Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014)

Inquisition is a very strange creature where I could rant for virtually hours about all of the facets of this game I genuinely dislike with a passion, and yet when it comes to it, I still enjoyed it. There's so much to be annoyed by:

• Typical empty open-world RPG that gives me awful Ubisoft vibes and where "our map is so big and expansive!" really just means you'll be walking for 20 minutes through hills.
• Filler quests upon filler quests. I do not want objectives like "Collect 20 deer hides" in my Dragon Age games, particularly not as almost every single side quest.
• Say what you will about DA2, but it had genuinely original, creative ideas, and Inquisition throws them all out of the window. No more inventive, subversive plot; we're back to the generic Chosen One fantasy storyline. No more complex and nuanced politics and grey morality; we're back to clear-cut good guys and bad guys.
• The companions are good, some of them I even got genuinely attached to, but unlike DA2 I can never quite forget they're just characters on rails. DA2's companions felt like complicated people, people with emotions and conflict, a real core friend group that sticks around through the plot because they care about each other and that's what you do for your friends. Inquisition's companions, by comparison, feel like co-workers who are just there to pull the plot along. The fact that you can just skip recruiting multiple companions, or tell them to leave at any time, and have the story not feel different at all is very telling.
• I don't care about Solas, and the game hinges on you caring about Solas. In fact, it hinges on you caring about Solas so much that the entire sequel looks to also be hinged on you caring about Solas. This is not a good sign for me continuing to enjoy the series.
• They sold you the real ending of the game as paid DLC. Come on.
• Your race/background/class changes absolutely nothing about the game except for what essentially boils down to flavour text. I can think of a very scant handful of dialogue options you get, mostly in one conversation where Josephine asks you about your history and where what you tell her affects absolutely nothing ever again, and there's the one Winter Ball quest where being a Qunari, elf, or mage docks you a very small number of points at the beginning (which you can effortlessly make up for regardless). Comparing this to Origins, which was constantly reacting to and acknowledging your character, is disappointing.
• It's nigh impossible to roleplay in this game. You could be an evil bastard in Origins and DA2. In Inquisition, your dialogue options boil down to "Good Guy", "Good Guy who jokes around", and "Good Guy who's blunt". You have absolutely no room to play around with any other motivations or personalities.
• There's so much grinding. So much. Plenty of people have compared this to MMO gameplay, and I concur; you have to put off the story quests all the time to run around doing your "Collect 20 deer hides", "Close 50 rifts", "Kill 10 darkspawn" type beats to gather enough Power points to progress with the next actually interesting thing. If it wasn't for the fact that I can mod that out on replays, I likely wouldn't have been able to force myself to get through the game more than once.
• The war table. Not the quests themselves, mind; a lot of the quests on there should have been full-fledged cutscenes with dialogue vs. text on a screen, and were clearly just relegated there due to a lack of effort, but they weren't unenjoyable to do. However, why are there arbitrary time limits in my single-player RPG? Why do I have to wait 12 real-life hours to progress with this war table mission in my single-player RPG?
• I could never put my finger on my issue with the English VA's voice for the female Inquisitor, but someone else compared her to a text-to-speech program in their review, and that's exactly it. She sounds flat and artificial.
• The animations are... questionable. The Inquisitor's "sad" and "scared" expressions just look like they're sucking on a lemon.
• Combat feels clunky and clumsy. It's not as tactical as Origins, not as fast-paced and sharp as DA2, just... you firing arrow after arrow at someone, or very slowly swinging around a giant sword until something dies.
• Mounts are useless. They clearly know their open world is a pain to trudge through, hence their inclusion, and yet all they accomplish is ensuring you never hear party banter (because for some reason your party just vanishes if you're using a mount and doesn't speak at all), and they don't even function properly. A dev straight-up confirmed on Twitter that galloping on a mount doesn't even make it go faster, they just added speed lines and a blur effect to the screen to make it seem like it did.
• Speaking of party banter, bugs, such as banter simply not triggering, have still never been fixed ten years after release.

I find it interesting that Inquisition was generally beloved upon release vs. Mass Effect: Andromeda being widely panned, because honestly I'd put them near enough in the same category when it comes to how they feel to play and the general quality.

AND YET.

