Dragon Age™: Origins - Ultimate Edition

I loved the first 25 hours of Dragon Age. I beat Baldur's Gate: EE earlier this year and this game felt truly like the culmination of what they'd been trying to do there. As the game wore on, though, a lot of the systems felt flat. I played the first 25% on nightmare difficulty, then next 50% on hard, and the last 25% on normal--it just kept GOING and I was getting more and more anxious to be done. A couple of plot-related events having to do with your party's composition toward the very end of the game soured about the last 5-10 hours of the game for me, which was disappointing. I would say that pacing is the primary problem with the game. My playthrough took 60 hours, during which time I got to about level 19--more than 3 hours per level up, averaged across the whole game. I got a tier 7 weapon for my main character very early and didn't find an upgrade from the next 30+ hours, which was disappointing. The last 12 hours of the game or so featured a mix between epic, story-culminating battles and weird fetch quests and city guard work, which felt out of place that late in the story. Over all, I recommend this game for real fans of the genre, but I recommend AGAINST playing it on anything other than casual or normal mode. It's not that it's too hard, but the game simply has WAY too much combat without enough variety to support a game that long. I think I liked it more than Baldur's Gate, but paradoxically I would prefer to play Baldur's Gate again before I played this one over.

The game is broken if you use AMD hardware, it requires NVIDIA drivers which cannot be installed due to AMD conflict, do not buy this, I have repeatedly tried to bring this to someone's attention but have been blown aside like I was some raving lunatic. I wish someone could fix this but since it's pretty much abandonware at this point I am out of luck.

The prologue to this game is absolutely stunning. It will hook you in, and the responsibility on your shoulders feel heavy and real. The game also has the most unique visual representation of blood splatters on characters. It's ofcourse exaggerated, but what a feel it is. You appreciate that you were in a battle and have slain many creatures along the way. The best companion characters in any game, rivaled only by Mass Effect 2. Alistair's goofiness, Morrigans' dark and sharp wit, Leliana's mysterious past, Sten's uniqueness and Wynne's strong moral character were so addictive. The lore in this game is mesmerizing. I wanted to read every single book and talk to every single NPC to learn more about this world. The politics, racism, religion and emotions in this game kept me hooked for hours on end, and unfortunately could never be matched by any game since, outside of Mass Effect2. I also love the combat, it's tactical but without the tedious 45minute battles you get from playing Larian games. Every enemy character is dangerous. Just an example, you need to get rid of the archers and mages. Run headlong towards them, and the frontline warriors will engage you while the backline tear you to shreds from range. So, it's upto you as a player to devise tactics to find a way to the backline and annihilate them quickly. There are many moments where it feels like a chess game, with the tide of battle swinging against you and for you. Pure masterclass. Compare this to Veilguard, where enemy mages engage you in head to head combat and get annihilated in no time. Fifteen years later and enemy design goes backwards. If you have not played this game, a gem awaits you.

When the game originally came out I was aware of it but didn't care much about it since I was all about Point & Click adventure games back then. That changed when a buddy told me about this gem 3-4 years ago. And what can I see, from the moment I started playing, I was hooked. Story, characters, setting, soundtrack and lore - I loved everything about it. I've just finished another run and this time I also played the DLCs. DAO still didn't lose any of its charm. The only things I would criticize is that Awakening marks the beginning of recycled locations which ended up being my main point of criticism of DA2. They also overdid it a little with the party banter. I really enjoyed listening to it in DAO while running through areas where nothing would happen. However, in Awakening many conversations started when I was about to leave an area so a lot of the banter got cut off in the middle. Another rather annoying part was rune crafting. I also enjoyed Witch Hunt and Leliana's Song as both story DLCs tell you more about your beloved party members and adds more flavor to an already rich story. I was less impressed by The Darkspawn Chronicles and Golems of Amgarrak. On the technical side, the game crashed a few times (especially in larger regions like Denerim) but that didn't really ruin my overall experience. I recommend this game to everyone who's new to RPGs as Dragon Age does a great job easing you into the mechanics and the world. Once you begin to play you won't be able to stop that easily.

Dragon Age: Origins is one of the last great RPGs, and certainly BioWare's last great RPG. I don't think anyone would recommend against playing it, but playing it on PC in 2023 is a hassle. The game crashes seemingly at random. There are plenty of recommended solutions to be found, but none of them seeemed to work for me. If you were hoping to buy this and just play it without issue, just know that it might not be so easy.