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So, I'm doing the Dragon Age 30 Days Challenge. Question number one: Favorite Dragon Age Game.
This is actually really hard for me. It comes down to Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II, of course, because while I enjoyed the DLC--Awakening was fun, Leliana's Song made me love Leliana even more, Golems of Amgarrak creeped me out in a good way, and I actually enjoyed Witch Hunt quite a bit--they just don't even come close to comparing to the main two games for me.
Dragon Age II is a lot of things--a highly personal narrative set in a high/dark fantasy world, which is basically my FAVORITE THING EVER. A tragedy in three acts. An internal, character-driven story (my other favorite thing ever). A story about oppression and pain and what it does to people, and how people react to and deal with the things that have happened to them, the things that make them who they are. Or don't deal, depending. It's about a group of friends and how that forms and how they're there for each other until they can't be anymore, and how that group reaches a moment of apex, of greatest tension, and can stand strong through that or shatter, and then eventually falls apart no matter what (though we don't know how that happened, really). How a strong figure can interact with and affect all these things. It is about Hawke's inner life in a way that Origins is not at all about the Warden's. Origins is the Warden's story because the Warden takes charge of the narrative and makes it all happen. Dragon Age II is Hawke's story just because it's about Hawke's life, growing and changing, and Hawke's losses and gains. And I love it for all of those things. I love it for the almost high-fantasy-noir feeling it has, the fact that it basically explodes genre convention by taking place over ten years in a single urban setting than over a few months covering a lot of territory on a quest, and I love the urban feeling.
I love all of these things about Dragon Age II. I especially appreciate that it wasn't just Dragon Age: Origins 2.0, that it was something truly and appreciably new and different. I love Hawke, I love the characters, I love the story and the themes of oppression, injustice (you see what I did there), and damage that it dwells on, but how it does so in such a very personal, character-driven way. I SERIOUSLY LOVE THIS GAME. I love it so much I don't even care about the same five caves issue, or any of the glitches, or anything, really.
All that being said, Origins wins out as my favorite, though by a very small margin. Which is kind of going against the grain for me--to choose the more plot/narrative driven story over the more character driven one. But then, I've always had a fondness for plotty things, just plotty things with lots of character things against the backdrop of the plot--thus my fondness for genre overall, probably. If I didn't like plots, then it would make no sense that I so strongly prefer stories with a lot of action and so on and so forth (which is not to say that I require action; I don't, and my favorite scenes are almost always the ones where people talk in a quiet moment--but I guess I kind of like those quiet moments to be the contrast. Anyway, this is a tangent). And it's not because I prefer the Warden to Hawke (which is kind of an unfair comparison, because the Warden is so much more left up the player than Hawke is), or because I like the characters better--I'm extremely attached to them, but I'm attached to the DAII cast, too. It's more because of some strange kind of . . . indefinable quality about the game that speaks to me, one that I can't quite define. Origins is a broader look at the universe of the games, in a way--it was meant as an introduction, and it does that very well, sinking the player deeply into the universe and submerging them in its traits and values. Dragon Age II builds on what Dragon Age: Origins presented (and thus, I would argue, could be much more metafictional, but that's an essay for another day). But as much as I like Dragon Age II's genre-convention busting, I think there's a part of me that loves the conventions in Origins (and its almost methodical deconstructions of them, just as much). In a way, Origins is the deconstruction that builds the way for DAII to be something newer--I just happen to really enjoy the deconstruction process.
And then there's the part where I'm an absolute sucker for the epic stories of quest and struggle. However many times they're presented, they get me going more than any other kind, without fail, it seems. And Origins has the ragtag band struggling to prevent a terrible event thing going on and I love it. And, as I mentioned in my last post, I love Ferelden, a lot, so this particular struggle is one I can really get behind, emotionally, one I actually care about. I love that setting. I just love it so much. Especially how muddy and dirty and dingy and real it feels. How the monarch can't do much about the powerful landowners if they don't agree with him/her (like in medieval England!), how the country is obsessed with dogs. I love the overarching story, the feeling of powerful epic forces arrayed around and behind and before you as well as the more immediate political consequences and struggles you have to face, and I really do get that from setting, as well as the mundanity of every life there, which I feel is an extremely important anchor to the rest of it.
But yes. I love Origins. I love every Origin, every quest line. I love how intense the endgame section is, from the incredible pressure of the Landsmeet to everything else leading up to the final battle. I love the emotional torque of the Broken Circle quest, the incredible claustrophobic horror of the Anvil of the Void, the tragedy of the Nature of the Beast, the Helm's Deep crossed with zombie apocalypse family drama of Redcliffe, the political maneuvering you have to go through. I love the Urn of Sacred Ashes quest and the personal nature of the wringer the Gauntlet attempts to apply to your characters and the idea that your characters drag themselves up a mountain and fight a dragon to get to a holy relic they might not even believe in. I love how the endgame isn't easy, and you have to make some kind of sacrifice, either moral, emotional, or physical. I love the feeling of the game, and how it covers so much in the typical quest format. I love that how you play your character and the choices you make keeps resonating on down the line again and again despite how much of a blank slate your character is. I love a whole slew of the NPCs, from Anora to the Grand Oak. I love Orzammar and I love Redcliffe and I love Denerim and the Brecilian forest gives me delightful shivery ghosty feelings (even if I keep hearing them say the Brazilian forest and going IT IS NOTHING LIKE THE AMAZON, OKAY).
I really do like the Grey Wardens, too. One of the things I like most about them is their grey and grey morality, and how it comes through really clearly in the game despite Alistair's idealism about them and most of your information coming from him. I really like playing as one of them at the one moment when they're needed most, and I like the course of their narrative.