After all that, I still like Inquisition. A disappointing Dragon Age game is still a good game. I've replayed it several times and enjoyed it, the soundtrack is beautiful, it has some of my favourite characters in fiction (Cole, Dorian, Josephine, and though I'm not quite as invested in him I found Blackwall's story arc genuinely fascinating and refreshing), and I cared about where everyone ended up and what ending I got.

Like I said, a strange creature.

Seriously, though, Bioware, start putting some damn effort into your hair selections in character creation. It's not difficult to add long hair. It's not. Every other company is managing it.

89/100

Felt good playing such an open game after playing Dragon Age II which was so closed off.

Environments were cool, characters were great, DLC was solid. I played as mage and enjoyed the combat.

Of course there were small things here and there that were annoying, like the FUCKING war table, but I downloaded a mod to skip that.

Bioware did great again :)

I have a restless appetite for games. Their consumption is, strangely, more important than some rudimentary way to pass time. I would think a healthy approach would be to treat games like any other selection of entertainment and nothing more.

I know I'm hunting for an old type of escapism from my youth. Which I am fully aware is a well worn and tired pattern stuck on repeat.

That, or my Dragon Age: Inquisition playthrough is getting long in the tooth.

Likely both.

I honestly thought I was just going to try it out for a while to scratch that Elder Scrolls itch and lose interest after a few hours, but I have to say that, after just having finished the game with close to 90hrs put into it, I really enjoyed my time with DAI. This made me wonder why my views on it seemed to be so divergent from popular opinion, and the more I looked into it, the more I realised this was directly tied to the expectation people were experiencing coming from the previous games (maybe that has something to do with the impression I get that opinions on this game seem to be shifting recently). I never bought into the hype simply because I never played Origins or DA2 and knew very little about the characters or, in fact, the DA world as a whole, so I came into Inquisition with a fresh pair of eyes. Now don’t get me wrong, this game has its fair share of issues, and I’ll definitely get to them. But after playing it, I really feel it’s worth experiencing it for yourself, and I disagree with those who say this game didn’t get enough attention to detail: although this doesn’t apply to all aspects, there is so much here that feels fleshed out (characters, visual differences between areas, political narrative, agency etc) that, to me, it makes up for its shortcomings.

Without spending too much time on each, here are my highs and lows in Inquisition:

HIGHS

• Beautiful world - this is the thing that immediately stood out to me when I first start playing it. Everything about the world looks absolutely amazing, and all map zones have a unique feel to them. From stormy shores to lush forests to deserts, there is nothing missing here in my opinion.

• Satisfying combat - I know some people have problems with it but I thought it was great. Admittedly I didn’t use the tactical mode that much, but I still appreciated the fact that it was there, and even though there’s nothing very complex about it, the action mode feels punchy, dynamic, and with the right build it can be a whole lot of fun. There are a ton of options and branches to specialise both for you and your followers, and the variety is welcome.

• Addicting gameplay loop - This might be contentious and some may see it as grinding, but for whatever reason I had genuine fun with the way the gameplay loop was set up. Though I have a couple gripes with it, and we’d be better off without shards/constellations/mosaic pieces (ie stuff that’s mostly useless) it always felt a bit exciting going into a completely new area, getting a scout report, and lose yourself exploring that environment, delving into great looking caves and dungeons and gathering useful resources. After a while it became this addictive, relaxing dynamic that I really enjoyed.

• Unique companions - I was quite surprised at how DAI made me care about certain characters and evolve my views of them as the story progressed. They’re all very different, and I often found myself taking some time on the pros and cons when choosing who to bring with me on missions or who to romance - a lot of my decision making was based on how I felt about them. Additionally, both the interactions they have with each other and their dialogue lines for specific moments or situations feel very lifelike and rarely generic.

• Political stories and meaningful choices - I really enjoyed the intricacies of the political power plays and how your choices shape the world. This choice mechanic isn’t particularly deep or meaningful - it’s not done at TW3’s level for example -, but at the same time it’s still noticeable and it gives you a lot more agency than RPGs like Skyrim or similar. The political narrative was one of the things I liked best in the game, as most everything about it was fun to follow and to think about in terms of consequences.

