I loooove Teyrn Loghain! I side with him every time, his story is so tragic - I wish you could do the Landsmeet after finishing three major quests rather than after four, so you could take him around on more quests.
Siding with him also opens up the possiblity of having him sacrifice himself in Inquisition, for maximum tragedy but also maximum redemption and catharsis.
Depending on your choices with Loghaine in Origins he can appear in DA: Inquisition in whichever roll you left him in. He even comments about his love of maps as gifts.
Great review! Da:origins is a certified classic! I've always adored the origin system. I remember I've dreamt of the same system for other da games and me:andromeda. Imagine playing me as krogan or a turian, oh well.
Wanted to finally check this out after seeing a bit of your playthrough and recent coverage of the series. Thankfully, I was surprised to find I'd already downloaded it. Someone in your chat mentioned the difference for the female city elf vs the male, so decided to roll with that. Rarely do rogue or thief type characters, so giving that a shot. I've only done the intro so far, but I've already seen glimpses of what make this one a beloved game.
I think my favourite part of the video was staring at Duncan in his jocks. 😍 I loved Origins. I know they've changed the game on every iteration since, but I would have liked to get back to what brought me in in the first place. That being said, I already have a copy of DAV in my Steam library that I'll be enjoying. The storyline and lore of Thedas always bring me in. I also hope for a DLC that will allow us to have a Mabari of our very own once again. Who doesn't love puppies? Another fun video, thanks for the upload.
5:20 Why is Duncan naked? What did you do to my boy? Dwarf race best race. Whether your a high born noble who loses everything and has to pick yourself up by the bootstraps, or casteless that rises from less than nothing to become a living ancestor, it's my favourite. I would agree the mod for the "extra" party member of your dog is essential. I hated having to leave the dog behind because I needed someone else's skills." Mages are "housed" in special towers known as Circles... You mispronounced "imprisoned" :P
Love the channel brotha! Origins is one of my top two games along with Mass Effect 2. But as a human noble player in every game f them Elves! Solas must be stopped!
i remember my first playthrough he was a city elf that hated humans after the opinging but became friends with Alistair putting him on the thrown and died for the human at the end. i guess the dailish and city elves were there to now i think about it
actually it is incredibly easy to make a build that is ineffective. I suggest anyone looking to play this game, start with a beginner guide that can properly explain how the attributes work. what they do. why you need to (probably) specialize on your first play-though. it will help significantly with character creation and leveling. love the channel, and gonna sit here and watch the rest of this, as you always got great tips, but swing and a miss on that one, bubba. cheers.
Don't believe I said it was easy just that creating builds was fun. I will be releasing a builds video later this week. Glad you've been enjoying the channel. :)
I love this game! Because of Dragon age and Mass effect RPGs became my favourite genre to play and do you guys remember the Marilyn Manson trailers for the game? Oh man how awesome still some of the best trailers I've ever seen for a game.
I only ever finished the first game The third, Inquisitor I am nearly done but Hawk shows up so I realized they might change things so I started Two. I had skipped it (DA2) because I heard a lot of negative things about it. But so far, besides being brown on brown, I am very happy with it; it keeps me busy in Act 1 at least (just finished it and am prepping). The characters are amazing and the banter is hilarious. A shame I took so long to get to it.
@@SlanderedGaming While it's not my favorite in the series, there is one thing that I think DA 2 did better than the other games. The companions have unique subclasses. I don't like it when your companions don't have anything they can do that you can't copy. It's especially bad to me in DA: I, when Cassandra has this long dialogue about how different her powers are from a templar's, but when she gets a specialization it's templar.
@@SlanderedGaming I have to agree! I had palyed the first and most of the 3rd, really love them. and the companions are a clear standout as well as the general tension that reveals the world history and the unique take on mages. I had only avoided the 2nd because of a lot of backlash on it. But, despite being a very brown and beige art design for the world, everything else is impressive. I know the issues many had was that you were stuck a s a human and in one area but it allows more focus and fleshes out the world and people. The combat, on PC anyway, is also very impressive and probably my prefered of the three oddly enough. Though i am playing an Archer.
