Should you play Dragon Age: Origins?

I played through the entirety of Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Origins — Awakening, and I'm someone who rarely finishes a game, let alone one that takes me almost 90 hours. I liked the game is what I'm saying. But should you (or Dave) play it?

I'll start by going over the things I liked about the game and the things I didn't like (and there were some things I didn't like) as well as some stuff I've heard from others about some of the game's weaknesses that I didn't personally experience.

The Good

I love the way combat works in this game. Dave briefly mentioned the "standing orders" you could set up for your party, and I'll agree with him that that was a weakness — it's poorly explained and fiddly to use. But on the other hand, it's really not necessary to pay it much attention at all. Thanks to the huge variety of skills and abilities your party can have there's not really a "default" that just works, but for your warriors and mêlée-focused mages and rogues you can basically just let the computer set them up for you. Ranged combatants really have to be managed more closely though. Fortunately, I loved doing that.

The way I played was basically to pause the game, issue orders to my mages, un-pause to let those orders be carried out, then pause and repeat. I pretty much always play as a mage in any game that gives me the option, and by the end of DA:O I was running around with a party of three mages and one rogue (for lock-picking). This almost makes combat turn-based, and I like that. If you prefer less micro-managing that could be a sticking point though.

The other reason the game held my interest so well was that the side quests and characters were really well done, even if you do have to ignore the stupidity of the one person who can save the world taking time out to help every random person s/he comes across. There's just tons of stuff to do and a whole lot of background information about the world and characters that comes across in those essentially optional bits of the game.

I also really loved the fact that the characters who you haven't been using level up along with the ones you have, so if you decide to switch at some point there's no penalty. In fact, you can leave a character aside for a while and basically get a do-over if you feel like you messed up with the one you've been using as you get to spend all their accumulated XP at once.

I really like the character customisation options too, although I wish you had more freedom to wear what looks good rather than what gives you the best bonuses. And you get a pet dog and can play with him whenever you go to your camp. I did so literally every time.

I found the best clothing option in the game.

The Bad

As Dave pointed out, it does get a bit dungeon-crawly. There were parts (particularly the deep roads) where I was getting a bit sick of it. But to be fair, you do get a nice bit of story every now and then to break up the monotony. Although less often than you might like if you insist on looting absolutely everything (like I do), as that requires you to periodically head back to the nearest merchant to empty your inventory.

I also felt that there were some features that just didn't really add any value. Enchanting and crafting were two things I kind of used a bit, sort of half-heartedly, but mostly ignored. The only thing I crafted even somewhat regularly was the potion that replenishes your mana. Maybe there's some useful stuff you can make, but it always seemed like a bit of a waste of XP to put it into the skills that weren't directly combat-related or required for a quest.

There are also some parts later in the games where you get some supporters you can call on in big fights, and that seemed like a cool idea but just didn't really seem to have any noticeable effect at all.

As for things I've heard from others, apparently it's quite easy to spend your XP in such a way as to make the game either unplayably difficult or trivially easy, particularly as a mage. I didn't have this problem though, and unless you're vehemently anti-cheating you can always install a mod to let you un-spend your XP if you find you've screwed up.

And as Dave mentioned, it doesn't use Steam Cloud, which is disappointing in any game.

"I love your hair." says the NPC to the totally bald player character.

The ugly?

Another thing worth mentioning is the romance options. They're dumb and unnecessary, but credit where it's due, they're well-implemented. I tried to romance two of my followers at the same time and that played out in an entirely reasonable and predictable manner, rather than just being outright impossible or having no consequences at all.

The game's main plot could be seen as a weakness as well as it's awfully generic; But it's a fantasy RPG, so it would probably be a little unreasonable to be looking for anything especially unique.

In the end, I think whether or not the game is worth playing comes down to two things. The first and most important is the combat. If you don't like that, this game will be a real slog. Just don't even bother.

The second factor is the characters. It's an RPG so there's plenty of dialogue and character interaction, and if you don't like the core cast then you're probably not going to get much from the game. If you like the combat you could just play it for that, but I'm not sure that alone would really carry it.

But if you enjoy the way the game handles combat and you like at least a few of the main characters, both Dragon Age: Origins and Awakening are well worth playing.