Is It Just Nostalgia, Or Is Dragon Age: Origins Better Than Most Modern RPGs?

By 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tessa Kaur

Published Jun 25, 2024

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Summary

Dragon Age: Origins still stands the test of time with top-notch writing, iconic characters, and meaningful side quests.
Origins offers a refreshing break from modern RPG open world bloat, focusing on quality over quantity in gameplay.
The upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard shows promise if it returns to Origins' handcrafted nature.

If you read 𒁏my work, it will come as no shock that I’m a big fan of early . was one of the first video games I ever loved, and it formed my understanding of what good game writing is and shaped my love of hand-crafted narratives with excellent writing and coﷺmpelling characters.

I’m not surprised, then, that I fell in love with the moment I started playing it for the first time this weekend, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:its persistent crashing iওssues notwithstanding. DA:O has a lot of the same DNA as KOTOR: excellent dialogue, well-acted characters, and choices that change the world around you are the backbone of this 2009 release. Immediately, I felt right at home. It looks dated, of course – that much is undeniable. I played a bit of it while my friends were over f🌼or drinks and they all settled on the couch to watch – one of them said, off-handedly, “God, this game is ugly as hell.”

Dragon Age Origins Holds Up, Even In 2024

I couldn’t help but defend it, and vehemently. It’s a game from 2009, and yes, by modern standards, the graphics are pretty ugly. But in a lot of ways, DA:O holds up better than you’d expect. Its combat isn’t amazing, but I certainly prefer it to the wave of Souls♔like action RPGs𒉰 we’ve seen in recent years. Its writing is🍌 still top-notch, expertly weaving a fantasy epic with themes𓄧 that still resonate today. Its characters are iconic for good reason, and Morrigan and Alistair’s bickering is glorious.

And, perhaps most importantly, the side quests feel significant. I love going down a rabbit hole after picking up a strange note, hunting down hidden caches and helping the townspeople I come across, because it doesn’t feel repetitive or like a chore. Open world bloat is the biggest thing ruining modern RPGs for me, and the fact that Origins doesn’t force me to do stupid fetch quests for n❀o narrative payoff is a 💧huge plus in my book.

A lot of modern RPGs fail in this respect. Even modern RPGs often lauded as some of the best in the genre, like , have some level of open world bloat that I ac🍎tively try to avoid as much as possible. It’s nice to return to an early classic and, instead of wishing it was more like modern games, to wish that more moder🍬n games were like DA:O.

Origins Gives Me Hope For The Veilguard

While it’s true that I probably love Origins more because of its similarities to one of my all-time favourite games, it’s really its attention to detail and handcrafted nature that makes it impressive. I can’t help but think about how is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:supposed to be more handcrafted and has turned away from the open world present in the game directly preceding it, 🔯. It’s a return to form, and one that BioWare has done very well in the past – even though Origins’ levels are much smaller, there's a lot to do in each map, and the depth of the quests and side quests aren’t hindered by its lack of an open world.

It turns out that I’m likely to be in the camp that thinks Dragon Age: Origins is the best of the series, and while I’m not sure that The Veilguard will 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:manage to take this formula and improv🍨e on it, it does inspire a bit of hope that it wi🅺ll be a decent RPG. It may not be the one we’re expecting it to be, considering modern triple-A RPG trends, but making it more akin to Origins seems to already be a step in the right diꦏrection. And if it’s not, it’s fine – Origins already exists. I’ll just play that again instead.