The lore for the magic in DA and W40K is so similar that I'm kind of surprised BioWare never tried implementing anything similar to the magic system in Rogue Trader in the DA series. Dealing with random anomalies and demon summons from too much spell usage is a fun dynamic element and really shows how dangerous magic is supposed to be. DA:O is the only game in the series to even make friendly fire from spells a default setting, as far as I can remember.
I super disagree with the Solas take. I’m sad he’s doing what he does best (runing to the fade when things get tuff) because that makes the chances of me breaking a few eggs less likely.
@@SlanderedGaming I remember the game well, it’s why I’m not on his side. With all the harm Solas has already done he needs to just stop, his actions so far have lead in his words to even greater tragedies why he thinks another grand action will suddenly fix everything is beyond comprehension. He needs to be stopped not because his goals aren’t noble, but because he cannot be trusted to carry them out.
I played through this recently with no mods, and tbh, I enjoyed the fade section. lol It had been a while, so I didn't remember any of it and was having a good time with the different forms. Deep roads, on the other hand, was awful and took me a few days to do that section because I could only tolerate it in small doses. The only thing I didn't like was my class choice. Warrior was good, but I feel like Mage would have had a lot more reactivity. Great review.
That takeaway at the end was perfect. I agree, barring any new info we get in Veilguard that dramatically alters the context of the Veil's creation, it seems pretty clear that Solas was right.
This is kind of glossing over the fact that creating the Veil triggered a calamity of near-apocalyptic proportions that killed an absolute crap load of elves, including the slaves he wanted to save, and tearing down the Veil will trigger another catastrophe of apocalyptic scale that may just straight up end the world, leaving only Solas followers alive. Also, its clear that Solas doesnt even see modern elves as "real" elves and shows nothing but disdain for them. I dont see him as any better than the oppressors he claims to oppose, he just thinks he is. You can say his intentions are good, but nothing hes ever done has resulted in anything but more suffering and more tragedy, and his current goals are no different. Sincerely, a Solas hater. (as a person I mean, hes a great character)
Insightful review, and you're so right. The lore and world-building is what truly sets DAO apart. It's much more thoughtful and careful than the usual fantasy/sci-fi game premises, and thus hits so much harder. For many of the decisions, like you said, I had to really sit there and think about what each would mean for me, for my companions/the people I cared about, and for various communities/political groups. And even then I didn't even know if I had made the "right" decision, because, like in real life, there wasn't necessarily a "right" decision - just decisions you could live with, or decisions you had to make. Re: the banter: SO AGREE. I don't know what happened, but the banter in DA2 and Inquisition just wasn't the same. Hell, even the banter in BG3 just doesn't wow me like the DAO banter. It was not only the quality (every piece of banter was funny in a way that didn't seem like they were trying too hard, and/or realistic and representative of each character, and/or meaningful), but also the responsiveness of the banter to things changing. That truly made the group seem like a group that existed together as opposed to a bunch of static dolls that you interacted with individually. I haven't felt that way with any other RPG, try as they might. Re: soundtrack: SO SO AGREE. The soundtrack is a HUGE factor to what makes the game feel captivating, and I feel like folks generally either don't realize or don't acknowledge this. The soundtracks to the other DA games are very good in their own, different way, but the DAO soundtrack had an ethereal quality that really gave it that other-worldly feeling - as in, you FELT like this was a different world than your own, and wondrous despite its many troubles. (To continue the BG3 comparison, I personally didn't feel like that soundtrack fit at all, except for the bass choir pieces which were phenomenal.) Anyway, yeah, you hit so many great points that I can't outline them all, but just: this entire review was spot on.
