Dragon Age: Origins
Game » consists of 20 releases. Released Nov 03, 2009
Dragon Age: Origins is an epic fantasy role-playing game featuring a rich story, personality-driven characters, and tactical, bloody combat. It is considered a spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate series.
New Idea: S-Rank Blog Posts #1: Dragon Age: Origins
Edited By Phr4nk0
Ok so I need that quest for 20 blogs or something, and I'm not gonna spam it. I'm doing this legit, damn it! Thing is, I don't really find myself wanting to write about much, so I thought that seeing that this is a video game site about video games I'll write about video games. So every game I S-Rank from now on will have it's own little blog post in which I rant, maybe provide a tip or two and just whatever I feel like writing about. So without further delay; S-Rank Blog Post #1: Dragon Age: Origins.
So I bought Dragon Age: Origins a little while ago and just put it off because I wasn't willing to make the time investment. I've had a love/hate relationship with RPGs for a while now. While I like them a lot, the time investment just keeps me away. So what usually happens is I decide to play one, pick my class, set my dude up (and if they have a decent character creation system this can sometimes take me an hour plus) play for a number of hours and wonder if I should have picked another class/race/speciality etc etc. It was this way with The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind on the PC ages ago. I think I had like 7 characters each played for 5-10 hours before starting a new one. This led to boredom and eventually getting burned out with the game because I had repeated the same first section over and over, barely getting anywhere in the game. I don't think I even got to the first major city in Morrowind.
This leeds to me getting burned out with RPGs as a whole. I need to give myself a bunch of space inbetween them before I feel like I'd enjoy some more RPG action. It sucks because I really like RPGs, it's just the completionist inside turns on and I end up wanting to see/do everything, which is pretty much impossible with some of the newer RPGs these days. I mean in Morrowind in each playthrough I would steal every bit of silverware, everything you could pick up and carry from every house I could find and sell it. I have a problem.
Onto the first RPG I played for Xbox; The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion! When I went into Oblivion I did the same exact thing. The one thing I will pat Oblivion on the back for above all others is that the plates and cuttlery I had spent hours stealing and selling in Morrowind was now worth nothing. So I had no reason to take it all, oh how I rejoice lol. I started about 4 characters, each getting nowhere. Barely out of the dungeon you start the game off in before I would restart. Nord, Argonian, Orc, Khajiit I couldn't decide. Eventually I burned out and forgot about it. Then a year or so later, my completionism had it's hooks in achievements! Oh god, the sleeping monster had awoken.
Achievements it seems are exactly what I needed to help me enjoy and work through RPGs like Oblivion. I had a higher goal, a cross game compulsion I was focused on instead of picking up every item in game, I was worried about collecting every achievement, something that had lasting value, something that didn't automatically mean nothing the second I was done with whatever game I was playing. I returned to Oblivion with new resolve, told myself sternly; "One character, one save, no go backsies, no other road". It worked. I still play my games looking in every shadowy corner, making sure there is nothing I missed, making sure to complete every quest but forward progress is always made. I ended up beating Oblivion, I think it may have been the first RPG I've ever beaten. It took around 100 hours to get every achievement, another 40-50 hours or so to get through Shivering Isles.
Now this was a bigger time investment than I was ready for at the time. I binged my way through it, at the time I had no job and I did it in 2 weeks. Needless to say the girlfriend was not happy. So I once again put off RPGs, I played a couple more during the next 3 or so years (Mass Effect, Eternal Sonata, Fable II, Fallout 3, Overlord and it's sequel) but most of them where RPG hybrids so they were easier to play for me, shorter to finish. Then Dragon Age came out and I knew I wanted to play it, but memories of Oblivion come back to me pretty much every time I think about starting a 'proper' RPG. I waited a while until I saw it for sale at half price, bought it and then let it collect dust until I worked up the courage to start it about a month and a half ago.
It was a lot easier to get through than Oblivion, because looking at the achievements I knew I'd end up playing through as each class, which afforded me the opportunities to see the end results of pretty much every choice in the game. It ended up taking about 60 hours on my first playthrough as a Dwarven Warrior, just over 50 as a Dalish Rogue, and 45ish as my Human Mage. It was only during my third playthrough that I was running out of steam. Like most RPGs it seems like you have a lot of choices, but in the end it boils down to 2 different paths. I guess such is the nature of a game, it is ,after all, a binary product. It was on the whole an enjoyable ride.
