My first battle with a Revenant in
Dragon Age took no less than 2 hours. No, it was not all one long epic, drawn out as we slugged it out toe to toe, with the best man winning and the representative of Evil being taken down.
It was more a succession of replays of the same sequence, with me in the role of the increasingly frustrated gamer who does not know why the game he’s playing and loving is punishing him so hard, without at least having the common courtesy of offering a small warning, like “Very though battle ahead, get supplies and only then proceed.”
After a lot of repeats, changed character tactics, shuffled behaviors, increased use of spells, better application of magic enhancements, and a few Acid Bombs, the manifestation of Evil was defeated and I could get on with my quest. And I felt a lot of pride at my accomplishment, even if the Revenant was not marked as being one of the real bosses of
Dragon Age: Origins, but more like one of the tougher common foes. He did not drop any spectacular loot, yet I was still very happy to have destroyed him, and not only because he impeded my progress through he game, but mainly because he was so tough to take out.
Dragon Age: Origins manages to actually make the tactical combat gameplay one of the highlights of the experience. Even in Baldur’s Gate, the toughest of the BioWare games before this one, once you level up a bit and worked out a party composition, battles became rather boring. In Dragon Age, even with leveled-up characters and with well-reversed moves, there are enemies and pitched battles that will surprise you and wipe your party. Half of the fun is figuring out what you did wrong and then running them again. Tactics, positioning, minute details really make an impact and make them more of a challenge than simply a frustration.
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