• Truly epic dragons - I left this for last, but if pressed I’d probably pick it as the aspect I enjoyed the most about the DAI. This is exactly what I wanted dragons in Skyrim to be when the game came out, meaning the absolute opposite of what they turned out to be. They are unique in numbers and epic in battle. The fights I had against them will definitely be the thing I will remember the most about my time with the game. The fact that they don’t spawn randomly, that they are scaled perfectly in relation to NPC size, that they are truly powerful, that the battle music in your encounters with them is epic, and that you have to carefully plan and prepare your party before you take them on (though I do wish we had more specific info regarding each dragon’s particular strengths and weaknesses) makes these interactions an exciting experience. I went into the game without even realising I was actually going to be fighting dragons, so this was more than a welcome bonus for me.

LOWS

• MMO style map - I never liked this approach. Having self-contained map zones in an RPG, meaning you can’t travel freely throughout the entire map, never appeals to me as it always seems artificial and makes the world feel split. The zones themselves are quite big and fun to explore, but having to fast travel to the entrance of each is a turnoff.

• Boring antagonist - the villain in the story is as yawny as they come. He never manages to become the focal point of the narrative and that’s because of how generic and boring he is. Adding this to how rushed the final mission feels made the ending quite underwhelming to me - except of course for that last post-credit moment that everyone who played the game will remember.

• The Power issue - Not a fan of this currency. To me, the fact that you need to gain a certain amount of Power in order to unlock the next mission in the main quest comes with obvious pacing issues, which at times ends up putting the story on hold in favour of collectible type missions or fetch quests. I’d much rather they coherently incorporated much of the side content into the main quest line, which would force you to level up in a more natural, less disconnected way.

• The pacing issue - Another thing that contributes to pacing problems is that you can still visit map zones for the first time after you complete the main story. That’s fine in a vacuum, but the problem is that the game doesn’t acknowledge it. This means you’re stuck with the exact same dialogues and interactions you would get before the main events are completed, which of course doesn’t make sense from a narrative point of view.

• Bloated crafting system - this may be an unpopular opinion, but the crafting system felt overly bloated and convoluted to me. I appreciate a degree of customisation, but so many supposedly different armours (a lot of which would just change the name and colour yet use the exact same model), weapons, accessories, upgrades and schematics, all of which resulted in an apparent variety rather than an actual one, felt too MMOish and ultimately pointless.

• Horses are a joke - That’s it really. Mounts are a joke in this game. They’re very slow (which is made worse by the fact that your character can’t sprint), you can’t scan for items when you’re on them, and you stop hearing your companions’ banter because they disappear while you’re riding. Aside from allowing you to climb through some places your character can’t do on their own, they’re close to useless.

• The DLC cash grab - I don’t mind DLC and I think when it’s done right it can be fantastic (TW3’s for example was better than a ton of games I’ve played), but I strongly dislike it when they make you buy it in order to get the full story. If you don’t play The Trespasser, you get neither the conclusion of the story in DAI nor the setup for DA4. To me that’s an intentional flaw in story design destined to force the consumer to shell out more money so they can get a complete experience. IMO the whole thing just feels like a dirty cash grab scheme.

These are my extended thoughts on Inquisition. Overall I really liked the game, and despite its glaring problems, the positives were more than enough to offset those. The fact that I never truly felt bored - this is a game you can easily dump well over 100hrs into - is a testament to how appealing its world can be as a whole. I feel like I should once again stress that not having played the previous two games (especially Origins) probably made me not invested enough to see the game’s flaws under a more critical light. But as it stands, DAI is a 8.5/10 experience for me. It made me want to go back and try both DAO and DA2, not necessarily because I think I’ll love them (they look a bit too dated to me), but because I now want to spend more time in this world.

Now that credits are over, I feel I can set my opinions in stone in the form of a review.

Or can I?

Truth is, I'm of two minds about this game. On the one side, it's seriously overstuffed with open world nonsense. Right at the very first mission after the few tutorial scenes you're thrown, without much in the way of guidance, into a huge area with more than a dozen quest markers littering the map. With no clear idea of where to go, I had the misfortune of walking in the opposite direction of where I was supposed to do, which uncovered more of the map and even more quest markers. Eventually I got a better sense of what to do, but the game never builds any semblance of structure.

Also overstuffed is that horrible War Table which you use to perform missions and open up new areas. It's a map chock-full of little markers with more or less meaningless missions (called operations) mixed with the actually important missions. It's horrible. At one time a quest told me to complete one particular operation and I couldn't find it anywhere on the map! I had to spend 15 minutes going through each of those damn markers until finally finding it.