I then got stuck into the DLC and the expansion; Dragon Age: Origins Awakening. The DLC was a lot more enjoyable than I expected. It offers an opportunity to play as a different character in some (Leliana's Song, Darkspawn Chronicles) which is welcome after spending 50+ with one. While others (Golems of Amgarrak and Witch Hunt) fill in some of the back story. I don't know if I just had enough of the main game after playing it 3 times but the DLC seemed better than the main game to me. Each can be finished in 2-3 hours so they are only breif, but they are of high quality.
Awakening was another welcome diversion. Putting you in control of a territory of land awarded to you after beating back the Blight in the first game. It was refreshing exploring a new place and ruling over your land. You build your Keep back to it's former glory while trying to help the populace of your Arling against a new Darkspawn threat. The story was more interesting than Origins aswell, I thought. I was actually a little dissapointed at the length of this expansion. While longer than the DLC it only took around 10 hours for me to beat. I was actually hoping for a longer ride; ala Shivering Isles, especially since I had paid about as much for the original game. New party members, the chance to level up higher to obtain new skills, cameos from people you met in the first game it has everything it needs. Other than the length I don't have any complaints.
The only achievement that game me problems was Blight-Queller. You're ment to kill 1000 darkspawn total, across all playthroughs. Each one of my playthroughs had around 700 when I beat the main game, a lot more if you include DLC and the expansion but no luck. The achievement is bugged in a way that means you have to do it in one playthrough. Luckily it doesn't seem to just unlock off the stat it shows in game, it also includes darkspawn you've killed before dieing or loading. At the end of the game you're powerful enough to kill Darkspawn in 1 hit and there is a series of battles with heaps of them for you to mow through so I ended up having to farm those areas then load, farm then load etc for around an hour before it popped.
The other achievement people seem to complain about being hard didn't seem that hard at all to me. Grim Reaper tasks you with defeating the Harvester on Hard or Nightmare. If you're going for this, make sure to play through pretty much everything else first. My warrior was about level 33 at this stage, wearing some sweet armour with 3 rune slots. Made sure to make one of my party members learn Rune Crafting skill in Awakening and got them to make me 3 Grandmaster Stout Ruins. Each gave me +10 constitution, 30 constitution onto a already 70 constitution having Dwarven Warrior specialising in Shield and Sword was a walk in the park made even easier with Carapace skill. Also I made sure to buy as many potions as I could find before importing him into the Golems of Amgarrak DLC but it was barely necessary.
Thats it. Dragon Age completed, took me about a month and a half in what must be close to 200 hours. I'll be taking a break from RPGs for a while now, the next one I have my eye on is Mass Effect 2. But for now I'm gonna work on some less time consuming games. Until next time!
Ok so I need that quest for 20 blogs or something, and I'm not gonna spam it. I'm doing this legit, damn it! Thing is, I don't really find myself wanting to write about much, so I thought that seeing that this is a video game site about video games I'll write about video games. So every game I S-Rank from now on will have it's own little blog post in which I rant, maybe provide a tip or two and just whatever I feel like writing about. So without further delay; S-Rank Blog Post #1: Dragon Age: Origins.
So I bought Dragon Age: Origins a little while ago and just put it off because I wasn't willing to make the time investment. I've had a love/hate relationship with RPGs for a while now. While I like them a lot, the time investment just keeps me away. So what usually happens is I decide to play one, pick my class, set my dude up (and if they have a decent character creation system this can sometimes take me an hour plus) play for a number of hours and wonder if I should have picked another class/race/speciality etc etc. It was this way with The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind on the PC ages ago. I think I had like 7 characters each played for 5-10 hours before starting a new one. This led to boredom and eventually getting burned out with the game because I had repeated the same first section over and over, barely getting anywhere in the game. I don't think I even got to the first major city in Morrowind.
This leeds to me getting burned out with RPGs as a whole. I need to give myself a bunch of space inbetween them before I feel like I'd enjoy some more RPG action. It sucks because I really like RPGs, it's just the completionist inside turns on and I end up wanting to see/do everything, which is pretty much impossible with some of the newer RPGs these days. I mean in Morrowind in each playthrough I would steal every bit of silverware, everything you could pick up and carry from every house I could find and sell it. I have a problem.
Onto the first RPG I played for Xbox; The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion! When I went into Oblivion I did the same exact thing. The one thing I will pat Oblivion on the back for above all others is that the plates and cuttlery I had spent hours stealing and selling in Morrowind was now worth nothing. So I had no reason to take it all, oh how I rejoice lol. I started about 4 characters, each getting nowhere. Barely out of the dungeon you start the game off in before I would restart. Nord, Argonian, Orc, Khajiit I couldn't decide. Eventually I burned out and forgot about it. Then a year or so later, my completionism had it's hooks in achievements! Oh god, the sleeping monster had awoken.
