An odd review that mostly talks about the number of songs that are or aren't on the OST.
But when it comes to "Dragon Age's soundtrack is good", I couldn't agree less. I thought it was tripe. Specifically, the entire soundtrack felt cheap; easily banged-together standard tropes of music, reminiscent of the kind of soundtracks you'd hear in 80s sword and sorcery-sploitation flicks. I know that's the best we get as videogame consumers, but that's no reason to be happy with it.
Lelianna's Song is the most blatant example. Not only is its presentation and timing in the game itself
so horrible as to be laughable (and I did literally laugh when I first saw that scene), the song itself is tawdry at best.
Normally I don't care that much, but in Dragon Age the soundtrack was actually intrusive, the terrible combat tracks interfering with my enjoyment of the game. I can take a mediocre soundtrack, I take issue at mediocre soundtracks interfering with my game.
And then to hear it praised over the infinitely superior Borderlands soundtrack, for no other reason than that DA:O has Zur's name attached to it…Ugh…though both seem to have lost out the mainstream "best soundtrack" awards to the likes of DJ Hero and Guitar Hero World Tour, so the less said on mainstream VG OST criticism the better.
And don't get me wrong, the soundtrack often hits the right notes, it's bombastic and epic for a bombastic and epic game. It's just that most of its tracks aren't very good. I loved Orzammar's theme, tho'.
This isn't a good fantasy soundtrack.
This is.
It's such a shame because I love Dragon Age: Origins. It's endless legions of filler combat, it's tawdry soundtrack and its occasional badly-directed "dramatic scene!" were the only letdowns.
PS: sorry if my tone is belligerent. I keep trying to polish up this post to make it sound less snooty but you can only do so much with such an opinion.
