In a lot of ways this is a game that demands to be played through at least twice, and not just because there’s so many different origins or because there are so many different paths you can take - there are a ton and they do affect the end game and what happens to the world when all is said and done. Really, an initial playthrough of the game, which can take anywhere from 50 to 100 hours depending on how much time you spend on side quests and reading in-game lore, really just serves as an introduction to the world and the system so that your next time through you can focus more on just playing the game rather than merely learning it.

Pick a half dozen people who are fans of the genre and you’re likely to get a half dozen different answers as to what the game does best. If you’re a story-driven player, you’re sure to find a story here that is as epic as any seen in an RPG. The themes of love and betrayal, of blood and sacrifice, are expertly laid out. There are times the story falls on tired conventions of the genre and times when it transparently attempts to manipulate your emotions, but for every character with an obvious ulterior motive, for every time an NPC falls out of character in the name of forcing the plot where the designers want it to go, there are just as many moments where you simply have to sit back and say to yourself, “Wow. I did not see that coming,” a twist that instills in you righteous need for retribution, or pity for people cursed by a far more cruel fate than they deserved. There are moments in this game’s story, a single line from one of the game’s possible epilogues in particular, that will be with me for a long time to come.

If it’s a fully realized world in which you can immerse yourself that you crave, you’ll find a lot here to like. Sure, the Lord of the Rings influence is ever present, as is the influence of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice, as is the influence of our own world history (the Chantry is an analog to Catholicism, for example), but the way all these influences are woven together has created a much more visceral and real world for you to inhabit. One gets the sense that if you asked its lead writer, David Gaider, to write a prequel based around events of, say, the 36th year of the fourth age, that he would already be able to tell you who ruled which lands, what social movements dominated public discourse, etc. You really can spend just as much time reading about the history of the kingdom of Ferelden as you can hacking the heads off of darkspawn.

If you want intricate intense, tactical combat between your band of renown and anyone who dares to stand in your way, that’s here too. On the PC version of the game, in particular, this is a very similar combat model to the old Baldur’s Gate games. Pausing the action and taking the time to direct your party members and make intelligent use of their skills and equipment is essential. There’s no wading into combat with four tanks and carrying the day. You need magic. You need swords. You need a trusty rogue with a bow or the ability to outflank and enemy and stab him in the back. Fortunately, if you want to avoid tedious micromanagement there is an expansive tactics system that lets you customize and automate AI behavior in combat. Using this system doesn’t exempt you from being an effective field general, however. It still requires a lot of tactical thinking, advanced planning, and you still need to be fairly hands on when the arrows start flying, but it is effective at reducing micromanagement. If that’s not your thing, you’d be better off playing the console version of the game, which is still challenging, but is a bit more hack and slash and not as tactically demanding. (The PC version, for example, includes a top-down tactical camera view that was completely omitted from the console version.)

Bioware has spent months trying to convince us that this is a game for the masses, that it’s D&D with a touch of rock and roll. It’s incredibly not. This is a role player’s role playing game. That shouldn’t stop you from playing if you’re new to the genre. Just don’t go in expecting Fantasy Halo. Don’t even go in expecting Fallout 3 or Mass Effect. This is a different animal. For instance, if you don’t want to spend, literally, half your play time just talking to people, this is not your game. There’s no ignoring the plot here. Non player characters have things to say and more often than not you need to hear them.