Taken on its own, Dragon Age is an enjoyable RPG experience. It combines a solid storyline, memorable characters, and readily accessible game play mechanics. It is impossible, however, to not compare Dragon Age to the legacy of fantasy RPGs that have preceded it, notably the Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights series upon which Dragon Age draws so much inspiration. In many ways I look at Dragon Age as a natural progression from these previous titles. It makes some improvements, some concessions, and delivers an overall wonderful and accessible experience.

The rules behind the game are perhaps the most streamlined ever in a Bioware RPG. Skill points are replaced by a small group of skills each having four ranks, attributes are scaled up much higher, and ability trees are handled as they were in KOTOR. It's hard to imagine how long Bioware has gone without the D&D license thanks to Atari's ownership of it, but I wonder if they would even want to use it given how well they're developing their games without it. Yes, it lacks the depth that the full D&D suite offers, but the accessibility of the system makes up for it as players generally aren't hamstrung into specific paths based on their initial class selection. You don't need a given class to complete the game, but it certainly helps to have a rogue in the group for locks and traps, have a mage serve as the healer (which only requires them to spend one skill point to do), and make a fighter or arcane warrior act as the group tank.

The biggest discrepancy in Dragon Age comes from the stark differences in quality of the storyline and characters that accompany on your journey. If there's one glaring weakness in the game it is that the storyline offers nothing new or exciting to the genre, but rather a retread perpetrated countless times before by authors far less prestigious than Bioware. The sides of good and evil are established immediately and most of the major plot twists are taken care of soon thereafter. The core storyline acts as little more than an impetus for the quests to come, something I would more likely see in an action RPG or a MMO. The ultimate evil in the game, the Archdemon, is something only spoken about in whispers until the very end, offers nothing for the player to identify with other than sending hordes of minions at you, and as a result is grossly overshadowed by the other main antagonist of the game, Logaihn, who himself isn't very special. Everything elsewhere in the game is mostly self-contained within each dungeon hub, with bosses given little introduction before opening themselves up for your killing pleasure. I felt more like a medieval exterminator rather than a conquering hero, cleaning up everyone's mess so they'd like me enough to charge into battle against the great evil at the end. The course taken by many of these self-contained plotlines are good, such as the Anvil of the Void and the Werewolf curse, but as a whole the game is not on as high a level as KOTOR, nor does it have an antagonist as great as in BG2. The blight was never a factor anywhere except the beginning and end of the game, and for me that caused overall game to suffer.

I'm not qualified enough to question Bioware's design choices, but I thought a great addition would have been to make Duncan the reason behind your betrayal in the Origins storyline rather than just the end result. Coming to the realization that he would go to such lengths as orchestrate the murder of your family in order to force you into the service of the Grey Wardens would have made the situation far more intense.

The game succeeds, however, because it has one of the strongest supporting casts I have ever seen in a RPG. Each character has a developed back story, a unique personality, and contributes to the enjoyment of the game in some way. You can tell Bioware spent a great deal of time on the miscellaneous interactions between each character, whether directly with the player or between each other while traveling about the landscape. Dragon Age is a hilarious game thanks to the constant bickering and joking amongst the party. Whether it is Morrigan being mocked for her coldness, Alistair teased about his ignorance, or Shale's perpetual fear of pigeons, everyone has a reason to laugh and be laughed at, and it gives Dragon Age a much welcomed dose of comic relief that closely mimics the style of Peter Jackson's Gimli and Legolas. There have been a lot of RPGs which memorable characters, but rarely are they given this much attention and personality.

In the end, Dragon Age to me feels like a celebration of the fantasy RPG genre, inspired by great adventures of the past cleaned up to appeal to a wider audience. No, it doesn't have the depth of Baldur's Gate or the story of Planescape: Torment, but it sill takes enough of what made games like those great and combines it with some modern sensibilities to make a title that a much wider audience can appreciate. I don't see myself playing through this title again and again like I did with Baldur's or KOTOR, but I can still enjoy it along with millions of others.

The Lazyman rundown:

Likes:

-Great western RPG. Everything you need and expect to have in such a game is here.

-Characters and their interactions are unmatched by any RPG in recent memory. Your party members can emotionally grow and change throughout the course of the story.

-Choices abound. Most situations have multiple solutions that don't just boil down to good, evil, or neutral results.

Dislikes:

-Overall storyline is unoriginal and screams "generic fantasy world."

-Most dungeons were repetitive and dragged on about 25-33% too long.

-The protagonist is a mute. After Mass Effect proved you don't have to play a mute I feel entirely spoiled.

-Advertising DLC within the game. For shame.

Per the title, I'm 25 hours into Dragon Age thanks to a weekend play marathon, which is the most gaming I've put into a short period of time since my WoW days. I always reserve judgement on a game like this until I at least finish the main storyline, but just about everythingc I've done so far points to this ranking up with the best RPGs I have ever played.