And it has to be said: I love that you can play as a dwarf.
This is actually really hard for me. It comes down to Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II, of course, because while I enjoyed the DLC--Awakening was fun, Leliana's Song made me love Leliana even more, Golems of Amgarrak creeped me out in a good way, and I actually enjoyed Witch Hunt quite a bit--they just don't even come close to comparing to the main two games for me.
Dragon Age II is a lot of things--a highly personal narrative set in a high/dark fantasy world, which is basically my FAVORITE THING EVER. A tragedy in three acts. An internal, character-driven story (my other favorite thing ever). A story about oppression and pain and what it does to people, and how people react to and deal with the things that have happened to them, the things that make them who they are. Or don't deal, depending. It's about a group of friends and how that forms and how they're there for each other until they can't be anymore, and how that group reaches a moment of apex, of greatest tension, and can stand strong through that or shatter, and then eventually falls apart no matter what (though we don't know how that happened, really). How a strong figure can interact with and affect all these things. It is about Hawke's inner life in a way that Origins is not at all about the Warden's. Origins is the Warden's story because the Warden takes charge of the narrative and makes it all happen. Dragon Age II is Hawke's story just because it's about Hawke's life, growing and changing, and Hawke's losses and gains. And I love it for all of those things. I love it for the almost high-fantasy-noir feeling it has, the fact that it basically explodes genre convention by taking place over ten years in a single urban setting than over a few months covering a lot of territory on a quest, and I love the urban feeling.
I love all of these things about Dragon Age II. I especially appreciate that it wasn't just Dragon Age: Origins 2.0, that it was something truly and appreciably new and different. I love Hawke, I love the characters, I love the story and the themes of oppression, injustice (you see what I did there), and damage that it dwells on, but how it does so in such a very personal, character-driven way. I SERIOUSLY LOVE THIS GAME. I love it so much I don't even care about the same five caves issue, or any of the glitches, or anything, really.
All that being said, Origins wins out as my favorite, though by a very small margin. Which is kind of going against the grain for me--to choose the more plot/narrative driven story over the more character driven one. But then, I've always had a fondness for plotty things, just plotty things with lots of character things against the backdrop of the plot--thus my fondness for genre overall, probably. If I didn't like plots, then it would make no sense that I so strongly prefer stories with a lot of action and so on and so forth (which is not to say that I require action; I don't, and my favorite scenes are almost always the ones where people talk in a quiet moment--but I guess I kind of like those quiet moments to be the contrast. Anyway, this is a tangent). And it's not because I prefer the Warden to Hawke (which is kind of an unfair comparison, because the Warden is so much more left up the player than Hawke is), or because I like the characters better--I'm extremely attached to them, but I'm attached to the DAII cast, too. It's more because of some strange kind of . . . indefinable quality about the game that speaks to me, one that I can't quite define. Origins is a broader look at the universe of the games, in a way--it was meant as an introduction, and it does that very well, sinking the player deeply into the universe and submerging them in its traits and values. Dragon Age II builds on what Dragon Age: Origins presented (and thus, I would argue, could be much more metafictional, but that's an essay for another day). But as much as I like Dragon Age II's genre-convention busting, I think there's a part of me that loves the conventions in Origins (and its almost methodical deconstructions of them, just as much). In a way, Origins is the deconstruction that builds the way for DAII to be something newer--I just happen to really enjoy the deconstruction process.
And then there's the part where I'm an absolute sucker for the epic stories of quest and struggle. However many times they're presented, they get me going more than any other kind, without fail, it seems. And Origins has the ragtag band struggling to prevent a terrible event thing going on and I love it. And, as I mentioned in my last post, I love Ferelden, a lot, so this particular struggle is one I can really get behind, emotionally, one I actually care about. I love that setting. I just love it so much. Especially how muddy and dirty and dingy and real it feels. How the monarch can't do much about the powerful landowners if they don't agree with him/her (like in medieval England!), how the country is obsessed with dogs. I love the overarching story, the feeling of powerful epic forces arrayed around and behind and before you as well as the more immediate political consequences and struggles you have to face, and I really do get that from setting, as well as the mundanity of every life there, which I feel is an extremely important anchor to the rest of it.
But yes. I love Origins. I love every Origin, every quest line. I love how intense the endgame section is, from the incredible pressure of the Landsmeet to everything else leading up to the final battle. I love the emotional torque of the Broken Circle quest, the incredible claustrophobic horror of the Anvil of the Void, the tragedy of the Nature of the Beast, the Helm's Deep crossed with zombie apocalypse family drama of Redcliffe, the political maneuvering you have to go through. I love the Urn of Sacred Ashes quest and the personal nature of the wringer the Gauntlet attempts to apply to your characters and the idea that your characters drag themselves up a mountain and fight a dragon to get to a holy relic they might not even believe in. I love how the endgame isn't easy, and you have to make some kind of sacrifice, either moral, emotional, or physical. I love the feeling of the game, and how it covers so much in the typical quest format. I love that how you play your character and the choices you make keeps resonating on down the line again and again despite how much of a blank slate your character is. I love a whole slew of the NPCs, from Anora to the Grand Oak. I love Orzammar and I love Redcliffe and I love Denerim and the Brecilian forest gives me delightful shivery ghosty feelings (even if I keep hearing them say the Brazilian forest and going IT IS NOTHING LIKE THE AMAZON, OKAY).
I really do like the Grey Wardens, too. One of the things I like most about them is their grey and grey morality, and how it comes through really clearly in the game despite Alistair's idealism about them and most of your information coming from him. I really like playing as one of them at the one moment when they're needed most, and I like the course of their narrative.
And it has to be said: I love that you can play as a dwarf.