On the other hand, walking around the map does feel good. Most areas are stunningly beautiful --or at least interesting-- and the density of things on the map reduces downtime to a minimum. I think that the way to enjoy this game is to come into it with a "fallout" mindset. Don't think so much about the big story and instead start walking into some random direction to find some fun.

It's a shame, though, because the main story is a strong one. There's a big baddy with the ridiculous name "Corypheus", of course, but what's more interesting is the politics, alliances and bickering between races and kingdoms that flesh out the world. By the end I was almost laugh as I realised how positively inept Corypheus really is. Remember how in Mass Effect Saren is always one step ahead of you and feel constantly being bested by him up until the end? This is like the reverse Saren. Your main character has foiled his plans even before the game begins proper, and then you beat him at every turn. It's hilarious, although it does removes some of the menace once you think about it.

Man I love Bioware. At least pre-Anthem Bioware. This story, characters, dialogue and choices are so good. I love the different ability trees and choosing each companion's playstyle. I started as a warrior but I hated how little damage I did so I ended up playing as my companion Cole, who's a rogue, the entire game. And its fantastic to me that you can do most combat in the game as your companion. Rogue was so much fun, going in and out of stealth and dealing huge dmg.

The game also looks great and has many different areas to explore. However, it is not fun climbing in this game. You'll do that a lot to reach shards and other collectibles. It's just so annoying gliding all the time. It's a very dated climbing system. There's also way too many repetitive gameplay parts such as closing rifts all over the maps. Probably 50% of my time in game was spent on collecting shards and closing rifts. There are also some gameplay aspects that are almost never used because you don't need to, like the mount that isn't really faster than running or the grenades which are just useless and absent most of the game.

The game has one of the best base of operations (Haven/Skyhold) in any game I've played. Its like the Normandy but bigger and customizable and with fast travel points. The different art styles are really cool, like the companion cards. The war table and its operations were fine, I think they could definitely have less long ones and stick to having them like 1 hour long.

8/10, Bioware needs to get back to this level.

I'm rewriting my review as I have now put more than 300 hours into Inquisition including two full playthroughs. I even got a platinum trophy for the first time ever for my completionist playthrough. So I think I’m now able to explain what it is that makes this my favourite game.

The companions in Inquisition are my favourite in any game; they are not necessarily as likable as in previous Dragon Age games but they are much more rounded characters and seem much more real as a result. (I strongly recommend avoiding both horse riding and fast travel while travelling around as both prevent or reduce the amount of party banter you hear.) In my completionist run I had Solas, Cole and Iron Bull as my main party and the way their banter changed as the game went on really made it feel as if I was hearing three people get to know each other over time. Talking with the companions and the advisors is one of the real highlights of Inquisition as it is in most Bioware games and discovering their backstories, doing their personal quests and hearing what they think of your actions is probably my favourite part of the game.

The main story of Inquisition is fairly good, it was disappointing how little there was about the mage rebellion and the main villain is a little dull but the story is told very well, the stakes are suitably high and the expansion of dragon age lore was interesting.

I loved exploring in Inquisition, when you take the time to do the minor quests, read the books and journals and think about the decisions you get to make, it really does feel like a living world. (I would say that players should avoid filling requisitions orders because they are just dull fetch quests and don’t close rifts unless you need to because while they are fun there are far too many of them.)

The combat in Inquisition is my favourite of any of the Dragon Age games and possibly of any game although it takes several hours to really get used to it. However, I love micromanaging so I turned off all behaviours for my party and controlled every move they made. I think the behaviours you can set up are a bit limited if you prefer to play without micromanaging. The main reason I loved the fighting was how tactical it is especially if you play on nightmare and how satisfying the long fights are when you finally win. Although I do think patience is needed – my party was wiped out after fighting for nearly half an hour against a high level dragon and I came very close to throwing my controller against the screen!

You can turn on trials to make the game a more consistent challenge, I highly recommend both Even Ground and Take it Slow which levels up enemies to be at least the same level as the inquisitor and halves your levelling speed. These prevent you from becoming over levelled and keeps the game an enjoyable challenge throughout.

I also played the three dlcs. Descent is great if you like combat, for the first time the deep roads are actually fun and while your companions don’t really talk during it, the story is interesting and the fights are excellent, really exciting and a great change of pace from the main game. Jaws of Hakkon is a whole new area, it has an excellent story that all the companions will comment on and there are some new and very difficult enemies and some exciting fights. Trespasser is essential in my opinion as it finishes the story of Inquisition in a very compelling way.

