Dragon Age: Origins Review

It's the summer of 2024. You're probably wondering about this new Dragon Age: The Veilguard game everybody talks about. It's coming in the fall, and people are starting to play its predecessors to get ready and know what happened previously.

You might have found this article by googling "Should you play Dragon Age Origins in 2024?" the answer is a resounding yes if you like role-playing games in dark, rich worlds of magic.

In this article, I'll share my thoughts after replaying and finishing the game in the last month in anticipation of The Veilguard. This article is the first in a series about Dragon Age building up to the game's release.

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Now, let's dive in, shall we?

Plot

The first installment in the Dragon Age series is about becoming a Grey Warden. You can choose different backgrounds, which will surely come into play when you talk to people in the game world. However, each "Origin" is a rich story all on its own.

I started my playthrough by becoming a Cousland, a noble family in Highever. When you choose this origin, you are a mundane, rich person. You can't be a mage and can only choose between a Warrior and a Rogue. I chose the latter, which is way more fun than being a tank.

My character was Charisma-based. In some areas of the game, you can avoid battles entirely if you are of noble birth and have a high enough coercion skill. It's the first skill I maxed out.

Without revealing spoilers, each Origin story ends with you accompanying Duncan to Ostagar to be inducted into the Grey Wardens.

From there, after a few events that leave you truly alone in the world, well, alone with Alistair and Morrigan, your first companions, you embark on a mission to rebuild the Grey Warden forces in Ferelden using some old treaties that Duncan asked you to find in a mission to the Korcari Wilds.

These treaties will take you to a completely different place in Ferelden. One will take you to Orzammar, where the Dwarves live underground and must appoint a new king before they can help you. A different one will take you to the Mage Circle, which is in bad shape after an event that caused a lot of turmoil that you need to help fix. Another treaty will take you to Redcliffe, where you need to enlist the help of Arl Eamon, who is quite incapacitated when you get there. And the final treaty will take you to the Dalish elves in the Brecilian Forest, who are dealing with a health outbreak.

Each of those questlines involves a lot of decisions you need to make to resolve the conflict. You'll also meet new companions in those places, and they might weigh in and react when you talk to someone they know.

I found the plot of this game to be incredibly rich and entertaining. At the same time, there are some dark paths you can walk. Not all of them will be resolved with a good outcome for you. I don't want to say more than that. If you have never played the game, I wholeheartedly recommend it if you love rich storylines.

Now let's talk about Music.

Music

The soundtrack for Dragon Age: Origins is fantastic. There are music tracks for battle and all the different places you visit in Ferelden. When you visit Denerim, the capital, this music works for a big city. Music accompanies the great halls there when you visit Orzammar. The Brecilian Forest has music that relates to nature.

In stark contrast to those lovely tracks, the music playing in battle or for dark moments is absolutely fantastic!

The strategic use of music tracks here elevates the game to a different level.

Graphics

The graphics of this game might be the only thing keeping new players from playing it. We're talking about a game from 2009. Understandably, the graphics are only some people's cup of tea, especially after playing masterpieces like The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt in 2015 and beyond.

However, if you can keep playing long enough to enjoy the story, you will get used to the graphics. And it's not like they're unplayably bad. They're just a little bit old. We are used to new graphics and games where our characters and their friends move and look like human beings. Remember "Detroit: Become Human"?

Dragon Age: Origins has many moments that would look fantastic if recreated in a remaster of the game. The storytelling is there; we only need to elevate the graphics to match it.

Gameplay

The gameplay is pretty straightforward. You can use the space button to stop mid-battle and assign commands to your character and companions. The level-up system is also pretty intuitive. You can also mark your companions for automatic level-up, but I wouldn't do that if you wanted to customize them. For example, I had Wynne with me in the squad a lot. At some point, I wanted her also to have some offense spells instead of just healing ones. Giving her Winter's Grasp and Fireball changed the game for me.

You could also set Tactics. For all my players, I set up a tactic: if they have under 25% health, they should take a healing poultice. That made my battles much more successful! Tactics were especially efficient with Wynne where I set her up always to finish off someone with Winter's Grasp if they had the lowest HP.

Tactics are like Automation; they work!

Companions

You have about nine companions that you can recruit throughout the game. Each companion has their own life, stories, and opinions about your actions and how you speak to them.

I especially loved how each companion receives bonuses to a specific attribute as their relationship with you grows. Alistair could have more constitution, Wynne could have higher magic scores, etc.

Your personal quests with your companions are critical. If you don't make the time to go on those adventures with them, don't expect them to give you their best. Some of those quests could also affect a character's worldview.

Some other quests could make your companions hate your guts if you don't solve them how they expect the quest to be solved. It could also happen in a regular quest when your companions are present.

If you invest the time to talk to these people, you'll find amazing stories hiding within the game world that you didn't realize existed in the first place.

Overall Impressions

I absolutely love Dragon Age: Origins. It's one of my favorite games of all time, especially because of the interactions with all of my companions.

If you have the time before Dragon Age: The Veilguard drops, please replay this game masterpiece. It will give you a lot of context about Thedas as a world and about the events that happened before the next entry in the series.

Thank you so much for reading! What's your favorite thing about Dragon Age of the most burning question still left unanswered? Let me know in the comments below!