On last week’s Kotaku Splitscreen, Jason and I answered a reader question about Dragon Age: Inquisition. Given how big that game went over when it launched, why don’t more people talk about it now?
You can find the Find the full episode here.
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22 responses to “Why Don’t More People Talk About Dragon Age: Inquisition?”
Probably because it was about 15 hours of truly excellent content padded with 40 hours of bad MMO quests and generic open world?
My play time in Origin says I played it for 127 hours, so what did I do in those extra three days of play time? I guess to get out of it the only thing I could do was cut my arm off like James Franco in that one film… what was it called… oh yes: The man who was stuck under a rock.
Nah though you’re right. There was much padding. Still, I adored Inquisition.
I picked it up when it was cheap on PSN the other month and I don’t get why people think it’s so great.
The combat is messy and janky, the menus are atrocious, the NPCs fly across the background in T poses all the time… It just feels like one of those really beloved games made by an indie studio who had big ideas and not enough money. Except it’s made by a massive AAA studio with a proven track record of excellence.
What proven record? If you look at everything they’ve done they all have issues of mediocrity. DAI is probably their best effort and even that was taken to with a pair of shears after the E3 demo. BioWare aren’t as great as people like think they are.
Three Mass Effect games, the first Dragon Age, KOTOR, MDK, the Baldur’s Gate series, Jade Empire, the Neverwinter series. How’s that?
They aren’t as good as people think they are because they aren’t the greatest thing in the history of ever. But they are very competent and have made quite a few really great games. DAI just wasn’t one of them.
Yep, that was my impression too. It took me three times to force myself past the tutorial area.
There are some absolutely fantastic characters and it has some great moments but it feels like it was in spite of the rest of the game.
Probably because it was mostly a bore to play and the story that was there for the most part was bland and not captivating or motivating. I’m not surprised though, Bioware’s never really succeeded in my eyes as much as everyone makes them out to be.
I still maintain Mass Effect’s universe has so much potential. They just need to steer away from the whole “Guess what? You’re the saviour of the universe! Again!” thing and let you just be a part of the universe. Games like The Witcher 3 really shine a light on how infantile many of Bioware’s story / character and gameplay decisions really are.
Personally love the game. Purchased 2 copies on PC for the wife and myself at launch. Both sunk way too many hours into it. Wife has taken to playing the PS4 a lot lately so purchased the game of the year edition for her birthday earlier in the month. She is again having a blast. Not for everyone but enjoyed it way more than Witcher 3.
Cannot wait for what they have in store for us next with the series. Tevinter Imperium?
It was so very dull. I seriously tried to finish the palace spying party several times but found myself almost bored to a slumber each time and turned the game off in favour of a nap lol.
Why? Well, I can only talk about some of it. BW decided half-way through that filthy PS3 scrubs (at the time) like me didn’t need to know what the deal with Baldy was.
because gone is the great Bioware of old. the game was one of them in which a great game was hiding in one of the most woefully conceived and downright ugly UI’s of all time. the game world itself is fine but the menu screens *shakes head*. big and bulky, so much wasted space, then everything IN CAPS. Especially the lore, there could be amazing lore in the game but with it all IN CAPS who is going to read it. Its like the first rule of the digital age: dont use capitals.
I could go on for ages about that UI. the worse part is it doesnt even work of an artistic design level. Fire up the original UI, it is a thing of beauty. it suits its fantasy setting but the one we got looks like they made demo and ran out of time to make something better.
given its going to be 100 hours or so, if the UI doesnt function people wont be encouraged to play. thats what drove me away from the game, GOT TO HATE READING LORE IN CAPS
Not just wasted space, but actively hiding pertinent information, lengthy transitions, ugly, useless nesting that conveyed nothing of consequence.
Goddamn… fuck that UI for real.
I feel like a good portion of the game was strong but people seem to be quite dichotomous these days in that you cannot allow yourself to truly enjoy something that is flawed, you won’t even try. Better to just cut your losses and condemn it whilst ignoring its successes. The game was good, had well-written characters, a big world, a thoughtful world, choice and improved combat over the previous game. It just wasn’t that memorable – which, in no way makes it a bad game not worthy of remembrance, it’s just a realistic perspective of the game.
True. It’s a by the numbers Bioware rpg. Which is to say it’s a good all-round rpg. I just can’t remember much about it really. Except I think that the big armies and stuff you collect don’t really matter in the end anyway? We’ve seen medieval fantasy rpgs before, and it doesn’t really do much groundbreaking.
Compare with other games: Certain quests in The Witcher 3 will stick with me always. (although that too had some boring quests sometimes and some repetitive bits) but I think some of the choices were far more…. emotionally resonant I guess. And say what you will about Fallout 4, but I really liked the look of the world and setting and wanted to stay there.
I can’t even remember much of the combat from Dragon Age except it was Baldur’s Gatey, but Divinity Original Sin gave us a turn-based classic crpg that had amazing combat.
I thoroughly enjoy the game. Actually about to start a new play through. It’s just not really an interesting game to talk about. It’s kind of straightforward and shallow.
Because the last good BioWare RPG was Dragon Age: Origins and they immediately drove the franchise off a cliff and set what was left on fire.
Nobody talks about it for the same reason people don’t really talk about BioShock Infinite anymore. Despite all the hype around its release, it wasn’t actually a particularly good or memorable game.
To me it’s simply because The Witcher 3 came out and just did everything Dragon Age did but better. Still have a fond place for both, but upon trying to replay them I always head back to Witcher 3 more.
That said that one quest where you travel in time to a “mission failed future” was awesome.
This was the big reason for me. DA:I was fantastic, in my mind. I enjoyed so much of the time I was spending with it…
But then Witcher 3 came out and thoroughly schooled not only Bioware but anyone who’s ever attempted to make an open world RPG.
because they decided to not continue with the amazing foundations that Origins laid and instead put out two sequels that had no soul (I still haven’t been able to bother playing DA2 for any length of time). Compare it to Mass Effect going from 1 to 2. Yeah sure we lost a lot of the world building and RPG elements, but 2 made up for it by continuing at the very least the essence from the first game and upped it with amazing characters, and good game in its own right.
Then there’s the fact that DAI had to compete against Witcher 3… lol…
The franchise had a lot of potential starting from Origins (almost everyone agrees was really good) but let down by the fact that the sequels pretty much shared its name only and almost nothing else.
I think you’re right that Inquisition was an over-reaction to DA2, the story for Inquisition shows this, it’s like they tried to go too big with the saving the world theme that the original dragon age got so right. They tried to recapture the feeling of Origins where you’d be deep in a forest doing a quest for some elves and you remember that you’ve still got a mountain to climb, alliances to secure, and a godlike demon dragon to defeat, the scale felt real.
Inqusition, you’ve got a whole castle to upgrade, but it never feels insufficiently usefull in terms of power. Also you’re fighting a rather forgettable ‘ultimate villan’, visit all these different areas which really just feel like large seperate segments and not an open world to gain influence and power, but then its never really utilised, alliances don’t really matter at all in the final battle, and the ending came about really abrubtly like ‘oh theres a magic explosion lets go do this’.
All in all, its as if they just decided it was going to be a huge game without really working out the details.
They couldn’t even get away from DA2’s flaws, where it counted.
The main plot went out with a whimper, plot-points brought back from earlier in the series ultimately went nowhere, any important story continuation will only be from the DLC (Anders, Corphyeus, Solas)… and the obviously up-to-something Mage companion yet again pulled a double-cross anyone with a functional brain could see coming – it’s kinda hard to see the driving freedom/Circle argument as a grey area, when every Mage keeps turning out to be evil and/or suicidally stupid.