Dragon Age: Origins may feel like it's set in a world with millennia of history, but it put me off RPGs for a decade

John: Have you heard of it? Dragon Age: Origins was this little RPG put out by an indie studio in Canada called BioWare. Aha, my little joke. But it's a question well worth asking, as with the release of Inquisition I've spoken to lots of people who've never played the original, and would absolutely love it. Including my dad. Dad - play this for goodness sake.

Origins is a pretty unique project. Somehow BioWare were able to quietly be making it for - it's rumoured but unconfirmed - about about nine years. While the last couple of those were somewhat tainted by one of the worst, most ill-conceived advertising campaigns in gaming history, it meant an RPG was able to be created with extraordinary opportunity. And it was worth it. DAO has a depth behind it that lifts the whole experience. While the structure is a very typical BioWare format - do four big tasks then a big climactic task - along the way there's a huge sense of thousands of years of known history, alongside the wonderful relationships you have with your companions.

It's such a wonderful game, with so much to do, and so far to sink in. And in light of my enormous disappointment at learning that Inquisition doesn't have a proper tactical turn-based mode (no, it doesn't - it's a miserable, abortive mess of an effort to crowbar it in at the last minute), I'm sorely tempted to go back and replay five years on.

Julian: I played loads of RPGs growing up. Baldur's Gate was permanently installed on the PC in my dad's office. I remember well playing through Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in a single long Easter weekend when I was fourteen, my brain addled with sugar from gorging on chocolate eggs. And I poured hours into Morrowind and Fallout 3 after school, always exploring their worlds, never completing them. Dragon Age: Origins put an end to all that.

Bioware's RPG came out just as I went to university. I settled into the game, picking a dwarf commoner as my starting origin and spending a few hours trying to get out from under the thumb of Dust Town's crime lord. Then I was interrupted by a knock on my halls door. I can't remember what was for, probably someone wanting to watch a film, or head out for a drink, or to see if I wanted to check out if the stories about the ghost in the laundry room were true. The next day, I got back to the game and pushed forward a little further into Ferelden before I was stopped by another interruption. This pattern would repeat, with longer gaps between returning to the game.

Eventually, a week went by without playing, and when I loaded my save I couldn't remember what I had been doing in the game. I'd no idea what quest I was trying to complete or which overheard rumour I was tracking down. Rather than muddling through, I just started a new save, picking a different origin this time. A Dalish elf, maybe, or a human noble. Anyway, I played for a bit, then I was interrupted by a night out, an essay deadline, another ghost hunt. Time went by, I forgot what I was meant to be doing. I started a new save and a new origin. It got to the point that I just stopped returning to the game. I'd been enjoying Dragon Age: Origins as I played, but it was too long a story to complete in the time I could consistently give it.

Anyway, skip ahead a few years, and I decide whatever happens, I'm going to see the end of Dragon Age: Origins. I'd completed Mass Effect 2 at that point and knew I still had an itch only Bioware could scratch. I spent a long weekend doing basically nothing but playing, forcing myself through to the end. It was a terrible way to play. Every sidequest felt like a distraction, every twist in the story a diversion that added to the mountain I was trying to climb, every difficult battle threatened to send me back to a checkpoint. I did complete Dragon Age: Origins, but along the way I'd no fun at all and it convinced me I didn't like RPGs.

I was wrong, and the bad time with the game was all my own doing, but it was a good ten years before I started playing them again. And, even then, I have to be selective. The end has to be in sight almost by the end of the first play session. Think Citizen Sleeper, not The Witcher 3.