DRAGON AGE: ORIGIN REVIEW

While there are a lot of things you can discuss about the genre known as fantasy, I can pretty say that it's actually pretty much the same. J.R.R. Tolkien pretty much defined fantasy with his series of novels that involved pretty much everything you can expect in most fantasy novels.

A huge medieval fantasy world is under threat by a or several douchbags hell bent to make things miserable only because their fathers didn't love them enough or they were seduced by some other demonic douch and it's up to a group of misfits lead by either a chosen one who usually lived in a nice quiet village in the mountains or a old grumpy wizard or wise guy who thinks he knows about everything and supply the dramatic convenience as a mentor father figure to the chosen one. They travel around, fight bad guys while the bad guys does his typical monologue and then a huge epic climax that mostly results in either more books to earn more money.

Okay, that was a harsch point of view. Don't get me wrong, I kinda like fantasy. Hell, I even just recently started to read Naomi Novik's Temeraire series (though I only borrowed them from the library), and it's a actually pretty damn good fantasy novel. So even if fantasy is cliché, you could pretty much say the same thing about every other genres. But some may apply to you, depending on more different and original approaches like settings and writings and such.

Same thing goes for RPGs in the video game industry. If you compare the western RPGs made in USA with the J-PRGs in Japan, you can pretty tell the huge difference in each game, but stil they have the same basic clichés. Like J-RPGs tends to get FUBAR with the whole deep and bizzare means of philosophies and emo gits with huge swords and weird hair while the western RPGs is mostly hardcore with more action and straight to the point.

But there are also games that really stands out. Like my personal favorites Dragon Quest VIII and Skies of Arcadia, both games is pretty much a basic clichés in most typical anime storylines, but they are pretty damn awesome with both writing and tone in the games. Like DQ8 is actually a really nostalgic and cheerful game with great characters and design, and don't get me started on Skies of Acradia but needless to say not only does it have a great original designs and settings, the storyline is so simple and yet so well written with a lot of emotions that you'd swear it was written by Hayao Miyasaki himself or atleast someone who works for him.

In the West, they got Diablo and Baldur's Gate. Okay, so there are alot of other great games, but I would like to point out these two games mostly because that's we expect from United States, one game is basically about walking around and bashing the snot out of monsters with all kinds of siza and shapes while the other is basically what defines roleplaying as you spend hours completing quests and getting upgrades and experience points so that your playable characters basically becomes a god.

Now to be honest, I have NEVER managed to completed more than 15-20% of Baldur's Gate 2. But I have been playing the Diablo series like crazy, and that only states on what kind of RPGs I really prefer. So I haven't really played much RPGs because they do get tedious for my taste, and there are only a few handful I actually completed. But that doesn't mean that I don't give some of the more hardcore RPGs a chance, and this is one of them.

With that said, let's take a look at Dragon Age: Origin.

The hype around this has been huge, as most gamers can clearly state. It started back in 2003 when Bioware annouced that they were working on a game that would be considered to be a spiritual sequel to their oh so famous Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights series, only it was stated to be a original game with own storylines and gameplay features and such.

As excitement rose, it was met by sceptism mostly because that Bioware was mostly known for making game based on other franchises like Star Wars and Dungeon & Dragons and when they released their own Jade Empire which was a okay game for my taste but it was critiziced for it's too much similarities with Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic and such. So gamers started to state that while they did make great games, they didn't seem to make a true game of their own.

But those claims that Bioware couldn't really make a true original game was quickly thrown away when Mass Effect which is a truely awesome action shooter with RPG elements came out. It was pretty much unlike then what most gamers would expect, but it wasn't like the developers wasn't none too familiar with action games. In fact their debut game was a action mecha game called Shattered Steel and they even made MDK 2 which is a great sequel to the one game that introduced the gaming world to what most online shooting games would referred to the term camp sniping.

Anway, back to DA: O. I was actually excited about this game that I actually preordered it. And when I finally got it, it took me roughly about one week atleast to finally complete it, and that was only one time playthrough. So what is my reaction to it?

Well, while it was a great game, it was pretty standard.

