The traditional formula of creating a character, becoming a hero and saving the day is nothing new to BioWare. After all, this is the company that introduced classic role-playing game experiences to gamers everywhere with titles including Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect. For Dragon Age: Origins, BioWare fleshed out its customary design by including radically different characters with unique backgrounds for gamers to experience. The result is that Dragon Age dwarfs other role-playing games in size and scale, and weaves in mature themes amidst a backdrop of chaos and destruction.
The plot of Dragon Age is extremely rich with details that unfold over dozens of hours of play. All of this is documented in your in-game codex, which tracks conversations, plot points and other elements of your journey. The general backstory revolves around the Darkspawn threat to the land of Ferelden. Darkspawn are a race of creatures born from magic users who attempted to become gods, but were cursed for their efforts. Led by the powerful Arch-demon, the beasts emerge from underground lairs every few hundred years in a swarming plague known as the Blight.
The Darkspawn's destructive plots would succeed were it not for the Grey Wardens. An ancient order of elves, dwarves and humans, Grey Wardens dedicate their lives to hunting down Darkspawn wherever they go. It's been centuries since the Darkspawn appeared, and the signs of a new Blight are even more troublesome since the numbers of Grey Wardens have dropped precipitously. To make matters worse, Ferelden is bitterly divided by an internal war, making the repulsion of this threat harder than before.
This is the fractured world your hero or heroine inhabits, a world which can evoke Tolkien-esque imagery. Ferelden has an impressively vast history (as your codex will indicate to you through your adventure). The biggest issue, that arises with the storyline of Dragon Age is that plot elements suffer from repetitiveness. Even though different cities house unique quest events, they all incorporate similar motivating factors – assassination, betrayal or murder. Even though the results of your actions vary, it can become a bit stale. Not every single city needs Macbeth, King Lear or other Shakespearean styled machinations to drive the action forward.
The character creation reveals more of Dragon Age's depth and flexibility. You have three separate races (human, dwarf and elf) and three base classes (warrior, rogue and mage) to choose from. Additionally, your hero will have general skills, class-specific talents and specializations, which you can learn from manuals or other characters willing to teach you their arts. By the end of the game, your hero will feel like a true legendary Grey Warden with a full complement of abilities to destroy the Darkspawn.
Dragon Age provides a ton of customization without a level cap, so it's possible to take two characters with the exact same background and develop them in completely different ways. For example, do you want a berserker that mows down enemies, a stealthy rogue that strikes from the shadows or a mage that wields the elements? These are only a few of the options you can explore as you grow your character.
Selecting your character's race and class decides which one of six unique origin stories you'll explore. Choose your origin carefully, because this decision affects how the world treats and views you. Since each background starts in a different location, the origin stories play out in distinctive ways. As you travel on your journey, your character may return to the lands they hailed from, and people you knew will respond differently to you. For example, if you play a mage, you start out in the Mage's Tower. Eventually, you'll return to the site of your training, and the instructors and guards of the tower will remember who you are and what you did as a young magician inside the tower walls.
The largest issue that I had with the Origin feature is that some of the background elements fade away too easily as the game progresses, becoming little more than an afterthought. For example, many of Ferelden's citizens are extremely prejudiced against elves, but this bias eventually just disappears. Considering that a portion of the game revolves around uniting Ferelden against the Darkspawn, it would seem like you'd have to address these issues of racism somehow, especially if you happen to be an elven character. Simply tossing these endemic problems aside without any attempted mediation or resolution seems unrealistic and forced, and insults the plot of the game.
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