Man this game was such a huge part of my 20s. I haven't picked it up in a while but I have so many fantastic memories from it. I agree with the dissatisfaction about the sequels. I abhorred da2 with the exception for the murderer quest line, that was a great twist. Da3 was decent but wasn't quite what I was looking for. I'm hoping 4 surprises me! Cautiously optimistic!
Awesome review! Could you please make a video about how you got the game to work? I tried playing it a few weeks ago, however it just kept crashing and crashing that I had to stop playing it. I have Ultimate Edition on EA App. The game could really use a remake and be modernized.
Ah yes, Dragon Mage: Origins. To be honest, I've always appreciated how much more powerful and versatile magic users are, given how much of the setting drills in how dangerous rogue mages are and how a few mages can turn a conflict. It's still a shame that a lot of the game's more interesting mechanics are locked behind a single class, though. And that it's locked behind the worst origin - I'd still kill for a Dalish Mage origin.
Greetings, my friend. Excellent review! It really made me want to play the game. In fact, I've been planning to play it for a while, but the minor issues you mentioned have always discouraged me. Can you help me with a quick question? Does the game have a difficulty setting? Since I'm mainly interested in the story and lore, is there an easy mode that could makes you spend less time in battles and focus more on what matters?
I don't think you need to have read all the novels etc to understand Loghain - I never read any of the books and I still was able to understand his story and motivations, especially once you recruit him. I also think you've been overly charitable to the game considering how severe its flaws are - from the tedious gameplay to its tepid environments and overuse of SA as a narrative tool. I do agree that it's a classic, but it's certainly not timeless. It's been wonderful to take these adventures with you on your streams. Thanks for the content, and here's looking forward to seeing if DA:I was as much of a surprise gem as DA2 turned out to be!
That's good to know. It's hard to have the perspective of someone going into the game fresh. The gameplay doesn't come off as tedious to me although I will admit that's probably because I've been playing the game for so long. Admittedly DA2's gameplay is more fun.
My biggest dislike with Origin was really the mage tower, that quest was so long and annoying at times. Never liked playing mage either because Mage felt so slow, loved the melee classes though, the execution animations ahh beautiful.
I love this game, so much. I was one of those teenaged edge lords the marketing was geared towards and it being a Bioware game meant I was eagerly anticipating it, it really was really the gateway into dark fantasy for me. Fantastic cast of characters, world building and playing as a mage? *Chef's kiss* only downside is the origin itself is a bit lackluster compared to some of the best ones like City Elf or Dwarf Noble. I do miss the greyer morality that was lost it's almost non existent in DAI the only criticism of how decisions work is its too easy to be an ultimate good guy and never have to compromise your morals to save the day. It taking more effort would've been welcome imo.
Was it that bad to get launched? I just had to turn a bunch of graphics options down and it stopped crashing. DA 2 was worse, it wouldn't launch unless it selected some automatic update options in the EA app.
I couldn't even get the game to launch so didn't deal with a crashing issue. The process itself isn't bad it just took forever to find the information I needed.
Another great thing about this game: the cinematic presentation (or cinematography) in the cutscenes. The camera angles, movement and set pieces are quite excellent.
Also for anyone who really likes the the tactics scripting system take a look at FF12 that's where Bioware got it from. Story and characters are heavily inspired by the original Star Wars trilogy but it also mixes in a more mature political intrigue plot. If you've ever played a Yasumi Matsuno game( Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story the former two are turn based tactical RPGs) you'll know what you're in for.
I'm trying to replay this, but I'm having a LOT of crashes... Does anyone have any advice to get this to run on a modern gaming PC? It's playable as long as I save about every 5 minutes but it's still a LOT of crashes.
Still has the best roleplaying variety of all the Dragon Age games. If BioWare doesn’t want to revisit the origin story system hopefully someone else will take up the mantle. Cyberpunk’s life paths are cool but don’t have nearly as much substance.
last playthrough 2021 was softlocked not checking a door in werewolf/dalish elf dungeon. could finish that story arc but locked me out of the final story arc sadly. Havent played since 😢 5:51 duncan's donuts hello 👀💦