This is why I did a whole section about how I feel about fantasy and RPGs in general, meaning that when you have read or watched any media with a fantasy theme, you have seen them all. And DA: O was what I expected it to be.

The game takes place in Ferelden, a basic medieval fantasy world that is under constant threat by a evil horde known as the Darkspawn. They attempted to take over the world by Blight.

Bison: OF COURSE!!

But they were quickly thwarted by a alliance of elves, dwarfs and humans lead by the Grey Wardens, a movement of knights and warriors that has the ability to detect Darkspawns evil taint.

After hundred of years, things seem to have calmed down, but the Darkspawn plans for another Blight lead by a Archdemon and only a handful of Grey Wardens that most people have forgotten their place in history and importance is desperate to recruit some allies...

...See? This is pretty much from EVERY single fantasy novels and games and whatnot you can POSSIBLY imagine. And maybe from other franchises of other genres, like say... oh, I dunno... STAR WARS.

So yeah, after a short introduction that is pretty much a ingame low budget version of a certain fantasy trilogy that was directed by a certain guy from New Zealand, we get a character sheet, thus creating our character. Now to be fair, I love creating my own character, but ever since Saint's Row 2 (which I'll be doing a future review on), I have been picky about these sort of things. I mean SR 2 had the most epic character customisation I have ever seen in my gaming area, and you think that RPGs would have the same feature, but alas.

Anway, you get to choose the basic gender, race and classes which is in the race section is Human, Elf and Dwarf, and the classes are Rogue, Warrior and Mage. But what is pretty damn original is the Origin section. Depending on what class or race you choose, you get either one or two different origins for your character which each and everyone are different and damn well written.

For my first round, I choose to be a Male Human Noble Warrior by the name of Spearhawk (I usually dub my RPG characters that, long story).

The origin starts that Spearhawk is to be in charge of his family castle, while his father and brother are doing out to war against a new raid of the Darkspawn.
After doing some minor tasks, like getting your own wardog (which I dubbed him Barf, for a little Spaceballs tribute) out of the kitchen and seducing a sexy widowed and single mother elf woman into spending a night together (How come I'm always such a master pimp in video games?, it turns out that a old ally of Spearhawk's father named Arl Howe (voiced by the ever so epic Tim Curry) turns traitor and raids the castle with the intention of killing every one, including Spearhawk's nephew. Together with Spearhawk's mother (who is actually really badass with her bow and arrows), they both try to escape the attacks while looking for your father.

After finding Spearhawk's father who is mortally wounded, a grey warden named Duncan who arrived earlier in the intro, swears to rescue him if he is allowed to recruit Spearhawk to be a Grey Warden to defend against the upcoming new Blight. After swearing his duties, Spearhawk and Duncan leaves via secret exit, leaving his parents sacrificing their own lives to give their son enough time to escape...

So like I said, each origins is actually very wellwritten and different. I have played all origins, and I think that the next origin I'm gonna play is the Noble Dwarf origin, cause that one is just pure awesome when it comes down to family betrayal and corrupt politics.

But besides the awesome origins, the rest of the storyline in this game is pretty much the same you can read in the fantasy section in any bookstore. But that does not mean that it is not well written. I forgot to mention that DA: O is meant to be a a dark fantasy with dark twist and turns and mature writing and violence that is actually very cool in my taste (I don't usually want to blame the dead, but David Eddings was pretty brutal in his novels.) But despite that, if you have read a lot of fantasy novels or played RPGs and watched fantasy movies, you can pretty much tell the storyline in before it reveals itself. But again, it's very well written, I'm gonna grant it that much.

Now the gameplay itself, it's also good. Now I only own the Xbox360 version, but I have read the comparison on between version of different consoles. It's pretty much anything that has been done by Bioware in the past, you run around, explore dungeons and cities and complete quests and fight evil wolves and other bad guys who happens to have a death wish.

