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.
