Dragon Age Origins Game Review - What should of been the start to an amazing franchise.

Coming off the news that Dragon Age 4 is in the works, I thought we'd take a trip down memory lane, almost 10 years ago to be precise to a game series that could of and should of reinvigorated the classic D&D RPG style of gaming but sadly didn't, but that's a story for Dragon age 2, today we review the best game in the franchise and an amazing RPG by all accounts back during a time when Bioware was on top of their game and wasn't the corporate shill company of EA and were dedicated to making amazing RPG's, so lets dive straight into Dragon Age Origins as we have a fair amount to cover.

Welcome to Thedas.

Before we start i'd like to point out that the game is heavily based on choice, as such it's impossible to review all elements so i'll be keeping to the main stories.

Story and Setting.

Dragon Age Origins takes place in the mythical land of Thedas, a somewhat peaceful land filled with unique races and creatures, for some time now Thedas has had a brief respite from the Darkspawn, a huge menace of demonic entities with a unique history, every few hundred years the Darkspawn will rally behind an Archdemon and swarm to the surface to create a blight, a massive, large scale war where the darkspawn seek to overthrow all the races of Thedas and to crush any resistance, they reside largely in the deep roads created by dwarves countless centuries ago to connect their cities and infrastructure, after a legendary war the deep roads have become home to the Darkspawn.

Dragon Age Origin begins a few days before the fifth blight, traditionally the blights would be thwarted by the grey wardens, a legendary order of warriors who are built to destroy the darkspawn and their archdemon, however as time has passed the kingdoms of the world have forgotten about the darkspawn menace, and as such have began to view the grey wardens as a past order believing they're no longer needed, it isn't until the Grey Warden Duncan begins to receive visions of an Archdemon and realizes a blight is upon the world again and must convinces the armies of Thedas to fight to stop this coming war.

That is where we come in, on the eve of the great battle in Ostagarr, Duncan recruits your character to join him in aiding King Cailan in holding them back at Ostagarr, his brother in Law however, General Teryn Loghain believes this is nothing more than a dark spawn horde looking to claim parts of Fereldan, on the eve of battle the grey warden(your character) joins up with other potential recruits and Alistair, already a member of the order to join them in the rite of becoming a Grey Warden, a rite that kills more than it creates, on the eve of battle, your character and the other initiates venture into the ruins of the woods near Ostagarr to claim your prize.

It's there that they meet the witch of the wilds, Morrigan and her powerful and mysterious mother, Flemeth who saves them from the horrors of the woods after they recover the rites of conscription and are nearly overwhelmed by darkspawn horde, they say their farewells and head back to the town to start the ritual.

Upon arriving back, Duncan the head warden prepares the rite which involves drinking the darkspawns blood to gain access to their hive mind, sadly only your character survives the ritual, with no time to spare they rejoin the King and plan their attacks, you are tasked to stay behind with Alistair as the main force battles the Darkspawn horde, you must signal for Loghain to enter the fray, however fighting your way into the tower, when it's lit, Loghain instead flees the battle leaving the King, Duncan and the armies of Feralden to be driven under by the horde, you narrowly escape the horde and Ostagarr is destroyed, Loghain flees to the capital to swear himself in as Reagent Lord and declares the Grey Wardens have betrayed the King and killed him on the field.

You are now completely alone except for the company of Alistair and Morrigan and the rites of conscription, the ancient treaties that allow Grey Wardens to conscript anyone into their army, however with the blight fast approaching and the Grey Wardens now being declared terrorists it just keeps getting worse as the newest addition to the Grey Wardens and depending on your backstory your first real trip into the outside world, all of these things come clashing together with you squarely in the middle of it.

Gameplay

Dragon Age Origins is a classic RPG in the style of Neverwinter Nights, tactical real time strategy with pausing mechanics and an amazingly deep character development system, all characters are unique in their build and class design, we're going to break down a few of them below, as well as get a general feel for the overall game, keeping in mind DA:O is huge so I won't be going over everything in one sitting, below i'll be laying out the class design but it's important to first talk about the progression of characters in Dragon Age and the world at large which at most times is pretty heavily involved.

The game plays like most RPG's from this era in the sense that you start off small and become a legend, but the journey is what really matters here DA:O has a huge world for you to explore and with it a huge amount of mechanics, quests, people and story, while the main quest runs in tandem to your character it's not uncommon to get side tracked doing a completely unrelated quest for different things such as rewards or loot, it's a game that needs to be paid attention to at all times as you never know what you're getting yourself into or how your actions will affect the game world at large.

As I said the game world is massive and filled with unique story and choice so your experiences may differ from mine but the basic tenants of the game still persist, it's a sprawling game with unique locations, people and dialogue that seemingly goes on forever(but that's a good thing!)

