My History with Dragon Age
I’ve been a huge fan of medieval-type fantasy since I was a few years old. In the 1980s, I fell in love with the campy He-Man and the Masters of the Universe animated series. Nothing has captured my imagination and given me the feeling that He-Man did when I was a young child, but in my late 20s, Dragon Age came close. The well-thought-out world with political and social conflicts, in-depth characters, and plenty of magic and mystery drew me in and made me want to know more. While I did not finish Dragon Age Origins when it was released, and missed Dragon Age 2 when it came out due to a hiatus I had with video games for a few years – I picked up and finished Dragon Age Inquisition a few years ago and finished it. Since I knew Dragon Age the Veilguard was coming out in 2024, I decided to pick up and start with Dragon Age Origins early this summer and play through it, then 2, then Inquisition again before the release of the Veilguard in Q4.
Dragon Age Origins
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become irrepressibly haughty when it comes to writing in entertainment mediums like books, movies, video games, and television series. So few works are special in their writing the way that games like Mass Effect (also by Bioware) are. What I mean by writing is both the intricate construction of the world/history/politics which sets such a beautiful tone to the lore that you constantly want to know more as well as the moments that come out of the dialog, interpersonal tension, and heart/humanity as you play through. Dragon Age Origins, a game that came out in 2009, 15 years ago as I write this and I feel has stronger writing than 99% of all entertainment I’ve consumed since that time. I feel this is the game’s greatest strength. While the graphics (in terms of the number of triangles/polygons) are significantly dated at this point, the game’s set piece moments and art design underscored the tone and helped lift the writing. I’d say the same of the music and voice acting. Writing this 4 or 5 months after playing Origins, the voice of Duncan stands out to me in terms of impact, and he was primarily only in the game the first act. Other characters such as Morrigan (Claudia Black), Alistair (Steve Valentine), Arl Howe (Tim Curry) also stand out to me months later.
The gameplay to me doesn’t quite hold up as well. I hear contemporary opinions that the ‘tactical combat is wonderful!’ – which I honestly do not understand. The combat is essentially tap-targeting combat (where you select your attack, the character attacks who you choose until the creature is dead, then you repeat or select a new attack) popular with MMOs. The PC version of the game had a quasi-turn-based mode, which would more charitably be described as a real-time-with-pause system. The system didn’t quite work right for me as a real-time with pause (and frankly no Dragon Age game has nailed it with the combat, at least yet). The series has seemed to want to move a bit more toward action and away from CRPG territory, which is fine, but this system was a miss for me.
Mechanically, the progression systems I thought were pretty good and satisfying. The dialogue, character choices, and (again) the writing made the game for me. I rolled credits after making the Dragon pay with its life for the audacity to attack and spent the next week or so thinking about the moments the game created based on my choices. Legendary game – ~40 hours, 10/10 writing, 9/10 overall.
Dragon Age 2
I had the benefit of coming to Dragon Age 2 13 years after it’s release. Dragon Age Origins set a high bar of quality expectation and looking back at the reviews, there seems (in total retrospect) a disproportionate expectation of what Dragon Age 2 should be vs what was delivered. When I started playing I knew people were really disappointed with it because of a shift to a more action-oriented system, but I didn’t do a ton of research on why. I was very surprised when I started playing (a mage this time, a warrior in Origins) how fast and fluid the combat was. To me, this fixed the combat because they weren’t half committed to a turn-based system and committed fully to an action combat system. I honestly think the combat was a standout improvement (not the best of the best, but not bad by any means). The writing in terms of the world and characters was pretty good to great. It wasn’t on the level of DA:O, but it was still better than most other writing in games. The voice acting I thought was largely great, and the music was fantastic. Graphics technical (i.e. polygons) didn’t age great, the graphics design was ‘fine’ – the Qunari looked much better in DA2 vs DA:O. The gameplay loop was generally satisfying and the larger story of taking a nobody from the country and making him a political powerhouse in the city of Kirkwall was a lot of fun. ~30 hours – Writing 8/10, overall 7/10.
Dragon Age Inquisition
Dragon Age: Inquisition is an ambitious game that felt like it had a troubled development. I’m assuming the troubled development because of the mechanical systems that made no sense to be in there. A key progression system was a mobile-like real-time-based timer. Hands down the most controversial system in the game, I can’t help but wonder if there were monetization models that EA/Bioware was trying to slot in but last minute found they didn’t work for them and removed them.
The great parts of the game to me are that the game is a rags-to-powerful figure story that largely works well with key caveats that stop it from reaching the heights of DA:O. Specifically, the game pacing (too much filler content) and the conclusion of the story were in purchased DLC, which is always a no-no. Graphics technical (number of polygons) hold up incredibly well today in this 10-year-old game. The art design is fantastic (i.e. the Qunari haven’t looked better), vocal performances were outstanding. Iron Bull’s performance stands out to me a couple of months after finishing the game. Still amazing to me that was Freddie Prinze Jr. I love the music to this game to the point I added it to a playlist I listen to in the car.
Pieces of the game I struggled with were pacing and filler content. It’s a meme at this point that the Hinterlands is where players go to no longer be motivated to play. So many meaningless quests that felt like MMO filler were in this game that again makes me wonder what was happening during development and what the original plan was. Corypheus as a character and main villain was unfortunately disappointing, luckily all the side characters were phenomenal.
This game has high highs and low lows and very long – ~100 hours, writing 7/10, Overall 7/10.
Dragon Age The Veilguard is coming soon
I’m looking forward to the release of Dragon Age the Veilguard. I am hoping for an elevation of strengths from prior titles and minimizing of weaknesses. I’ll be following up once I finish playing it to report back!
