Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition Reviews

Perhaps it's simply the fact the game's dated, but... It doesn't exactly run. After many crashes via Steam, Game Pass, [i]and[/i] EA Play, including at least two reinstalls on each platform, I must admit my defeat. Perhaps in the future the came could get a re-release, but alas I'll have to make due with fan wikis for what I've missed out on.

old but amazing. Get some of the recommended mods on nexus and gamestegy.com/post/dragon-age-origins/228/best-dao-modlist

Can I get you a ladder. My opinions on this are pretty conflicted, as half I really enjoyed and the other half I didn't. I won't mention much about the PC port which does have issues like a mandatory 4gb patch and a UI scale mod being essential. But instead I want to focus more on the game itself. The main reason why I'm so conflicted on Dragon Age Origins is because of the gameplay/combat. It's really really boring. I could compare the combat in this game to a MMORPG where you click on an enemy and wait for it to die. You have various skills but they lack any variety from one another and feel like they're just small damage multipliers. The only time combat ever requires much of any involvement is noticing that a party members health is low, pausing, and commanding them to drink a health potion. Adding onto this the multitude of stunlocks and outright busted abilities that some of the enemies can do (overwhelm how I hate you) and it just makes the combat in this an unenjoyable slog. So why do I still recommend this game? The writing. Everything from the world to the characters that inhabit it are very well written and is easily the part where the game shines the most. I could not care at all for going into dungeons to fight for hours but if the dwarves are having an internal political conflict that needs resolving then sign me up immediately. Talking my way through situations so that I can avoid getting into fights and battles (because they suck) ended up being the strongest part about my character not because it made the game easier but because it was simply the more enjoyable option. The companions are very strongly written (Oghren my beloved) and I really enjoyed putting time aside in the camp to get to know their stories better. It's not a perfect story by any means but its the driving force of this game and easily carries it. I would still recommend this game but with a heavy warning that in order to get to what makes this game great, you have to put up with very uninteresting combat and a wonky PC port. Gameplay - 1/5 Music - serviceable/5 Appearance - 3/5 Story - 5/5 Difficulty - Moderate (Death Count: 10+) Skeleton Rating: 3/5 - great variety of skeletons Overall Rating: 3/5 - Good

Bought on a steep sale. Runs and hangs up on my Windows 11 with my NVIDIA 2080 super graphics card. May be work arounds but is it worth the trouble?

For a game so old now, released 15 years ago, I wasn't expecting it to actually keep my attention very long and was convinced I'd flog the game after a dozen hours but that never happened. Instead I quickly played the entire thing in a week and was kept hooked. Solid 9/10 experience just for the surprise and great story. Game play while not easy wasn't overly difficult and not monotonous at all given it's slower nature but keeps itself engaging by giving you endless interesting encounters which make you carefully consider the choices made second to second. Probably won't play the other games this one did it right.