High points:

Party Members: A lot of the cast are familiar RPG archetypes. Morrigan is the chaotic, cynical wizard (Edwin from BGII), Shale is the artifical construct with little regard for biological life (HK-47 from KOTOR), Leliana is the devout goody-goody (any cleric from any RPG), etc, but each character has a developed backstory, mountains of dialogue, and can actually keep you interested. Some like Leliana and Alistar can get on your nerves awfully quick, but it's entertaining having one of the boring characters tag along with someone like Shale or Morrigan just to give the more evil people someone to pick on. Most Bioware RPGs have a history of interparty dialogue, but Dragon Age's volume of party member chatter is simply staggering. There's so much of it and it's so frequent that Oghen was making wisecracks about my romance after having joined the party only five minutes prior. Perhaps that means there's too much, but it certainly keeps things lively traversing through the deep dungeons.

Graphics: I saw the game getting knocked in a few reviews because of the graphics, but I have to say I'm impressed by the overall presentation. Sure, it's not as pretty as the FPS superstars, but the world design is gorgeous, and small touches like the killing blows (as in the screenshot above) really give everything an extra level of shine.

Choices: They're everywhere. Every major questline has at least two or three different paths to take, and while I haven't seen them all through, it certainly appears that they will significantly alter the way the game plays out depending on which path you take. The replay factor is simply daunting.

Humor: Coming off their last title, Mass Effect, which I though was extremely lacking in the humor department, Dragon Age has almost pulled a complete 180 in that humor is everywhere in the game, and in different types. I almost think there's too much humor, but the game can get serious in a hurry when needed. I've laughed a lot so far at the dialogue and it has made my experience much more enjoyable.

Low Points:

Boring Enemies: BGII is my favorite game of all time in large part because Jon Irenicus was an amazing villian. What makes a great villian for me is one who stays in your mind constantly no matter what you're doing, who looks to impede your efforts or toss a little mocking taunt whenever they get the chance. In Dragon Age, the big baddy, the "Archdemon," is little more than a spectre. Sure I've seen a couple cutscenes of him a couple times and he attacked my camp with some pathetically weak henchman, but I don't know who he is or what he wants besides to eradicate all life. How boring can you get? Every boss I run into in a dungeon comes as a surprise. I ran into a giant fleshbeast deep under the dwarven city and had no idea who it was or what it was doing more than two minutes prior to running into it. So far I only have one viewable enemy in Logaihn, and two invisible enemies in Arl Howe and the Archdemon. Where's the fun in just killing a bunch of nobodies?

Looooonnggg dungeons: Some of these dungeons are massive, too massive for my liking. The dwarf questline alone goes on for eight hours thanks to traversing a set of four nearly indentical dungeons. Two would've done the same job and been far less repetitive. So far I am not impressed with the pacing of the game as there are far too many long tunnels and random rooms put in place to do nothing more than lengthen the game. The same can be said of the random encounters during travelling. I have been waylaid by enemies and must defend myself more times than I care to count at this point.

Overall the positive have far outweighed the negatives, and I don't think I'm even at the halfway mark. If the negatives pick themselves up and the bad guys shape up this could turn out to be one of the best RPGs ever. I remain strongly optimistic.

For me, a new Bioware game is akin to a new book from a favorite author or a new album from a favorite band. They're a cause for celebration and will no doubt seek to dominate my game time for the weeks and hopefully months immediately after it's release.

I've started my initial playthrough as a human fighter, and after the first three hours everything seems off to a good start. The Origin story for the all the hype it got was shorter than I expected it to be, and as a result felt very rushed. There was plenty of talking, exposition, death, yelling, and more death all in the name of making up an excuse for the (hopefully) epic the story to come, but it was all squeezed together as you feel pushed along through every relevant character one after another.

Immediately after the Origin story I've noticed one big thing: Dragon Age is hard, in a way I haven't seen from Bioware in a long time. Having blown through their most recent efforts like Mass Effect, KOTOR, and Jade Empire on normal difficulty with few problems, I was surprised to find myself getting my butt kicked in the very first dungeon by a horde of darkspawn. Granted, the party you're initially given isn't what I consider a very balanced composition, but it was still surprising to have to adapt to the tactical nature of the game right from the get-go.

When playing a Bioware game, I expect to laugh once inawhile, and I was glad to find myself laughing out loud at multiple points during the game's opening, thanks to a couple of very snarky response choices in the conversations that I found impossible to resist choosing.

Summary: A good start, and I really hope the game builds on the hastily constructed exposition. There are already a ton of great opportunities for plot twists down the line, and I hope some of them actually happen. Provided I stay challenged, engaged, and laugh once inawhile, Dragon Age should be at the level expected of another Bioware classic.