Achievements it seems are exactly what I needed to help me enjoy and work through RPGs like Oblivion. I had a higher goal, a cross game compulsion I was focused on instead of picking up every item in game, I was worried about collecting every achievement, something that had lasting value, something that didn't automatically mean nothing the second I was done with whatever game I was playing. I returned to Oblivion with new resolve, told myself sternly; "One character, one save, no go backsies, no other road". It worked. I still play my games looking in every shadowy corner, making sure there is nothing I missed, making sure to complete every quest but forward progress is always made. I ended up beating Oblivion, I think it may have been the first RPG I've ever beaten. It took around 100 hours to get every achievement, another 40-50 hours or so to get through Shivering Isles.
Now this was a bigger time investment than I was ready for at the time. I binged my way through it, at the time I had no job and I did it in 2 weeks. Needless to say the girlfriend was not happy. So I once again put off RPGs, I played a couple more during the next 3 or so years (Mass Effect, Eternal Sonata, Fable II, Fallout 3, Overlord and it's sequel) but most of them where RPG hybrids so they were easier to play for me, shorter to finish. Then Dragon Age came out and I knew I wanted to play it, but memories of Oblivion come back to me pretty much every time I think about starting a 'proper' RPG. I waited a while until I saw it for sale at half price, bought it and then let it collect dust until I worked up the courage to start it about a month and a half ago.
It was a lot easier to get through than Oblivion, because looking at the achievements I knew I'd end up playing through as each class, which afforded me the opportunities to see the end results of pretty much every choice in the game. It ended up taking about 60 hours on my first playthrough as a Dwarven Warrior, just over 50 as a Dalish Rogue, and 45ish as my Human Mage. It was only during my third playthrough that I was running out of steam. Like most RPGs it seems like you have a lot of choices, but in the end it boils down to 2 different paths. I guess such is the nature of a game, it is ,after all, a binary product. It was on the whole an enjoyable ride.
I then got stuck into the DLC and the expansion; Dragon Age: Origins Awakening. The DLC was a lot more enjoyable than I expected. It offers an opportunity to play as a different character in some (Leliana's Song, Darkspawn Chronicles) which is welcome after spending 50+ with one. While others (Golems of Amgarrak and Witch Hunt) fill in some of the back story. I don't know if I just had enough of the main game after playing it 3 times but the DLC seemed better than the main game to me. Each can be finished in 2-3 hours so they are only breif, but they are of high quality.
Awakening was another welcome diversion. Putting you in control of a territory of land awarded to you after beating back the Blight in the first game. It was refreshing exploring a new place and ruling over your land. You build your Keep back to it's former glory while trying to help the populace of your Arling against a new Darkspawn threat. The story was more interesting than Origins aswell, I thought. I was actually a little dissapointed at the length of this expansion. While longer than the DLC it only took around 10 hours for me to beat. I was actually hoping for a longer ride; ala Shivering Isles, especially since I had paid about as much for the original game. New party members, the chance to level up higher to obtain new skills, cameos from people you met in the first game it has everything it needs. Other than the length I don't have any complaints.
The only achievement that game me problems was Blight-Queller. You're ment to kill 1000 darkspawn total, across all playthroughs. Each one of my playthroughs had around 700 when I beat the main game, a lot more if you include DLC and the expansion but no luck. The achievement is bugged in a way that means you have to do it in one playthrough. Luckily it doesn't seem to just unlock off the stat it shows in game, it also includes darkspawn you've killed before dieing or loading. At the end of the game you're powerful enough to kill Darkspawn in 1 hit and there is a series of battles with heaps of them for you to mow through so I ended up having to farm those areas then load, farm then load etc for around an hour before it popped.
The other achievement people seem to complain about being hard didn't seem that hard at all to me. Grim Reaper tasks you with defeating the Harvester on Hard or Nightmare. If you're going for this, make sure to play through pretty much everything else first. My warrior was about level 33 at this stage, wearing some sweet armour with 3 rune slots. Made sure to make one of my party members learn Rune Crafting skill in Awakening and got them to make me 3 Grandmaster Stout Ruins. Each gave me +10 constitution, 30 constitution onto a already 70 constitution having Dwarven Warrior specialising in Shield and Sword was a walk in the park made even easier with Carapace skill. Also I made sure to buy as many potions as I could find before importing him into the Golems of Amgarrak DLC but it was barely necessary.
Thats it. Dragon Age completed, took me about a month and a half in what must be close to 200 hours. I'll be taking a break from RPGs for a while now, the next one I have my eye on is Mass Effect 2. But for now I'm gonna work on some less time consuming games. Until next time!
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