Dragon Age: Origins is one of the best RPGs I have ever played, soured only by my complete and utter lack of enjoyment in its gameplay, so much so that I dropped the game entirely my first go around. Despite that experience, I came back to the game and was rewarded immensely in all things writing, tone, and presentation. I want to begin talking about the gameplay since that's my only real complaint about the game and I want to get it out of the way. The combat, the puzzles, and the movement in this game all feel incredibly clunky and unfun to me. The real time with pause combat breaks up the pacing that combat might otherwise have and feels sub-optimal if pause isn't used. The actual skills and gearing aspect of combat is useful but it doesn't feel that way, lending to a rather unengaging experience that fails to reward any sort of skill expression. The puzzles are always tedious and one of either overly simple or needless trial-and-error. The movement feels akin to that of an MMO which, while not really all that bad, ages poorly to modern day action RPGs. Beyond the gameplay aspects, the game is nothing short of absolutely incredible, with a very minuscule but not negligible amount of weak points. The world and lore are established very well through music, visuals, character, dialogue, codex entries, and narrative progression. All of these elements are woven and interact together beautifully to sell a strong dark fantasy setting with a rich history. The companions, with the exception of 2 or 3 total from the base game and DLCs, are varied and thoughtfully written. They come bundled with humor, internal and external conflict, important narrative implications, short but meaningful story arcs, and overall great dialogue. The narrative as a whole, both main and side stories of all length, are morally grey, thought-provoking, and consistently intriguing. It felt like every place the game allowed me to make a decision, I was given at minimum 3 options whose effects were compounded and impactful beyond the quest I made the choice. The world evolved and reacted to my actions, from the measly NPCs with no strong bearing on the story to major players in the narrative to the companions that traveled in my party. No small part of the story in this game was inconsequential and even if an element of it did not directly add to the main plot line, it augmented my understanding of the world as a whole, impacting the implications of choices I had made both beforehand and moving forward. The music and art direction of Dragon Age: Origins were also very strong, although not nearly to the extent that the writing stood out to me. The graphical fidelity did not age the best but the atmosphere and tone of the game were set phenomenally before I even spoke to characters or understood the state of the world. As far as I'm concerned, these elements did what they set out to do perfectly, even if I wouldn't describe them as mind-blowing or jaw-dropping. Despite what I would describe as absolutely abysmal gameplay, the writing and world of Dragon Age: Origins got me absolutely hooked, eventually. It took my until my second attempt to get into the game but focusing on the dialogue and how the story unfurled as a result of my choices led me to one of my new all time favorite RPG experiences. While I do now understand why this game is considered a masterpiece, I'd still recommend it cautiously. Gameplay is a massive part of the experience of any game but this game's gameplay may be some of the worst I have experienced in any big name title, although others may enjoy it where I couldn't. The Awakening expansion, in my opinion, upholds a level of quality akin to the base game but I feel it could have used a bit of a longer runtime to flesh out the companions more, as I felt about half of them were comparable in quality to the best of the base game. The Witch Hunt DLC was rather short with companions that basically didn't have any development but it gave my characters that I took across these campaigns some much needed closure which I appreciated. Overall, I believe Dragon Age: Origins, including its Awakening expansion, is an incredible experience that not only stands the test of time, but stands above most games that have come out after it. As long as you can get past the gameplay.

As for whether or not I'd recommend this game, my answer would be yes with an asterisk at the end. I'd like to call Dragon Age: Origins an absolutely timeless classic, but the graphics definitely show their age and there's the occasional glaring texture bug (like square shaped blood splatters and flickering textures) and crash. Not enough to make you want to jam a stake through your cranium out of sheer frustration, but certainly enough to be noticeable. You'll also probably want to install some bug fix mods depending on your interactions and choices involving certain characters: for example, in my first run through of this game, Alistair's dialogue towards the end had him talking as if he was the new king of Ferelden when he was very much not due to the choices I'd made, and that was more than a little immersion breaking. It can also be a right pain in the ass trying to get certain class specializations depending on the way you play the game. For example, if you choose not to take a deal offered by a demon at a specific point in the game, then you're just SOL if you wanted to play a Blood Mage. Makes sense in the context of the story, sure, but that doesn't make it any less of a bummer for players who wanted to experiment with one of the more broken class specializations in the game. Obligatory f*ck the Fade, by the way. I'll shill for the Deep Roads until I look like the real life equivalent of the crying soyjack meme, but I'd rather sandpaper a crocodile's arsehole in a phone booth than go through that part of the game again. Play through it once normally and then just install a mod to skip it in any subsequent playthroughs unless you hate yourself. Now that I've gotten my nitpicks with this game out of the way, I can start absolutely glazing it as our lord and savior Morrigan intended. Dragon Age: Origins is the game that damn near ruined other RPGs for me as growing because of just how stellar its characters, world building, and story are. This game embodies the 'role-playing' part of role playing games perfectly. Almost every single one of your choices in this game impacts the plot greatly, and there is no greater example of this than the game's titular origin system. Depending on the race and class you pick, the dialogue options you have to choose from and the way other characters treat you varies wildly. Many of the choices you make will also impact not only Ferelden itself, but also how the game's last couple of hours and final battle plays out. Also, the characters. God, I love the characters in this game. Morrigan and Alistair are beloved fan favorites for a reason, and the rest of the party members are really interesting as well! I won't go too far into depth on them in case anyone who stumbles on this review wants to avoid spoilers, but even the lawful good old lady healer (Wynne my beloved. I would die for you) has some interesting bits of lore and party banter that make her feel very fleshed out. To sum it up, while Dragon Age: Origins is certainly not without its flaws, I'd still give this game a solid 9/10. It's a game so good that I still find myself coming back to it fifteen years after its initial release. If you can look past its issues and don't mind not so great graphics, this is still hands down one of the best RPGs ever made. No, that is not an exaggeration. I genuinely enjoy this game's story and characters more than Baldur's Gate 3, and I absolutely adore BG3. That's how darn good Origins is.

