Finally!

The title to this is apt for 2 reasons, 1) due to illness I have not been able to write an entry and 2) I finally finished Dragon Age: Origins. I spent all last week sick. I lacked all motivation and was constantly tired with an irritating cough. Going almost a full week with out feeling better, I opted to go to the doctor. Once there, the doc was not impressed with how I sounded. I thought I was getting better. My sinuses weren't so full and I wasn't quite so worn down. He didn't think so. After x-rays and chest listenings with the stethoscope, it was determined that I had pneumonia. That explained a lot. So I had to make due with some drugs and instructions to rest. I am finally feeling a bit more chipper and my cough seems to be going away. In my resting, I picked up the PS3 controller and returned to Ferelden.  (SPOILERS AHEAD. IF YOU DON'T WANT MAJOR PLOT POINTS, DON'T READ ANY FURTHER)

It has been a long journey, but finally, FINALLY, I made it to the end of Dragon Age. I got all my ducks in a row. I got the help of the dwarves and the elves to fight against the blight of darkspawn that was ravaging the countryside like Joel Shumaker ravaging the Batman movie franchise. I saved all that needed saving and had most the favor of political debate in my corner. See, General Loghain had the king killed in battle by leaving him defenseless in a fight with the darkspawn. Loghain took over control of Ferelden. The whole game is up to your character (in my case an elf rouge named Ketron) to take back control and fight the darkspawn. In order to do this, I needed the nobles to agree with your story and side with me against Loghain, which results in his being ousted. This meeting is called the Landsmeet.

I got to the Landsmeet thinking that the game had to be about over, 2 hours or less. I was wrong. After the Landsmeet there were still several things to do, like tidy up older quests and prepare for the final battle. Now, those of you that have played the game know that the night before the final battle you get a deal from Morrigan. In order to stop the darkspawn, a Gray Warden must give his life while defeating the leader of the darkspawn, the Archdemon. Morrigan offers a way out of this.You can sire a child with her and the child will take the brunt of the Archdemon's soul as it escapes when you slay it. That way you won't have to die. I declined the offer. Morrigan is a mage with a very dark personality. I was afraid she would try to use this child to take over the Ferelden later. I couldn't let that come to pass. For my refusal, she left the party and was never seen again for the rest of the game. This really reminded me of KOTOR and the decisions that lead up to seeing Bastila again towards the end of the game.

I had been texting back and forth with a friend about my progress. When I told him that I was at the final battle, he said it was fun and took about an hour. I don't know why he hates me so much to lie directly to my face like that but this took way more than an hour and it started to borderline on the not-fun, maybe even the I'm-not-going-to-finish-this-game line. The final battle took me over 3 hours to finish for the amount of times I died and had to start sections over. Its broken up into six parts. The first is having every surviving team member left in my party fight along side me at the main gates of Denerim, the city that is being sieged by the darkspawn. Wave after wave of darkspawn fell from my blades and my friends blades, magic and awesomeness. Next, I picked 3 fellows to join me and we stormed the town. It was said at the beginning that we had to hunt down the Archdemon's generals. This wasn't so bad until every upper level darkspawn and his neighbors attacked, along with the super strong generals. All at the same time. This wasn't a martial arts movie one-bad-guy-at-a-time type group fight, it was a Mongolian cluster f**k. And I was in the middle of it. After a few deaths of me and my party, I slogged my way through these two areas.

The third area was playing as my unchosen party members, defending the gates again. I don't really think it added much to the game and was kind of pissed  had to play it at all. If anything, it interrupted the pacing of the last battle and made it feel less urgent.

Once the gates were safe, Ketron and his 3 chums made their way into Fort Drakon. This was a two level affair with several rooms and hallways overflowing with darkspawn. I hack, slash, stab, and  blunt force trauma my way through them to get to the final area. The top of Fort Drakon, where the Archdemon awaited the final confrontation. Now, I haven't mentioned this until now, but the Archdemon is not some multi-armed, cloven hoofed, red skinned guy with horns and a huge sword. Instead he is a huge dragon that needs some killin'! And here is where I nearly decided to never finish the game.

I ran out and tried to kill the dragon the same way I had killed another dragon earlier in the game, let my guys go up and do the busting up close while I hang back with a bow and inflict damage from afar. This strategy only worked until the dragon was at half life, then it called hordes of darkspawn out to attack me and my friends. Well at this point, most of my friends are low on life, and even though I directed them to take health poultices to regain hit points, the idiots think that getting hit in the face with a sword is a better idea. In seconds, I am the only surviving member of my party. The horde of darkspawn trapped me in a circle of blades and hammers which, even with regular poultice intake, I can't withstand. I die and start the dragon fight over. This happens 7 more times. One attempt, I had the dragon down to about 13% life. But I was out of health and I couldn't fight the dragon and the horde at the same time by myself. (yes, my teammates took the blade to face route...again). The same friend who had texted me that this only took an hour started texting me while I was in the midst of this one sided battle and asked why I wasn't using the huge ballistaes (huge cross bows) that were mounted around the top of the fort. Once I used them, I had the fight over in a few minutes.

Since I didn't take up Morrigan's offer, Ketron or Alistaire (another warden that ends up becoming the king) have to slay the Archdemon and stop the blight. I encouraged Alistaire to do it. He agreed, thinking it overly kingly to do so. He does. He dies. The day is saved.

Some final animations roll through and some side conversation with my surviving party members finish the game. On to the credits. I let them roll as I await the voice actors credits. I am a nerd for voice talent and like to see who did what voice where. Nolan North being my favorite as Nathan Drake, but that is another tale. While I am waiting, the music is typical fantasy game fair with dramatic orchestrations that matched the tone of the game. After the song ended some craptacular alt rock song about winning the war started. It had nothing to do with anything in the game. The chorus didn't match any themes or nuthin! Are you serious?! Was this just a bid to sell songs or something? I don't know. What I do know is that I didn't like it.

On my second trip to Ferelden, I spent almost 2 1/2 weeks giving it a good once over. Even with this hurried tour through the game, I clocked in at 50 hours and 15 minutes. I know that sounds like a long time, but I have been playing this game on and off for 15 months. I didn't think that was so bad. Now, I have to figure out what game to finish next. . .