In other games (chiefly the Elder Scrolls series) you are dropped into a boat, dungeon or forest tasked with saving the world and who you were before this dropping, plucking or falling does not touch upon the game world at all. For all intents and purposes in these games you might as well name your character something ridiculous like “Ass Cheese”, because your character does not fit into the epic fantastical world that you now inhabit at all. With other role playing games the role playing feels like just a game where as in Dragon Age it feels real, as if you are directing a real character with loves, hates and feelings beyond “I hate those shit-headed orcs and their unavoidable fireballs”.

The Mission:

Dragon Age does task the player with saving the world, just like other RPG’s (this is epic fantasy after all) though it does it in a very unique way. Early in the game the player is tasked with recruiting the lands’ nations for a grand battle. The player travels to each nation and must first sort out their own internal problems before they can join the battle for mankind (this makes up the majority of the game’s main story quests). Along the way and throughout the course of the entire experience the player will have to recruit characters for his or her own team of badass heroes. The party characters add so much to the experience they truly are central to the game.

Character Choices & Development:

There are about twelve characters that the player recruits throughout the game of which you may choose three to accompany you on a quest or task while the others wait at the party’s encampment. The characters are so deep and well thought out you will be amazed at how much you actually care about them by the end of the game. Each character has a meter on their character page, this “approval meter” visually represents how much your allies love or hate you. Yes, each character has their very own personality and preferences and will either approve or dislike of your choices. This plays into whom you will want to bring with you on missions and how you play through the games difficult choices. You will want to please most everybody on your team as they will not only fight better (through stat bonuses) but open up more to you through conversation and some will even provide options for romance. Yes when some characters like you enough they may want to actually have hilariously censored virtual cut-scene sex with you…tee hee.

Each and every character in the game is interesting and you will want to be their friend, learn more about them and do their personal missions once they become available. Even if you are a royal ass to your party members and they never agree with what you choose to do you may still win over your allies by giving them gifts found throughout the game, many of them are specific to a character and have important story implications. The characters will react to one another as well and I was stunned the first time I heard them having a conversation (sometimes about me) with one another when I brought them on a mission. Truly this is immersion.

Story & Settings:

Each locale and nation you visit on your path to the final confrontation is both beautiful and unique with his or her own visual direction, environments and interesting exposition. As you play through the game’s main quests you will find each local problem to be a complex drama worthy of Shakespearian status. Many of the smaller stories that make up the grand story that is Dragon Age are adapted from famous classics like Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, though they all have a unique fantasy spin. Your choices in the game truly dictate how events to come unfold and can drastically change the game’s experience. You may for instance choose to damn a group of characters such as the elves or conversely save them, if you choose the first they will truly be gone.

The story so complex and the world so well defined in Dragon Age you have a journal that is constantly updated if your curious as to the backstory of something you may find. There are hundreds of codex entries for; races, buildings, weapons, spells, poems…. truly there are several novels worth of reading for you if you want it.