Classes

Dragon Age Origins has some pretty unique classes that were pretty common in the "Golden Age" when developers fleshed out their games a bit more instead of homogenizing every class to effectively act the same, here's a list below of some of the classes, keeping in mind there are normal base jobs and extended jobs that you eventually grow into, the game is very keen on progression with each level bringing you something new and making your character more powerful.

• Warrior
  
  Warriors are stock standard in Dragon Age, they can end up becoming insanely powerful two handed beserkers, or trade in their two handers for a sword and shield and go the way of the righteous to become a paladin, whatever class you decide to follow in the warrior archetype, they're all as unique and equally powerful as each other and some may even be a mixture of both given the holy Templar's affinity for destroying magic and the demonic reaver who can take on multiple enemies at once, the warrior is an essential part of Dragon Age Origins and bring with it numerous tools that only grow stronger the higher you level.

• Rogue
  
  Whilst Warriors have pretty "linear" paths of progression, the Rogue can transform and mutate into wildly different things, the Rogue can branch into numerous different classes all incredibly different from each other, the path of least resistance for a rogue is to become a full fledged Assassin, a master of murder that can control a battlefield by disappearing and reappearing behind enemy leaders and can also cripple their attack strategies, likewise a rogue may transform in a Bard that uses songs and melodies to either buff the party or severely hinder the enemy, The Duelist class is a master of going toe to toe with powerful enemies able to disarm,weaken and destroy enemies with their own attacks and mistakes, and the Ranger class sits back and breaks the lines of enemies, pinning them to the floor before taking them out with a flurry of arrows.

• Mage
  
  The mage is a bit different to most archetypes, it has 4 classes but they are wildly different from each other, the Arcane Warrior who used their magical arts to turn themselves into unstoppable balls of destruction of the battlefield, the Blood Mage who uses dark arts to control and contort their enemies and can even control them, the shapeshifter is a master of assuming all characteristics of the animal they inhabit, be it a giant bear or a large spider and the Spirit Healer can buff a party and bring them back from the brink of death, it's important to note though that Mages suffer heavily from different abilities and are incredibly susceptible to specific things like the Templar who breaks magic and can leave a Shapeshifter or Arcane Warrior completely unarmed and unarmored.

A Bittersweet Game

Dragon Age: Origins is one of those rare games that gets everything right on it's first pass, it's one of those games that you actively want more DLC for since it's so incredible to play no matter how much you've played it, I myself have done about 4 play throughs of the game over it's life span ranging to around 250 hours, but there's a reason for it's amazing reaplayability, one that's equal parts awesome and equal parts sad, i'll be reviewing 2&3 in the coming days but it's appropriate to bring this up for this review.

This is far and large the best game of the series, Dragon Age 2 was.....oh man i'll explain it in the next review and Dragon age 3 wasn't exactly a write home moment, but Dragon Age Origins is, it's a game that feels like it never got a sequel even though there are 2, that's because of the amazing scope of Dragon Age Origins and the huge storylines and people present in it aren't present in the 2nd and 3rd installment(well some are in number 3) but it's also bitter sweet because this is the last gasp of bioware before they got completely absorbed by EA and started down their rather generic titles that would later come out.

It's for that reason and more that this game is special in gaming history since it was released right at the turn of the decade which many argue has been the worst decade for gaming since it's inception, personal preference I know, but the proof here is the major disconnect between Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age 2 isn't really a sequel it's more like a standalone game to a new franchise, sure we got SOME closure in Dragon Age Inquisition but it never captured the magic of Dragon Age Origins and sadly, I feel nothing ever will.

Critical Review and Reception.

Even being almost 10 years old, Dragon Age Origins is still an amazing game to play in the modern era, it harkens back to a time when game developers squeezed every ounce of content that had into the game and kept following it up, if you had to break Dragon Age Origins into a current Triple A title, you'd get about 9 different games, it's one of those games that has "too much" content by today's standards, but that's why it has such a special place in the gaming world, personally I grew up on games like this and absolutely loved them, anything that feels like Neverwinter Nights will always get a massive thumbs up in my book, but it's not just the game play.

The story line of Dragon Age was also great and had enough side content and in-depth plot that it kept you actively searching for new places to explore and rewarded you for it, coupled with side and mini quests that were everywhere, a very in-depth leveling system, party system, crafting and loot, it's possible to get lost in the game for hours at a time even if you've already played it before, but like I said, it's bittersweet, this is the best game in the series and the way it ends seems like the setup for an amazing journey, but sadly it's not.

Regardless though, Dragon Age Origins is a game i personally believe every RPG fan should play irrespective of it's age, it's still a wonderful game to experience.

Thanks for reading my review, if you enjoyed it, feel free to up-vote,resteem or follow me for more content, how do you guys feel about Dragon Age Origins? let me know in the comments below and i'll get back to you, thanks guys!