The best Dragon Age, dont know what happened to Bioware but this game is gem. Unfortunetly dont work anymore on my PC, but I will always have good memories about old Bioware.

Dragon Age: Origins is a shockingly well-aged game that holds up very well against the very best RPGs I have ever played. It is probably the most consistently well-written RPG I have played. I love this game's companions, worldbuilding, main story, DLC, and even all the jank-ass aspects feel good in their own way. I so adore this game, I think it's the best BioWare game I have played, and I think anyone who enjoys RPGs needs to play it. And it pains me to not recommend this game because it's a technical mess. First off, the game is highly unstable and crashes frequently. There's a great YouTube video I watched that directed me to fixes that helped, including a 4 GB RAM patch. It also has physics issues at certain framerates, I frequently got caught on geometry at 120 and 240 FPS. This is fixed with forcing 60 FPS in the GPU driver, though not exactly ideal it is fixable. However, I ran into a colossal issue where the Steam version was not redeeming the DLC. This game has a ton of DLC content, and I wanted it. Nothing I did worked. The only thing that worked for me was installing the game on EA App instead. It pains me to recommend the game there instead, but I genuinely do because the experience has been better. Even then, I don't recommend this to people who have no experience modding PC games (though the modding is simple,) and it shouldn't be our job as consumers to fix the products we buy.

After completing the fourth part of Dragon Age, I wanted to play the first part again. And God, how wonderful it is: strong characters, gorgeously written dialogues, an epic story, you just dissolve in all this. I had already forgotten that such games were once released and made. You really get incredible pleasure from the dialogues compared to the fourth part. Dialogues here are like a separate art form, it is clear that the developers once worked hard. In general, this is not the only thing that can give you emotions, the game itself is very variable: this concerns both your backstory and your choice in certain actions, you are the creator of your story and what its outcome will be depends only on you. Pros: ☑️🔝 An epic story with saving the world, where you are the chosen one and your decisions will determine what the ending will be, as well as a number of other important events. The right to choose, as in RPG games, is not an empty phrase here as in the finale of Mass Effect 3; ☑️🔝 Well-written and interesting characters; ☑️🔝 Dialogues and the variability of their choices give exquisite pleasure; ☑️🔝 The ability to create a character and choose what your backstory will be; ☑️🔝 Interesting character leveling system. I found it very interesting to fight and level up my character; ☑️🔝 The atmosphere, music are top notch here; ☑️🔝 The ability to install mods. And also many many other advantages, each of which is native and special for each person. Even before the Steam version, I spent countless hours here, I spent many hours on certain events in the game, replayed this fantastic game many times. This game gave me so many pleasant and positive emotions that words are not enough to describe everything I feel about this game. I love the first part and consider this game the best from the BioWare studio. There was nothing better from them and perhaps there never will be. I would also add the first and second parts of Mass Effect as well as Jade Empire here.