The Dord of Darien

Things that bug me about Dragon Age: Origins

Come on. You knew it was coming. Dragon Age: Origins, like all Bioware games, has some really fun stuff and some desperately lame stuff. So here’s a list, in no particular order, of some of the lame stuff.

First, the title. "Dragon Age: Origins" is a lousy title. Yeah, I get that they’re trying to position this as the first game in some epic Dragon Age arc, but still. A title like that will make people think there’s some other game out there called just "Dragon Age" that this is a prequel to, much like with this other game. Probably the better choice for the first game in the series would be just "Dragon Age," which is snappier and what people are calling it anyhow. Or maybe "Dragonage" with no space, so people could be all "whoa, that’s some bitchin’ Dragonage you got there, elfbrah!"

Combat is hilariously bad. I mean really, desperately unfun. It follows the lead of award-winning RPG of the decade Final Fantasy 12 in requiring you to program your henchmen before battle, which is a giant pain in the ass, though at least you don’t have to collect the stupid tactics like you do in FF12. The AI is still, however, bone-stupid, and no amount of fucking with the tactics menu will get your dudes not to stand in AOE damage until they die, even if you explicitly choose a tactics mode that says it moves them out of AOE. The stamina system is also very unfun; it’s very much like the rogue energy mechanic from World of Warcraft, except that the regen rate is hilariously low. So, just like a WOW rogue, you do two attacks and that pretty much empties your meter. But, much unlike a WOW rogue, you then stand around for about a minute before you regen enough energy to attack a third time. Combat sucks so much that I really suggest you just set the game to easy so you can minimise the amount you need to care about it.

No matter what difficulty level you choose, the big seige battle in Redcliffe sucks balls. It goes on way too long, and you spend most of the time really wishing you could taunt the mobs that just showed up so they won’t murder your rogue and all those NPCs, only you can’t, because taunt is on a cooldown way longer than the mob spawn timer and you have no stamina anyhow. It reminded me of nothing so much as the bit in Kingdom Hearts 2 where you have to kill a thousand nobodies (this number, unlike almost all numbers I ever use, is actually literally true: it is one thousand mobs), and it goes on goddamn forever, and you’re thinking "man, will this ever actually be over?" And, no, it never will.

The game’s dialogue doesn’t always appear to agree with what’s happening. The most egregious example would be in Tapster’s Tavern, where you can get a drink from the bartender. She tells you that a mug of ale will cost you three silvers. If you accept, the actual amount you pay is two copper. That’s… a pretty big disconnect there, game. Sure, it would be worse if it were in the other direction, but it’s kind of weird that it happens at all.

It’s weird how, if you’re ever like playfully flirtatious with another party member at any point ever, it sets you on-track for a romance angle with that party member. Which, yes, leads to complications if you flirt with more than one. Ever. This seems very weird to me, because I, in real life, am the biggest flirt of all time. I flirt with everybody, all the time, and I have never had this issue with everybody around falling madly in love with me. Maybe everybody in Dragon Age is just really desperate? Or maybe I’m just oblivious? Or maybe I’m just ugly. Actually, yeah, that’s probably it.

Dragon Age has more sex than Mass Effect did, but the quality of the sex scenes is lower. Apparently, in the realm of Dragon Age, people have sex with their underwear still on, which seems weird to me. Does that make any sense to anybody? I mean, for Mass Effect, they made special sex-scene skins with no underwear and just, like, didn’t point the camera at the AO bits. I guess that was too much work to bother with for Dragon Age, so they left everybody’s underwear on, which combines with the rather badly-done facial expressions to make the scenes a little weird. Hey, why are the facial expressions so wack in this game, Bioware? Everybody’s sad face has like this weird, pinched-together, M-shaped kind of look. It’s just bizarre — kind of looks like a zombie face (!). What was I talking about? Ah yes — the sex. Unlike Mass Effect, there are multiple opportunities per playthrough. And, unlike Neverwinter Nights, you can go to the whorehouse without getting a lecture about women’s lib. Also there’s gay sex if that’s your thing.

Dragon Age has a lot of really, really obvious plot twists. Plot twists even more obvious than those of award-winning bestest plot-twistiest game of the decade Bioshock. There’s a big plot twist in the human noble origin story that I saw coming as soon as the character in question was introduced. There’s another one as Ostagar that went pretty much the same way. Just a hint here that might help you in the future, Bioware: if a character’s going to turn out to be a traitor, probably don’t have him speak in a slimy bad-guy voice. And don’t give him sunken eyes or arching grey eyebrows. Those are like the quintessential warning signs of impending betrayal.

Quest items take up bag space, and you’ll get a damn lot of them. I spent a good portion of the early midgame struggling to fit anything in my bags, since I hadn’t bought so many backpacks yet and I was loaded up with like 20 quest items. That’s a little rough, since there isn’t even any way that I can find to get rid of a quest or its item other than completing it.

I have to hand it to Bioware on this one: so far I haven’t gotten an unprovoked lecture about racism, but I’m assuming there’s one waiting for me in the alienage in Denerim, or possibly in the elfy forest I can’t remember the name of. I have, of course, gotten unprovoked lectures about sexism and ageism, and also a lecture about stereotyping people in general.

Hey, Bioware? If you’re going to base your game on Le Morte d’Arthur, that’s fine — it’s an awesome story that doesn’t really get enough play in video games — but it’s a little bit hacky to name the witch in the woods "Morrigan." And also, hey, let’s call a grail a grail, shall we? "Urn of Sacred Ashes" my aching ass.

Also, here’s a neat thing: remember when Castlevania: Lament of Innocence came out, and there was that business about how it was inspired by Devil May Cry, which was itself a Castlevania ripoff? The same thing happens in Dragon Age, which owes a damn lot to The Witcher, which was itself a Neverwinter Nights knockoff. Good times!

Anybody else get the feeling that Bioware was trying to make some kind of statement with the emphasis on matriarchal culture? Every three steps you take there’s somebody explicitly telling you about how all priests are female, and such-and-such dwarven paragon is a woman, and, hell, even Jesus was a woman in Dragon Age. I just hope she doesn’t turn out to be a demon like the transparent Jesus figure in some other game.

Where I am in the game right now, it actually seems like the church might not be corrupt and evil, which would make this the very first video game ever with an organised church that isn’t. There’s still time, though, and like it keeps telling me: nobody knows where the archdemon of this blight is! Except that I think I know perfectly damn well where the archdemon is, and that location is not: Val Royeaux. But we shall see.

December 2nd, 2009 Posted by Darien | Games | 3 comments