Recently I was fortunate enough to finish Dragon Age: Origins, and I do have to say, it was an interesting experience in many ways. Not to worry – those of you who haven’t played or aren’t finished playing won’t get spoilers to the ending. Today’s most positive note will talk about the journey to get there, which I found the most enjoyable thing about the game.
Up until the very end, Bioware stuck to their guns when it came to making hard moral choices and involving heavy characterization. There’s a certain choice you make after finding out a crucial bit of information that alters your perception of your role in the final battle. That was probably one of the toughest calls I had to make, but it showed me that Bioware was committed to making sure that choices had impact all the way until the end of the game.
The last portion of the game in Dragon Age has all the elements you could expect from an RPG ending – an epic feel, the coming together of resources, and a final, desperate battle against an evil that threatens to swallow the world. Getting there was filled with many a conversation around the campfire with my compatriots, who’d all thrown in their lot with me for some reason or another. Doing the optional sidequests and winning their favor to do so introduced an element into the game that originated in the KOTOR games and was polished to a mirror sheen with this game.
The gameplay of Dragon Age is fairly linear, regardless of your choice in pursuing the order of events. But what makes Bioware’s latest work better than others in its genre is seeing that linearity play out in the endgame. It’s definitely something that not only gives you a good feeling about what you’ve done to get there, but also sets up replayability to see what other choices you could have made that might make it turn out differently. If you haven’t palyed, I definitely recommend it – because this is one RPG that has an end worth seeing.
Subscribe for Optimism!