Backhand of Justice

As you know, Dragon Age was my game of the year for 2009. It should come as no surprise, then, that I went back and replayed it despite knowing that there is an impending expansion. I played as a Dwarven rogue this time compared to my first game when I was an Elvish mage, but the differences in gameplay went far beyond Racial identity and NPC reactions.

Bioware has done an incredible job making Dragon Age a highly persoanl experience. Although the broad strokes of the game were the same, making different choices led to a significantly different game experience that left me even more impressed with Bioware’s RPG epic.

Is there any other way to play this game?

Both times I played through Dragon Age I spent the entire game thinking ‘my style of playing is the only way to do this, I wonder how different classes get by in this fight?’ That’s how I know Bioware flawlessly balanced the encounters.

When I was a full elemental mage, I relied on opening up with AoE spells, then moving to crowd control and focused DPS, and locking down enemies with ice spells and disabling them with earthquake was effective.

How do you like my jaunty helmet? Panache!

As a rogue, on the other hand, I would usually stealth behind the front lines to cherry pick mages and archers with stunlock insta-kills and then move in behind the melee enemies while they were attacking my tank and cleaning them up with free backstabs.

Both times I felt powerful and could adjust my party to complement my style. As a rogue, I got a huge combat bonus when attacking stunned enemies, so I made sure to make one of my mages solely a controller who could stun and lock down enemies, increasing my effectiveness.

As a mage wearing heavy armor, I could take punishment, but would generally bring along a complement of large distracting characters like Shale and a tank to suck up front line damage.

I’m equally confident that playing as a tank would be equally satisfying.

This seems like the safest route. Forward, men!

Lesser of all evils

I believe Dragon Age is the first game to offer real choice. I wasn’t trying to optimize my outcome; every choice was terrible. I merely had to decide the lesser of many evils which usually was more about which characters I wanted to please or my own moral inclination rather than some sort of ‘gaming the system’ approach for greater reward.

I made sure to choose mostly different outcomes in my second playthrough to see what would happen. Not only were conversations different, but I ended up with different party members and even different allies at the end of the game.

Even more impressive is how the origin story fit with my gameplay experience. There were characters that on my first playthrough were merely throwaway encounters who were involved in my origin story this time as a Dwarven prince. One of the three main ‘areas’ in the game was entirely transformed by virtue of my origins there, and playing as a Dalish elf would provide a similar benefit for a third playthrough.

Many think the noble dragon uses his teeth or flame breath to attack foes. In actuality, he kicks them in the face

Resolution

It’s clear they’re going to make sequels to Dragon Age beyond the simple expansion. Not only does the game come with ‘Origins’ in the title, but Bioware has said as much. With a game this personal, I wonder if they’re going to implement a ‘canonical’ outcome to the game or whether they’re going to merely go in a different direction with the sequels.

What Bioware is doing with the Mass Effect series suggests there’s going to be a canonical outcome with most of the choices progressing to a new game, but only time will tell.

Whatever the outcome, a second playthrough so soon after the first, which was arguably more satisfying, reiterates my belief that Dragon Age is both the best game of 2009 and the best RPG of its style ever made.