Oh my god!! I'm not sure wether it's the new years resolution, trying to stick to this blog, really loving the story or whatever but...
I. HAVE. ACTUALLY. FINISHED. DRAGON AGE!!
Okay, so, ye, I'm quite happy now! I've actually sticked with a game for 30 hours!!
Story:
The start is different depending on your chosen class/race/background:
I went for an Elven Mage, Neria. As all the mages I started out in the Circle of Magi, around the time I got promoted to a 'real' mage by passing a test.
Due to some events I don't want to spoil,you end up as an initiate to the infamous Grey Warden:
They're a group of people determined to fight the Darkspawn (Think evil, demons, corrupted beings).
A blight (darkspawn woke up an 'arch demon' which leads them on an attack against, well, the whole world, really) has recently begun, and they need your help in beating them.
Grey Wardens used to be legendary, renown warriors, the protectors of the world but overtime they became forgotten seeing there hasn't been a blight in around 400 years.
Writing this down suddenly made me realise they're quite like the Night's Watch in 'a Game of Thrones'.
Some more events happen and amidst the blight a civil war starts to break out. It's your mission to remind the humans, dwarves and elves of the ancient treaties they signed ages ago and help you stop the blight, while stopping a civil war in the process.
You meet a lot of different, unique, characters throughout the story, you can choose to keep some as companions or just send them away/kill them. One thing I particularly like is all the idle chatter/banter between the characters. There's for example a dwarf that just kept hitting on this old mage.
By making certain choises in events/quests, talking to them or by giving your companions gift you increase how much they like you and, eventually, develop romantic relationships with some of them.
Gameplay
You can control 1 party member at any given time (But assign tactics to the others so the AI somewhat does what you want, if you're lucky) and play it like an action-rpg by using skills in real-time.
You can also choose to press space bar to pause the game, tell a character/characters who to attack, what skill to use, where to move, or what item to use and they will do so if you unpause the game again.
At the start I found this quite confusing/annoying, but especially the pause - think - react kinda started to grow on me.
You can move around in realtime both in- and out of battle by just clicking somewhere and the charater will move, or by using the WASD keys instead.
Camera
I've probably played to many games where I could adjust the angle better, but the camera annoyed me a great deal: Sometimes it seemed like my view was 'blocked' due to a building, or maybe I'm just to used to games where I can freely turn the camera around 360 degrees.
Pro's
- Rich story and history
- a lot of variation in characters, cultures, background
- Being able to build relationships with your companions
- An awful lot of way's to customize your characters (Classes have a lot of different talents/spells you can choose to unlock or not by spending points. Think about WoW's talent system, but more complex.)
- Decisions you make actually have an impact on the gameworld, characters and events instead of being irrelevant in the big scheme of things.
Cons
- Annoying camera
- The AI sometimes seems to have a deathwish.
- Somewhat outdated graphics - but hey! The game is from 2009!
All in all, an awesome RPG with a rich story, loads of ways to customise your characters, several possibly outcomings, a must play!
Though, I'd advice you to get the Ultimate Edition instead of the stand alone with a stand alone Awakenings (Bundles...) - I wish I'd've gotten the Ultimate instead of just Awakenings for all the extra dlc.
Late 2014 Ubisoft surprised everyone by bringing out a JRPG, build in the engine the Rayman games run on.
