I'd already played a bit of this game before, so I wasn't completely cold going in. I'd already experienced the mage origin story, so I went for the human noble this time around. I wanted to be a heavy-armor-wearing, damage-dealing warrior, so that seemed like my best bet. Named my character "LaJustin". That's kind of an inside joke type deal, which I still find amusing. But anyways, I found the noble's story to be alright. I have only one other to compare to, but this one had some good moments for sure. I can't be 100% sure here, but I think that guy that you meet next to your mother is a romance option. I was going through his dialog tree and I started getting options that seemed like they could lead to intimate relations. I was like: "Whoa, hold on there buddy! I thought we were just friends!". Not that there's anything wrong with a male character romancing another male, I just didn't expect to even have that option. I definitely can appreciate the freedom with things like that. I decided to court the nice lady elf though. That scene where the guards bust in totally caught me off guard. Did they have to kill such a nice lady-friend? Moving along. Pretty fun origin story is the point.
Next was the obligatory trip to Ostagar. I have to say, for a required opening section, this is actually not a bad one. I think that it's a combination of the well-designed scenery, the plot points that are being laid out at this time, and all of the interaction with various people in camp that makes Ostagar interesting. There's the prisoner that hasn't been fed. There's that whole restricted mage gathering (so mysterious!). Also the dog trainer guy that gives you the quest to help the dogs. There's just a bunch to see and do for such an enclosed area. There's not a whole lot to say beyond that though. Starting that signal fire after the fighting starts is the game's first big battle scenario and it's fun. The beginning especially, where you are running across that long bridge as the battle rages around you, is great. The last time I played the game, I had seen Duncan and the king die in battle, so I wasn't shocked or anything this time around. That's a rough moment though. I felt so helpless watching them get crushed. (It's a good thing the Ultimate Box includes the "Return to Ostagar" DLC so that I could eventually come back and take some revenge, which I did.)
The next step of my journey brought me to the town just North of Ostagar. I think this is probably where most people end up after leaving with Morrigan. I took care of some random business there. I also picked up Sten by freeing him from his cage. That Sten's a tough nut to crack. I'm still working on him. Maybe one day he'll pour his guts out to me. That conversation would be fairly humorous considering how other conversations with him have gone so far. It's like he's an undercover agent trying to keep his background on a need-to-know basis. I do appreciate the occasional stark contrast of his personality in comparison to all of the other loquacious fellows I've met in Ferelden. After picking him up, I headed strait to camp to meet my personal traveling Dwarf salesman and his hilarious son. I feel kind of bad calling him hilarious, but I never get tired of the excitement he exudes as I ask for his assistance with enchantment. "Enchantment? ... ENCHANTMENT!". Other camp activities that night included dirty deeds with Morrigan. Thank you gift pack DLC. :P
I made the choice from there to take on one of the three quick-and-dirty mission DLC packs. First up was the "Warden's Keep" DLC just for the reason that it gives both nice equipment, and an infinite storage chest. I figured--knowing how I role in games like these--that the storage chest would be supremely useful. The mission itself was interesting, albeit rather short. I had expected that going in though. It was fun getting some history on earlier Grey Wardens and ultimately confronting the last of the survivors of their battle. Turns out he has been researching blood magic and torturing subjects in the process. I let him live, but I made it clear that he'll no longer use subjects in his tests. I have no idea how his research is coming along as I haven't been back to visit him in his lonely tower.
Infinite chest in hand, I then decided to take my talents to South Beach. No wait, it was just a little village in order to rescue a deactivated pile of rubble. AKA: the "Stone Prisoner" DLC pack. I got a bit mixed up though and accidentally activated the "Return to Ostagar" DLC quest instead. I decided to roll with the punches and headed back out to the recently decimated Ostagar. It was probably a little soon to do this one since the DLC was seemingly meant to take place quite a while after the events of the initial Ostagar battle. There should be hordes of Dark Spawn there just following a battle like that, but as stated in game, the Dark Spawn are far less entrenched than suspected. This was a fun little romp back through the once-great, now-icy and barren Ostagar camp. Collecting the former king's armor pieces after killing each Dark Spawn general was extra satisfying. It all concluded with the resurrection of the Ogre that killed the King. I killed the shit outta that dude! If only Duncan had let me fight in the battle in the first place. I then wrapped up by giving the king's body a nice funeral. Morrigan--being the practical woman that she is--wasn't too happy about that, but I've had to piss her off a couple of times before that, so it was nothing new (Here's another gift, baby!). I stashed the king's armor in my infinite chest since I couldn't currently wear it, and headed to my initially intended destination. I was off to find the Stone Prisoner.
This is another one hour mini-adventure. It nets you a sweet golem ally though, so I figured that would be interesting. I had no idea. Shale's a flat out amazing character. I love him. Not only is he strong in combat, but his personality is top-notch. He insists on referring to my entire party as "It", even though he calls other select humans by their names. I'd love to see him set up an online dating profile:
OK, enough fanfic. This mission was worth the time. Fighting a demon that had possessed a kitty cat is probably the best reason to play through this (other than Shale). The sad part was my inability to stop demon kitty from turning into demon-kitty-girl, and then just strait-up demon. I felt genuinely bad after letting that guy down by not saving his daughter. I wonder if anything significant would have come of saving the girl. Something to check out next playthrough I suppose. It took me a while to figure it out, but I eventually discovered that swapping out crystals would change Shale's crystal color. I found that neat. I've been having issues finding legitimately good crystals so far though. They've all bee cracked or flawed thus far. I'm sure I'll come across better ones at some point." It must be made of stone, like me. It mustn't be in connection with a control rod, or under anyone's control in any way. It must enjoy the death of any and all bird creatures. These are my conditions. "
Despite all indications, I am indeed aware that attention spans on the internet are often limited. All I can say is that for this I apologize, because I aint done yet.