When you enter a battle, you can either just rush in and fight and hopefully win. But it's best that you hit the meny and pause the game, and select a specific enemy and a special attack. Since I customized my warrior to be awesome in his skills with two handed swords, I could basically swipe the monster down to the ground and get stunned while I slash them into a pulp. You also will have allies in your course, each with their own special abilities and you can choose which one to use to help overcome a huge battle against dragons (Why would it called Dragon Age otherwise?) So yeah, the gameplay works, no glitches as one can see (only I did find a glitch that worked for my benefits, thanks RoostertTeeth^^).

Now over to the graphics and design... sigh, you seen one fantasy, you seen them all. I mean, it's medieval fantasy, there's nothing new about it. I'm sorry, but I have been trying to find some praise about this, but when you have seen so many medieval stuff, you won't find anything new, except perhaps doing new designs on armor and clothes and whatnot but it's still medieval fantasy. But atleast the graphics looks pretty damn cool even though it has some flaws that you can simply ignore.

But there are some things in the design, that really made me go WTF. I found a armor that had a pretty good points of protection, and I put it on Spearhawk and... Oh dear LORD, was that silly! Seriously, not only didn't it seem nearly practical, but it had HUGE shoulder pads on each shoulder that it obscurred Spearhawk's eye sight on the sides, it's like Rob Liefeld had a field trip on this. I mean, it looked as convincing as Dungeon & Dragons the Movie and that was a HORRIBLE movie.

Oh, and another thing. Since this was meant to be a dark and violent game, there would be blood. Now this is just a silly gimmick and nothing else in my opinion. Let me explain: After a battle, you will get blood over the characters that fights enemies in close combat, and that's fine and all except you will get nothing than drops and drips on the armor and face.
Atleast the blood effect in The Suffering series was alot better, the more blood your got over the guy's body, the more blood he was covered, and it's never vanished suddenly with a snap of a finger, but it slowly vanished. In DA: O... Oh gawd, it's just so stupid, when I see one of the characters in my team talk to you after a battle, they simply ignore the fact they have drops on red ON THEIR LIPS~! Seriously, it's like in Austin Powers 3 with the Mole Guy and you can't stop looking at it. And the blood effects doesn't changed shapes or anyhing from what I can tell, nor does it react to how or where the blood comes from.
Like in one scene, a guy gets stabbed in the stomach by a dagger, and I couldn't help but to laugh my ass of when both the victim and the perp got covered from head to toe all over their bodies with blood splatter... I mean, It's a knife wound, not a effing chainsaw~!...

sigh... So anyway... So let's take a look at another important feature in the game, the soundtrack. Well everything from the voice acting to the soundtrack is in a good basic fantasy fashion, NEXT.

What about the characters? The ones that becomes your allies and enemies in the course of this game? Well... To my amazement, they don't have really much impact to me personally. I mean sure they are well written and all, but at the same they are pretty bland. These are done by the same guys who once created a awesome barbarian who had a pet hamster named Boo who he believed to be a gigantic space hamster, but in DA: O the characters are pretty bland and basic. We have the quiet warrior, the sarastic sidekick, the mentor and such. But the only most intresting character in my team, was Morrigan. She is the frontfigure on the cover, and both her entrance and involement with Spearhawk was the only thing most intresting in the entire game, and she was a hard to get love intrest due to her standards and morals. And of course Barf who was a devoted and faithful dog.

...Man, it feels like I'm only bashing this game. I mean, the game is not bad or anything, it has a great replay value and it really feels like your choices and actions has a consequence. And it also doesn't have a moral system like in most Bioware games, but the game pretty much says that your choice and action is your own, and it may not come to agreement for some characters and such. But I still say that this game doesn't really deserve the praise it got. At most it's adequate in fantasy standards. It's not bad, but you have already seen much you can expect in such. But still the game is enjoyable, with multiple side quests and you can customize your character to your liking but again it's what you can expect from a RPG.

Maybe I'm being too hard on this one, but the hype was way too high. I should have read in between the lines with the catchprase "Old School RPG". Because that is what DA: O really is, nothing but old school. It's great and all, but nothing new or spetacular about it. If you are intrested into buying this game, maybe you should wait for a time until the prize drops down to a more suitable one.

But again, that's my opinion...

FINAL VERDICT: a very weak out of five, only because of it's replay value.