I’ve gotten most of the way through Dragon Age: Origins at this point. I finally cleared Orzammar (the Dwarven city and a REALLY long series of missions for how little happens there) and seated my chosen king upon the throne (Bhelen, for those who want to know, but there’ll be more on that later). It was a bit of a slog, but I’m finally on my way to wrap up my side quests, to launch into the final bit of plot [well, it turns out I forgot about a whole bunch of stuff in Denerim that means this was the penultimate bit of plot I launched myself into, not the final bit], and then to start working my way through the DLCs. It wasn’t a bad slog, but it did often feel like it was never going to end. Maybe that’s because there’s technically two separate decisions you need to make and each one has its own string of supporting and side quests, but some of the exploration stuff felt like it was just going on forever with little to no benefit. It also didn’t help that I missed an important piece of gear and had to go back for it, which involved walking from the end of an area to the start of the area and then back again. Between that and how much back-and-forth I did while working through the Dalish Elves quest line, I feel like these are two of the most video game-y parts of the game. Which is too bad! Both of these quest lines actually had something to say (even if I didn’t much care for what the Dalish quest line had to say for the particular ending I chose) and I really wanted to like them. I’m not sure I can get over my distaste for the whole “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” thing going on in the Elf versus Werewolf conflict, but I think I can feel pretty alright about the Orzammar plot sequence.