At this point in my journey I decided that Alistair's plan to get Arl Eamon's help in Redcliffe was the proper course of action. It turns out that town went to shit recently. I quickly found myself in the thick of an undead invasion. As I was listening to people in town describe the attackers, I was just thinking: "Really Dragon Age? Zombies? Fuuuu!". It did turn out to basically be a zombie attack, but within the context of Dragon Age, it worked fine. The game didn't suddenly turn into RDR Undead Nightmare or anything. I gathered supplies and soldiers for the mayor and guard captain to help ward off the zombie attack. That stuff felt tedious, but maybe I just made it tedious. I actually looked up that quest online to make sure I didn't miss any preventative measures that I could have taken. Turns out I would have missed a couple of good soldiers if I didn't, but that's probably the last time I'll look up any quest for this game. Looking up quests takes away all of the mystery and magic of games like these, and I should have known that. Oh well, it didn't take too long to get things underway and put an end to the undead threat. After it was over I strolled into the bar and asked the new bartender lady for a heroes welcome. Did I mention that I loved this game's dialog options? After saving the village, I was free to go bust up that castle and finally get to talk to Arl Eamon, or so I thought. I got into the castle just to discover that the Arl's boy was possessed by another demon! After my last encounter with a demon, I was a little scared that the kid would die. A mage that I freed earlier then informed me that I had a few options to resolve this situation. I could:
- Kill the boy, and the demon with it.
- Sacrifice the boy's mother in order to create a entrance into the Fade where I could then destroy the demon without killing the boy.
- Go to the Circle of Magi in order to ask for help from the mages. This complicated option would save both the mother and the boy.
Being the kind-hearted human being that I am, I had to go with option number 3. Would it take an amazingly long time in comparison to the other options? Yes, but I just couldn't bring myself to kill an innocent if I didn't have to. And so I was off to the mage's tower for the first time.
Before I knew it, he had condemned me and my party to a dream land that was supposed to be inescapable. It was awful because the first dream I had was one where I had to talk to Duncan. He got mad at me and I stuck him with my blade. I'm pretty sure he was a demon though, so it's all good. At this point I moved on to another dream land, and I was pretty confused at this point. Turned out that I needed to conquer eight separate dream worlds and rescue my party from their nightmares. I tweeted something about this section of the game being crazy when I was about halfway through, and a bunch of people told me that they thought that this dream section was the worst section of the game, super long, nearly made them stop playing, things of that nature. I was super surprised by all of the hate. I mean I could understand it to an extent as I felt similarly at first. When I first started this and figured out that I would have to work my way through semi-puzzly sections by transforming into various things, I thought two things. One being "why am I forced to do this? I need my party back!" and also "wow, all of this back-tracking is tedious". At some point though, all of it just kinda clicked and I started enjoying it. Some of the transformations you acquire are actually really cool. My character, being a warrior, wasn't able to transform into anything before, so I enjoyed that aspect a whole lot. There were also a ton of permanent stat increases laying around, so exploring every corner of these dream worlds was encouraged. At the end of the day, it was a really nice change of pace from literally everything else that I'd done up to that point. Tedium was indeed present, but I can get behind some well-structured tedium every now and then. I eventually confronted the demon that trapped me and my party and I took that dude out. This section was the most challenging of any I'd faced in the game so far, so I was relieved to be free of it. I then made my way to the top of the mage tower to stop this attack. Turns out a dude was trying to transform all of the mages into demons, so I had to ice that fool. Literally, Morrigan's ice spells were already super powerful at this point. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I picked up Wynne as a party member before I hit the dream land. She's a nice healer, but her personality seems a bit bland from what I've seen thus far. Haven't had a lot of time with her yet though. So anyways, I saved the day and finally got the head mage's help with saving the little possessed boy back at Redcliffe castle.
I then found myself back at the castle with the mages there waiting for me. Only one of my party mages could enter the Fade to fight the demon possessing the boy, so naturally I sent Morrigan. To make a somewhat short story even shorter: Yo, she killed that demon. After exiting the Fade, it seemed all was well. I would now need to talk to Arl Eamon about giving us some assistance, but wait! turns out Arl Eamon is too sick to speak, or even be conscious. Blast! I am now forced to travel to a town that I can't honestly remember the name of right now, and collect some sacred ashes that have healing powers of legend. Arl Eamon must be saved!
That's where my most recent save has left me. I'm really liking this game a whole lot so far. The codex in this game--similarly to Mass Effect 2's codex--is faaantastic. Really really great stuff. It may even be better than Mass Effect's to be honest. There are just so many little scraps of paper that you find all around the world that get thrown in there and reading through them provides seemingly endless entertainment. One way that you can easily identify a video game's greatness is looking up at the clock and realizing that you've been playing for much longer than you had realized. This has happened to me every time that I've played Dragon Age. After recently finishing Mass Effect 2 and naming it my GOTY, I didn't expect Dragon Age to be on quite the same level. I was wrong. This game is incredible.
I have Dragon Age fever a year and a half after its initial release, and I'm loving every minute of it.
Hours of Dragon Age played thus far: ~24
<3
--JJWeatherman
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