Dragon Age: Origins' Gauntlet Holds Up As A Fantastic RPG Dungeon

I’ve been writing incessantly about a fifteen-year-old game for the last couple of weeks. It’s called , you might have heard of it. I’ve essentially been live-blogging my first time ever playing the game, from everything from 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the pro🐎cess of🌄 actually installing the game to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:how impressed I 🔯am by the quality of the writ💮ing and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:how much I hate the Fade. I’m playing through the series for the first time ever in a possibly f♛utile attempt to prepare myself as much as possible before is launched. Only time will tell if I manage to finish the series before then.

My colleague Ben Sledge is also diving back into before The Veilguard’s release. He is ༺straight up not having a good time right now.

As expected, a lot of Dragon Age: Origins feels pretty dated, and there are parts of it that frustrate me to no end, but a lot of that is just because modern RPGs have improved on the mechanics. However, there are tꦫimes when I’m struck by just how well the game holds up in general – yes, its writing is still top-notch, even (or especially) when compared to recent releases, but there are times when its level design truly shines.

Dragon Age: Origins’ Gauntlet Is Actually Fun

Origins’ main storyline leads you to Arl Eamon, the much beloved ruler of Redcliffe. He’s fallen mysteriously ill, and it turns out that a Blood Mage named Joౠwan has been poisoning him on the orders of your biggest opp, Loghain. Eamon’𝓀s son Connor has also been possessed and is destroying the village below, but that’s besides the point. After exorcising Connor with an agonising journey through the Fade, you find you still have to cure Arl Eamon of his affliction.

Fine, it seems you don’t have much choice in the matter, so you agree to find a cure. It turns out this cure is the Urn of Sacred Ashes, a sacred relic containing the ashes of the prophet Andraste. Eamon’s wife Isolde tells you that a man n🌠amed Brother Genitivi might know where it is, so you go to his house. Some stuff happens, you’re directed to a bizarre cult v🎃illage named Haven, and you find him in its Chantry, where he’s being held by a bunch of xenophobic weirdos. He then leads you to a Ruined Temple.

This temple starts out pretty banal. You fight your way through, enter a series of caverns and fight your way through that, and either heꦡlp out a bunch of cultists who want you to defile the Ashes, or kill them. I killed them – I’m generally against destroying sacred items, regardless of whether I believe in that religion or not. Continuing will lead you to The Gauntlet.

Modern Open World Games Have Ruined Dragon Age: Origins' Secrets For Me

The check𒁃listification of open⭕ worlds has ruined everything.

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I love a good RPG dungeon that requires more brains than brawn, while simultaneously feedi🐟ng you with lore, and The Gauntlet does just that. The Guardian Knight guarding the ashes tells you that The Gauntlet cannot be bypassed, and allows you to go forth. The first trial is a series of eight riddles posed by the spirits of people from Andraste’s life. Answering wrongly leads them to turn into an ash wraith that you then have to kill, but answering correctly leads the spirit to disappear. Each character tells you a bit about themselves and their relationship with Andraste when you answer correctly. It’s a neat way of learning about the prophet that is so often referenced throughout the game, and I liked getting to sit back and think a little after fighting my way through the temple.

The second trial has you fighting spectral versions of your own party, and you have to defeat them all to continue. They can use any abilities your party has unlocked, and then some, and all are levelled to your Warden’s level, even if your party members are lo🌜wer levelled.

The third trial is a puzzle, where you have to use your party members to stand on floor tiles and trigger incorporeal blocꦚks to become solid. This one was a little tricky, and I was feeling lazy, so I used a walkthrough. The fourth trial simply has the Warden taking off all their clothes and walking through the fire. This proves your worth in the eyes of Andraste, and you can take some ashes for Arl Eamon.

Hey, Wait, This Sounds Familiar!

I couldn’t help but think about ’s Gauntlet of Shar, a level that I loved but 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:n🃏ot everyone shares th🐻e same affection for. That similarly named sprawling dungeon level has you also going through a number of triไals, collecting Umbral Gems to access the heart of the Gauntlet, where you’ll find an imprisoned Nightsong.

These trials have some obvious similarities to Dragon Age: Origins’ Gauntlet. Most obviously, the Self-Same Trial where your BG3 party has to defeat shadowy copies of themselves in order to pass is pretty much the same as Origins’ second trial, except you get debuffs if your characters attack copies that aren’t theirs. The Faith-Leap Trial is also reminiscent of Origins’ third trial – the former has you following an invisible pa𓆉th to get to the other side, while the latter has you creating a path.

The Gauntlet of Shar, in some ways, feels like a homage to Dragon Age: Origins’ Gauntlet. Both are largely puzzle-oriented but share characteristics, and both feed you information about the wider world – Origins’ about Andraste, and Baldur’s Gate 3’s about Shar and her (for now) loyal follower, Shadowheart. It was surprising that I could find so many similarities between 2023’s near unanimous GOTY and the critically lauded Dragon Age: Origins, but perhaps it shouldn’t have been. After all, graphics can fall out of date, as🐬 can good combat, but a good dungeon? That’s forever. It makes sense that RPGs are, to this day, drawing from the best parts of DA:O. It’s a classic for a reason.