traits, 60 points to increase attributes, 2 specialization points and 20 points to spend on skills, meaning you’ll have to be very selective about how you develop your characters. Initially, it may seem like a good idea to put all of your points into a Warrior’s strength attribute, but neglect Dexterity and Constitution and you’ll hardly ever hit later in the game and you’ll get decimated with ease. Distributing all your points equally may be another option, but then you’ll have a character who excels at nothing. A lot of equipment and skills require certain levels of stats, as well – for example, a mage must have a magic stat of over 30 to learn Inferno. Similarly, you’re not going to be able to learn every skill available, so you’ll have to decide how you want to play – would you rather be a defensive unit, or one who charges straight in and deals bloody carnage to all in their path? There are no right or wrong ways to play the game, and there are plenty of choices available to you, although it may not appear that way at first glance. As the option of power levelling is denied you, you’re forced to think about what you’re doing, for all of your characters. Characters who you don’t use also gain experience alongside those who do, meaning any time you feel like a change of party you won’t be stuck with weak members who you’ve neglected to use.
Areas are clearly divided: once you leave an area, you will be given a view of the Ferelden world map, with locations you can travel to. This could be seen as laziness on the developer’s part, but it saves a great deal of getting hopelessly lost and tireless travelling over bland, familiar scenery. The Ferelden map itself is reasonably sized, with a nice number of locations for your to visit, and each location is sizeable, filled with NPCs for you to help, kill or ignore, treasure for you to plunder, and bloodthirsty Darkspawn for you to slay.
Similarly to Mass Effect (also by BioWare, if the comparison seems a bit random), Dragon Age features an affection system for your party characters. Frequently you’ll be faced with choices – do you kill someone, or let them live? Choosing to kill someone might net you a few affection points with one character, but will put you out of favour with another. If certain characters have a high enough affection for you, you can enter a relationship with them, or undertake a personal sidequest at their request which will net you some valuable items. If you upset characters too much, they may very well leave your party for good. Some characters may even attack you if you make the wrong choices in the game in their presence. It adds another dimension to the game, and is a nice gimmick.
The faults of the gameplay lie mostly in the small gimmicks I’ve mentioned throughout this section of the review – plus there is the occasional glitch which may or may not affect your gameplay. I had a few enemies disappear into the walls, preventing me from getting out of combat mode and thereby leaving me stuck, forcing me to restart the game. These are one-off incidences, though. There is also the occasional slowdown, although given the number of enemies on screen at the time, its hardly surprising. That, plus the Mage class is noticeably broken, unless you’re playing on Hard mode and have friendly fire on. You can simply throw a fireball or similar large area spell in an enemy horde from a safe distance and watch them burn. With friendly fire on you have to worry about hurting your allies as well, but on Casual or Normal difficulties, you’ve got a definite edge if you’re a Mage. It makes things far too easy most of the time.
Overall, these little things detract very little from the experience, however.
Controls: 9.8/10
Asides from the minor inconvenience of having to pause the game to scroll through a radial menu if you want to use anything other than the six abilities you can assign to the square, triangle and circle buttons, there isn’t anything particularly wrong with the controls. High fantasy RPGs with systems similar to DA’s have traditionally been PC games, and all things considered the PS3 controls are pretty well handled. Not perfect, but entirely serviceable and without any controller-throwing flaws.
Graphics: 5.4/10
Massive drop in scoring here. However, this is Dragon Age’s major failing – its graphics are extremely dated. There is very little in this that is even remotely next-gen: the mage spells are very pretty (you’ll never get tired of the vortex of fire that is Inferno...provided you don’t look at the flames covering the characters too closely, at least) and some of the scenery is break taking – some very nice ancient halls and caves that give an impressive feel when viewed from both afar and up close – however, the majority of this game sports poor visuals that would be more at home on a previous-generation consoles: hell, the Gamecube outdoes this with the likes of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Baten Kaitos. Characters themselves don’t look too bad, and overall facial expressions are better than, say, Oblivion, but it is when things try to get detailed that they fail abysmally. Quite often your characters will get splattered with blood, and it looks absolutely awful. Similarly, any buffs you place on a character that given them an aura will look very tacky when you see them up close. It’s not what we’ve come to expect from the current generation, and if graphics are a big thing for you, you might want to stop and think about how far they’ll affect your enjoyment of the game. When compared with other games of this generation, the graphics for Dragon Age Origins can never be considered anything more than mediocre. Which is a shame, but...well, you can’t have everything.