Overall while there are some flaws (the romances feel tacked on and there are too many identical fights) I have never played a game I enjoyed as much as Dragon Age Inquisition.

I'm going to be pretty hard on this game, so I feel I should make a preface. Much to the chagrin of my fellow nerds I was never really all that into the "high fantasy" genre. For me to buy into the worlds of wizards, trolls, & magic elves it has to be a really good story. So, let's start there.

My review title may seem a bit odd, but I decided to make my Inquisitor look vaguely like Kurt Russell. In the early prologue of the game, which I consider the whole part set in Haven, I got most my entertainment from quoting "Big Trouble in Little China" as I played the game, asking myself in dialogue, "What would ol' Jack Burton do?"

I'm glad I did cause the story for Dragon Age is bland. I hope the 1st 2 games are better, cause this plot struck me as 'baby's first medieval fantasy' There didn't feel like anything unique about the world. I mean the Witcher has, well, Witchers, and the Elder Scrolls felt more interesting. When we finally get the narrative ball rolling I did find myself enjoying the story much more, but that was after several hours into the game. Heck, in the beginning they make a big stink about closing the sky hole and you close it within the first 5-10 hours.

Well, I thought it was closed, but apparently it was still open, but the game doesn't seem to be concerned about it anymore. Instead we worry about Corypheus, the dumbest looking villain I've seen in awhile, and his super evil plan of vagueness.
I will give the story some credit. It was interesting to play the game from what is basically the role of a king. You do feel as if you are in charge of this organization and people are giving you power & responsibility. It's not quite as ridiculous as some prisoner becoming the savior of the world, you are a noble who deals in power. That was what I enjoyed, trying to build this organization and seeing how the game hints at the trials of having power. Will the absolute power of the Inquisition corrupt them absolutely? What lengths will they go for the greater good? We already see characters like Leliena, who has the blandest of voices. becoming ruthless for the greater good and Morrigan seeking knowledge at any cost to do what's right. While I won't likely play it, I'd love to see the Inquisition be the bad guys of a Dragon Age 4.

One reason I have little interest in playing another Dragon Age is the combat is tedious and boring. I'd very easily describe it as a MMORPG in a single-player's clothing. You see an enemy, which are all the same, just different names, and hold down the 'smash' button... and wait. You can toss in a special move now and then, like a MMORPG. And the dragon fights, oh, the dragon fights; they exacerbate the cruddy combat. You swing at their enormous health bars for 2 hours, and if they are all but maybe one of the dragons, they refill their health bar every 5 minutes through that damned armored up power. They weren't fun, they were tedious. The companion AI really breaks down in dragon fights too. My mages & rangers would routinely die because the dragon would breathe fire on them and they'd just stand there. I do like how the dragons are very active in the fight, moving around, using different attacks, jumping and flying; much better than Skyrim's "let's lay here while you wail on us" style. The only time I enjoyed combat was when I used my warrior chain and shouted "Get over here!" to myself

As I've made it clear, I didn't enjoy this game. It wasn't my cup of tea I admit. Honestly, if the combat had been better in anyway possible I would've enjoyed it much more, even with the hit'n'miss story.

On a side note that doesn't really effect the game rating, but is something I always notice. It was refreshing to see a game that was kind to religion. Granted it was a made-up fantasy religion, but there were obvious inspirations from real Christianity. Usually in media anytime religion is mentioned it's demonized as a tool of the bad guy, or some useless thing that failed our hero, but here you can play the game as an honest to God... or Maker I suppose, believer. Sure they were in turmoil with their lady Pope being killed, but still, it's nice to see religion as a good guy in media, if just for the fact it's the opposite of the present cliche.

THIS GAME IS EVERYTHING I WANTED AFTER PLAYING 300 HOURS OF SKYRIM!

I hated dragon age 2, but THIS is what i call a masterpiece!

Pros:

-Great characters

-Skyrim-level freedom of movement.

'-Great storyline

-Endless and non repeating side quests

-Combat system is great!

Cons:

-Sometimes wacky graphics.

-Keyboard and mouse controls are awful!

And thats about it. The first game worth to compare with skyrim. Start playing this game. Now. NOW!