Though its nearly a year old at this point I finally managed to pick up and start playing Dragon Age. I’d been burnt out on the High Fantasy genre which is the primary reason I waited on it. But having loved Mass Effect and its sequel I decided it was time I give Bioware’s other original world a try. I’m damn glad I did too.
Graphically it’s a pretty game, not quite as shiny as the latest FPS or anything but it looks good and does the job. The special effects of the various spells are a bit subdued which I actually like. The occasional big fireball is nice, but more often than not in other games they get so big and flashy you can’t tell what’s happening. One effect I did turn off is the lingering blood splatter. After each fight your character ended up covered in blood, and though it looks cool in a fight when you back in town it just looked creepy. The way various weapons look when equipped and sheathed is nice, each weapon has its own model so you can get an idea of what’s equipped without even entering the menus once you play awhile. And the character models look great, although I did find many of the hats and helms to be fairly goofy looking. Would have liked the ability to turn off helms so that I could wear them but not see them.
The characters are all well written, great voice acting throughout, though disappointingly the main character isn’t voiced during cut scenes or dialogue, your limited to small catch phrases and grunts during combat. I’m fairly sure this was a result of the variety of origins you could choose from, but allowing you to choose a voice in character creation and then hearing it so rarely was something of a letdown. All your companions however are great to listen to, both during dialogues and just the idle conversations they have as you travel. Shale the Golem in particular is hilarious, especially when his fear and hatred of pigeons starts showing up.
Game play is fairly standard RPG fair. Get quests, kill monsters or recover artifacts, turn quest in for reward. There is a decent variety of side quests in the game and all the main story quests are very well written with lots of moral choices to make that can take the game in different directions and effect later chapters. Even some of the side quests involve moral choices that effect how your companions feel about you. And with several romance sub quests with members of both sexes available you’ll find yourself really thinking about how your comrades feel about situations before you make choices.
Speaking of the romance subplots. They come in pretty much every flavor. Both hetero and homosexual relationships are possible for both male and female characters, and there is even the possibility of a three way relationship under very specific circumstances. It’s also possible to finish the game with no romances forming at all depending on what choices you made and how you treated your people. Or even lose party members if you start one romance and then attempt to start another. All your comrades will constantly shift in their loyalty and feelings for you as you progress, so it’s important to talk to them and listen to them so you know how to proceed.
One aspect where I do think the game falls short in is the combat. Which is rather sad since it’s such an important part of this type of RPG. It’s a real time system with limited options to pause and give orders or use spells and items. In harder battles your pretty much forced to take over your healer and jsut stand back and heal as your party members hack at the baddy, with weaker enemies half the time your party will scatter after enemies across the map and things will die or kill your comrades before you even know what’s going on. It just feels like a very loose and lackluster system, especially after how tight and tactic Bioware’s other recent RPGs have been.
Overall however It’s a great game, and an expansion has just come out that I’ll likely pick up soon. If you’ve been watching it and weren’t sure if you wanted it I say by it, in fact I’d recommend anyone who is the least bit interested in a high quality RPG pick it up. Its available for pretty much every system so should be able to cater to any player’s preference.