Sound: 8.8/10
The score for Dragon Age was composed by Inon Zur – if that name doesn’t mean anything to you, he’s the ones responsible for the likes of Fallout 3 and the 2008 Prince of Persia remake – and it’s absolutely spectacular. Sweeping and epic, exactly what you’d expect of a high fantasy genre. Once you start encountering bigger enemies, things become louder, more dramatic, and add a nice layer of tension to the already frantic scene.
Voice acting is top-notch, and avoids the stereotypical peasant feel that most high fantasy RPGs have, save for the occasional comic effect with the odd peasant. None of the main characters have insufferably high-pitched or monotonous voices, and when you’re speaking to NPCs in towns you’re not going to be hearing the same voice over and over again. Considering almost all of this game is voice-acted, this makes it all the more impressive.
So, the downsides? Lack of variety, for one. Certain tracks you’ll never get tired of hearing, but given the frequency of enemy attacks, you’ll be hearing the standard battle theme a great deal, and it starts to lose its impact after the first few hours of gameplay. A lot the soundtrack, whilst brilliantly composed, is too quiet to really be appreciated, and the game occasionally goes silent entirely. The end result is a good, but weak, soundtrack. You’ll remember the epic moments, but little else when it comes to the music.
Unique/Extra Features:7.8 /10 (as at 13/01/2010)
Now, the reason for the as at date is that this game is due additional downloadable content in Return to Ostagar, and an expansion in Awakening. This may count as incentive for people to buy, however, since I haven’t played it, I can’t review it, obviously. So, we’ll just have to wait and see what kind of standard those two set.
For the current standard of the downloadable content...it’s perhaps a little pricey, given how long it lasts, but it’ll add a little more to the game. Shale is a brilliant character, both in personality and utility, and Warden’s Keep is extremely epic, as you battle to regain a tower crawling with demons and undead.
The problem lies in the length – once you’ve cleared Warden’s Keep, you can visit the tower again, but there isn’t really anything to do there. Similarly, you can visit the village where Shale was stationed again if you wish to, but there isn’t anything else to do there. There are no sidequests in these areas, so you’ll probably just visit them once and then never see them again. Still, for downloadable content, it’s fairly good, and doesn’t detract from the gameplay.
The Blood Dragon Armour, I found, became redundant to other sets of armour before I even had the chance to use it. However, it does provide a little start-up gold.
Replay value: 8.0/10
There are potentially hundreds of different combinations for each class, and six different origin stories. You’ll probably want to play the game again at least once to try life as another class, although if you’re a trophy collector you’ll want to play it again more times than that, as there are trophies for entering relationships with characters and making certain choices in-game. Since you can make so many choices, there is plenty here to justify playing this game again although ultimately, like many RPGs of this type, it depends on you, and how much you enjoyed playing the game the first time around. For the sheer content that justifies replaying, this game gets an 8.0, because it gives you more reason than most.
Overall Rating: 9.3 /10
It has a few flaws, and it looks horrendously dated, but Dragon Age: Origins is more than worthy of the praise it has been receiving from both critics and fans alike. The story isn’t particularly ground-breaking or original, but it’s solid, stirring stuff that doesn’t interfere too much in the gameplay, but is there for exploring if you’re interested. Even for “hardcore” gamers there is at least 20 hours of gameplay here, considering more if you’re out to collect everything and do all the sidequests. The hard mode will challenge anyone short of the Maker Himself, and even He might pale once enemies start coming in greater numbers and bigger sizes.
If graphics are an essential part of your enjoyment of a game, avoid this like the Blight, because you will not be pleased by what you find. If you hated FFXII’s ATB system with a passion, you may want to rent this before you buy it, because there are noticeable similarities. If you’re an RPG fan: what are you doing reading this review? Unless you’re short on cash or have a computer older than your parents, you should already have this game! It’s a worthy addition to any collection and, with additional downloadable content and an expansion on the horizon; it’s only going to keep getting bigger. An epic, sweeping storyline and soundtrack, one of the best casts of any RPG in recent memory, a decent lifespan, and the promise of more to come. What more could you ask for?